Spell Speed?

[Diskordea]

So while looking through some guides, I read that spell speed is essentially useless. You need a lot to make a difference, and are way better off going with crit. Would like to confirm the validity of this.

[Xakery]

same goes with skill speed. I have tried adding some speed+ materia to gear and never notice anything ; ; best to cap crit+ & determination

[Thaliss]

looking speed for short fight time it s useless

But if you look long fighting time, even if you don't see it at each skill, it will add up. GCD and reduced casting times.
In 15mn fighting time (900 seconds) you have :
- 360 GCDs of 2.5seconds
- 375 GCDs of 2.4seconds
- 391 GCDs of 2.3seconds
- 409 GCDs of 2.2seconds
- 428 GCDs of 2.1seconds
- 450 GCDs of 2.0seconds

It has it s uses, it snot only the number of GCDs you can pull it means you will have your skill available faster, finish your cast before having to move from aoe etc.
It's is more hidden effect, like damage prevention, people don't notice until they get hit hard

EDIT : each reduction of 0.1s in GCD means an average of +1 GCDs per 1min.

[Hiroradius]

It's still up in the air, at first spell speed and skill speed were said to be ignored totally, there just wasn't enough in game as present time for it to be a useful stat.

After 2.1, some new number crunching has found that spell speed for black mages was in fact a very useful stat and was being figured as more important then crit, in long term boss fights, but in trash mobs it is still considered an inferior stat.

The advantage of spell speed is that you can get your casts off faster, so you can get out of the red circles more often while still getting your cast off. You do need a lot of it to get there, but it basically is 450 spell speed.. you get 5 casts off for the time of 4 casts. so at the time of 8 casts you have done 10, etc etc etc..

Yes it's useful, but again it's more useful against boss fights not trash

[Mhaeric]

For Black Mages it can be very useful. Looking at BiS training dummy parser comparisons weighted to Crit vs. Spell Speed, the Spell Speed build out-performs the Crit build slightly in the long run. Add in needing to move around a lot in a boss battle, and it edges even further ahead because it's easier to squeeze spells in between needing to move. That said, it's not a huge difference, so whichever way you like to build your stats is fine. If you like seeing big numbers, then Crit is more than acceptable to focus on.

Here's some graphs to show you the differences in builds over the course of 4 minutes, illustrating that Spell Speed provides more damage in the long run. http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen..._vs_sspd_with/

[AldoVonAlexandros]

useless? no, but if u are a blm crit is your thing, forget spell speed, im a scholar and sspeed works pretty fine with me conmbined with selene

[Mhaeric]

useless? no, but if u are a blm crit is your thing, forget spell speed, im a scholar and sspeed works pretty fine with me conmbined with selene

I would not take this advice. While Black Mage can certainly focus on crit and still be almost as effective as someone who focused on spell speed, a Scholar who focuses on Spell Speed will not be near as effective as someone who focused on crit because they get significant additional benefits from crit. Those 2.25x strength Adloquiums 30% of the time will outweigh being able to cast an extra heal once per minute at 10% crit. A White Mage would arguably get some benefit out of Spell Speed, since they're far more reactive healers, their heals are bigger to begin with so crits usually equal more over healing, and they don't have inherent bonuses based on crits.

[AldoVonAlexandros]

I would not take this advice. While Black Mage can certainly focus on crit and still be almost as effective as someone who focused on spell speed, a Scholar who focuses on Spell Speed will not be near as effective as someone who focused on crit because they get significant additional benefits from crit. Those 2.25x strength Adloquiums 30% of the time will outweigh being able to cast an extra heal once per minute at 10% crit. A White Mage would arguably get some benefit out of Spell Speed, since they're far more reactive healers, their heals are bigger to begin with so crits usually equal more over healing, and they don't have inherent bonuses based on crits.

well, i didnt say focus in speed spell, but its not useless at all, as a scholar i need a lot of crit and some spellspeed combined with selene buffs it works great, in fact, it works great on everyone haha

[Anova]

Mm, I am inclined to say scholars benefit more from crit and determination than spellspeed, although I do see an argument to build spellspeed as secondary since the pet buff increases your sspd by 20% if it crits. It still requires you to have the necessary crit gear for your summon though. Similarly, SMN benefit more from crit than spellspeed. I am not as familiar with the benefit to BLM, though it seems Mhaeric covered it quite extensively.

As for WHM and crit, while you do get bigger heals with crit gear, it becomes much more difficult to manage enmity with crit gear than spellspeed and determination. Most WHM already have a tendency to pull off tanks, and full crit gear will almost guarantee enough overheals to warrant a premature shroud of saints for most players. If you have ways to manage the extra enmity (largely how comfortable you are with the boss skill rotation and boomeranging tank hp) it's fine, but most find it too troublesome and focus on slightly more powerful and faster heals than the random multiplier of crit.

[Siobahn]

useless? no, but if u are a blm crit is your thing, forget spell speed, im a scholar and sspeed works pretty fine with me conmbined with selene

This is contradictory to EVERY reliable theorycrafting post about blm that I can find. If you're going to give people advice, don't give them wrong advice based on what you *think* would be good, using observations from a different job.