Viability of a Spell Speed WHM set up?

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

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.

Assuming spell speed stays the same, yeah. I don't think it's completely unreasonable to think that they're going to change Spell Speed. I believe they mentioned somewhere in a live letter that they're changing skill speed for 3.0*. So it's not too far fetched to think spell speed's on the topic as well

* can anyone verify that?

[Raminax]

Rawr.

It's a bit old, but I can't find anything else. Skill Speed (And I'll assume Spell Speed by extension) isn't outright planned to be changed, but Yoshida claims that Skill/Spell Speed will become more relevant once the level cap is increased. (Scroll down roughly halfway if you have a fear of the beloved CTRL+F Buttons. )

That said, no mechanical changes implied in the quote, at least.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

It's a bit old, but I can't find anything else. Skill Speed (And I'll assume Spell Speed by extension) isn't outright planned to be changed, but Yoshida claims that Skill/Spell Speed will become more relevant once the level cap is increased. (Scroll down roughly halfway if you have a fear of the beloved CTRL+F Buttons. )

That said, no mechanical changes implied in the quote, at least.

In the Live Letter XVIII translation document:
"F: Spell speed and skill speed are junk at the moment. Do you plan to improve it?
Y: Fundamentally looking at the game’s design, there will always be some gear that is more desirable than others, and some stats that are more desirable than others. If we made SS as good as det or crit then there would be less of a sense of needing to choose between pieces of gear… But we do have plans for SS so please wait and see."

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...eview?sle=true

In a way, it doesn't make sense not to change how skill/spell speed works, especially when level cap is raised. Imagine Black Mages tossing spells out with a 1,5s cast time

[Raminax]

Rawr.

Sure would! Though I have this suspicion Skill/Spell Speed would shoot right to the top if this kind of change ever happened. Especially considering how Spell/Skill Speed currently are flat reductions in cast times/general cooldowns, rather than increasing the rate at which you cast. I wonder what Regen and Medica II would look like with 100% Spell Speed...

Rawr.

That much is true. It definitely needs some level scaling in place, at the very least. Otherwise we'll be reaching 100% critical strike rates and instant casts by the time we have a second expansion or something, unless Squeenix curbs the ilvl upgrades between tiers (or hardcaps several secondaries).