Is SkillSpeed too weak?

[Eliadil]

Well, according to the balance, 28 gcd rotation is more effective than 29 and 30 gcd rotations.

So no, not really. Also, sams need to hit the right tier of sks to perfectly align banana reapplication, midare with meikyo, and tsubame gaeshi, not for senei

Well, if we exclude the whole "we have to watch for our gcd to do a 57.5sec rotation" yeah SkS is pretty viable. At the moment it is because Tsubame is a poorly implemented skill. (An ability tied to a fix 2.5 GCD is a terrible idea, especially if it needs to be triggered by a 9GCD combo first)

If you remove Tsubame from the equation, or rework it to make it a better tool that doesn't force you into a GCD tier, then SkS becomes pretty viable.

[Brandedblade]

I dont have exact numbers, but I do know that healers tend to want enough spell Speed to hit...iirc, approx 2.44 gcd. I think it has something to do with keeping dot maintenance more consistent but I dont remember the exact reason

[Taranok]

Well, if we exclude the whole "we have to watch for our gcd to do a 57.5sec rotation" yeah SkS is pretty viable. At the moment it is because Tsubame is a poorly implemented skill. (An ability tied to a fix 2.5 GCD is a terrible idea, especially if it needs to be triggered by a 9GCD combo first)

If you remove Tsubame from the equation, or rework it to make it a better tool that doesn't force you into a GCD tier, then SkS becomes pretty viable.

I'd say the issue goes deeper than that. But the big problem comes from points already brought up. The 2 big offenders are that Skill/Spell Speed doesn't affect oGCDs, and some classes actually lose damage from having a faster rotation, such as Ninja, due to oGCD clipping.

WoW solved this problem in a couple ways, since Haste iirc reduces oGCD cooldowns (and since every class is a priority-based rotation, they don't have to fit things into a strict rotation). Since WoW also doesn't have snapshotting, Haste also speeds up the tic rate of DoTs while reducing DoT durations up until it would shave off an entire base tic worth of time, at which point it adds time up to the original maximum. So while haste isn't always the best, it's always viable on most classes. Especially after Bliz decided to kill their oGCD bloat.

FFXIV exacerbates the problem, though, because of "animation locks" on oGCDs and GCDs meaning you can't spam them out as fast as you can click, so there's a fundamental maximum to when, and where, you can use them, which causes other problems. The ridiculously tight rotations run into further problems because you kind of want to use certain abilities at certain times, and at the end of the day skill speed/spell speed is just a bad stat.

Only 1 class really likes it to any real degree, Black Mage, since its rotation is the least dependent on oGCDs and the most dependent on raw GCDs going out faster. But even that class can suffer from odd timings of GCDs and can under-run its cooldowns leading to delays and lost damage. Plus, the shorter your GCD, the more you clip on oGCDs while casting Fire/Blizzard 3s, so even that class has limits.

Basically, the rotations are too tightly tuned and dependent on things SS doesn't buff, while being made worse by snapshotting and a lack of DoTs being affected by much of anything in this game due to server-side limitations, so the stat ends up being garbage most of the time. And the one class it's actually good on is because it's a semi-freeform rotation with a relative lack of dependence on oGCDs and the ability to use those oGCDs somewhat freely. Also, a 2.48s GCD fire 4 on black mage is just...hilarious. I don't even care if it's suboptimal, it's just fun.

[Shurrikhan]

Well, if we exclude the whole "we have to watch for our gcd to do a 57.5sec rotation" yeah SkS is pretty viable. At the moment it is because Tsubame is a poorly implemented skill. (An ability tied to a fix 2.5 GCD is a terrible idea, especially if it needs to be triggered by a 9GCD combo first)

If you remove Tsubame from the equation, or rework it to make it a better tool that doesn't force you into a GCD tier, then SkS becomes pretty viable.

Even a 5-second grace period between the Iajutsu's completion and Tsubame Gaeshi becoming unavailable would do wonders for it.

Though I have to wonder, honestly, why they force it to be used in the immediately following GCD at all. We have other unlocked skills that are prepped for at least 10 seconds -- some, indefinitely.