Questioning the design of TP

[EasymodeX]

EDIT: "DR" on skill speed should be a natural result of skill speed, like it is in other haste based systems.

Yes the fact that skill speed has exponential returns with an animation hardcap in FF14 is funny/annoying/lulz.

[Shaiandra]

Yes the fact that skill speed has exponential returns with an animation hardcap in FF14 is funny/annoying/lulz.

I haven't studied the mechanics on this; so it has exponential returns by subtracting from the GCD a static amount? i.e. every X skill speed reduces your GCD by 0.01 sec?

[EasymodeX]

EDIT: Here's the other huge nail in the coffin for skill speed: if you notice in the example above, if we extended the fight out to 125 seconds that the "control" case runs out of TP, the 100% haste trial does exactly the same amount of TP spent. Which means thus: if you ever run out of TP in any fight, you will receive absolutely ZERO benefit from any skill speed, because your average TPS over the fight is the same.

1. This argument against SS requires an "infinite duration 100% contact" fight with no extraneous TP recovery (Bardsong). Most of those conditions don't exist in practical situations. Edit: also only really begins to apply to higher amounts of skill speed where the increased TP per second becomes "real".

2. The argument is not absolute even with those conditions since skill speed allows you to compress more attacks into buff windows. E.g. even if you have the same total # of GCDs (due to TP limits), more of those GCDs are spent while Blood for Blood is active. Hence SS improves DPS in that fashion.

3. As a practical matter, due to the way FF14 mechanics work with the "SLOW, LONG AS HELL" GCD, DOTs and buffs tend to have 'big' gaps or clipping windows. Skill speed can serve to close those gaps or inject GCDs to remove the clipping. This generally improves TP efficiency by itself.

4. The inherent weakness of SS (aside from the fact that TP limits its effectiveness) is that SS's main benefit is that it adds filler GCDs, not high-potency GCDs. In other words, potent attacks (like Windbite or Chaos Thrust) are typically on hard or soft cooldowns, so SS doesn't affect them. Filler attacks like Heavy Shot or the DRG thrust combo are generally weaker than the average ability.

I haven't studied the mechanics on this; so it has exponential returns by subtracting from the GCD a static amount? i.e. every X skill speed reduces your GCD by 0.01 sec?

Yes.

For example, assume animations didn't exist and you start with a normal 2.5s GCD. That's 0.4 attacks per second. Add 100 skill speed. That's a 2.4s GCD -- 0.417 attacks per second, an increase of 4%.

Now pretend you have a metric ****ton of skill speed and your GCD was so fast it was 0.2 seconds. That is 5 attacks per second. Then, add the same 100 skill speed. Now you have a 0.1s GCD. That is 10 attacks per second -- double.

Not sure if 'exponential' is the exactly correct mathematical term, but yeah it escalates in value.

Of course, with animation hardcaps, you run into the caps way before the exponential effect really gets going in a big way, so the point is moot. (sidenote: and TP drain >_<)

It's just conceptually funny.

Generally speaking MMOs should use the "delay = base delay / (1 + haste%)" approach, rather than the "delay = base delay - %haste". The delay of the attacks (e.g. a 2.5s GCD) isn't directly what anyone cares about or measures. People care about the # of attacks per second (e.g. 0.4 attacks per second), but it's more awkward to label and communicate, so devs tend to use "2.5 seconds per attack".

That formula is much more scaleable and it makes items easier to itemize. The "delay-%haste" approach only works when the haste amount is very low (as it is in FF14) or you have random hard caps (as you have in FF14).