Scylla's Robe of Healing or Daystar Robe? (WHM)

[Ophie-Mio]

I've never found spellspeed overrated in the least. I pair up a lot with WHMs who have great healing power but end up dropping tanks because they can't get the spell off in time.

Honestly, I have both the Daystar robe and the Scylla robe and I love being able to get a cure off in time rather than after the tank or DPS is dead. People play WHM differently but it doesn't have to be a cure beast with the sacrifice of being slow as dirt even with food.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Concerning Spell speed for healers:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...n-Nexus-weapon

[Cynfael]

At the risk of spilling the conversation from that other thread over here, I'll reiterate the point that even huge spellspeed stacking only minimally decreases the casting time of the most commonly used heals, which shouldn't even be an issue if the healer is properly anticipating incoming damage and precasting/mitigating.

If someone says that they like spellspeed on their healer because that's just what they like, that's fine; there just aren't many actual arguments for it as a build strategy.

[subteraneanbird]

I've never found spellspeed overrated in the least. I pair up a lot with WHMs who have great healing power but end up dropping tanks because they can't get the spell off in time.

Honestly, I have both the Daystar robe and the Scylla robe and I love being able to get a cure off in time rather than after the tank or DPS is dead. People play WHM differently but it doesn't have to be a cure beast with the sacrifice of being slow as dirt even with food.

That is a skill and prediction problem, which can be fixed without needing bad stats like Spell Speed.

[Lorglath]

At the risk of spilling the conversation from that other thread over here, I'll reiterate the point that even huge spellspeed stacking only minimally decreases the casting time of the most commonly used heals, which shouldn't even be an issue if the healer is properly anticipating incoming damage and precasting/mitigating.

If someone says that they like spellspeed on their healer because that's just what they like, that's fine; there just aren't many actual arguments for it as a build strategy.

Wouldn't want to dissapoint you about starting this up all again..... And the part about there not being actual arguments sort of annoys me so I'll repost my findings (Granted this was back in 2.0 but the general ideas still hold) And really it comes down to all secondary stats are a personal taste. Which is why I dislike when people suggest otherwise to those seeking advice. At least be honest about the discussion.



I'm using http://syncness.me/ffxiv to calculate changes to average heals based on gear change.

SS > DET > CRIT I end up with
INT: 210
MND: 497
PIE: 407
DTR: 249
CRT: 341
SPSD: 510

DET > SS > CRIT ends up with
INT: 210
MND: 497
PIE: 406
DTR: 304
CRT: 341
SPSD: 433


Basing all averages off of Cure 1

Average for SS build is 1040.34 vs 1066 for DET which translates into just a difference of just 3.8 HPS in favor of the SS build (essentially non existent)

Cast time is 1.871 seconds for SS, 1.93 for DET

Using Presence of Mind in critical moments gets 1.482 vs 1.6


Conclusions:

The difference in healing is negligible, as a WHM there is no issue with the healing output of our spells. As encounters in end game content seems to trend towards spike damage, getting a tank out of the danger zone is more important than getting an extra 25 HPs restored per cure. The big help here is remembering to use presence of mind as that's when you'll see the biggest difference between the two specs (.118 seconds). Both determination and spell speed take a huge amount to see any change at all, so it really is personally preference as far as which is better.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

God, not this again. Healing is nothing like DPS where higher DPS is better. In healing cases: Having higher HPS isn't necessarily better. Whether you're capable of healing 3000 HPS or 1000 HPS, each encounter only has a certain amount of (combined) HPS required and, as the group progresses and gears up, should in fact slowly get lower from time to time. Spell speed has no obvious advantage with proper planning. In fact, you'll just have more idle time than anything. In practice you won't be casting heals around the clock without bloating your HPS without a crazy amount of overhealing. Determination, on the other hand, may not have a large increase. But it restores more HP for the MP spend and the stat will become more valuable with each patch that introduces better gear. Spell speed, on the other hand, might reduce your casting time by 0.1s more, but that also means 0.1s more idle time after each cast unless you are casting around the clock. Which, again, never works that way in practice.

Please refer to this topic for a discussion why spell speed is pointless.

edit:
I should also add that MP comes in play as well. It's nice and all if you can match the same HPS output with both spell speed and determination build. But without MP the support or sustain it, it's all pointless. For Spell speed builds match up with determination builds in terms of HPS, Spell Speed builds would require a bit more heals cast throughout the encounter. Which equals more mp spend/second. I'm not an advocate of full determination builds, however. A balance of determination and piety is key. Where a balance of spell speed and determination would hurt your ability to sustain. A balance of spell speed piety would nowhere be as efficient as determination and spell speed in terms of min-maxing.

[Lorglath]

Yes this again, as long as people continue with the myth that DET is the absolute best and anything else is pointless I'll bring up the opposite side. (Interestingly enough I've actually gone a more balanced approach with how gear is structured in 2.4 between det, ss, and pie)

I use the HPS just as a general idea of how little determination brings, not that you should be constantly healing. This is also always addressed in these topics, and your side still seems to attack it despite constant healing not being anyone's point about SS. The more telling number is how little DET adds to a single cure I. 20 - 40, that's about it (A little more with newer patches). SS brings very little off the cool down as well, so both have very little if any real affect in the grand scheme of things.

With "proper planning" neither more healing output or faster healing matters. It can be timed exactly right that you get out what you need to have done. Why this gets used as an argument against SS and not DET I don't understand. Just trying to get across here over and over again that both stats do not matter if you know the fight and have everything planned. This goes again to the point that this is pure personal preference with no one side having all (or none as was stated before) of the arguments.

Idle time isn't a big deal, that's time you can be doing other things but doesn't really mean anything in what SS brings (for me personally) It brings that heal a liiiiiiiitle bit quicker to help unintended damage so that the next "planned" attack doesn't mess things up.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

No one ever stated that Determination was the absolute best stat ever. Find a post that states this.

What has been stated, however, that Spell speed is not worth considering when it comes to min-maxing. Spell speed offers nothing at all healing wise as the only benefit of it can be nullified by simply pre-casting. Determination slightly tilts the HP recovery for every MP spend. Unlike spell speed, which is quite the opposite.

Aside from healing in general, there are also times where the healers have the freedom to off DPS or need to carry a bit of extra weight in favor for the other healer to off DPS. This too comes in play when it involves min-maxing. Determination would increase any dps damage you would do for every MP spend. Spell Speed would only strain the MP usage more. If you're carrying a bit of extra weight or the encounter is AoE healing heavy, spell speed won't help in this field either as it would only strain the mp usages more for less healing.

For argument sake: Both spell speed and determination has their hairy moments.
For spell speed: Heal comes in -just- in time to prevent someone from dying (as this seems to be the main reason to take spell speed)
For determination: Heal recovers -just- enough for someone to survive with 1-30 HP before the next hit (as this would seem to be the main reason to take determination)
However: In case of spell speed, your own ability can actually prevent that. While someone dying from taking 1300 damage while your heal before that hit only takes them to 1280 fully depends on your healing output.

The following line seems to be constantly ignored: balance is key!
A balance of determination and piety benefits a white mage greatly. And to an extend: Crit does as well
A balance of Critical hit rate, Determination benefits a scholar greatly. While a scholar isn't as reliant on Piety as White Mage, having some piety would make gameplay more comfortable for certain content.

Spell speed, however, has no place in this balance as it has no merit compared to the other stats.
Spell speed does not affect any HoT spells (Medica II, Regen, Whispering Dawn) or instant heal abilities (Lustrate, Benediction). For higher level content majority of the damage comes from DoTs (Bio, Bio II, Miasma, Shadow Flare, Aero, Aero II) or doesn't benefit from Spell speed at all (Fluid Aura, Energy Drain, Bane). Off-DPSing may not be a healer's main concern, it does make gameplay more comfortable in some situation by pushing phases or ease up the DPS check requirements for certain encounters and mechanics. In no encounter is there ever a case where both healers are required to fully focus on healing at all times either - Assuming both are somewhat competent.

[Yonko]

Yes this again, as long as people continue with the myth that DET is the absolute best and anything else is pointless I'll bring up the opposite side. (Interestingly enough I've actually gone a more balanced approach with how gear is structured in 2.4 between det, ss, and pie)

I use the HPS just as a general idea of how little determination brings, not that you should be constantly healing. This is also always addressed in these topics, and your side still seems to attack it despite constant healing not being anyone's point about SS. The more telling number is how little DET adds to a single cure I. 20 - 40, that's about it (A little more with newer patches). SS brings very little off the cool down as well, so both have very little if any real affect in the grand scheme of things.

With "proper planning" neither more healing output or faster healing matters. It can be timed exactly right that you get out what you need to have done. Why this gets used as an argument against SS and not DET I don't understand. Just trying to get across here over and over again that both stats do not matter if you know the fight and have everything planned. This goes again to the point that this is pure personal preference with no one side having all (or none as was stated before) of the arguments.

Idle time isn't a big deal, that's time you can be doing other things but doesn't really mean anything in what SS brings (for me personally) It brings that heal a liiiiiiiitle bit quicker to help unintended damage so that the next "planned" attack doesn't mess things up.

The reason why SS is pointless for a healer is because if you are pre-casting your cures (which you should be) then being able to have your cure land .01 sec faster is not needed. Being able to heal for more is always useful.

And no pre-casting doesn't waste the extra hp from DET. Not sure how you came up with that odd logic. If your casting so your cure goes off right as the damage does and the damage is 1000 hp and your Cure without DET does 900 hp but with DET it does 1100 then the extra DET has an advantage.

Now lets examine a SS build. You pre-cast so the cure goes off right as the damage hits the Damage is 1000 again your cure without SS is 900 HP and maybe lands .01 second after the damage, with the SS it lands right as the damage hits for 900 HP. That .01 second is only going to matter .000000000000000000000000000001% of the time.

[Cynfael]

Still not seeing a good argument in favor of focusing on spell speed; downplaying the benefit of other secondaries doesn't necessarily make the case for spell speed.

If a player wants to stack spell speed on a healer because they think they need it or they think that it feels better, let them. Is it possible to argue effectively that there is a game mechanics advantage to stacking SS at the expense of other secondaries? I really don't think so.

Realistically speaking, how often can you expect a few hundredths of a second to make the difference between life and death? If the answer is truthfully "more often than you might think," then there is a problem more serious than sub-optimal secondary allocation.