Black Mage Sharpcast action description is poorly spaced and hard to understand.

I noticed that the action description for Black Mage's level 54 action called Sharpcast was difficult to read/understand.

The action reads :Ensures the next Scathe, Fire, or Thunder spell cast will, for the first hit, trigger Scathe's additional effect, Firestarter, or Thundercloud.

The description is a bit over complicated. I've had a few newer players confused about how it works due to the wording.

A suggestion for a better description would be :
Ensures the next hit for Fire, Thunder, or Scathe spells will trigger their additional effects, Firestarter, Thundercloud, or Scathe's double potency.

There is definitely a problem with some of BLM's Action Helps in general, and this one in particular.

However, I think we can still improve it beyond what you've suggested. How about:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Suggested Sharpcast Action Help Text

Enhances the next spell cast, ensuring its additional effect triggers.

Scathe Effect: Potency increased to 200.
Fire Effect: Grants Firestarter.
Paradox (Astral Fire) Effect: Grants Firestarter.
Thunder I/II/III/IV Effect: Grants Thundercloud. Only the initial hit benefits from this effect.

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This begins with a very simple general view of the action and then goes into a clearly delineated case list, which eliminates the need to reconcile complexity and clarity within a single sentence.

"Enhances the next spell cast"

is misleading because Sharpcast doesn't apply to Flare, Despair, Foul, or Xenoglossy.

"Will trigger their additional effect"

and similar wordings are, at best, uninformative. Casting the affected Fire and Thunder spells always triggers their additional effects; you don't need Sharpcast for that. The problem is that for, say, Fire (Fire 1), the additional effect is technically "the game will roll some dice for you." Sharpcast doesn't trigger that dice roll; Sharpcast straight-up grants you Firestarter.

This is all why Sharpcast's tooltip is worded the way it is. If anything, I think you can simplify it as follows:

"Ensures the next Scathe, Fire, Paradox, or Thunder spell cast will, for the first hit, trigger Scathe's additional effect, Firestarter, or Thundercloud."

Trying to account for the DoT applied by the Thunder spells is more clunky than clarifying.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

"Enhances the next spell cast"

is misleading because Sharpcast doesn't apply to Flare, Despair, Foul, or Xenoglossy.

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Swiftcast's effect

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Swiftcast Action Help

Next spell is cast immediately.

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doesn't apply to spells that are already instant cast and a reasonable person understands that this is working as intended. Likewise, a reasonable person should understand that using the word "ensures" or "guarantees" with regard to additional effects will apply only to additional effects that are not already guaranteed to happen. If they can't reason that out, the case list explicitly states which spells are affected and how.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

"Will trigger their additional effect"

and similar wordings are, at best, uninformative. Casting the affected Fire and Thunder spells always triggers their additional effects; you don't need Sharpcast for that. The problem is that for, say, Fire (Fire 1), the additional effect is technically "the game will roll some dice for you." Sharpcast doesn't trigger that dice roll; Sharpcast straight-up grants you Firestarter.

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Well, no. The additional effect is that something happens. The percent chance that it happens is not the effect, it is the probability of the effect occuring. It's just too cumbersome to label them separately:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fire Action Help Meaning

Deals fire damage with a potency of 180.

Additional Effect: Grants Astral Fire or removes Umbral Ice
Duration: 15s

Additional Effect: Grants Firestarter.
Additional Effect chance: 40%
Firestarter Effect: The next Fire III cast will cost no MP and have no cast time
Duration: 30s

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

This is all why Sharpcast's tooltip is worded the way it is. If anything, I think you can simplify it as follows:

"Ensures the next Scathe, Fire, Paradox, or Thunder spell cast will, for the first hit, trigger Scathe's additional effect, Firestarter, or Thundercloud."

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If you're going to do that, you need to add "..., respectively" so as not to imply that any of those spells might (do double damage OR grant Firestarter OR grant Thundercloud). Still, this does nothing to address that the primary issue with Surecast's Action Help text is that it tries to be elegant by being a single sentence but crams too much information into that single sentence to be elegant. The case list I proposed above is longer, but not as long as many other Action Helps in the game, and much clearer than most.