How does everyone feel about skill speed?

[Atomisk2099]

I personally think the GCD is a bit much at 2.5 default, they should shave it down to 1.5. You're still limited by TP so I dont see it breaking anything. As far as the skillspeed stat itself, I would much rather see an overall haste stat replace it.

[EasymodeX]

It's only pretty bad for Bards because Crit is good for Bards.

For DRGs and MNKs, skill speed is relatively on par for DPS considerations (although still typically slightly weaker), although it's de-prioritized because it comes with the slight TP burden.

[Aratak]

Melding 101 crit will always increase your critical rate by 7%, while melding 101 speed will always reduce your GCD by 0.096.

Not considering procs, you would get 3.5% more DPS by melding crit.
Assuming you have a GCD of 2.4, you would get 4.175% more damage on your GCD abillities by melding speed.
Assuming you have a GCD of 2.3, you would get 4.364% more damage on your GCD abillities by melding speed.

The effects of critstats stay linear, while the ones on speedstats will get slightly better the more you stack them.
Speed has larger effects (usually more than 20%, which is alot) than crit but don't work on AA and dots. Speed leads to more TP consumption.
The mentioned 4.~% for speed are in practice also diminished, due to animationlocks when using offGCD abillities between GCD abillities.

Speed has also something like 'breakingpoints'. When you stack enough, you can fit one more action into timeframes of buffs.
That could allow the usage of superior rotations.

[Aratak]

These are my thoughts on speed vs. crit.
I have no conclusion yet.

If the statvalues in question are low, I would probably take crit. But speed might become objectively better for certain classes, when you
stack the stat to very high amounts.

[EasymodeX]

Not considering procs, you would get 3.5% more DPS by melding crit.

You would get [baseline crit %] less than 3.5% more relative DPS by melding crit.

Assuming you have a GCD of 2.4, you would get 4.175% more damage on your GCD abillities by melding speed.

You would get [AA+OGCD contribution%] less than 4.175% more relative damage from GCD abilities by melding speed. Sidenote: which you mention later.

Speed has larger effects (usually more than 20%, which is alot) than crit but don't work on AA and dots. Speed leads to more TP consumption.

DOT fallacy: skill speed improves DOT uptime. The actual damage delta (due to server DOT timing) is variable and more of a simulation exercise than anything. For a modeling exercise, DOT damage is increased directly with increased uptime.

Edit: Clarification: the fact that SS does not increase tick rate would be more impacting at higher values of skill speed -- e.g. after the SS stops improving uptime. However, for practical values of SS, it improves uptime.

The mentioned 4.~% for speed are in practice also diminished, due to animationlocks when using offGCD abillities between GCD abillities.

As a practical matter, animation locks only exist for DRGs where the jump animations exceed the slack time between GCD animations.

Edit: Or fringe circumstances where you intentionally try to throw a second OGCD between GCDs, but this is a utility topic (Bard silence), not a DPS output topic.


Edit2:

The only major takeaway is that skill speed does have accelerating returns at high values, countered by the accelerated TP drain. Generally speaking I'd expect to hit some pretty hard TP walls before a player sees any notable DPS accelerated returns.

[NefGP]

Here's the thing though, you're assuming that you can just continuously spam skills and you can't, and this is where crit jumps ahead.

Fights like Titan for example, demand you stay mobile and thus interrupts your attack cycle. In these instances, skill speed is wasted because you can only nudge in so many attacks before having to move again whereas Crit Rate can greatly increase the value of said limited strikes. In a vacuum with unlimited TP, skill speed would likely (eventually) win out with enough of it stacked. However, from what I've personally seen and read (does anyone know if Kanican still plays?) the consensus does appear to be that skill speed is trash. Spell speed is only marginally better because it also affects casting times and not just the recast which can be a big deal for WHM & SCH.

Given the choice, I'd take crit rate & determination every time over skill speed.

[EasymodeX]

Here's the thing though, you're assuming that you can just continuously spam skills and you can't, and this is where crit jumps ahead.

1. Bards can continuously spam skills more than most classes.

2. Crit doesn't jump ahead. It also stops when you can't continuously spam skills.

whereas Crit Rate can greatly increase the value of said limited strikes

Greatly? No.

Small amounts of skill speed is very much like small amounts of crit -- they're both unnoticeable.

the consensus does appear to be that skill speed is trash

Sometimes the consensus is that the Earth is flat.

I don't really care about the consensus. Skill speed is weak, but random idiots pretend it doesn't increase DPS at all, which is not true. They'd gladly trade away 30 SS for 5 DET or CRT or something, which is asinine.

[Aratak]

Thx EasymodeX for your annotations.

I see what you mean with the relative DPS increase with crit being dependent on the critchance you already had before increasing the chance.
Didn't thought about that.
The relative DPS increase would be in my example 0.5*7%* 1/(1+prevCritChance) -> rel. DPS increase for melding crit ~3.04% at 15% baseline critchance

To evaluate the 4.~% in terms of relative DPS increase. I could calculate a factor with the knowledge of my AA DPS and my GCD abillities DPS at 100 potency multiplied by an guessed value based on my average potency on GCD abillities I use while fighting. That guessed value would be dependent on the used rotation and the conditions of the fight (interrutions etc.).
So as DRG I would guess values between 1.84 and 2.6~ for example, assuming I perform better than spamming Heavy Thrust and worse than the 27-actions rotation (without offGCD's) while fighting.

-1000 chars-

[Aratak]

Example (assuming AA DPS = GCD DPS at 100 potency):
-> 4.~% * 2.4 / (2.4 +1) -> roughly 2.8~% to 3% rel. DPS increase for melding speed

Didn't understand exactly what you meant with the effects of speed on DOT's.
(Is it that you can "miss" a tick depending on the length of timegap between reapliing the DOT?)
Not considering that effect, I would agree that speed and crit are roughly on par in that example.

I would also like to hear your opinion on speed allowing better rotations; seems you know what you
are talking about.
For DRG specifically I think you could get an additional action in the timeframe of an Heavy Thrust
buff at about 585 base skillspeed and using speedfood.
That amount of skillspeed is very much possible to get with endgame gear when you are dedicated.

[Aratak]

Fights like Titan for example, demand you stay mobile and thus interrupts your attack cycle. In these instances, skill speed is wasted because you can only nudge in so many attacks before having to move again whereas Crit Rate can greatly increase the value of said limited strikes.

I think I know what you are refering to. In case you got for example 10 sec to do damage, then you can do 4 attacks at 2.5 GCD and also 4 attacks when you had 2.4 and the speed had no effect.
In that example you would be right; speed did not cause more damage.

But in practice the times you can do damage are basically random variables (because you dodged for 0.8 seconds instead 0.6 seconds for example).

Basically when your attacks come in an frequency that is 10% higher you will have statistically an 10% higher chance to apply an additional attack in each of those cases.