Surecast: Not as buffed up as it says

[-BlueGreen-]

I've been playing red mage most of the time since early release started, and after I quickly found out that swiftcast is pretty near useless on red mage since it doesn't proc dualcast (in other words, you can't use swiftcast to get two insta-cast spells back to back), I decided to try experimenting with other role abilities.

Initially surecast seemed to have promise. The very low cooldown means it is up quite often, and the thought of blocking knockback/draw-in effects was attractive. When I initially tried it, I was in the vault and found it to be an effective way to deal with the second boss as I could pop surecast as the boss casts faith unmoving and not have to worry about getting knocked around.

Now I know there should be some knockback/draw-in effects that shoudn't be blockable by any means (the bulldozer in A10 comes to mind since getting behind the bulldozer apparently causes insta-death). However, if the knockback isn't critical like in A10, I would think that stuff like sure cast and tempered will would actually work.

So, when I came to the very first boss of the very first dungeon from the expansion that brought us this change to surecast and this boss has both knockback and draw-in effects that don't do anything really important, you would think this would be a moment for the new surecast to shine, right? Wrong, it fails to work for both effects and I'm left wondering if I should try out a different ability for that slot.

As a DPS, I shouldn't often be in the situation to have my spells often interrupted by pure damage alone, so the old surecast felt like it was there for PvP purposes more than anything. As plenty of bosses do have knock-backs and draw-ins, however, I thought that maybe the new surecast might be useful.

Since my main tank job has been Paladin, I've had access to tempered will for some time and used it with some success to stop certain knockbacks/draw-ins, but I did notice that quite a few attacks ignored tempered will to the point that it felt more like tempered will was really meant to be a self remove heavy/bind type of thing. It's long cooldown also makes it harder to experiment with and unavailable much of the time within the same fight.

With so many attacks ignoring this part of surecast, it not only makes it much less useful, but also burdens the player with trying to remember what can and can't actually be blocked with it. It's hit-and-miss type stuff like this which made esuna dubious much of the time to the point where inexperienced healers would simply ignore all debuffs because esuna didn't ever seem to work (thank you for the white line telling healers what they can and can't remove) as well as on the tank side of things having mitigation that was magic only or physical only because how are we supposed to know that cannon shoots magical bullets? (glad to see rampart filling the role foresight used to because of this and that cover now works against all damage). Of course, in the damage mitigation side of things, we still have some physical/magical split... looking at you addle, feint, palisade, and apocatastasis.

[Frizze]

If im thinking of the right boss in that first SB dungeon, what youre looking at isnt a knockback/draw in move. Its a forced march either in the direction youre facing, or away from the direction youre facing. You arent being dragged, your feet are being compelled to move on their own.

[Tide]

Swiftcast has its place in the rdm kit. Ideally when you reach a point where you are going to cast impact or jolt, its better to use swiftcast on another aero or thunder. Sure it wont proc dualcast but if gives you another chance to get a fire or stone proc.

[crazedtoo]

@Frizze, You are thinking of the Final boss in the first dungeon. The first boss does the water knock back and pull in.

[Claire_Pendragon]

This is a glitch of some sort. I used to think the same thing, but I knew you ran into the same issue when I noticed u were RDM.

The only common occurrence between every time surecast fails to give you the buff of surecast, but goes on CD, is when dual cast is up.
Once i was on WHM, i never had this issue pop up, and realized i could surecast all the bosses i couldnt as RDM.

[mosaicex]

Surecast, Tempered Will, Holmgang, Inner Release, Arm's Length, etc. all suffered from the same thing, arbitrariness in SE's encounter design.

They only work when SE designed boss as such. Like how you can negate Knockback from Lakshmi, Sophia, ExDeath, etc. but not from Alte Roite, first boss in Sirensong as you mentioned, among others. All in all a pretty horrible implementation of utility skills, and there's not much we can do with it apart from trial and error.

[Phoenicia]

Surecast DOES work on knock-backs and draw-ins as long as you don't use up the buff by hard casting spells. As a red mage, you can use it after a hard cast as the instant Dual Casted spell won't consume it. Also in combination with Swiftcast if preventing the draw-in or Knock-back is the intented purpose and not just the DPS downtime of being unable to cast.

For BLM it's a godssent to use with Triplecast as it means I won't be knocked back for about 7 seconds. Same with RDM as Ruin II won't take away the buff.

Magic and Phyical damage distinction is usually not hard to distinguish between as the spells while there are a few exceptions. But I agree with you it's a bit annoying that it exists but not a big deal.

[Rawrz]

RED MAGE has the most efficient Surecast use of all the classes that have access to it!

Melee combo and flare/holy will not eat surecast. You also have time for a swiftcast Veraero/thunder. The buff just Times out. It is the bees knees for vaccum wave on exdeath.

I wish it could be a casters tempered will but whatever. Q.Q

[Phoenicia]

RED MAGE has the most efficient Surecast use of all the classes that have access to it!

Melee combo and flare/holy will not eat surecast. You also have time for a swiftcast Veraero/thunder. The buff just Times out. It is the bees knees for vaccum wave on exdeath.

I wish it could be a casters tempered will but whatever. Q.Q

I would argue SMN has it better. The RDM's melee combo happens like every 45 minutes and is barely only 7 seconds. But it doesn' matter as all three casters can completely cheese its full duration. With Triplecast, a proc and swiftcast BLM can keep it alive for its full duration and get the uninterrupted cast from damage.

But I can completely get behind a caster's Tempered Will on a longer CD. Or if it works for the GCD without consuming the buff. Even better: A cast is not interrupted by moving while still having the kb/di immunity, same CD.

[Acidblood]

The main problem with Surecast is that it only works on a single spell, and once it's burned the entire effect is gone... it would be much more generally useful (and much less brokenly OP in specific encounters) if it always lasted the full duration but had a longer cooldown.