Quote Originally Posted by Valence View Post
If you're using three times the duration needed you're doing something wrong.
Yet that tremendous leniency in duration is literally the design of every stack system. Delirium needs ~4 seconds (2 GCDs + the [half-second plus twice one's ping] animation lock of Delirium itself and the final GCD as to fit in a third). It has a 15 second duration. Inner Release is identical. Bunshin needs 9 seconds and has a 30-second duration. Requiescat needs 12.5 seconds and has a 30-second duration. Sword Oath needs 7.5 seconds and has a duration of 30 seconds.

That is the precedent of what you're asking for.

Fortunately doing some dumb unoptimal realignments doesn't seem to hurt the damage much.
And those realignments, be they dumb or clever, are exactly what differs content from merely hitting a striking dummy and I much prefer that.

by sticking to rigid timers you're by design restricting the amount of alternatives and different types of playstyles
You realize stacks do exactly the same thing, just arguably worse, while further devaluing stat choice? The only redeeming grace for such would be that Twin Snakes at least would still be on a real-time duration.

for example I appreciate on BLM where you'll find all kinds of different builds, some with speed, some with crit, some in between, depending your taste and preferences, all performing well.
Those options exist because, like current Monk, there is no free (non-action-scaled) oGCD damage, only small amounts of purely time-supplied damage, and Ley Lines is NOT on a stack system. Move LL to stacks and SpS suddenly becomes that much less desirable. Just as RoF being on stacks would nuke the competitiveness of SkS on Monk.

Getting one or two more GCDs per 120min cycles will obviously net slightly more potential crits but you'll have to remember that those are also affected by crit rate. Crit rate, is also on a threshold/tiering system, which can't be compared to raw percentage values, and also affects crit damage. You're essentially trading more chances to crit on all your GCDs (but bootshines), harder crits as well, in exchange for a chance of more crit from a limited amount of additional GCDs.
SkS is also on a threshold/tiering system. Anything without infinite decimal points will have specific stat value tiers. No stat uses a true percentage curve.

What percentage of your rotational Chakra-contributing actions will SkS affect the rate of generation from? 100%.
What percentage of your rotational Chakra-contributing actions will Crit affect the rate of generation from? 83.3% in ST and 66.7% in AoE (reduced in practice due to Perfect Balance).

Whether SkS puts out higher damage overall per stat point spent or not is another issue entirely, but in a pure uptime fight, SkS will more greatly affect Chakra generation TFC damage over time than will Critical Hit.