Piety on Nexus weapon

[Moqi]

I stack spell speed because I don't like the 2.5 GCD.

Putting Piety, SS and some Det on my Novus (I have enough SS now and I don't need more so I'm matching my Animus) and can do things just fine. At the end of the day it's up to what you like, I've had full det and (almost) full SS builds and the only thing that I found different was that I was having more fun with the latter. All this number talk is pointless if you don't adapt your stats to how you like to play... I mean isn't that what it's important in the end? Having fun playing the game? So do what you like.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Snip

This was never an argument about your play style or mine. It's about you advocating that spell speed is a stat worth considering while it has no obvious advantages compared to determination, critical hit rate and/or piety. Be it White Mage or Scholar.

[Alkimi]

This was never an argument about your play style or mine. It's about you advocating that spell speed is a stat worth considering while it has no obvious advantages compared to determination, critical hit rate and/or piety. Be it White Mage or Scholar.

You cast spells faster. That's kind of an obvious advantage if you ask me. All the off stats scale terribly anyway, just use what works for you. Personally I've had no trouble clearing everything (bar savage coil, not even bothered with it) with lots of spell speed gear, I just prefer being able to cast (slightly) faster over having (slightly) stronger cures.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

You cast spells faster. That's kind of an obvious advantage if you ask me. All the off stats scale terribly anyway, just use what works for you. Personally I've had no trouble clearing everything (bar savage coil, not even bothered with it) with lots of spell speed gear, I just prefer being able to cast (slightly) faster over having (slightly) stronger cures.

An advantage that only applies if you're slow with healing or casting without interruption. Anticipating damage and casting accordingly to it is the same whether you have 2.00s casting time or 1.90s casting time. As a healer you'll always have a short pause here and there. Any idle time simply makes faster casting pointless: If an encounter requires 100 cures and you cast 10% quicker you'd end up with 110 cures. 110 cures would simply mean 10 unnecessary cures or 10 cures worth of casting time wasted. I'll conclude again: A secondary stat only worth considering for the scrubby healer.

With 2.4 approaching the gear level will increase once again. Determination right now requires 25-27 points for every 10 HP increase on a 400 potency heal. With increased item levels, WD and determination stats on the gear will increase and the determination/healing increase ratio will change. As result: You will get more determination while needing less to get more recovery out of it. Spell speed, on the other hand, might make your heals cast another 0.1s faster and is still pointless when you can anticipate any incoming damage - Pre-casting with 2.00s, 1.90s or 1.80s makes no difference because it's pre-casting.

[Cynfael]

You cast spells faster. That's kind of an obvious advantage if you ask me. All the off stats scale terribly anyway, just use what works for you. Personally I've had no trouble clearing everything (bar savage coil, not even bothered with it) with lots of spell speed gear, I just prefer being able to cast (slightly) faster over having (slightly) stronger cures.

I think any conversation about secondary stats needs to be considered in the context of min-maxing. No one is going to claim that spell speed vs. any other secondary will render a healer unplayable, but when the question arises, it's worth noting why it isn't widely considered to be an optimal stat.


Perhaps more importantly, discussion of spell speed often leads to discussion of healing techniques and why a few hundredths of a second on a 2 second heal shouldn't matter when the good healer is proactive instead of purely reactionary. A lot of players don't immediately realize how to play healers well in this game. The proof of that is in the number of corpse-healers you can observe in casual raid content like ST; watching people slowly die to unavoidable mechanics while the healers lag IRL is both sad and hilarious.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Perhaps more importantly, discussion of spell speed often leads to discussion of healing techniques and why a few hundredths of a second on a 2 second heal shouldn't matter when the good healer is proactive instead of purely reactionary. A lot of players don't immediately realize how to play healers well in this game. The proof of that is in the number of corpse-healers you can observe in casual raid content like ST; watching people slowly die to unavoidable mechanics while the healers lag IRL is both sad and hilarious.

Why are we on different servers again? x3

[Cynfael]

Why are we on different servers again? x3

Because knowing players with a compatible mindset on the same server would be asking too much :P

I really have almost no healer friends. And it's not because I scared them away with my anti-spellspeed dogma, either lol.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Because knowing players with a compatible mindset on the same server would be asking too much :P

I really have almost no healer friends. And it's not because I scared them away with my anti-spellspeed dogma, either lol.

Servers would explode I bet!

To get back on topic. For those who think style equals to healing in general:

Pre-casting is a technique, not a style
Post-casting is also a technique, not a style and is different than being reactive. Reactive healing would be "OH SHIT" and press cure. Post-casting would be applying stoneskin for specific reasons (T9 exploding debuff thing)
Stat building is a build, not a style. While one does build a stat according to a style your style does not rely on your stats - Unless you magically become a world class healer by stacking spell speed.
Stance dancing (name pending) is a technique, not a style. Rather, you'd be an idiot not to cast damage spells without cleric's stance and an even bigger idiot to heal with cleric's stance - Which, in this case, is actually a style.
Completely focusing on healing or let the other healer take a bit of your share so you can DPS is a style.
Banking MP to be safe or strifing to end the fight with as little MP as possible is a style
Spamming stoneskin as filler-spells (to reduce idle time) is a style

Plenty of more techniques/styles/whatchamacallit around, but spell speed does not define a style. With that, secondary stats should be considered assisting elements:
Determination increases everything in general. Specifically increased healing which effectively yields more HP recovery for the MP spend (MP efficiency increase)
Crit hit rate does increase average HPS over time and is part of the more popular scholar meta
Spell Speed patches up any "OH SHIT" moments you failed to anticipate.

[loreleidiangelo]

I pre-cast and still stack spellspeed... I don't drop it in favor of det, I drop it in favor of pie. I never need the extra mana, though I do have a piety gearset in case my static ever wants to try Savage.

When I first redid my set to a spellspeed build it was hilarious watching me mistime my Cure IIs/IIIs after Dalamud Dive/Megaflare. XD;;

In a full speed build my cast time is 1.85 seconds, IIRC. Pretty nice, and I fill the idle time with Aeros. That drops det though, so the build I use is a cast time of 1.89. I might drop the HA Circlet for the Daystar for more det...we'll see.

[Anera]

for WHM i go with Spell Speed →　Determination and then piety in a Party you have 2 healer ,1 WHM and 1 SCH or 2 WHM in a party , if you need more piety it mean you over healing or the other healer is not doing he/she job I mean is good to have piety but not fully upgrade.
I Defeat Savage T6 without needing anymore then 4200 MP but have Spell Speed and spam it 3 time that where Spell Speed come in it help alot like Cure II and Medica.