Surecast - Allow Move-&-Casting

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Originally Posted by Khyra

And if they dont do something like this, maybe they should just make it a PvP only skill and give BLM something useful instead. Its completely worthless in PvE (I don't actually know if its good in PvP since I dont ever do that, but some people seem to think so).

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It's awesome in PvP, you get your spell off every time unless one of the following happen:
-target moves out of frontal cone/range
-you move
-you get slept
-you get knocked back
-you get stunned
-you take any kind of damage at all
-someone targets you
-someone thinks about targeting you
-a cow in Wyoming farts

Touching on a few points I've seen in thread...

Yes, a swiftcast spell can be interrupted. Just 'perfect' timing on the part of the mobs. Swiftcast is still there til you use it of course.

Surecast would probably be useful against the kraken in Sastasha HM. Towards the end of the fight, arm attacks (wallop, I think, not sure) don't stun, but do interrupt casting. Very frustrating.

The idea that you WILL get the spell off, but it takes the entire cast bar as normal sounds pretty good to me.

Right now, I think the issue is utility. Why have an ability that does nothing for us? :/ (Yes, I acknowledge there are others.)

eta: I think Toodles wins the forum award for most threads started, btw... xD

Adding the ability to cast while moving would require rebalance of BLMs damage - spells would need to do less damage. Is this what you want? Perhaps a stance that allows mobile casting but that reduced damage by 20%. This could actually be a good trade off in some instances.

BLMs already have one of the highest DPS outputs. Contrast that with BRD who is the only real mobile DPS in the game. BRD needs to constantly be attacking while moving to keep up with the turret DPS.

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Originally Posted by Waeksyn

Adding the ability to cast while moving would require rebalance of BLMs damage - spells would need to do less damage. Is this what you want? Perhaps a stance that allows mobile casting but that reduced damage by 20%. This could actually be a good trade off in some instances.

BLMs already have one of the highest DPS outputs. Contrast that with BRD who is the only real mobile DPS in the game. BRD needs to constantly be attacking while moving to keep up with the turret DPS.

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No one's saying "Take all the moving DPS away from BRD and give it all to BLM". We're saying "Take a useless skill like Surecast, give it the ability to make the very next spell non-interruptable by any means, even by movement, then give it a CD of 120-180s." That's one single spell to be cast without interruption for 120-180s between. I see absolutely no problems with that from a balance perspective as it would basically become a less efficient Swiftcast that just so happens to not share a timer with Swiftcast.

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Originally Posted by HakuroDK

We're saying "Take a useless skill like Surecast, give it the ability to make the very next spell non-interruptable by any means, even by movement, then give it a CD of 120-180s." That's one single spell to be cast without interruption for 120-180s between. I see absolutely no problems with that from a balance perspective as it would basically become a less effective Swiftcast.

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There are a handful of others in this thread stating they want full freedom to move and cast period, not through an ability. I believe that is who they are directing that towards, not the OP's request.

Even 1.0 not 1.x mechanics were brought up.

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Originally Posted by ReplicaX

There are a handful of others in this thread stating they want full freedom to move and cast period, not through an ability. I believe that is who they are directing that towards, not the OP's request.

Even 1.0 not 1.x mechanics were brought up.

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Well this isn't the thread for that, so why is it being brought up here? That's just bad forum manners.

Surecast granting a single spell to be cast while moving - Great!
Moving and casting in general - Breaks casters and causes abilities like Scathe (which is a move-and-cast ability native to THM/BLM) to be essentially worthless.

My opinions, as you can see, are extremely polarized on the subject and there really should be another thread for folks who want to move-and-cast.

This would make the skill actually useful.

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Originally Posted by IzumiYuki

Make it different from swiftcast by keeping the cast time. You can cast while moving but it still has a cast time.

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sorry thats awful..


"Guild Wars 2" mages are SO weak.. because they can cast while moving.. due to balance.. especially in pvp.

Plus the animation looks even more GROSS then!

if you want to inflict ranged damage while moving.. take a bard instead!

ah well... and blm already has an instand dd spell.

I don't see this happening anytime soon if they even considered it. It's not easy to just 'change' a skill. Have to spend dev time on it including animators to make new animations for each class that can cast on the move using this ability. Requires a bit more time then you think. Also, it would not be a high priority on their list.

I agree it would be a lot of fun, but just don't see it happening with everything else the team is working on.

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Originally Posted by Renjin

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Wouldn't need a new animation at all, actually. Could use the exact same animation as Surecast's original animation. The ability "Scathe" is a precedent for moving and casting at the same time, so they could just recycle those movements. All that would need to happen is to give each spell with a casting time the proper coding language equivalent of the following (makeshift and really shoddy) line of code:

IF Character moves
-IF Surecast = ON
--Interrupt Casting = FALSE
-ELSE
--Interrupt Casting = TRUE

Doesn't require as much as you might think. Heck, had I the knowledge and experience of a member of the development team, I could single-handedly apply these changes in a couple of hours. With a small team of 3-4 people? 30-40 minutes, tops.