Fast Cast %?Follow

I felt very n00bish this afternoon when an LS member asked me exactly how much Fast Cast reduced casting times and I couldn't give him an exact number O.o. For some reason, I had heard that our initial Fast Cast trait was something like 10% and that we got 5% for each additional Trait lvl and AF Item (Warlock's Chapeau and Duelist's Tabard)

So with full Fast Cast gear (Minus the Loquatious Earring, which is what brought this subject up in the first place) a RDM should have 40% Fast Cast:
10% (Initial Trait at lvl 15)
5% (lvl 2 Trait gained at lvl 35)
5% (lvl 3 Trait gained at lvl 55)
10% (Warlock's Chapeau)
10% (Duelist's Tabard)
=40%

Well, I decided to get some numbers so I went outside as /DRK and played around.

No Fast Cast gear at all, /recast for stun showed up at 40 seconds.

AF Hat only showed 38 seconds

AF Hat and AFv2 Tabard showed 36 seconds

AF Hat, AFv2 Tabard, and Loquatious Earring showed 35 seconds

No Gear with Haste: 34 seconds

Hat with Haste: 32 seconds

Hat, Tabard, Haste: 30 seconds

Hat, Tabard, Earring, Haste: still 30 seconds ( ; ; at least I had the 30 MP...)

Math is really not my strong point, so if anyone wants to convert these into % please do.

PS. I searched through a few forums and couldn't find this information anywhere. The answer to this might be a good thing to include in the FAQ/TOC.

Edit: Corrected the values of Warlock's Chapeau and Duelist's Tabard. They were previously listed at 5% Fast Cast each, but they are in fact 10% each.

Edited, Sep 5th 2007 2:58am by sylvrdragon

Recast Figures (These are doubled to get the casting speed increase):

Fast Cast 1 = 5%
Fast Cast 2 = 2.5%
Fast Cast 3 = 2.5%
AF1 Hat = 5%
AF2 Body = 5%
Loquacious Earring = 1.5% (see below)

References I tested against:
Haste = 15%
Swift Belt = 4%
Dusk Hands = 3%
FC3 + AF1 Hat + AF2 Body = 15% reduction = Haste spell

Loquacious Earring is very hard to test but I put FC3+AF1+Dusk+Loq and matched it up against Haste and it is very close, which leads me to believe it is not 1% recast but more like 1.5 or 2. I tested casting speed reduction using Fraps and frame-by-frame. All were tested with RR, even FC1/2 as WHM37/x, WHM37/RDM, and WHM75/RDM.

Edited, Fri May 12 19:39:09 2006 by KCMichaelM

There's no trait at 75, even borrowed a RDM68 to do those tests, this is one test i'm sure i'm exactly right on lol...I wanted to figure it out for myself once and for all.

>>"How do I remember stuff like this from so long ago?"

'cause ign boards was full of good info with Aenos around as a mentor... and don't forget "Sliver" for good ol' debates... *cough* I mean flame fests...

I'd test if it wasn't so damn expensive on Siren... I'll still try to see if I can get ahold of one, it's worth finding out and should be in this discussion.

The effect is the same on all 3 (Loquacious, Homan, Rostrums)

Homan was tested by a WAR friend of mine and it's overall spell cast reduction was almost identical to Haidate (which is 5% haste). Homan has 3% haste + FC enhancement, which equals my test of Loquacious with Dusk Hands (3%) + the earring equalling 5%.

Well, the spell casting speed is twice that so 3%...which is noticable but still minimal.

From my experience fast cast is a flat percentage off the casting percentage bar.


So if it's normally 80 and you add -10 you will cast at 70.

Really? That means it actually reduces the casting time by more than that ammount; the earlier the spell triggers, the bigger a "bonus" you get. That's awesome. Thanks for the info.

If you somehow get a hold of someone with a Warlock's Mantle and get to do testing, please let me know what you find ^^

A BRD in my LS claims that Rostrum pump Fast Cast isn't a set % but kicks in randomly much like RDMs initial Fast Cast trait at JP release. He says he has had teleports go off at 60% before while wearing them. Like a lot of other things, I think this calles for a battery of tests.

I have no idea how Fast Cast effects actual casting time other than it makes it faster lol. I've certainly noticed that not all spells fire off at the same % as one would assume. I wish I would remember to do these tests when I'm bored or something... instead I just stare at my Moogle and compulsively check my delivery box/LS list/Friend list/Status menu until I decide to go AFK lol.

I wonder if we can ever get enough Fast Cast to make Dia as fast as Stun or Flash... THAT would be awesome.

Oh yeah, I'm not tottaly sure that using /recast is the best means to determine the % of Fast Cast as this game doesn't usually work in whole numbers (look at TP gain for example). When you hit /recast and it says 38 seconds, that could be 38-38.9 which, when working with this small of numbers, could certainly throw off your numbers by a significant amount. A way we might be able to narrow this down a bit, if you do these /recast tests like I do, then you initiate the spell, then spam the macro with /recast in it till it doesn't say 00:00 anymore. If you spam it as fast as the game will register the macro, then we should be able to get semi conclusive numbers by counting the number of times it says the initial /recast time before going down a second. It might look something like this:

00:00
00:00
00:00
00:00
00:00
00:38
00:38
00:38
00:38
00:37
00:37

If someone (That someone might be me when I log back on) wants to see how many times a time will display in 1 second, then we can can build a scale to give us a more precise % from these tests.

/recast is very much a general idea of the timer in question, if it is only a few seconds off I tend to consider it a "good day." (Oftentimes I'll have /recast say something is ready only to have my attempt to use the spell/ability thumb its nose at me for 3 or 4 seconds)

I never looked... but the menu timer: Does it start its countdown at 100% on the casting bar, when the spell 'fires,' or when the spell 'completes?'

Added this thread to the links section, btw.

I think the menu inaccuracy is that it counts down based on when the spell hits a certain condition client-side (so, if the server is a second behind, a 0 on the menu will give you "1 second" on the command attempt if the second goes through faster). However, it should give you a proper time (my question was to see where the menu measures from for time-between-cast type calculations, which is cast-time-to-firing + cooldown, but if it reset at 100% we'd have to add in time-after-firing. Minorly important and I don't know I'll do anything with the info, but I was wondering).

Inputting commands via macro or /command will be off from /recast, so that, at least, *is* not 100% trustworthy. Never actually played too much recasting from the menu ASAP.

EDIT: As usual someone (KC in this case) has come along and said everything I said with fewer than half the words...

Edited, Mon May 15 15:17:14 2006 by Blinder

Another question I haven't seen addressed in this thread.

Anyone done any testing with a Warlock's Chapeau +1? It's certainly plausible the Fast Cast trait is improved. I recently upgraded mine, I should've thought to do some comparisons before and after, but neglected to do so.

Um...

Isn't Fast Cast what allows us to cast a spell at say 60% instead of 90-100%? Whenever I'm on Blm/Whm I cast Blizzard II at say anywhere from 80-100%, but on Rdm is casts 50-60%. Isn't that what Fast Cast does?

As for REcast times, I always figured thats what Haste type spells were for...

I tried it half a dozen times wearing only the +1 Chapeau, and came up with 51 seconds each time, as you suggested. Guess the hat doesn't improve the Fast Cast effect at all.

Oh well. The +2 INT and +5 MP is still worth it, and it's always nice to have a white box around the Chapeau.

Kindof necroposting this, but it's good information to have.

I just recently got my Duelist's Tabard and wanted to do some tests. Had my fiancee switch to a level 1 mule and die outside where I could just raise her over and over (no effect or not, just checking recast times).

I got some of the same general numbers as you did with my recast times, but it lead me to this conclusion:

Hat = ~5.5%
Body AF2 = ~5.5%
Loq Ear = 1%

Didn't test any other items because I didn't have them on me. One thing I did in my tests to try and get a more accurate measure was I purposefully killed myself to extend the recast timer by another 60 seconds. I'll post my specific times when I get home and have them in front of me (assuming I remember to come back here and post them :D)

I was going through the sticky seeing if anything new and interesting had been added when I came across Marg's Conserve-MP Trait tests and the thought occured to me that perhaps this also is calculated in 256ths. After all, people were able to conclusively prove that Damage% down gear in fact was, so I see no reason that this can't be as well. If we convert what we already know/suspect is true to xx/256ths, then I bet the numbers would come out a lot more solid... I however, am not the person for this job as my math skills and attention span are not suited for this type of thing. If anyone wants to plug in these numbers and see if our values add up, that would be phenominal.

Edit: I'm blind, I didn't necro bump this, someone else did and I just didn't see it lol.

Edited, Sun Jun 4 23:30:47 2006 by sylvrdragon

If they were the same price as Ogre +1, then I would say it's a fair debate. 2% Haste isn't much but it's not 'nothing' either. Considering that HQ Ogre and NQ Dusk are about a 6m price difference on my server, I think Ogre wins out.

Only real occasion I could see Dusk being definately better is if you are soloing something hard enough as /NIN that 8 atk wouldn't matter and the haste is needed to keep shadows up. If you are comparing HQ Dusk then yeah I could see that but then the price difference is even more (remember, 3% haste is 50% more haste than 2% lol)

Edited, Mon Jun 5 16:30:25 2006 by KCMichaelM

It's the exact same recast, but the Chapeau does actually cast 10% faster due to it's Fastcast trait.

Right, that was pretty much answered in the post right above yours too ;p

N-N-N-Necro Bump!!!

I was bored out of my mind when I came across this thread in the Bard forums. They were definately on to something interesting here even before they mentioned Fast Cast. So I stripped down and subbed WHM to go see if that 7.5% they came up with for Fast CastIII was something we had missed, but I still came up with 10% /recast Reduction for Reraise with no Fast cast enhancment gear (Fast CastIII only, which according to the latest chart, matches what we already knew). I threw on my Chapeau and v2 tabard and sure enough, came up with another 10%, but then I thought of the whole thing about /recast being half of the casting time bonus so I paid attention to when my spell went off... well. According to the chart, it should have gone off at ~60% (by going off, I mean gives the icon) but it went off anywhere from 50-55%... Anyone know where this extra 5-10% cast time reduction is coming from? (not using Loquatious). The list this BRD posted said something about Fast CastIII being 7.5%, but that doesn't compare to my recast test, although it WOULD add up on the cast time test if you double it. I'm so confused. I'm going to post a link to this thread and clarify a few things about Fast Cast for them.

Edited, Jul 9th 2006 at 1:26am EDT by sylvrdragon

Yeah, probably. Not that I'm complaining at my spells going off earlier mind you... It was just confusing the hell outta me. I wonder if SE will add Fast Cast merits... I would say to hell with Elemental Accuracy and go 5/5 Convert and 5/5 Fast Cast.

Edited, Jul 9th 2006 at 1:41am EDT by sylvrdragon

@.@?

Hey guys, I'm kinda necroposting this because I'm trying to find out more information on Fast Cast combined with -Song Spellcasting Time.

There's not a whole lot of info out, and from reading above I understand that to get the cast time reduction, double it (the fast cast recast bonus) and remove that percentage off the casting bar (ie: 15% for FCI+II).

Anyways, since i'm more concerned with Spellcasting time over recast time, I'm trying to nail down a good way to measure how long it takes for a spell to go off. I was using the casting bar, but I've noticed that its highly innacurate. Sometimes even the same song goes off at different % times on the cast bar.

So my question is, is there an alternate way of measuring spellcasting time?

My next idea is to put the spell in a macro and trigger it. When I start casting the cursor should light up (indicating the start of the cast time). Then I will unselect myself and wait for the spell to go off, which would cause the cursor to appear over me again (indicating the end of the cast time). I'll be recording video of this process and figuring out the exact times of this occuring.

Does this sound like a good test?

Also - Since I saw that it was asked - I have a Warlock's Mantle and I saw some asking about the bonus. I would be happy to try any tests with it if anyone asks.

(I know about ffxiclopedia, but there's very little references and my numbers aren't matching up with what is on the website. So either some of the values are innacurate, assumed & not verified, or I am doing my tests wrong. This is what I want to find out really.)

Well, your macro was kinda broken, but i think i understood what you meant.

With 75WHM/37RDM & Warlock's Mantle, recast is 55 secs.