Suggestion: The Spear

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by pushin_tin

If you have a MCH, DRK, SMN, SCH, or DRG in your party, you can safely use Spear on them without worrying about it going to waste, and those are just the classes that immediately come to mind.

---

That's a good point, I wasn't thinking of DPS classes where they have a lot of abilities like that like MCH (mine is just at 47). I always just think Tank automatically and have no idea what cooldowns they use or to know when I'd even guess to apply it, whether before a pull, right at it, during etc. I think I need to try to get more in the habit of using the cards, instead of constantly just wanting a Spire or Ewer to AoE the next card. Pretty sure an extended Balance with Time Dialation on one DPS will probably do more than expanded Balance on the whole party.

Sorry to go off again but instead of starting a new topic, when you do expanded royal road, how is the radius selected? Like is it a 15 or something yalm circle around the person I use the card on? Or is it from myself? I'm thinking the person it is cast on, but haven't really seen for sure.

Keep in mind that a spire/ewer royal road will reduce the effect of the card by 50%, so a 10% boost in damage becomes a 5% boost for everyone. The 3.07 patch buffed spire/ewer royal road so the duration remained the same, but the effect is still halved.

This is only considered a net gain in a full party. Otherwise, you are better off using ewer/spire to regen resources. Warriors actually get a lot from spire in that they can substantially increase dps without worrying about TP during it. Also, monks, dragoons, bards, and mchs get a lot of use from it for aoe purposes.

On topic:
The spear does require a lot of in-depth knowledge of other classes to work though. To be honest though, many dps classes have an ability or two with that is off the gcd and is usable within the 30sec window of spear. It's just that the effects of those cards don't show up until 45 seconds or a minute later, which can be a lifetime in combat. An instant reduction of a CD may be useful, but it also risks being cut off a lot more often (having cd seconds wasted because a CD is more than 80% or 70% when amplified to being off CD).

I'm not saying the suggestion is not without its merits or welcome, but it does have its own problems. If this were a single player game, it's the difference between a skill that gives you a bonus attack and a skill that removes the CD off any skill you already used.

Just use a macro beforehand so they know they can pop CDs. Retroactive would be too op considering you can aoe it on the whole raid and it would affect more skills since it goes backwards.
Something similar to:

/micon TheSpear
/p Reduced CDs on <t>! TheSpear Card activated
/ac TheSpear

The only reason to ever pop that though is to use it on your self and use synastry+Aether. For all other classes its barely any of any use since people need to understand to react to it properly, which is rarely the case outside raid conditions, most likely even ripping their rotations due to changes in timing in their rotations.

[QUOTE=MariaNyan;3377921]Just use a macro beforehand so they know they can pop CDs. Retroactive would be too op considering you can aoe it on the whole raid and it would affect more skills since it goes backwards.

It would not be "too op" because the spell already performs these actions. Of course it would affect more skills, the way it is now it's hard to affect any. I already use a macro for my cards, it's a sloppy solution. I should not have to use 3rd party software, count to 1000, or make a convoluted macro (so that people who have already used their OCD's don't even care that I'm about to use it), just to make a spell work well. Further, I can already AoE the spell, it has a minuscule reduction when spread to the entire party. A 10% reduction (when spread to the entire party) is only a net gain of 6 seconds on a 60 second cool-down, and rarely would anyone be able to say "heck yeah! Let me pop all my cool-downs now that I'm saving 6 whole seconds on em!"

I sometimes before we rush to pull the boss, will flip to Noc, swiftcast Aspected Helios, and then flip back to Diurnal as the tank runs to the boss. Gives that 30 seconds of shield as well as you can still stack on regens from Diurnal with the Noc shield up. Not sure if it helps much, and you run the risk of the tank rushing in and you being stuck in Noc, not the end of the world but kind of cool you can do that. Would be awesome though to be able to switch mid battle, like when a big AoE is coming, flip to Noc pop that shield on everyone, pop collective unconscious and then once attack hits can swing back to Diurnal. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 416to305

Would be awesome though to be able to switch mid battle

---

I was reading through forums and someone said that they'd like collective unconscious to allow us to swap. I don't remember which thread it was, though.

Forgive me if im wrong and point me to sources if i am but the spear is 10% attack speed. Blood weapon is 10% attack speed. Why is everyone saying it works for CDs every test ive done in game has pointed to the arrow reducing CD timers not spear

Nothing fills me with greater joy than getting a Spear just as I'm about to refresh Aetherflow and go into Trance on SMN.

Spear definitely needs adjustments though. It should either be 30 seconds in duration to ensure that most classes can at least use some manner of cooldown while it's up or cut it back down to 15 seconds and make it work retroactively on already running cooldowns.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LlamaOfLag

Forgive me if im wrong and point me to sources if i am but the spear is 10% attack speed. Blood weapon is 10% attack speed. Why is everyone saying it works for CDs every test ive done in game has pointed to the arrow reducing CD timers not spear

---

You have them backwards. Spear reduces recast and Arrow increase attack speed. The have some what similar coloring (at least I think so as I've made the same mistake before)

[Edit since not on smart phone anymore] You can test this by giving yourself Arrow / Spear. The card that gives you increased attack speed will reduce both the cast time and recast time of your spells. The card that gives you reduced recast will give you a reduced recast on your abilities. These values will automatically be updated on the tooltip if you hover over them with your mouse so you can see the changes directly.

If it ain't savage, spear doesn't matter, and you can just use it on yourself.

It's like a Draw Two card, only it's Draw-1.2-if-your-draw-is-coming-up-again.