Viability of a Spell Speed WHM set up?

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

You attacked my comments first when I was voicing my opinion of turn 10. Don't claim you weren't, the comment is right there.

Discrediting one's statement is different from attacking one's persona. In Cynfael's case, he was discrediting the value the benefit spell speed would give you. Meanwhile you neglected to acknowledge the post I made about your statement that "crit should be avoided" and, supposely, that spell speed is a "better choice".

Edit:
To make it easy for you, I was talking about this post

Crit is luck based, but any form of ability will void spell speed of any potential benefit it gains. A white mage who plans properly and actually knows what he/she is doing has no use for Spell speed. Crit may or may not help. But at least it -has- a chance to create beneficial effects. Even if not for healing, it can still up the dps a bit if you're off DPSing.

Spell speed has no benefit when off-dpsing unless you're tossing out somewhere around 20 spells in success. Which is an extremely rare occasion.

[MiniTofu]

Spell Speed secondary for waste of mana is irrelevant statement, you will be wasting mana regardless if you spam non-stop over-healing. Spell speed is weak and yet you can always pre-cast if you know the coming boss mechanics.

Spell Speed beneficial for learning and emergency moment to help recovery in case someone made a "OOPS" moment (not you). Healers would be responsible as a team to recover someone mistakes. We can't be perfect like bots.

Spell Speed can speed up long cast Raise, Esuna, Stoneskin phase and etc.

Secondary stats are "label" as playstyle preferences, if you are good with cast timing. Then Spell Speed is useless to you personally and you can't speak for other. Everyone has different real life, latency and reaction timing when it comes to awareness of their surrounding and how focus they can be in a game.

On reddit there is post if you want to know how effective Skill/Spell speed scales: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...l_spell_speed/

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

snip

You're not reading...

And skill-/spell speed scaling is more relevant for DPS classes and tank classes to an extend. Healing itself has no benefit from spell speed

[Donjo]

I think Lyrica's point, as she kind of pointed out already, was that the user posted the video to prove they weren't a "scrubby" healer, and that they were trying to seemingly brag about their T10 clear. Lyrica pointed out that her video didn't prove anything, and gave her information on how to better her T10 run.

So the main point Lyrica was trying to make was that she claimed she wan't a scrubby healer but posted a video that prove the exact opposite. Though I may be wrong.

And I kind of have to disagree with your list. A liability doesn't mean they will cause your team to lose. A liability is anyone who is not doing their job to the fullest, or is being lazy, and is just making everyone else's job harder. You can still win but it will a lot harder than with someone who was not a liability.

An example would be if you were to queue into ST and find that your fellow healer is doing very little, or nothing at all. They are a liability. You can still win, by solo healing, but it will be far more difficult. This is not "Not Optimal", this is a liability.

First, Lyrica did not provide any particular advice on bettering the run. She started her treatise by first calling it bait(prepping for insults before even watching the video), then providing a bulleted list of all of Talia's mistakes and finally proclaiming the video so terrible that it wasn't worth watching to the end. She, in a later post, directly called Talia a liability. This is not constructive at all; it is downright insulting. There was literally no desire to help her improve. Lyrica simply belittled and insulted her. Even if we can argue that Talia started things in the wrong, Lyrica took the ball and ran it straight into the endzone of how not to treat a human being.

Now, if we put together all the information about Talia that has been gathered in this thread, we can obtain the following:

1. She was healing Turn 10.
2. She was a Scholar.
3. Her main class, according to her forum avatar, is White Mage.
4. She had been a level 50 Scholar for 3 days.
5. She filled in as a Scholar as what was presumably a last minute addition, having only experienced the healing perspective of this fight as a White Mage.

The odds were stacked against this Scholar, weren't they? She went in with minimal experience in the job and limited experience in a difficult fight from that particular perspective as the healer class who is burdened with one of the most important responsibilities in the entire fight(prey)... and she still won. Mistakes or not, she genuinely deserves to be proud of this victory. I bet her party was also impressed with her performance, considering the circumstances. The fact that she was still able to pull through at all proves that she is not a bad scholar and it also proves she can be a great one if she keeps at it. The next time she does this fight as a scholar, she's going to do better and win more decisively. That's what will ultimately matter in the end.

Now, the liabilities. I'll give this to you. I forgot one specific kind of person when I wrote up my categories: the lazy player. This is the player that, as you've said, either does very little or nothing at all. I optimistically assume that the Non Optimal player is at least trying to improve their performance over time. The lazy player, however, is not trying to improve. They're trying to ride through on the coattails of others. In many situations, the lazy player will be a liability by my definition: their inaction will cause a wipe. In situations like the 24 mans or the 8 man story dungeons, it's not very difficult to handle 1 or 2 lazy players. In a 4 man, a lazy Tank or Healer will often end in a wipe. In Extreme Primals, a lazy anybody will probably lead to a wipe. In 2nd and Final Coil, any lazy player will probably wipe the party. In all of these situations, they're clearly liabilities by anyone's definition. It's the situations where it's very possible to do the instance(as in the only consequence is a longer duty, not any significant increase in difficulty) with one man down that are fuzzy. We're probably both right here. There is a time when the lazy player both is and is not making a fight far more difficult than it needs to be. If the fight isn't any more difficult without this person, then they're simply lazy. If the fight is made unreasonably more difficult to the point of making death extremely likely, than they're being a liability.

I should also add an addendum to the Liability, even though you didn't mention this particular situation: someone who intentionally goes out of their way to try and wipe the party is definitely a liability.

And now to directly address Lyrica.

You're mistaken here on several levels. VanilleFang already explained most of it (thanks), so I'll just skip to whatever is remaining. You believe that I think perfection is necessary. Where did I claim that? Or even anywhere between the lines. You're mistaking "perfection" with "effort". There are people who put effort into things and those who don't. Not putting in effort while the rest of your group is, I find that extremely disrespectful. And on each side of the coin there are extremities: Elitists and scrubs. That link refers to what kind of person you are on the forums, by the way.

You didn't claim that perfection was necessary, nor did I claim that you claimed it was necessary. I said was that you were belittling another for not being perfect, because this is what your attitude was suggesting. While I did directly state that perfection was not necessary to complete content, I meant it in a general sense, not as a direct criticism to you. In my diagram(let's add in the lazy player I outlined above your quote here too, since VanilleFang proved that it was an incomplete model), everybody except the Lazy Player and the Liability are attempting to improve their game. They're not failing to put in the effort. The Non Optimal Player just isn't good enough to consistently win yet, but they're trying to improve. Any Non Optimal Player who stops trying to improve becomes Lazy. Talia, for reference, was being a Non Optimal Player in her particular situation. The Optimal Player is playing more than well enough to win. Improvement from here is often for improvement's sake alone; after all, why settle for merely winning when one can win better somehow? The Perfect Player is the beacon all should aspire to, even if it's impossible to hold onto for very long.

Let's talk about the advice you gave Talia now. The result of this was that she withdrew and then called you an elitist. Regardless of whether the elitist moniker is true for you or not, this happened because she felt insulted by what you said to her. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here and surmise that you were not simply looking to insult her. I'll assume that you were indeed trying to provide feedback aimed at improving her gameplay. The problem here is that it's difficult to say "you did something wrong" without the other person getting defensive about it. This is why structuring criticism in a constructive way helps to prevent such conflicts. Telling someone what they did wrong and then calling them a liability is not constructive. As a result, it was seen by Talia as an attack. One frequently cited ways to effectively give constructive criticism can be thought of like a sandwich. Start by saying something positive, present your criticisms(in a non-caustic manner), and then end with something positive.

For example...

-----

Good job on that T10 win! There were some close calls there, but it looks like you pulled through okay. I've got some tips that might help reduce those close calls:

- I noticed that Virus wasn't going out very often. Big attacks, whether they're aimed at just the Tank or the entire raid, are perfect times to lay it down. A great macro for this is to assign Virus to be cast on your target's target(/ac "Virus" <tt>). Except for you and your healer buddy, everyone else should be always targeting the boss unless there are adds out, so this macro should usually hit the boss without fussing with your targeting.
- If Eye for an Eye isn't on the tank, throw it on! Every caster in the game has access to it, so it's hard to put together a party that can't have great uptime on it. I'm personally very guilty of forgetting that both Eye for an Eye and Virus exist, so I understand why some other scholars might as well.
- I noticed that you didn't use Eos' abilities very much. These are absurdly powerful and they can make portions of any fight effortless. Experiment with her!
- You spent a lot of time idle during the second phase. Why not toss some dots out? This is also a great situation to make use of target of target macros.
- Adlos were almost late on Preys fairly frequently. Don't be afraid to use Swiftcast if you fear you won't make it. If you're in the middle of a cast when it shows up, I personally think that the most effective way to cancel a cast quickly is to jump in place. I understand that this just takes practice, though. A great effort for your first clear as a scholar!

All in all, it looks like it's just coming down to using everything in the Scholar's toolkit. As for the very act of healing, you've got that down pretty well! Keep it up and you'll be clearing 11+ in no time

-----

Okay, so let's see what I did here in comparison to you. First, I used that sandwich paradigm. Positive -> Criticise -> Positive. In theory, the criticized will start happy and leave happy. Hopefully. I mentioned many of the points you labeled as mistakes in your previous post. In addition to this, however, I coupled each criticism with a suggestion for improvement. This practice of leaving suggestions is the crux of constructive criticism. You provide criticism but also attempt to help foster improvement at the same time.

Now, we get to the last point. You posted the tvtrope link to the Scrub! This plucking of what is considered to be the polar opposite of the "Stop Having Fun" Guy suggests that you read the article I pegged you as. It even suggests that you understand what the SHF Guy is. However, the fact that you attempted to peg me as a Scrub by the tvtrope definition proves that you unfortunately did not read that particular article.

Before I go further, I would like to mention a second reason I labeled you as a SHF Guy, other than what appeared to be your insulting Talia over non-optimal play. This other reason would be the elaborate treatises against Spell Speed you write every single time a healer even expresses even a sliver of interest in whether or not using it is a good idea. You're unflinchingly quick to state that not only is that stat bad, it will actually hinder you somehow. You then proceed to point every aspiring healer straight toward Determination, because that is the "best, most reliable" stat. This is a process in which you loudly champion your particular playstyle as the peak of healing(WHM in particular) and show complete intolerance toward the most common playstyle other than that. The SHF guy in a nutshell.

Now, the scrub. They say that the SHF guy often takes what we call elitism in this form to its logical extreme. The scrub does the opposite; he takes casual play to its logical extreme. This is most often manifested in the setting of "house rules", which often come in the flavors of eliminating particularly complicated mechanics in a game or banning strategies/characters/etc. that are seen by the scrub as being overpowered. The first thing one might notice with these definitions is that we're playing an MMO. It's kind of difficult to set house rules that have any kind of meaning due to the sheer number of people playing it. We can come up with silly runs like Xenosys' "Man Mode" boss battles, but that's not quite the same. We're talking about things like banning Monks from PF parties because their single target DPS is higher than everyone else's and that's overpowered, looking at someone's gear and kicking them if they're using Determination gear because Determination is too good, or only allowing Tanks with all VIT accessories into a fight because only they are the true tanks. They would then proceed to continually enforce these rules because having all of these things missing makes the game more fun. Basically, the scrub takes anything they do not like in a game and not only refuses to do it themselves, but attempts to force others not to use it too. This is in contrast to the SHF Guy, who attempts to force others to avoid any strategy except for the infallible "best" strategy. However, a scrub who can't enforce house rules will still refuse to use any strategy they don't like or see as overpowered. These might be identified in FFXIV as the "I play how I want!" people, who are particularly well known for shrugging off all constructive criticism because it doesn't jive with they way they wish to play.

So, let's go over a couple of things that I've said and done recently. Do they make me a scrub?

1. In this very thread, I have championed the notion that healers should not worry about what Secondary Stats they pick and should instead pick what they prefer because every build is viable. This can be seen as a "casual" viewpoint because it doesn't outwardly appear to be attempting to maximize performance in some way, but it leaves every player with room to maximize whatever they think is most important to maximize. For example, I feel it most important as a Scholar to maximize Crit, so I use Crit gear whenever I have a choice. I do not, however, shake my head sadly whenever I see a Scholar stacking something else. It's their prerogative.

2. I absolutely loathe the fact that stacking Strength instead of Vitality on Tanks is not only very possible, but incredibly effective. However, I still see this as something I should be doing as a Tank, because using melded accessories impacts survivability so little and provides such large gains in attack power. I'm certainly hoping that SE does something eventually to make Tanks actually wish to stack their Main Stat, but I won't avoid something that's been proven to work so well in the meantime. That would be deliberately holding back my party. The scrub, however, would avoid using this strategy due to disliking it.

These two points would combine to suggest that I am not a scrub. At the very least, I am not one based on the definition you have given me. I think I can leave things here, since this post is already long enough.

[FoxyAreku]

Det near worthless

Last I heard, Det was equal to about 0.325 mind.

I don't see how that's worthless. :S

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

I lost interest after 2 paragraphs. tldr, please

[Donjo]

I lost interest after 2 paragraphs. tldr, please

Talia called you an elitist because you weren't very constructive in your criticism. If you present your ideas with a kinder touch and offer genuine suggestions for improvement, people will be more receptive to your words.

[Cynfael]

Snip.

I appreciate a well thought-out post as much or perhaps more than the next person, and it's nice of you in a way to support the beleaguered party and grant benefit of the doubt, but all of that was just...a little too much. We don't need an essay to break any of this down.

The T10 critique, taken in context of the preceding posts, was fairly reasonable. It wasn't by any means complimentary, but it was actually constructive, especially considering what tone the other party had been taking in recent posts (yes, that was apparently a misunderstanding, but not obvious at the time).

Not going into the rest of it about scrubs and elitists and whatnot. It just doesn't bear that much analysis.

[Sebazy]

I still don't get why people worry so much about this topic this tier =s

If I had my way, I'd stack DET/PIE to the ceiling and be done with it. That just isn't possible since 2.4, not even close. Double that with my luck on drops being hilariously bad (I'm still missing every last drop from T11 for example) and I've inadvertently ended up a Spell Speed stacker as things stand. Honestly? It's really not so bad, yes it's a total waste on T11 and a good portion of T12 but it has it's use on T10 combined with PoM for stone skinning the group for adds (Don't give me the 'start stone skinning earlier, we have a habit of going to adds right after a charge so that's just not an option) and I can really feel the difference on T13 between my main and alt when it comes to solo healing the bulk of the white damage particularly on P1-P3. I'm usually pushing the SCH to DPS as much as possible so it's pretty commonplace for me to be chain casting at this points.

Would I willingly go with a full SS build? Not really. Do I begrudge my gear? Not really. Are any secondaries going to make or break your gameplay? No, I couldn't even tell you what my alt is wearing, it's that random but I still manage to comfortably clear FCOB. Confidence, knowledge, quick reactions and foresight are far more beneficial than any secondary. One will always be better off studying replays and looking for self improvement than flapping over topics like this.

[firstsin]

Anyways...

Getting back on topic and agreeing you all have the biggest pixel-p***s.

You cannot go wrong with Piety. It gives a large pool of mana to heal as much as you like. One other thing to note while Shroud of Saint can regenerate MP, you also automatically get MP every 3 seconds. The more MP you have have the more MP you'll regenerate.

Determination increases your healing potency directly. It's not as strong as mind but for WHM you want your Cure to be as strong as possible rather than rely on Crit or just use Cure 2.

Spellspeed is only useful in large quantity. If I could have Spellspeed to reduce the cast time of Stoneskin to 2.5 seconds then it will make certain scenarios easier but that is mostly in FCoB. The down side is that the amount of Determination and Piety you'll have to sacrifice is too high. This makes Spellspeed less desirable.

I'd go Piety and Determination and then pick Spellspeed over Crit. Not choose Spellspeed over Piety or Determination.