O.O to new armors

[Lanien]

What I'm not convinced of is whether you can actually start new spells early. On a laggy connection, I can start my next spell real early because it takes so long for it to reach and register the server. On a fast connection though, I can't start nearly as early.

I have been able to take a full second off each casting spell before I start a new song. My Ballad macro has 1 and 2 in it. I had previously needed to put a 12 second /wait in there, but can change it to an 11 second /wait now. The 2nd song is able to start earlier. So instead of 24 seconds of song casting, I have been able to drop it down to 22 seconds because of the reduced time between casting and being able to run earlier. It might even be less than 22 seconds. And I know there have been several times while playing that 2 seconds can mean the difference between life or death when getting a cure spell off. I know you are all about using up all your MP. The extra few seconds you get from the Manteel allos you to use MP earlier, even if it is just slightly.

I'll take errant over manteel anyday. More chr, -enimity, and it frees up a horde of money that could be spent on other improvements that more than make up for -12% cast time. Unless all your jobs have the absolute best armor in the game money can buy, there are better things for you to spend your money on. Much like the discussion of Noble's tunic vs Aristocrat's. The improvement is so marginal and cost difference so high, there are better things to get. Manteel is like Aritocrats, just for bragging rights.

CHR basically caps out for XP parties. The extra 3 chr (I think it's 3) on Errant is worthless. As for -emnity, I only usually draw hate during Gods or long drawn out NM fights, which is why I have an Errant as use for such events. I never get hate in XP parties unless I decide to play Mazurka just to fuck with the tank lol And you can't forget about the +1% haste lol j/k Very minimal. And I only really level 1 job at a time, so I don't really keep armor for multiple jobs, mostly because I never have enough inventory space. I normally keep my previous jobs armor until I either need the money or run out of inventory space. I can afford it, and I like the Manteel benefits over the Errant. Is Errant good enough? Sure. Do I prefer Manteel? Damn straight.

 

[Rones]

And I know there have been several times while playing that 2 seconds can mean the difference between life or death when getting a cure spell off

There are many times the -enimity has saved me (last party I survived a fight with 1 hp because I lost hate). Hate is a huge problem for me in exp. I always pull hate. Anyone who has partied with me can vouch for that. Even in rampage parties or parties with a pld tank, I will pull hate at least once every four to five fights, typically enough to knock me to half health. Gets me a lot of use out of the lvl 70 jse earring and my earth staff. It has reached the point my brd has to carry tank gear that I switch to in a pinch.

Errant has the added advantage of being usable for many different mage jobs. So you can have your high lvl armor for rdm, whm, smn, and brd all in single piece for example. No way I could keep a full set of whm and brd high lvl gear without the overlap.

CHR basically caps out for XP parties.

More chr on body means I can put more mp or def gear elsewhere. Just because you can max a stat for exp use doesn't mean you should be inefficient with your equipment.

 

[Lanien]

More chr on body means I can put more mp or def gear elsewhere. Just because you can max a stat for exp use doesn't mean you should be inefficient with your equipment.

I am nothing less than efficient. I carry multiple sets of armor, or as much as I can, which usually includes my soloing gear and extra MP gear if I need it depending on the situation. I still prefer my Manteel lol :nyam:

 

[Myrid]

There's two things here, cast and recast. Fastcast improves both, and cure merits/clogs only improve cure cast. EVEN SO!

So I did a little experiment on recasts (as cast isn't really measureable, only largely noticable in tight situations).
WHM70/BLM35, naked, unbuffed
Cure III: 6 seconds
Cure IV: 8 seconds
Cure V: 10 seconds
Stoneskin: 30 seconds
Regen III: 20 seconds
Haste (on self): 17 seconds

So rostrums would save you 0.3 to 0.5 seconds on reusing the same cure, 1.5 seconds on stoneskin, 1 second on regen, and 0.85 seconds on haste- the latter two are negligable since you should be 'keeping them up' and recasting whenever they wear off of your paladins/melees. I didn't have a raise test subject, but assuming it's 45 seconds, yes, you can raise your next target a whole 2.25 seconds sooner- assuming you're unweakened and have MP.

The point is that I'd rather have my Cure V cast in 3.4 seconds (over 4 seconds, rough stopwatch timing [3.8 seconds with rostrums]); to say nothing of -cure cast merits.

and no, tanks aren't either one-shotted or not. ninjas can survive one volley from a fast mighty strikes'D tiamat, two if they have a trigger fingered WHM watching them. two could be what they need to get shadows back up, and you have a better chance of giving them that second volley with faster cures. the same would apply to any regular mob's deadly weaponskills.

 

[Bajaratt]

There's two things here, cast and recast. Fastcast improves both, and cure merits/clogs only improve cure cast. EVEN SO!

So I did a little experiment on recasts (as cast isn't really measureable, only largely noticable in tight situations).
WHM70/BLM35, naked, unbuffed
Cure III: 6 seconds
Cure IV: 8 seconds
Cure V: 10 seconds
Stoneskin: 30 seconds
Regen III: 20 seconds
Haste (on self): 17 seconds

So rostrums would save you 0.3 to 0.5 seconds on reusing the same cure, 1.5 seconds on stoneskin, 1 second on regen, and 0.85 seconds on haste- the latter two are negligable since you should be 'keeping them up' and recasting whenever they wear off of your paladins/melees. I didn't have a raise test subject, but assuming it's 45 seconds, yes, you can raise your next target a whole 2.25 seconds sooner- assuming you're unweakened and have MP.

The point is that I'd rather have my Cure V cast in 3.4 seconds (over 4 seconds, rough stopwatch timing [3.8 seconds with rostrums]); to say nothing of -cure cast merits.

and no, tanks aren't either one-shotted or not. ninjas can survive one volley from a fast mighty strikes'D tiamat, two if they have a trigger fingered WHM watching them. two could be what they need to get shadows back up, and you have a better chance of giving them that second volley with faster cures. the same would apply to any regular mob's deadly weaponskills.

That's fine, I very rarely need the extra casting time, but the faster cast times don't help when you need to keep the ninja alive as per your example. You still have to wait the full cooldown, so -cure casting time doesn't really help if you need several cure 5's. I'd rather spend my merits on bar-spell enhancements and I'd rather wear gear to give me more cures, but again that's my opinion.

I can see an arguement for cure clogs/merits for endgame only and even then I still think it's situational at best. In exp, -cure casting time is worthless, +mp or mnd would have a much greater effect than slightly faster cures..

 

[Rones]

The point is that I'd rather have my Cure V cast in 3.4 seconds (over 4 seconds, rough stopwatch timing [3.8 seconds with rostrums]); to say nothing of -cure cast merits.

Cure V base cast time is 2.5 seconds, source1, source2. So Rostrums save you .125 sec and cure clog's -15% saves you .375 secs. As you can see, cures are so fast that fast cast has an insignifigant effect compared to the human element. The deciding factor is going to be if your whm is paying attention at all, not how fast his cure goes. It is not uncommon to see whms cure with 4-5 sec human delay to first notice, target char, and finally fire the macro. I did Kirin for example, on a 4 sec delayed connection. So that was 4sec+2-3 sec for my human delay and we did fine. The speed really isn't a big concern

Recast is equally insignifigant. Cures and regens can be alternated so you are never waiting on a cool down timer. Easy enough to jump to cure 3 or 4 if cure 5 isn't ready and usually not a problem because rarely does a tank have room for 2 cure 5s in a row. On those rare occasion, divine seal cure 5 is perfect.

Fast cast is at the very bottom of a whms gear priority right above defence and melee stats.

 

[Crosis]

If spellcasting time was important in the slightest, all brds would use the lvl 50 jse ring and sub rdm.

The BRD Jse Ring is insanely good. Being able to get songs cast at less than 60% is great. Especially when you have to go pull to keep the chain. Rdm sub makes pulling even easier, however most meritable mobs do status ailments which won't allow BRDs to sub it normally and if they do they are probably hurting the party moreso then helping. And having a Manteel also helps.

Rostrums are nice for: Gods/HNMs/Long casting nukes (Aincient magic). The MP is nice to keep you going during the long haul at kirin, the fast cast is semi-useful for longer nukes, and there is one more int which is like 20 dmg onto thundaga III.

Eh 1 extra INT from Rostrum's isn't adding 20 damage to anyones Thundaga III hehe. I'd rather have a chance of conserving a lot of MP then 4 extra damage.

There is no debate. It is 5%.

There is no way it is 5%. It's 1-3% at best.

I can see an arguement for cure clogs/merits for endgame only and even then I still think it's situational at best. In exp, -cure casting time is worthless, +mp or mnd would have a much greater effect than slightly faster cures..

Baj we are end game, the whole point of merits is for end game because you can't get them until 75. We do way more end game events then exping. The faster the tank is cured the safer any party is in my opinion. And with maxed merits 20% faster cures is a lot safer.

 

[Rones]

There is no way it is 5%. It's 1-3% at best.

It is very clear when used with teleports as the percent moves so slow. Icemage, who is a very reliable source on ffxionline, also found it to be 5% here. If you have the boots, go try them with a teleport spell. You'll see you arm pop up 5% earlier on the progress bar with them on.

 

[Crosis]

I just tested it again for the millionth time, it's not 5% lol. Did a tele spell test. Casted at 76% without, 73% with. So 3%.

 

[Rones]

I just tested it again for the millionth time, it's not 5% lol. Did a tele spell test. Casted at 76% without, 73% with. So 3%.

*sigh* I want to get to sleep, but I will settle this first. Here are two screenshots of my tests I just did a moment ago. I wanted to show the different percent completes when the arm started to go up. Pic is worthless after the arm goes all the way because it stays their for a while. Thus I tried to get shots where the arm was at the same position on the way up. I did this several times and got the same results as these shots, but I don't feel like hosting all of them.

With pumps:

Without pumps:

Second pic is just a hair after the first, but it is also 6% slower (the 1% extra is because it is a hair off). The arm starts moving at 70% with pumps, and 75% without. 5% of a 20second cast = 1 second earlier. Like I said, it is very easy to see.

I hope this settles the doubting. If not, just go do this same test.

 

[Crosis]

If I wasn't on PS2 I'd take some screens myself. Didn't you say in an earlier post that you lag because of your connection? So I'm not sure I can take those pics into account accurately.

 

[Rones]

If I wasn't on PS2 I'd take some screens myself. Didn't you say in an earlier post that you lag because of your connection? So I'm not sure I can take those pics into account accurately.

Lag would effect both tests equally as it is constant. Didn't seem to be a factor in this experiment because I remember my arm starting to move at 70% even on my lag free connection.

In hindsight, the easiest test is probably checking recast times. I assume x% fastcast not only speeds up the cast point by x% but also cuts recast time by x%. Can anyone confirm that? Won't have access to a pc with ffxi until this evening, so I can't check this for a while.

 

[Bajaratt]

Baj we are end game, the whole point of merits is for end game because you can't get them until 75. We do way more end game events then exping. The faster the tank is cured the safer any party is in my opinion. And with maxed merits 20% faster cures is a lot safer.

Again, that's an opinion. I agree with Rones that it's usually more of the whm not responding fast enough than just the cure wasn't fast enough; I've beaten rdm's to cures and -na's before because I responded faster. And no, they weren't doing anything else at the time, so they had the same opportunity to cast the spell that I did.

I don't have to depend on -cure casting time to make sure my tanks are alive all the time. I'll agree that the faster the tank is cured the safer the group is, but at the same time I still don't think that I have to dedicate merits or gear to cause that to happen when it's already a rare occurance that my cure wasn't fast enough. Again, this is all opinion, if you want a whm with the lowest cure speed possible, that's fine. I'm choosing to focus on other aspects of the job and that's fine too. Although to cover all of our bases, having one of each would be a good idea.