So RDM and SpellSpeed...

[Maero]

Spell Speed is moreso a blm stat and has always been. Smn in the past had some benefit but i never mained smn so idk.
Sadly i had switched my main to DNC when Shadow came out but now for Savage i am wanted as Red Mage, lol.
The gear this patch for once takes blm into consideration with lots of spell speed, but alas the crafted gear also has lots of ss which now i have way too much of on my Red Mage.

If you are not already i would recommend joining balance discord, lots of information and players from all levels could offer you advice.

[Karshan]

Well keep in mind that most people don't play Savage or Ultimate content, and tend to play a much wider variety of content where things that matter in Savage do not apply.

So you have to keep that in mind when talking about these things.

Because what applies in one situation does not necessarily apply in another.

And I'm perfectly aware of that. What I'm saying is :

Inside Savage, no spellspeed
Outside of Savage or Ultimate, stats distribution don't matter at all. If I run into a RDM or SMN in a dungeon or raid 24 he can have 3000 spell speed for all I care, there is no impact on an enrage timer, and nobody uses or checks or even cares for logs on those.

[Mhaeric]

And I'm perfectly aware of that. What I'm saying is :

Inside Savage, no spellspeed
Outside of Savage or Ultimate, stats distribution don't matter at all. If I run into a RDM or SMN in a dungeon or raid 24 he can have 3000 spell speed for all I care, there is no impact on an enrage timer, and nobody uses or checks or even cares for logs on those.

I'd wager the difference between a run with a RDM/SMN who melded with a focus on crit versus a run with one that melded spell speed would be noticeably different in the speed that things die. You wouldn't even need a parser to be able to tell the difference even though it doesn't impact the ability to complete the content.

That said, I'm happy to see anyone at level 80 with full basic melds whatever they are focused on since that's an even bigger difference. Running any 80 content without melds at all is a frustratingly slow experience.

[Karshan]

I'd wager the difference between a run with a RDM/SMN who melded with a focus on crit versus a run with one that melded spell speed would be noticeably different in the speed that things die. You wouldn't even need a parser to be able to tell the difference even though it doesn't impact the ability to complete the content.

That said, I'm happy to see anyone at level 80 with full basic melds whatever they are focused on since that's an even bigger difference. Running any 80 content without melds at all is a frustratingly slow experience.

Indeed there is a difference, I know very well and check a lot theorycraft as well as do some by myself. What I wanted to say is I won't bother someone with the wrong melds in a dungeon "lol your melds".

Whereas in Savage the diff will show in DPS and make a difference I will notice and that will be a real hindrance this time so that will bother me.

[Gruntler]

There is a lot of misinformation in this thread.

RDM having instant casts is NOT the reason we avoid spell speed. BLM has a ton of instant casts, and they love it! It has NOTHING to do with dualcast because those instant casts also have a lowered GCD as a result of spellspeed.

It also has nothing to do with movement because RDM is reliant on being able to move during dualcasts. Your fastcast has a cast time of 2.00 seconds without SpS. Subtract stutterstep time from this, and you have 0.5 seconds of slidecast from your big cast, 0.5 seconds of gcd delay till your slow cast, then 2.5 seconds of the slowcast's gcd rolling for a total of 3.5 seconds of movement. If you were to reduce your cooldown by, for example's sake, down to 2.00 gcd, then the cast of your fast spell would only be reduced down to 1.6 gcd. This would mean your slidecasting time would be 0.5 normal, +0.4 gcd, +2.0, for 2.9 slidecast time. You'd lose over half a second of movement every dual, which would significantly reduce your ability to move and cast and not resort to swift/reprise.

There's two major reasons why Spell speed is bad.

1) Fleche, Contre Sixte, Enchanted Riposte/Zwerchau/Redoublement, Enchanted Reprise, Engagement, Displacement, and Corps-a-corps are -completely- unaffected by spell speed. This is over a third of your damage output, so having a stat that does not help 1/3 of your damage is going to heavily devalue that stat.

2) While in a vacuum Spell Speed would affect mana gains (which would increase the amount above) every 110/120 seconds you're resetting the clock, which means that you'd need a TON of spell speed in order to slip an extra melee combo between your Manafications; because you can't, Manafication resets your clock and you'd start all over. This results in any gains from Spell Speed being undone every two minutes, or worse, forcing you to delay your manafication which will cause you to lose finishers rather than gain them.

If we didn't have manafication, Spell Speed would be a lot better, but because manafication undoes it, and a third of our damage doesn't care otherwise, Spell Speed is thus a less valued stat.

[Rongway]

RDM having instant casts is NOT the reason we avoid spell speed. BLM has a ton of instant casts, and they love it!

You're misinterpreting BLM. The reason BLM likes spell speed is that every single offensive action is on the GCD, instant or not. 30~35% of RDM damage is done either oGCD or via weaponskills. That is the difference; not that one has more "instant" casts than the other.

[JohnnyDevo]

First, I wanted to preface my post by saying, Yes: spellspeed is bad on red mage.

However, there's a huge number of people who are completely misunderstanding spellspeed itself.

Spellspeed reduces the cast time and the recast time of every spell by a percentage.

So if you have enough spell speed to reduce those by 5%, then the 2s cast time is becoming a 1.9s cast. The 2.5s recast is becoming a 2.375s recast. The true value of spell speed is increasing your damage by increasing the number of casts you can get off across the course of the fight. The cast time of the first spell is irrelevant to this, because it's shorter than the recast. The fact that the second spell is instant cast is irrelevant, because its recast is being reduced.

Now, having that out of the way: Why, then, is spellspeed so bad for red mage? Simple. Because a very very high percentage of rdm's kit is completely unaffected by it. Corps a Corps, melee combos (excepting the last two gcds), fleche, contre sixte. All of these care not one whit about spell speed, and they make up a lot of our damage. Now, that's not to say Spell Speed is useless, it's just the least impactful stat on red mage by a good margin.

Black mage loves spell speed for the same reason: it increases the number of casts they can get. It may be unique in that they're increasing the number of casts by reducing the longer cast time, but at the end it has the same net effect.

EDIT: Ah, it seems someone else got to it before me

[Nemekh]

There was also the forgotten 5.0 reason - mp consumption. Mana costs were so extortionate before the changes that too fast would make RDM run dry even with Lucid used on cooldown. It's much better now but ever remains a constraint to think about. I know I had to when making the earlier sets for folk and warned about any crafted pieces with speed even if it was the minor substat.

[Gruntler]

You're misinterpreting BLM. The reason BLM likes spell speed is that every single offensive action is on the GCD, instant or not. 30~35% of RDM damage is done either oGCD or via weaponskills. That is the difference; not that one has more "instant" casts than the other.

1) I was addressing the idea that instant casts reduce the value of spellspeed. BLM Instant cast a -lot- more than people think, and they love spell speed, as the only damage that isn't really affected by it is their Xenoglossy timer. That's not a misinterpretation; that's saying 'BLM has instas and also loves spell speed, so instas are not the reason one would not want spell speed.' Which is true.

2) I know that 30-35% of RDM is unaffected by skillspeed, you'll notice I mention that in the very post you quoted:

1) Fleche, Contre Sixte, Enchanted Riposte/Zwerchau/Redoublement, Enchanted Reprise, Engagement, Displacement, and Corps-a-corps are -completely- unaffected by spell speed. This is over a third of your damage output, so having a stat that does not help 1/3 of your damage is going to heavily devalue that stat.

1/3 being calculated by looking at my own parses and pulling out a calculator and coming to approximately 1/3. Close enough to make the point.

[ChaoticCrimson]

SMN and, to a somewhat lesser extent, RDM are both jobs that are reliant on being able to weave skills between casts. SMN especially can require a lot of double-weaving, and so having an excess of SpSpd can be heavily detrimental as it can cause clipping in these cases. Both these jobs are relatively mobile and have relatively short cast times for spells, unless you make the mistake of hardcasting Veraero/Verthunder anytime aside from pre-pull. BLM, by contrast, relies far less on this kind of weaving and depends on SpSpd to compensate for the longer hardcasting times for its spells. Granted, I have no real play experience with BLM so I can't vouch too much on the specifics, but that's the gist of things as far as I'm aware.