Surecast Enhancements, Please!

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Originally Posted by Bhuni

Why would you blow a 60 second cooldown that you can handle an incoming attack with that interupts your cast bar, when you get just Surecast through it which is on cooldown for 30 seconds, you should save Swiftcast for when you need to move or for long casts raise, flare etc.

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I'd love to see you prove your words by showing us why it doesn't suck.
Also, making it so a single spell once per 30 seconds isn't interrupted even by movement is hardly gamebreaking.

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Originally Posted by Kuurei

Atla has a point though, even if BLM isn't the only class that can use it. Never once used it over swiftcast on WHM, nor while leveling up Arcanist some. I even mentioned earlier that it's uselessness is made even worse by both skills being cross-classable by all DoMs.

You seem to just be antagonistic for the halibut, and no real other reason. Surecast is useless outside pvp.

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Turn 5's Fireball
Shiva's icicle AOE Rain
Ifrit and Garudas Ultimate attacks oddly enough you only get interupted in HM and not EX unsure about Titan.
Leviathans Ultimate attack think this one applies to EX only.
They're may be other attacks I'm not aware of.

It has some use outside of PVP not as prominent but it's not completely useless in PVE so erm yeah.

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Originally Posted by Bhuni

Turn 5's Fireball
Shiva's icicle AOE Rain
Ifrit and Garudas Ultimate attacks oddly enough you only get interupted in HM and not EX unsure about Titan.
Leviathans Ultimate attack think this one applies to EX only.
They're may be other attacks I'm not aware of.

It has some use outside of PVP not as prominent but it's not completely useless in PVE so erm yeah.

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4 attacks that you should either be dodging, or taking your actions before or after the attack goes off.
You don't need surecast for those, and none of those attacks are used often enough that swiftcast won't be up.

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Originally Posted by kyuven

4 attacks that you should either be dodging, or taking your actions before or after the attack goes off.
You don't need surecast for those, and none of those attacks are used often enough that swiftcast won't be up.

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Pray tell how you dodge a Primals ultimate I'd love to know lol

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Originally Posted by Bhuni

Pray tell how you dodge a Primals ultimate I'd love to know lol

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the word "or" was in my statement for a reason.
You dodge icicles, so you should only be eating one MAX and you should be moving during most of that phase anyway. Swiftcast is more valuable.
The others usually go off slowly enough that you don't need the maybe one extra spell you'd get off in the half second of the attack, during which the boss is either off the map (Levi) or invulnerable (Titan, Garuda, Ifrit)
And, again, swiftcast is better.

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Originally Posted by kyuven

the word "or" was in my statement for a reason.
You dodge icicles, so you should only be eating one MAX and you should be moving during most of that phase anyway. Swiftcast is more valuable.
The others usually go off slowly enough that you don't need the maybe one extra spell you'd get off in the half second of the attack, during which the boss is either off the map (Levi) or invulnerable (Titan, Garuda, Ifrit)
And, again, swiftcast is better.

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You seem to forget healers can also use Surecast you can heal through those certain attacks the moment you're hit by them under the effect of Surecast without being cancelled out of the cast instead of trying to time it right and risk being cancelled.

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Originally Posted by Bhuni

...OP and many others would rather it allow them to fly around the arena flinging spells left right and centre when we already have Swiftcast lol...

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Please don't treat us with such insult. I actually thought it was a good suggestion also & would be fine with such a feature.

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Originally Posted by Yuri_Hyuga

Please don't treat us with such insult. I actually thought it was a good suggestion also & would be fine with such a feature.

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If you get insulted so easily by a slight jest perhaps you shouldn't be on the Internet >.<

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Originally Posted by Bhuni

Because BLM is the only job that can use Surecast :rolleyes:

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I never said they were? I included Raise in the example, as well. Black Mages simply tend to have the spells with the longest cast times; that's likely why the skill is native to their class. Thus, they make for a good example of it's uses. limited and inferior to swiftcast as they may be.

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Originally Posted by Atlaworks

I never said they were? I included Raise in the example, as well. Black Mages simply tend to have the spells with the longest cast times; that's likely why the skill is native to their class. Thus, they make for a good example of it's uses. limited and inferior to swiftcast as they may be.

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Originally Posted by Atlaworks

Your knowledge about the skill and the class that uses it seems lacking.

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Yeah... Also if you read my posts carefully I mentioned you should be saving Swiftcast for Raise before your previous post, it's been fun but I'm done with this thread lol.

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

Surecast
Allows you to move whilst casting and keeps your spells uninterrupted, however reduces damage and healing of spells by 35%
Permanent Buff, you turn it on and off like stances.

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Also reduce walking speed while casting by 25% (the caster have to concentrate)

And you turn it only on like stances. It should go automatic off after a cast.

Surecast is bad because you usually shouldn't be getting hit as a caster, at least in group content. With the exception of a few endgame fights, it exists as something you can use if you think you MIGHT screw up in the next, what, 10 seconds?

How about modifying surecast so that it is prevents interrupt on one spell for the next minute? If the buff duration and the spell cooldown are the same, it essentially protects you from one interrupt per spell cooldown. You could keep it up constantly, not because you are planning on getting hit by something you should have dodged, but just in case you screw up.

Imo we should keep surecast its own thing and not some swiftcast hybrid cuz casters wanna become bards.
Surecast trait should be similar to equanamity ( tht pvp skill ).
It'll allow you to cast things with no interruptions (except movement i.e getting knocked back etc ) for 10 seconds.
But to make it a "trait" it'll allow u to cast thru debuffs i.e paralysis without interrupt. Imo it wouldn't be game breaking and it'll allow for more recovery. Handy for when dps or healers have paralysis and cannot get it debuffed. Most debuffs like mechanic paralysis lasts longer than 10 secs so ofc u'll want to try and do mechanics right.

So its obviously not a crucial skill to have but more so its optional JUST like how surecast is now.
That way casters still channel their casts & swiftcast gets to keep its identity.

But... Surecast already IS swiftcast but less useful. The changes people propose are things that differentiate the two.

And it already is similar to Equanimity.... because they're the same thing. The only difference is that Surecast fades after one spell, and Equanimity lasts it's duration.

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Originally Posted by Bhuni

You seem to forget healers can also use Surecast you can heal through those certain attacks the moment you're hit by them under the effect of Surecast without being cancelled out of the cast instead of trying to time it right and risk being cancelled.

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You seem to forget yourself that the chances of you getting interrupted by attacks is pretty small to begin with, and while there are are tiny percentage of big hitters which can do this none of them are used often enough that Swiftcast isn't the superior option.

Surecast is just... rubbish. If it's so important to get that spell out, then Swiftcast is the better option simply for speed. However short, using both Swiftcast and Surecast requires time. With swiftcast, that extra time is negated because the resulting spell is instant. With Surecast, you have your normal casting times on top of that.

Also, bear in mind that Surecast is NOT immune to the obvious pitfalls of Paralysis, Sleep, Stuns and so forth. If you're Paralyzed while in Surecast, the paralysis can still prevent you getting a spell off. Swiftcast has a far smaller margin for error in that situation.

I've watched you desperately try to defend this worthless skill in this thread and while I can't help but admire your passion, it's impossible to take the posts seriously. In fact, I'm convinced we've all been successfully trolled.

Honestly though, even if they allow Surecast to be used while moving it would still be pretty worthless. I think they just gave it to Thaumaturge because they ran out of ideas.

I think we do not need that kind of effect. We have plenty of instant cast and swiiftcast for moving. I think it is good as it is now. THere is plenty of situations where you can use it. Like in leviathan once you wanna dot tail, second cast get interrupted without surecast or once spumes explode your cast may get interrupted by damage without surecast. In shiva extreme if you stand still and take ice ring damage, you can keep casting with surecast but without it your cast can get interrupted by damage.

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Originally Posted by Atlaworks

But... Surecast already IS swiftcast but less useful. The changes people propose are things that differentiate the two.

And it already is similar to Equanimity.... because they're the same thing. The only difference is that Surecast fades after one spell, and Equanimity lasts it's duration.

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I think the problem is that it fades after one spell. Ideally, the best time to use Surecast is when you're casting a long spell like Flare. But when do you get a situation where you HAVE to use it? I play BLM as a sub and I never really get a chance to use that spell. It's just sitting on my hot bar. If it did work like equanimity, then it would have more use. But it does not. Look at Apocatastisis. That spell was useless for a BLM but they changed how it goes. Now it's a pretty damn good spell for tanks. We'll see how it goes in Heavensward. BLMs are getting a new rotation so we can see how that pans out.

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Originally Posted by Sunako

I think we do not need that kind of effect. We have plenty of instant cast and swiiftcast for moving. I think it is good as it is now. THere is plenty of situations where you can use it. Like in leviathan once you wanna dot tail, second cast get interrupted without surecast or once spumes explode your cast may get interrupted by damage without surecast. In shiva extreme if you stand still and take ice ring damage, you can keep casting with surecast but without it your cast can get interrupted by damage.

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So, in both of those situations, why wouldn't you just use swiftcast instead?

Also, what's this "we" you're talking about? Because the only instant cast spell black mages have is Scathe, and I think the only one white mages have is Fluid Aura, if that counts? It's a cooldown. Are you talking about Arcanists? Because they have Bio, Ruin II, and Miasma II as instant casts. I assume so, since your main class is shown as arcanist. I could also include Fester, though that has a 10 second cooldown itself and is summoner only.

That being said, "We" are not all arcanists.

The only time I've ever used Surecast is doing speed runs of like Wandering Palace or Darkhold. That cannot be the intended use for the spell. No it seems like it was a great idea on paper, especially if you've ever solo'd in a game as a caster in a MMO since 2004.

But interruptions just don't happen often enough or happen with a predictable frequency to warrant this spell a spot on the hotbar.

Its needs a change.

I like the idea of it allowing casts while moving. But only one spell. Or if it does more than a spell its duration should be cut drastically. Like to 5 seconds. Maybe allow the Thaum trait to increase this to its current 10s duration.

But if we allow it a 5s duration. I'd like to see mana cost go up by 20% and movement speed cut by 35% like someone suggested. What that would do is make it so on quick reactions.. you're probably not going to do it. But can still get an extra cast or two during planned movement.

With Black Mages and the 10s duration from it may seem OP. But with an extra 20% mana cost.. those Astral Fire stacks will make that VERY expensive. They will lose a Fire 1 in their rotation. But at least they can get one or two off while moving. But due to the increased cost they won't keep that buff up all the time.

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Originally Posted by Atlaworks

Also, what's this "we" you're talking about? Because the only instant cast spell black mages have is Scathe, and I think the only one white mages have is Fluid Aura, if that counts? It's a cooldown. Are you talking about Arcanists? Because they have Bio, Ruin II, and Miasma II as instant casts. I assume so, since your main class is shown as arcanist.

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Well, to be fair WHM also has Regen as an instant spell, but otherwise your argument is on point. Regen's a nice spell, but it's really only useful over long periods of time rather than an instant panacea.

To the defenders I ask only one question, and be honest if only to yourselves. How often do you actually use Surecast? I can tell you in the numerous years I've played FFXIV I've used it less than 10 times. It's never been necessary, ever. Never been useful, ever. In PvP it's still as useless as ever due to latency issues so the game considers you as still moving while casting. That is, unless you stay put for a whole 10 seconds. A suicidal situation if ever there was.

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Originally Posted by Kuurei

Never once used it over swiftcast on WHM, nor while leveling up Arcanist some. I even mentioned earlier that it's uselessness is made even worse by both skills being cross-classable by all DoMs.

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Wait, so am I one of the few WHMs in this game who actually uses Surecast? It's pretty damn useful in certain situations. I don't get why nobody likes using it. That aside, I'm sure that Surecast was for the most part intended to be meant for solo content where you'll be taking the brunt of the enemy attacks. o:

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Originally Posted by Atlaworks

So, in both of those situations, why wouldn't you just use swiftcast instead?

Also, what's this "we" you're talking about? Because the only instant cast spell black mages have is Scathe, and I think the only one white mages have is Fluid Aura, if that counts? It's a cooldown. Are you talking about Arcanists? Because they have Bio, Ruin II, and Miasma II as instant casts. I assume so, since your main class is shown as arcanist. I could also include Fester, though that has a 10 second cooldown itself and is summoner only.

That being said, "We" are not all arcanists.

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Black mages can move with aetherial manipulation and you can move during you cast firestarter or thunder procs etc. Some mechanics you can bypass by using different shields. In the expansion you will get buff that will gain proc with 100% chance so black mages mobility will be even better. Whm can cast aero, benediction, fluid aura and regen while moving. In the expansion whm will get 50% max hp instant heal if i did not miss something. And btw i play all 4 caster jobs myself(whm/sch/smn/blm).

And the reason why i do not wanna use swiftcast on those situations? Because you can save cast time from flare or shadow flare or save it once you need actually move?

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Originally Posted by Bhuni

Pray tell how you dodge a Primals ultimate I'd love to know lol

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I'd like to know what you're getting interrupted casting during the 15 second window that the primal is invincible during its ultimate.

Healing? You have roughly 10 seconds before to top off HP and pre-buff, then 5 seconds after damage hits to get a spell off and get in place.

People in this thread haven't been pony farming much eh? Many of the Primals strong LB attack interrupts casting. As a white mage, to be able to surecast and charge up a medica 2 during leviathans LB feels pretty damn good when it goes off immediately after the damage hits the party with no interruption.

Another example would be in ST on the last boss when he does Ancient Quaga (spelling?). If you time it right as a mage, you can continue your rotation with a surecast (spell) when the lightning cloud goes off so that you are not interrupted. On black mage, when he re-appears from sending meteors down at us, I use a thunder 2, stack with the group for the lightning cloud, then surecast fire 3 and it guarantees it will go off. Definitely allows for more damage in the long run.

So the point stands that it is still very situational, but it does feel good to negate an interruption from a huge attack that would otherwise interrupt you.

I agree with many posters here that I would also like to see it slightly buffed. As for a suggestion for the buff, I'm not exactly sure. For me it does seem more of a pvp ability.

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Originally Posted by Sunako

Black mages can move with aetherial manipulation and you can move during you cast firestarter or thunder procs etc. Some mechanics you can bypass by using different shields. In the expansion you will get buff that will gain proc with 100% chance so black mages mobility will be even better. Whm can cast aero, benediction, fluid aura and regen while moving. In the expansion whm will get 50% max hp instant heal if i did not miss something. And btw i play all 4 caster jobs myself(whm/sch/smn/blm).

And the reason why i do not wanna use swiftcast on those situations? Because you can save cast time from flare or shadow flare or save it once you need actually move?

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Procs are unreliable at best. Aetherial Manipulation is not castable during a skill and if it was it'd break the skill, as the movement isn't instant. Benediction, Regen, and Tetragrammophone aren't attack actions, which is what we were going over. Manaward and Manawall don't let you cast instantly. Sharpcast gives you, in your own loose terms, "one free swiftcast to choose from between Fire3 or Thunder3".

Also, calling black mage mobility better for a chance of one free proc on a cooldown while ignoring ley lines entirely is kind of hilarious.

Surecast is certainly useful. Just not at all on black mage. (outside PVP anyway)

But while we're at it, can we make Freeze do literally anything other than what it does now?

> "yo BLM needs a spell for lv35 but they don't need anything else, what can we give em? "

> "Just give Blizzard 2 a remote cast."

> "Hey that could actually be usefu-"

> "On GCD. Slower than blizzard II. Weaker than blizzard I"

genius

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Originally Posted by Edellis

Surecast is certainly useful. Just not at all on black mage. (outside PVP anyway)

But while we're at it, can we make Freeze do literally anything other than what it does now?

> "yo BLM needs a spell for lv35 but they don't need anything else, what can we give em? "

> "Just give Blizzard 2 a remote cast."

> "Hey that could actually be usefu-"

> "On GCD. Slower than blizzard II. Weaker than blizzard I"

genius

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you forgot no range what so ever blizz 2 is the most useless spell after surecast

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Originally Posted by Mendalas

So the point stands that it is still very situational, but it does feel good to negate an interruption from a huge attack that would otherwise interrupt you.

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Except all those interrupts can be prevented by just timing it so you're not casting when the attacks go off. It's not like they're rapidly going out in a short period of time, no single big huge interrupting ability goes out more than once a minute or so.
Most of those abilities have a 10 second wind-up time, while your own have around 2 seconds or so.
Add to that surecast only affects one spell, which means you need to tack on another second or so to your cast times just to use it then start casting. Swiftcast works a lot better for this.
And as mentioned if you're a healer, you should be setting your buffs and damage mitigation abilities BEFORE the big attack goes out. Which again, you have about 10 seconds to prepare for.
Surecast, when looked at in a vaccuum, isn't a bad ability on paper, it's just useless when looked at side-by-side with Swiftcast.

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Originally Posted by Yuri_Hyuga

Balance-arguments aside, it'd just be dang fun, so let us have it!

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My rebuttal, why not both? What's the harm (beyond the obvious, balance-implications)?

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I love these multiple disclaimers. Yes if you, for some reason, arbitrary ignore the one good reason why it's a bad idea it's a good idea.

It's been laid out what the BLM changes are going to be and this isn't it. They're never going to do this. They know better than you. In light of the fact that bard is becoming a bit of a turret DPS as well they know exactly how much movement they want their ranged to have.

I honestly never use Surecast. I can see it having it's merits for skills such as having to hard cast raise/resurrection when Swiftcast is on cooldown, but most of the time you're not going to need that interruption resistance unless your spell has a more than three second cast time. The only other thing I could really see it being used for is countering paralysis's interruption for a healer casting leeches/esuna, and I'm honestly not certain that that would even work as I haven't tried it. If you're not a healer and your healer is up and half way decent then they should be taking care of paralysis for you anyhow so I wouldn't see it being as much of a benefit on DPS....

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Originally Posted by Gamer3427

I honestly never use Surecast. I can see it having it's merits for skills such as having to hard cast raise/resurrection when Swiftcast is on cooldown, but most of the time you're not going to need that interruption resistance unless your spell has a more than three second cast time. The only other thing I could really see it being used for is countering paralysis's interruption for a healer casting leeches/esuna, and I'm honestly not certain that that would even work as I haven't tried it. If you're not a healer and your healer is up and half way decent then they should be taking care of paralysis for you anyhow so I wouldn't see it being as much of a benefit on DPS....

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sadly it doesnt help with paralysis or stun

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Originally Posted by ElieDavion

sadly it doesnt help with paralysis or stun

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Ah, well there goes my theory about it being useful for anything but reviving really......

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Originally Posted by kyuven

Except all those interrupts can be prevented by just timing it so you're not casting when the attacks go off. It's not like they're rapidly going out in a short period of time, no single big huge interrupting ability goes out more than once a minute or so.
Most of those abilities have a 10 second wind-up time, while your own have around 2 seconds or so.
Add to that surecast only affects one spell, which means you need to tack on another second or so to your cast times just to use it then start casting. Swiftcast works a lot better for this.
And as mentioned if you're a healer, you should be setting your buffs and damage mitigation abilities BEFORE the big attack goes out. Which again, you have about 10 seconds to prepare for.
Surecast, when looked at in a vaccuum, isn't a bad ability on paper, it's just useless when looked at side-by-side with Swiftcast.

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I try to save swiftcast as a whm if I can since raise is such a long cast. If SC is down when somebody dies, well that just sucks.
Also, besides single target casting stoneskin on everyone (waste of time and mp mid battle) there is nothing else I can do to get ready for a big attack that interrupts casting. But I can time it with surecast to heal just after the damage is received. It may not be totally necessary, but it sure is rewarding when you time it right. This is not to say that I don't partially agree with you about surecast in general, but it is helpful on white mage in most fights for healing up as fast as possible when an interrupt is inevitable.

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Originally Posted by Mendalas

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See, in my mind this seems...off.
For 4 man parties...let's not kid ourselves it's completely and utterly useless if everyone's doing their jobs right.
But in 8 man parties, you have a scholar most of the time. Before those big AOEs, I always see Stoneskin thrown out if possible and maybe a medica 2. Most WHMs i see take that gap of time to ensure they have enough MP for the next phase that's coming (since these attacks almost always coincide with phase changes)
But the important aspect is relying on the scholar for the set-up, while the WHM handles the "denouement" of the attack. And if speed is an issue as WHM you also have presence of mind to make use of.
And the interesting thing is there are just as many situations where these attacks are followed up with an add spawning (t13 gigaflares/rage of bahamut, weird timing in Leviathan) so having your heal go off in time with the attack could be a BAD thing, something i've seen happen in t13 more than I'd like.

surecast only prevents interruption of the cast caused via takeing a certain ammount of dmg and only works on 1 spell it doesnt help with stun paralyze or anything else like that wich makes it a useless ability in my eyes cuz as mentioned before by timing your casts right you can prevent those interruptions altogether

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Originally Posted by kyuven

TLDR

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It sure does feel good though to not get interrupted when generally you would. Feels like I'm cheating or something haha. But in all reality, I would definitely agree to an effect change for the ability overall. It was meant for PVP. But who knows maybe in HW there will be a lot more situations where it is useful.

In a year and a half of playing BLM the only three times I've used surecast were when I was trying to improve and make use of less common spells like surecast. I purposely cast it and was confused when it didn't let my spell continue when I moved. Second time was figuring out what happened the first time. Third and last time was when I thought "Surely they didn't actually cripple this ability like this?" and saw that it really did still interrupt my spell when I moved.

Surecast is useless for most anything but pvp and perhaps a few healing situations.

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Originally Posted by NozomiKei

Surecast is useless for most anything but pvp and perhaps a few healing situations.

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it is completly useless outside pvp and even in pvp its use is very very limited to the long recast the duration and that it only works on 1 spell

A good way to improve surecast and make it not suck.

Instead of making it timed, turn it into a self-cast buff with a longer recast time. This buff gives 3 stacks, and each stack will prevent one spell from being interrupted and will vanish whenever you would normally be interrupted. In short, it doesn't vanish unless the spell you're casting would be otherwise interrupted. Still shouldn't allow you to move and cast, but it'll give you options.

There we go, we have a skill which has a use and is now a buff you actually want to keep up at all times. Set the recast on par with big skills (5 mins) and it remains balanced.

Would love if it helped through paralysis & stun, at minimum.