Considered BiS for WHM?

Spell speed is a horrible stat for healers. If you cancel a cast once, be it dodging an AoE or cancelling a heal because the tank's already full HP, then you've just lost every benefit of having a lot of Spell Speed. Oftentimes as a WHM, I sit around and wait for damage to come as I let Divine Seal Regen do most of the healing and wait for MP to come back. Unless you're casting 100% of the time, Spell Speed isn't doing anything productive. And let's be honest - there's no fight in the game that matters where you don't have to move, and you're not healing 100% of the time because you can't heal more than the tank's maximum HP.

@ OP: Anything without Spell Speed is BiS. WHMs prefer Det usually, but I like to have a few Myth accessories just so i crit more than once in a blue moon. Crit/det is pretty interchangeable as a secondary stat.

Three simple rules for gearing WHM:

1.) Find the highest item level available to you for that slot. Higher item level inevitably comes with more MND, which is your most important stat.

2.) If you have two pieces of the same item level choose the one that come with more PIE, more PIE = more MP regeneration during battle.

3.) If you have two pieces of the same item level and same PIE, choose whichever secondary statistic better suits your play style as Critical Hit, Determination, and Spell Speed all give pretty minimal returns.

I'm very curious about spell speed on WHM as well. Fully geared for SPD it looks like you can hit about 590. That gives a good reduction in cast time on most of WHM spells even before buffs that would decrease it more. Seems like a large benefit to WHM mobility. Maybe shave a full second off skills that take 3 seconds or more.

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

I'm very curious about spell speed on WHM as well. Fully geared for SPD it looks like you can hit about 590. That gives a good reduction in cast time on most of WHM spells even before buffs that would decrease it more. Seems like a large benefit to WHM mobility. Maybe shave a full second off skills that take 3 seconds or more.

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Presence of Mind gives you +400, putting you above 800-900, and only decreases Cure times by less than .4 second. If spell speed scaled as hard as you presume, then it would actually be useful. But you need so much sell speed to make any sort of difference, and at that point you might as well have stacked other stats for an even bigger difference. There's virtually no benefit to WHM mobility, either, unless you always dodge aoes in the last .1 to .2 second of them landing.

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Originally Posted by Vrmillion

Presence of Mind gives you +400, putting you above 800-900, and only decreases Cure times by less than .4 second. If spell speed scaled as hard as you presume, then it would actually be useful. But you need so much sell speed to make any sort of difference, and at that point you might as well have stacked other stats for an even bigger difference. There's virtually no benefit to WHM mobility, either, unless you always dodge aoes in the last .1 to .2 second of them landing.

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But doesnt Spell Speed scale better the higher the cast time? @590 it should drop anything in the 3 second range pretty close to the GCD.

Never checked either but does spell speed reduce recast times as well? I know the gains arent great from spell speed but even .2 off the cast time for burst damage seems better than a 3% healing increase from stacking DET.

it does diminish cast and recast times

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

Never checked either but does spell speed reduce recast times as well? I know the gains arent great from spell speed but even .2 off the cast time for burst damage seems better than a 3% healing increase from stacking DET.

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The problem with spell speed is that for it to equal the amount of healing you gain from det, you have to be streaming casts 100% of the time like a Black Mage. Healers don't do that because it's incredibly wasteful.

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Originally Posted by Raijin

it does diminish cast and recast times

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I see that now. I don't usually play with "Display Action Help" so I never paid attention to it.

Looking at the time reduction for the majority of WHM skills + the time delay on casting (since you can move before the cast is done and still have it go off) you could have cast times down to ~ 2 seconds while still being able to move if needed.

You get a huge reduction on the time it takes to cast Raise.

Spell Speed still seems like the best option for burst damage.

SS makes a pretty noticeable difference in fights where you have to move often. I can more or less cast while on the move. I have a mix of DET and SS. No mana issues.