Quote Originally Posted by Yinnyth View Post
I did not math out the fact that I could do 12 threnodies in a minute. I went outside Jeuno, stood next to a lizard, set a digital timer to 1 minute, then started spamming threnodies as fast as I could until the timer went off. I got 12.

You're under-estimating the delay after the spell casts. Just because a spell has 2 seconds casting time, and I have song cast -50% doesn't mean I can get 60 casts per minute. I can't even get 30.
You are correct. I had assumed a 1 second next-spell-cast delay, but testing indicated that that was quite wrong.


First, basic testing agrees with Yinnyth. I was able to consistently get 12 threnodies per minute once I got the recast timing down (with only occasional errors). So next I tried to figure out why.

FRAPS analysis of casting time.

I don't have a perfect brd gear set; missing 6% in cast time, and don't have Minstrel's Ring. End up at 40% total.

Changed subjob to /rdm for the extra fast cast to see how it would affect things. That puts me at 55% fast cast.

After adjusting to the slightly different timing, I was able to get 14 spells cast per minute.

14 spells per minute is 4.28 seconds per spell. Can figure the 0.28 is human error, in that I can't cast the next spell at the perfect recast moment, and it's a 4 second recast on a 1 second spellcasting time (after fast cast is applied). That's a 3 second casting delay.

To test this effect, I retried using Minuets. Nominal cast time is 8 seconds.

With /rdm and fast cast gear, time between start of Min4 and Min5 is 7.233 seconds. Actual cast time should have been 3.6 seconds. Difference is 3.6 seconds; with allowance for human error, we still get the 3 second delay.

Tried again with /whm and no fast cast. Time between start of Min4 and Min5 is 11.367 seconds. Subtracting the nominal cast time leaves a 3.367 second window, for 3 seconds plus human error.


Overall conclusion: Minimum delay after the completion of one spell before you can cast another is 3 seconds. Using the fastest casting spells available, plus accounting for human error, lowest realistic time per spell cast is 4 seconds, allowing for 15 spells cast per minute.