Thread: What makes a class needing Crit or Det or D.Hit in priority? (mainly about MCH)

Hello everyone
I play mainly MCH for now, and I'm wondering why people I read say we need Direct Hit in priority then Det or Crit as MCH (depending on each players to know what's better between Crit or Det, it seems)?
It just makes no sense to me at the first sight to explain what a class needs in priority (skill speed and spell speed aside).

Is it just that D.Hit is too powerful overall, or there is something else to take in count?

For my part, I'm using more Crit, because I'm playing both MCH AND BRD. I guess DH could be useful because it's more stable than Crit, and that sound better for Wildfire.
For SS, I will not go higher than 555-655, because the best GCD for the MCH is 2.47. Lower and you'll miss a GCD in your WF, higher and you will clip too much + too much Heat generated during a short timelapse.

Originally Posted by Fannah

Hello everyone
I play mainly MCH for now, and I'm wondering why people I read say we need Direct Hit in priority then Det or Crit as MCH (depending on each players to know what's better between Crit or Det, it seems)?
It just makes no sense to me at the first sight to explain what a class needs in priority (skill speed and spell speed aside).

Is it just that D.Hit is too powerful overall, or there is something else to take in count?

Generally, yes. Direct Hit is a pretty darn powerful stat due to its much higher stability point per point versus Crit, but certain classes will want Crit more than DH. The most noteworthy examples are Bard and Monk, whose mechanics require crits to work and activate. For Bard, it's to work with Repertoire, and for Monk, it's to generate Chakras.

Black Mage is one of the few classes in FFXIV that REALLY wants speed above all else because of how our casts are slower than the GCD.

Originally Posted by Idolon

It's not so much the length of casts that makes spell speed good for BLM, but the fact that every damage skill BLM has is on the GCD. Most other jobs do a significant portion of their damage through off-GCD abilities with fixed-duration cooldowns, and skill/spell speed does not affect those at all.

Well, that also helps too. Doesn't hurt that some of our hardcasts are longer than the GCD (especially our bread and butter, Fire IV).

Originally Posted by EllieShadeflare

Well, that also helps too. Doesn't hurt that some of our hardcasts are longer than the GCD (especially our bread and butter, Fire IV).

That really doesn't matter, because even if you had so much more spell speed that the Fire IV cast time was absurdly fast like 1.5s, it would still be longer than the GCD.

Idolon is right in attributing it to how every single offensive action a BLM can take is a GCD action. 100% of BLM damage is on GCD, so if cast times drop by, say, 5%, BLM damage goes up to 105.26% (1.0 ÷ 0.95). Compare to another DD job that might do 70-80% of damage on the GCD and 20-30% off it, a 5% cast time reduction only results in 103.68-104.21% damage (0.7 ÷ 0.95 + 0.3) ~ (0.8 ÷ 0.95 + 0.2).

Originally Posted by Rongway

That really doesn't matter, because even if you had so much more spell speed that the Fire IV cast time was absurdly fast like 1.5s, it would still be longer than the GCD.

In a sense, you're right, but I was more nudging toward Fire IV's relationship to Astral Fire (or rather, its inability to refresh that). Mostly, Fire IV's design isn't that well balanced with the new Enochian mechanic as it is, and only Spell Speed can solve that to any extent.

Originally Posted by Neela

yeah yesterday f.e. I was really surprised when fc mates talk about an 2200+ sks Samurai build as well... never thought it would be that important on any melee cls ever... but yeah good to see that those stats are not completely off like some others in the past

In fact, you can play SAM at every SS.