Viability of a Spell Speed WHM set up?

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Right, you're pretty much known for being a big fan of spell speed as a black mage. Of course, as a black mage the more spells you cast in a single encounter, the better. It means more damage of course. Likewise, if you cast more spells as a white mage, it also means more healing done in a single encounter.

Now here's the problem: Each encounter only has a certain range of HPS to meet. Any HPS that goes over it will most likely be overhealing and any gear the tank/party gets, the less HPS you need in general. So with progression and gear, spell speed becomes less and less viable and even completely useless at one point. This is simply due to the following:
-You never chain spells as a healer like you do as a black mage
-Pre-casting completely voids the purpose of spell speed - You should be familiar with this as a black mage too (pre-cast thunder pre-pull)
-White Mages have a considerable amount of idle time, whether you like it or not. This also destroys the usefulness of spell speed
-It contributes nothing for the healing vs cost ratio

But there's a problem with gear: A lot of piety equipment comes with either Critical Hit Rate or Spell speed. Only exception being the ironworks robe and ring. So onward to your gear:

http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/PLA5

Your final stats with this gear are:
Mind 643
Accuracy 411
Critical Hit Rate 375
Determination 317
Spell speed 698
Vitality 505
Piety 339

In your gear your piety is really low. I can't be assed to do the exact maths on this, but I'm guessing you're under 4300 MP. The popular meta is for the White Mage to have 5000 mp or a bit more. You'll have more starting MP then and your natural MP recovery will increase significantly over time. It also reduces the need for ballad as a White Mage. Naturally avoiding ballad as a bard not only increases their own DPS, but also the casters if the MP is spend on requiem.

Secondly I noticed you have a crafted ring in there. The i120 ironworks ring is actually the second best thing a White Mage can get. The crafted ring you have in mind over the i120 ironworks ring would give you: +19 crit, +2 determination, +18 spell speed, +8 vitality, -3 mind and -15 piety.
3 mind equals roughly 6 determination. Average healing-wise, the crafted ring would reduce your average healing for each spell slightly. For the remaining stats, 19 crit, 18 spell speed and 8 vitality, you're sacrificing 15 piety for it. Even if you meld piety over spell speed, you're still losing out on at least 3 piety. If anything, the crit isn't worth the piety difference. It would be a good ring to use for T13 if you need the HP, however. I would recommend getting the scarf and/or bangles over the rings/earrings. Those are more suitable for White Mages as the rings and earrings are more suitable for Scholars.
Lastly, depending whether you want to offdps during available windows in FCOB, you might want to consider putting accuracy on your nirvana or not. This highly depends on you and the scholar if this is possible, however. But it might be something to consider.

Edit: I just noticed someone sneaked in a comment about spell speed being the "OH SHIT" stat. If you're in a situation you realise you're already too late, no amount of spell speed is going to save anyone here.

You might also find this an interesting topic if you're looking for general White Mage 101s: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ls-at-level-50

[DarkerOrange]

TBH, if your tank is on 1 HP, you have already f'ed up, and no amount of secondary stats will make up for that. SpSp is not a great stat, but if you like slightly faster heals then feel free to use it, it isn't going to gimp your ability to heal.

[Invision]

TBH, if your tank is on 1 HP, you have already f'ed up, and no amount of secondary stats will make up for that. SpSp is not a great stat, but if you like slightly faster heals then feel free to use it, it isn't going to gimp your ability to heal.

I knew someone would say that and obviously you don't deal with the massive aoe damage of final coil

[DarkerOrange]

Obviously, learning content is an exception, and no I don't because I only started doing coil a month ago, but I look forward to FCOB.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Actually, Spellspeed is still garbage even in FCOB. Unless you can get so much spell speed that your recast time is 2,00s or less, it's won't do anything. For both White Mage and Scholar

[Talia_Hailwind]

TBH, if your tank is on 1 HP, you have already f'ed up.

Thats why we have benediction

[Talia_Hailwind]

I used to go DET/SS and changed recently to:

DET>PIE>SS If my MP is more than 5k
PIE>DET>SS If my MP is less than 5k

This is reflected on my nirvana which is 31 DET 33 PIE 11 SS

5k MP is enough for ANYTHING in current content and you will never have an MP problem unless your spamming cure 2, medica 2 e.g.


The arguement of crit vs ss is choose one and stick with it.
Never touch crit as WHM, save that gear for a SCH, as you will find ss/det or ss/pie which make up most of the BIS augemented ironworks accessories are pretty easy to get with the new WoD weekly carboncoat and the bracelet is turn 11.

Yes more crit is nice, but it is luck based, I have very low crit and got 3 crits in a row once.
At least with ss its always there for you, preys in T10 for example only have 6 seconds for you to get that 2.5 second casting stoneskin on, I'd take the extra mill-second any day over a luck based stat for peace of mind.

[Cynfael]

A little Spell Speed makes no noticeable difference, while tons of it not only do little for your primary heal CDs but are completely unnecessary given the way combat works in this game.

No amount of spell speed is going to fix poor life choices (whether by the healer or the party). At best high SPSD will give reactive players more room for error, but healers who know their fights don't benefit much at all.

E.g. You know when Prey is about to go out if you pay attention to the fight in T10. The only thing more SPSD gives you is a fraction of a second longer to dislodge your thumb from your ass and attend to the mechanic that shouldn't have been any surprise to begin with.

[Velox]

Just throwing this out there, but Spell Speed builds are very viable under 2 different scenarios.
If you are solo-healing content, you are also chaining heals more often. Spell speed has the unique property that it decreases cast time and recast time, so it has double the effect of skill speed. Spell Speed + Piety is the best build for this.
If you weave DPS spells in between heals (meaning you are constantly casting something) spell speed also makes a noticeable difference.

That being said, if 99% of the content you do is with a healing partner or you prefer not to DPS a lot, Spell Speed is almost worthless. Determination +Piety would be a better choice.

On a side note, Presence of Mind doubles your existing Spell Speed during the effect. I've noticed that, with enough Spell Speed, I was able to get Medica II to cast in .97 seconds. At some point in the future Spell Speed builds will be amazing as the levels on gear continue to grow.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

I used to go DET/SS and changed recently to:

DET>PIE>SS If my MP is more than 5k
PIE>DET>SS If my MP is less than 5k

This is reflected on my nirvana which is 31 DET 33 PIE 11 SS

5k MP is enough for ANYTHING in current content and you will never have an MP problem unless your spamming cure 2, medica 2 e.g.


The arguement of crit vs ss is choose one and stick with it.
Never touch crit as WHM, save that gear for a SCH, as you will find ss/det or ss/pie which make up most of the BIS augemented ironworks accessories are pretty easy to get with the new WoD weekly carboncoat and the bracelet is turn 11.

Yes more crit is nice, but it is luck based, I have very low crit and got 3 crits in a row once.
At least with ss its always there for you, preys in T10 for example only have 6 seconds for you to get that 2.5 second casting stoneskin on, I'd take the extra mill-second any day over a luck based stat for peace of mind.

Crit is luck based, but any form of ability will void spell speed of any potential benefit it gains. A white mage who plans properly and actually knows what he/she is doing has no use for Spell speed. Crit may or may not help. But at least it -has- a chance to create beneficial effects. Even if not for healing, it can still up the dps a bit if you're off DPSing.

Spell speed has no benefit when off-dpsing unless you're tossing out somewhere around 20 spells in success. Which is an extremely rare occasion.