Lost Allagan Codex

[Sebazy]

Next time you try to debunk someone, please understand server/client latency timing or maybe you can just take my entire message into account, instead of taking me out of context.

Hi

I'd like to think I have a pretty good grasp on client side latency in this game, the delay on certain abilities and the buffs/debuffs they apply is down to more than just raw latency tho. The EU data centre move demonstrated that quite nicely and even with sub 30ms latency there's still a substantial delay between the adlo hitting and the galvanise actually taking effect. To give you an idea of the size of that window, early Turn 5 kills required a WHM to be able to consistently land Cure IIs between Death Sentence and Infirmity (the same delay as Adlo/Galvanise) for around 5 minutes at a time. Again, I don't know the exact timing of the delay off the top of my head, but it's in the order of a 1/3rd to 1/2 a second from memory, that's all the numbers you're getting out of me at this hour, hope it's enough.

If you feel I was harsh, so be it. Your example was niche nonsense built upon a pillar of entirely avoidable failures, and the video whilst eye catching, is irrelevant to the game as it stands today (Fun fact, I had so much Spell Speed in 2.4 (Not 3.4, oops!) that assuming I could mash my cure button, PoM was as big a HPS cooldown for me as Divine Seal). SS isn't a feasible bandaid to cover for others mistakes in these cases. Endgame encounters are just too tightly scripted and predictable and in emergency situations such as yours, the better solution is usually with oGCDs such as Lustrate/ED/Tetra.

If I were in your shoes, I'd have put forward something like trying to keep tanks alive when after pulling both gorilla packs and the dogs in Ala Mhigo. That'll get most healers mashing heals on the limiter especially if they didn't see it coming and pocket cooldowns accordingly =(

[Ftail]

I don't have a problem with SpS from a DPS perspective...

This "ganging up" thing isn't your fault, it's me being taken out of context by someone else. You aren't the one putting words in my mouth or taking me out of context, you are actually having a conversation with me. While I enjoy our exchanges and I feel you are being sincere without taking advantage of me, which I highly respect you for that. Another person is taking our conversation out of context while tactfully ignoring the points I have made, all the while pretending to have addressed them.

every encounter in this game is choreographed to an extremely high degree.

That's exactly why I think healing is an absolute joke in this game. Because everything is choreographed it makes it an absolute joke to heal, I'll never need that extra crit rating to do my job well. However, I am judged in pugs as to how much DPS I do in savage raids which is my main reason to spec SS.

Until content that is created that actually makes me struggle with healing groups and I'm not spending the majority of my time dealing damage, I'll consider changing my build.

[Ftail]

I disagree with you Cynfael, I don't think SS is "garbage" for healing. I think it is less then ideal for healing with crit being far superior and SS only coming in useful in situational occasions. I don't have the perfect group for raiding, and sometimes after we fail savage enrage with DPS still dying to mechanics, I pug groups. In my experience many of my savage pugs groups at some point mess up mechanics and die, which have required me to shield them quickly, saving me an aetherflow stack as they are not an infinite resource and should be used for much dicier situations.

The main point of the video I linked was to demonstrate that you can pump out heals faster, inherently making SS above "garbage". I will never argue that SS is the best secondary healing stat, but I still believe calling it "garbage" is a hyperbole.

I really do hate this word limit, as single post has to be split up into several that makes it difficult to get your message across. Anyway, as much as I appreciate having an honest conversation with you Cynfael, I can't stand to read this thread with someone else posting "bait" just to irritate me. This thread has been derailed long enough and I'm just going to ignore them and go on my merry way.

[Sebazy]

Another person is taking our conversation out of context while tactfully ignoring the points I have made, all the while pretending to have addressed them.

Care to clarify this? I'm fairly sure I've addressed your 'SS helps me bubble people quicker' view rather thoroughly.

The main point of the video I linked was to demonstrate that you can pump out heals faster, inherently making SS above "garbage".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCDT4bNLla8

There's 3 inherent issues with this video:

First up, the two right most levels are not attainable anymore due to the rework and changes both Fey Glow/Light and PoM have gone through since this video was made. Whilst Fey Glow/Light's wording was rather misleading and I forget the specifics behind it. PoM was much more clearcut, it multiplied your Spell Speed and thus as the video shows, it responded incredibly well with sufficient gear as any WHM in Dreadwyrm gear could likely attest to. Unfortunately now it reduces your cast time by a percentage and as such, rather than scaling upwards with gear, it actually becomes marginally less effective as you stack more and more SS. As an extreme example, PoM > Raise saves 1.60 seconds with base 364 SS, but 1.47 seconds with 1680 SS. With Cure it's a smaller drop off, 0.40 seconds base, 0.37 seconds with 1680 SS.

Secondly, look a little closer at window three. Over 10% less healing per cast than window two. Not a good trade off.

Last but most certainly not least, whilst the left two views are much more relevant, the third is an unrealistic extreme. After 10 hard casts, 2 ends up about half a cast ahead of 1, it's important to note that it never overtakes it by a complete cast, it would have needed a further 20 seconds to gain that all important extra cast. I cannot think of a single occasion in Savage where I have to turret and cast nothing but heals for 20-40 seconds. As soon as you pause casting to move, switch targets or wait for a mechanic, you're eating into (and usually negating) Spell Speed's value. I'd gain more on the healing side of things by working on making my movement more efficient, targeting quicker or optimising my GCDs so I don't have to wait for a mechanic than I ever will from Spell Speed itself.

It's a fun thing to watch, but it's about as relevant to savage gameplay today as a Fiesta Rally Cross car is to the Auntie's run around.

Let's also not forget, the DPS requirements are rather broad this tier. My first O1S clear had like 15 deaths? A friend's group managed it with 25! O2S gets a little sterner, but it's still highly forgiving with substantial delays between sequences of mechanics, not to mention it's almost entirely devoid of any RNG outside of the tentacle movement. Once you hit O3S and O4S you're going to need clean runs in most pugs to get that kill. If someone doesn't understand the encounter well enough to know when it's safe to raise you're likely going to struggle unless the rest of the group is on the ball.

Consider recording yourself for a few savage runs if you don't already. It's interesting to watch and highly insightful to see lots of little pauses and delays you may not realise you do.

Raw math below for the curious

1680 SS - PoM - No PoM

Cure - 1.47 - 1.84
Raise - 5.90 - 7.37
Medica II 2.21 - 2.76

364 SS - PoM - No PoM

Cure - 1.60 - 2.00
Raise - 2.40 - 3.00
Medica II - 6.40 - 8.00

[Dregenfox]

The argument over SpS people are having is kind of dumb. Why would movement hurt SpS more than anything else? I mean you're not really getting any benefit from Det when you're just waiting either.

The issue with SpS for healing-only is that it's super-binary. Either it lets you get an extra cast off before a mechanic and becomes insanely good, or it isn't enough to get in an extra cast and has no impact.

The people arguing against SpS are throwing out the positive cases, while the people arguing for SpS are throwing out the negative cases. But on average, SpS's impact on combined HPS/DPS is higher than a stat like determination.

[Cynfael]

The argument over SpS people are having is kind of dumb. Why would movement hurt SpS more than anything else?

I think the reason why you see movement talked about as a detriment to SpS' benefit is that it reduces the number of "extra" GCDs you could otherwise gain over the course of the fight. This is why BLMs with high SpS tend to perform better in fights with fewer breaks in the action, while those who stack CRT and DH shine in fights with many boss-untargetable phase transitions.

Before SpS was modified also to boost over-time effects, this was a major reason why almost no one but BLMs valued it.

[Sebazy]

Why would movement hurt SpS more than anything else? I mean you're not really getting any benefit from Det when you're just waiting either.

My point is that from a healing perspective, Spell Speed saves you time which is a valuable resource in it's own right. Wasteful movement or pauses to time a cast for a mechanic can very quickly wipe out these gains and then some. By comparison, even if you're being wasteful with your time and GCDs, Crit and Det are both boosting your overall efficiency per cast irrespective of your Job or Stance.

The issue with SpS for healing-only is that it's super-binary. Either it lets you get an extra cast off before a mechanic and becomes insanely good, or it isn't enough to get in an extra cast and has no impact.

Absolutely nailed it, the issue is that right now, the content generally doesn't force you to hard cast heals long enough to get that extra cast in. DPS is another matter of course. As Cyn says above, Spell Speed will shine when you can stand and turret for prolonged periods, O2/O2S is a great example of this. On the flip side of the coin, O3S and O4S are disruptive enough that you'll likely gain more time by optimising and minimising your movement than you ever will through Spell Speed.

https://youtu.be/BLGUMzl2cV0?t=45s (Apologies for it being obsolete content, I don't upload much thanks to the tin can broadband I have currently).

0:45 to 1:15 is an example I'd use where the combination of minimising my movement, abusing stutter stepping to it's absolute limits and ensuring I'm using instants/oGCDs on the occasion where I am forced to move allows me to gain multiple GCDs within a relatively short period.

The big unknown here of course is Super Savage. If it comes at us with rapid paced mechanics and a greater need for timed heals akin to what we used to regularly see in Coil, SS's worth will likely go through the roof.

[Dregenfox]

I just want to emphasize again, it makes no sense to factor in movement when making a decision about spell speed. The biggest factors on whether or not you want SpS is how fast you run out of your resources (mana, tp, etc), as well as the timings for a specific fight.

Lets take a hypothetical staggered fight where you have 2 seconds to cast followed by movement, then 3 seconds to cast followed by movement, then 4 seconds to cast followed by movement, and so on all the way up to 9 seconds to cast followed by movement. Lets assume we have a hardcasting spell that does 100 potency and cast time of 3s.

With 25% SpS, cast time is 2.25. You get off 16 casts for a total of 1600 potency.

With 25% increased damage but no SpS, cast time is 3s. You get off 12 casts for a total of 1200 potency * 1.25% = 1500 potency.

Spell speed still wins out over the equivalent damage boost, even with staggered cast times and frequent movement.

The point I'm trying to make is that faster cast time is an increase in DPS/HPS regardless of whether you move or not, given a random sample. You can go ahead and try to change the numbers around but SpS will always come out ahead.

SpS is only bad if you make biased situations like always having only 3 seconds to get a cast off before movement. In that case, obviously there's no point to lowering your cast time to 2.25 because you never get to get off 2 casts ever. But what if there was a situation where you always had 5 seconds to get off a cast before movement? Then SpS wins out big.

But in reality in any given fight the time you have to cast is random depending on mechanics and how you play, so SpS is just as good as any other stat when it comes to HPS/DPS.

[CreinCrein]

The problem is, let's say SpS gives you an additional cast per 10 GCDs, is that if you're ever put in a situation where you lose that GCD through movement or clipping you've lost any gains that SpS would've given to you sans its affect on dots and auto-attacks. Crit and direct hit are better because they scale better off litany, chain, bard songs, battle voice and spear. They're also better because there's no situation where you're going to get an additional GCD off in a trick attack window with the amount of SpS we're given now, while critting and d-hitting in the TA window gives huge gains; which is amplified to a greater degree during the two and three minute markers when critical/direct hit buffs line up with it.

[lulunami]

WHM and AST should benefit more from spell speed (in theory) on a striking dummy. However, in raid, you are usually forced to break chain casts and clip GCDs to precast heal tank busters and raid AoE. This negates the GCD advantage you gain from spell speed. It is similar to how skill speed's benefit on NIN gets negated from using lengthy Mudras (especially 3 GCD Mudras like Suiton). Skill speed has always been thought of as a low priority stat on NIN.

On SCH, you could conceivably just Indom or Whispering Dawn for light raid damage and continue chain casting Broil. However, if you are required to precast a Succor (without Swiftcast) because your AST/WHM friend needs more AoE healing help, that is going to reduce the effectiveness of spell speed as well.

Most DPS jobs can benefit from speed since they are usually not forced to clip their GCD as often as healers.