The macro system cannot support gear choices for mages.

[Pixela]

FFXI has lots of different pieces of gear, they have fast cast stats on gear and they have potency stats on gear (to use an example, there are many others). Due to limitations on the macro system, you can't equip fast cast at the start of a spell and swap to cure potency midcast to get the benefits of both. (the main issue is macro changes are capped to 1 second, which isn't fast enough)

In most cases you have to pick one or the other, you either cast slower and get stronger spells or the opposite. This makes 3rd party tools, almost required. It puts players who don't at a massive disadvantage. This mainly impacts mages but also tank jobs, melee jobs can get away with it and be far less impacted.

Since there is no way to fix the macro system without massive amounts of work the easiest fix is to make more synergy options, allow players to fuse fast cast pieces with potency pieces.

Not only will this allow players to get big boosts to their performance in a vanilla experience, but it also reduces issues with gear bloat.

I'm not talking about all gear being merged, I love being able to swap gear. However in certain cases it just doesn't work right now, fast cast and potency are a prime example.

Alternatively add new pieces of gear for ear / neck that give both fast cast and potency on one item.

[Zekander]

Tank jobs also suffer from a similar problem. Both PLD and RUN frequently use spells to generate enmity and to mitigate damage, but fast cast gear rarely also has damage taken - or high hp / defense values. When I used to play PLD I would very frequently get killed while in my fast cast set by moves that would barely scratch me in my defense gear. This was one of the main reasons I quit playing PLD.

It would be nice if there was fast cast gear for tanks that was still defensive enough to keep them alive. It might encourage more people to play the role.

[Jerbob]

Obviously I agree that this is a major problem, but I'm never fond of using new gear as a solution to a problem; gear gets outdated, and SE's equipment paradigm changes over time. Even if they did this now, we have no way of guaranteeing that they'll keep up with it in the future. Potency also means a lot of different things for different jobs; should every piece of gear equippable by casting jobs (including DRK PLD etc) have fast cast? It's a difficult call to make.

We know that casting with fast cast and potency is technically feasible as the cheaters have been doing it for years. The game is built on that shaky foundation. Is there any reason why SE couldn't improve the in-game macro system to allow it?

[Alhanelem]

I don't have a problem with this, but that's mostly because I never liked macriong 10 million peices of gear to optimize a job. Frankly I think you should have to choose which benefits you want and don't think you should be able to have everything.

[Pixela]

I don't have a problem with this, but that's mostly because I never liked macriong 10 million peices of gear to optimize a job. Frankly I think you should have to choose which benefits you want and don't think you should be able to have everything.

I kind of agree but most do not and now certain things have become almost required for endgame, which puts everyone else at a disadvantage.

[Alhanelem]

I kind of agree but most do not and now certain things have become almost required for endgame, which puts everyone else at a disadvantage.

Sad but true. I mean the game was never designed with this level of micro-macro-managing (er.... lol) in mind. It wasn't until gear sets came a long a decade + out that we could really do this in game without tools at all.

[Balduran]

FFXI has lots of different pieces of gear, they have fast cast stats on gear and they have potency stats on gear (to use an example, there are many others). Due to limitations on the macro system, you can't equip fast cast at the start of a spell and swap to cure potency midcast to get the benefits of both. (the main issue is macro changes are capped to 1 second, which isn't fast enough)

In most cases you have to pick one or the other, you either cast slower and get stronger spells or the opposite. This makes 3rd party tools, almost required. It puts players who don't at a massive disadvantage. This mainly impacts mages but also tank jobs, melee jobs can get away with it and be far less impacted.

Since there is no way to fix the macro system without massive amounts of work the easiest fix is to make more synergy options, allow players to fuse fast cast pieces with potency pieces.

Not only will this allow players to get big boosts to their performance in a vanilla experience, but it also reduces issues with gear bloat.

I'm not talking about all gear being merged, I love being able to swap gear. However in certain cases it just doesn't work right now, fast cast and potency are a prime example.

Alternatively add new pieces of gear for ear / neck that give both fast cast and potency on one item.

Firstly, you claimed that it is 'not possible to equip fastcast at the start of a spell and swap to potency gear to get the benefits of both', this is not accurately true as it only occurs with very high fastcast % combined with spells of a low duration casting time. Therefore it is indeed possible to use fastcast gear followed by potency gear with the benefit of both. You will need to adjust your FC set accordingly with the spell you are casting. So for example, it's pointless to use fastcast to cast a 0.5 second casting time spell like Flash.

While casting Thunder V for example, which takes 7.5 seconds, a 50% FC set will bring that down to around 3.75 seconds, and an 80% FC set will bring it down to 1.5 seconds. Therefore, you may find it suitable to use 60%~70% FC set for Thunder V with the benefit of both FC and Nuking potency.

Apply the same above concept to your spells, and find a perfect balance.

Conclusion:
- FC works with potency gear
- Native client players are NOT at a massive disadvantage

[Alhanelem]

I more or less agree with the notion that if you're casting spells that already complete within a server tick you're not really gaining much of an advantage from using fast cast on them, especially given the game's general level of responsiveness in the interface.

[Jerbob]

Certainly fast cast works with potency gear for spells that have a long casting time, but the criticality of timing depends on the situation. When things heat up, everything adds up. And perhaps I'm biased because I play support more often than other roles, but I think this is particularly true for support.

If I'm main healing on mobs like caturae I need to shave every second off my casts that I possibly can. They throw out nasties rapidly, and I need to be able to respond quickly. Half-seconds are significant - they absolutely matter. And that's not just true of Cure - any other spell I'm casting is a cure spell I'm not able to cast in that window, and the longer those other spells take, the longer people have to wait for critical cure spells. Do I cast Haste with some fast cast and land it in maximum duration gear, to reduce the number of casts I have to make? Or do I cast in full fast cast gear, making my next cure available more quickly but requiring more casts over the fight? Cheaters don't have to worry about these decisions.

In another scenario, have you seen those BLM that -ja down the normal Omen mobs on floors 1 and 2? They need their spells to cast as quickly as possible so they can snap back into damage taken down gear almost instantly. Again, small differences in time here make all the difference in how successful that strategy can be.

3+ strong magic bursts in a single window? You need fast cast and potency. And these aren't the only situations where split second timing matters.

The argument that the game isn't really designed for these scenarios is reasonable, and on some levels I agree. But whether the game is designed for it or not, people who cheat can do it and people who don't cheat can't do it. With my Cure example, obviously the best solution to the problem is to bring more healing power. But why do that when your cheating healer can cope, and maximise on the timing gains with other cheating tools? Why bring two BLMs to magic burst when you can bring one to triple burst and avoid an Escha monster's HP increase?

And when everyone in the party is just that little bit faster at landing their full potency spells (or whatever), of course it's going to make a difference to overall performance.

For me this issue is not about the necessity of maximising fast cast and potency simultaneously. If we're honest, it's not necessary - you can bring more people or change the strategy. The issue is that some people can do it, with all the side benefits that brings, and some people can't. The solution is to either stop people cheating, or enable everyone to play at the same level.