How does everyone feel about skill speed?

[pandabearcat]

Realistically neither clipping it nor letting it fall off for 1 second actually affects your dps in any meaningful fashion.

[Supersun]

Realistically neither clipping it nor letting it fall off for 1 second actually affects your dps in any meaningful fashion.

It does if the DoT was due to proc during that 1 second. That's a missed 35 potency.

[pandabearcat]

If you clipped every single BioII by 1 second, you would end up with 1/5th of a GCD saved every 3 minutes. You would lose a GCD every 15 minutes.

If you clipped every single Bio I (why would you, instacast) by 1 second, you would miss .6 of a GCD every 3 minutes. You lose 1 GCD every ~5 minutes.

It really, really does not matter.

[Supersun]

The issue with clipping is more with your MP.

For example if you are forced to clip an 18 sec DoTs by 1.5 sec each time you are essentially making it cost 9% more MP to keep that DoT up which may in the long run force you to cut more Thunders from your rotation which would be a significant loss to DPS (relatively speaking).

[Aratak]

The issue with clipping is more with your MP.

For example if you are forced to clip an 18 sec DoTs by 1.5 sec each time you are essentially making it cost 9% more MP to keep that DoT up which may in the long run force you to cut more Thunders from your rotation which would be a significant loss to DPS (relatively speaking).

That is one reason to avoid clipping. Another one would be that you can't overwrite a buffed DOT with an unbuffed one. Don't know if that is relevant for your class. But if it happens you would waste the comlete DOT damage of the new action!

So I recommend to avoid clipping at all, unless you are sure the latter problem won't happen and the first one (MP inefficiency) is acceptable for you.

To bring the discussion back on topic (skillspeed) and about how I understand 'DOT fallacy':

-1000 chars-

[Aratak]

It seems DOT's are ticking based on servertiming (every 3 seconds if I'm correct). So every 3 seconds all mobs that have DOT's applied will receive damage. Note that the application of DOT's onto mobs is not synchronized with servertiming since the application originates from pushing hotkeys by players.
So you would want the timegap between falling off and reaplying a DOT to be as narrow as possible to reduce the chance that a servertick ends up in that timegap. That can obviously be done via increasing skillspeed (assuming a fixed rotation).

-1000 chars-

[Aratak]

That's how increasing skillspeed increases DOT damage up to the point where the timegap disappears (clipping starts/100% uptime) and the DOT's will tick every 3 sedonds. As mentioned before it can be problematic when clipping occurs and that is when skillspeed can actually have a 'real' negative effect.

All in all, skillspeed is beneficial for DOT's up to an certain amount where it can cause problems.
Probably it is best to check your rotations and find out the neagtive 'breakingpoints' regarding skillspeed in case of perfect execution, then adjust gear or the rotation accordingly.

[Kevee]

For example if you are forced to clip an 18 sec DoTs by 1.5 sec each time you are essentially making it cost 9% more MP to keep that DoT up

You can't reliably say that due to the way DoTs work.

If there's 1.5s on the timer, you could have potentially gotten your full MPs worth of damage. So, yeah, you're refreshing the debuff earlier than if it ticked at .0~1s left on the timer, but you still got your full MP worth of damage.

I always try to clip between .999~-0 on the timer. That is, not when it shows ONE on the debuff. A 1 on the debuff means 1.999~-1.0~1. The debuff won't have a number on it during that time. As panda said, we're all human and it varies on fight to fight. At most, I clip at ~1.5-1.99999~s(so it shows a 1 on the debuff timer).

Exception is RS/Foe Req DoTs, which you have to let fall of completely.

[Supersun]

If there's 1.5s on the timer, you could have potentially gotten your full MPs worth of damage. So, yeah, you're refreshing the debuff earlier than if it ticked at .0~1s left on the timer, but you still got your full MP worth of damage.

Or one more tick may have been due during that 1.5 secs and you refreshed over it causing your previous cast to "essentially" lose one tick.

Until we get some add-on that shows us when DoTs tick most players are just going to work on keeping a DoT up 100% of the time to prevent a DPS loss and consistently clipping it 1.5 seconds early is in essence decreasing the duration of the spell by 1.5 seconds resulting in a 9% increase in MP over time to upkeep an 18 second duration spell.

While the goal is always to try and clip the least possible if you are constantly auto-queueing spells and firing them the moment GDC is up you only have windows to recast things during a multiple of whatever your GDC recast time is.

For example if your GDC is 2.4 seconds you will run into this issue with Bio II. If you consistently keep casting spells the moment they are available then when it's time to recast Bio II you can only weave it in 1.2 early or 1.2 seconds late. This means you can essentially do 3 things.

1) Clip it 1.2 seconds early resulting in your Bio II costing 4% more MP over time
2) Let it fall off for 1.2 seconds resulting in your Bio II doing 4% less damage over time
3) Wait 1.2 seconds before recasting the spell which means you are losing 1.2 seconds of GDC every 30 seconds

If you were to knock your spell speed down to 2.31 (or back up to 2.5) as long as you are consistently using your GDC the moment it is up you won't have this problem anymore since 2.31 divides cleanly into 30. Your Bio II should always be landing .03 seconds after the previous one has worn off (though I'm not sure if DoTs are only applied at specific server intervals).

Of course the problem is that DoTs have different durations so while a GDC of 2.4 seconds is terrible for Bio II and likely costing you extra damage, time, or MP it's also absolutely perfect for Miasma resulting in you reapplying Miasma the moment it falls off.

[Woodberry]

Speaking of dots, what is the proper course of action to take in the following example:

You have applied a dot that is buffed with raging strike. Raging strikes has faded and the dot is approaching expiration. Your GCD comes up with 1 second left on the DOT. Is it best to delay the GCD in order to get your DOT back up or should you fire off an attack and lose 1.5 seconds of DOT uptime?