Lost Allagan Codex

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Sebazy]

Lets take a hypothetical staggered fight where you have 2 seconds to cast followed by movement

Your math is solid, but it doesn't really reflect in what happens in game thanks in part to SE's very loose net code.

In reality, stacking SS is going to save us ~0.15 seconds on a cure/broil/stone, leaving a pretty tight window for it to make the difference. By comparison, with shuffle casting I'm eating into any cast leading into movement by over half a second (1:09 in the video above, I manage ~0.8 seconds) by effectively getting the bulk of my movement done whilst the spell is still 'casting'.

So yes, whilst I may have still have gained something from my SS in that situation, the gains are typically insignificant compared to what I can make up with some careful planning and good play.

I do agree with your views tho, if we could get 25% SS this would be a very different conversation. Tis a good debate for sure <3

[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.

[Dregenfox]

Canceling a GCD has no impact on spell-speed effectiveness, you get the benefit of Det, crit, or SpS the moment the spell goes off. Having faster SpS also lets you start slip-casting faster.

The issue is that people are not taking all factors into account. Having 2% spell speed means you have a 2% margin of error in terms of getting the max GCD's off during something like trick attack. I'd love to say that everyone is pro enough to time their GCD's off exactly to get in the maximum number of GCD's during TA, but in reality stuff happens or the ninja accidentally delays his trick attack by .2 of a second, causing random person x to miss the trick attack window.

Sure, .05 seconds off GCD is an extremely small amount, but so is the equivalent 2% increase to damage from determination. If there is a single situation in 50 GCD's where that 2% faster cast lets you get off a cast where it would have previously been cut off (or misses a buff window), SpS becomes equal or better than Det. This would only need to happen 2-4 times in a typical long boss fight.

It's easier to see the benefit of 25% spell speed because it's very easy to find windows to fit in extra spell casts immediately, but it's almost impossible to track a situation where you had to move right at .5s and still managed to get the slip-cast off due to that extra .05 seconds...but the benefit is still there.