Surecast Enhancements, Please!

[AdamFyi]

Never once used it over swiftcast on WHM, nor while leveling up Arcanist some. I even mentioned earlier that it's uselessness is made even worse by both skills being cross-classable by all DoMs.

Wait, so am I one of the few WHMs in this game who actually uses Surecast? It's pretty damn useful in certain situations. I don't get why nobody likes using it. That aside, I'm sure that Surecast was for the most part intended to be meant for solo content where you'll be taking the brunt of the enemy attacks. o:

[Sunako]

So, in both of those situations, why wouldn't you just use swiftcast instead?

Also, what's this "we" you're talking about? Because the only instant cast spell black mages have is Scathe, and I think the only one white mages have is Fluid Aura, if that counts? It's a cooldown. Are you talking about Arcanists? Because they have Bio, Ruin II, and Miasma II as instant casts. I assume so, since your main class is shown as arcanist. I could also include Fester, though that has a 10 second cooldown itself and is summoner only.

That being said, "We" are not all arcanists.

Black mages can move with aetherial manipulation and you can move during you cast firestarter or thunder procs etc. Some mechanics you can bypass by using different shields. In the expansion you will get buff that will gain proc with 100% chance so black mages mobility will be even better. Whm can cast aero, benediction, fluid aura and regen while moving. In the expansion whm will get 50% max hp instant heal if i did not miss something. And btw i play all 4 caster jobs myself(whm/sch/smn/blm).

And the reason why i do not wanna use swiftcast on those situations? Because you can save cast time from flare or shadow flare or save it once you need actually move?

[StouterTaru]

Pray tell how you dodge a Primals ultimate I'd love to know lol

I'd like to know what you're getting interrupted casting during the 15 second window that the primal is invincible during its ultimate.

Healing? You have roughly 10 seconds before to top off HP and pre-buff, then 5 seconds after damage hits to get a spell off and get in place.

[Mendalas]

People in this thread haven't been pony farming much eh? Many of the Primals strong LB attack interrupts casting. As a white mage, to be able to surecast and charge up a medica 2 during leviathans LB feels pretty damn good when it goes off immediately after the damage hits the party with no interruption.

Another example would be in ST on the last boss when he does Ancient Quaga (spelling?). If you time it right as a mage, you can continue your rotation with a surecast (spell) when the lightning cloud goes off so that you are not interrupted. On black mage, when he re-appears from sending meteors down at us, I use a thunder 2, stack with the group for the lightning cloud, then surecast fire 3 and it guarantees it will go off. Definitely allows for more damage in the long run.

So the point stands that it is still very situational, but it does feel good to negate an interruption from a huge attack that would otherwise interrupt you.

I agree with many posters here that I would also like to see it slightly buffed. As for a suggestion for the buff, I'm not exactly sure. For me it does seem more of a pvp ability.

[Atlaworks]

Black mages can move with aetherial manipulation and you can move during you cast firestarter or thunder procs etc. Some mechanics you can bypass by using different shields. In the expansion you will get buff that will gain proc with 100% chance so black mages mobility will be even better. Whm can cast aero, benediction, fluid aura and regen while moving. In the expansion whm will get 50% max hp instant heal if i did not miss something. And btw i play all 4 caster jobs myself(whm/sch/smn/blm).

And the reason why i do not wanna use swiftcast on those situations? Because you can save cast time from flare or shadow flare or save it once you need actually move?

Procs are unreliable at best. Aetherial Manipulation is not castable during a skill and if it was it'd break the skill, as the movement isn't instant. Benediction, Regen, and Tetragrammophone aren't attack actions, which is what we were going over. Manaward and Manawall don't let you cast instantly. Sharpcast gives you, in your own loose terms, "one free swiftcast to choose from between Fire3 or Thunder3".

Also, calling black mage mobility better for a chance of one free proc on a cooldown while ignoring ley lines entirely is kind of hilarious.

[Edellis]

Surecast is certainly useful. Just not at all on black mage. (outside PVP anyway)

But while we're at it, can we make Freeze do literally anything other than what it does now?

> "yo BLM needs a spell for lv35 but they don't need anything else, what can we give em? "

> "Just give Blizzard 2 a remote cast."

> "Hey that could actually be usefu-"

> "On GCD. Slower than blizzard II. Weaker than blizzard I"

genius

[ElieDavion]

Surecast is certainly useful. Just not at all on black mage. (outside PVP anyway)

But while we're at it, can we make Freeze do literally anything other than what it does now?

> "yo BLM needs a spell for lv35 but they don't need anything else, what can we give em? "

> "Just give Blizzard 2 a remote cast."

> "Hey that could actually be usefu-"

> "On GCD. Slower than blizzard II. Weaker than blizzard I"

genius

you forgot no range what so ever blizz 2 is the most useless spell after surecast

[kyuven]

So the point stands that it is still very situational, but it does feel good to negate an interruption from a huge attack that would otherwise interrupt you.

Except all those interrupts can be prevented by just timing it so you're not casting when the attacks go off. It's not like they're rapidly going out in a short period of time, no single big huge interrupting ability goes out more than once a minute or so.
Most of those abilities have a 10 second wind-up time, while your own have around 2 seconds or so.
Add to that surecast only affects one spell, which means you need to tack on another second or so to your cast times just to use it then start casting. Swiftcast works a lot better for this.
And as mentioned if you're a healer, you should be setting your buffs and damage mitigation abilities BEFORE the big attack goes out. Which again, you have about 10 seconds to prepare for.
Surecast, when looked at in a vaccuum, isn't a bad ability on paper, it's just useless when looked at side-by-side with Swiftcast.

[SarcasmMisser]

Balance-arguments aside, it'd just be dang fun, so let us have it!

My rebuttal, why not both? What's the harm (beyond the obvious, balance-implications)?

I love these multiple disclaimers. Yes if you, for some reason, arbitrary ignore the one good reason why it's a bad idea it's a good idea.

It's been laid out what the BLM changes are going to be and this isn't it. They're never going to do this. They know better than you. In light of the fact that bard is becoming a bit of a turret DPS as well they know exactly how much movement they want their ranged to have.

[Gamer3427]

I honestly never use Surecast. I can see it having it's merits for skills such as having to hard cast raise/resurrection when Swiftcast is on cooldown, but most of the time you're not going to need that interruption resistance unless your spell has a more than three second cast time. The only other thing I could really see it being used for is countering paralysis's interruption for a healer casting leeches/esuna, and I'm honestly not certain that that would even work as I haven't tried it. If you're not a healer and your healer is up and half way decent then they should be taking care of paralysis for you anyhow so I wouldn't see it being as much of a benefit on DPS....