Fast Cast +50%Follow

I'm sure I'm not the first one to toy with this, but I felt I should share anyway!

With the addition of the Royal Redingote, it's now possible to get Fast Cast +50% on SCH without carrying around a bunch of Inventory- gear!

Keep in mind that the following caveats apply:
- 30% is dependant on casting spells within your currently active Grimoire.
- 15% is dependant on having RDM set as your subjob.
- 5% is dependant on either acquiring the Royal Redingote and adding Fast Cast +5, or carrying 3 altogether useless items. (Warlock's Mantle, Loquacious Earring, and Rostrum Pumps)


SCH10 Dark/Light Arts: 10% Casting time reduction
SCH30 Fast Cast I: 10% Casting time reduction
SCH54 Scholar's Loafers: 10% Casting time reduction
SCH70 Fast Cast II: 5% Casting time reduction
SCH75 Argute Mortarboard: 10% Casting time reduction
SCH75 Royal Redingote: 5% Casting time reduction

Taking advantage of these bonuses is fairly simple: equip the above gear, then fire the spell. I used to have a separate macro to equip my Fast Cast gear that I would hit before i fired a spell, but I've since added these equips to my Strategem macros. Simply add another line (I use hands) that equips a different piece for each Strategem to ensure that the /JA animation is blinked out to avoid ability lock. I did have an issue with the Fast Cast not taking effect on every cast, due to varying server/client lag, but this is easily remedied by adding a /wait 1 to your spell macros before equipping your casting gear.

Macro examples:

/ja "Parsimony(/Alacrity/Ebullience)" <me>
/equip head "Argute Mortarboard"
/equip feet "Scholar's Loafers"
/equip body "Royal Redingote"
/equip hands "Vicious Mufflers(/Argute Bracers/Genie Gages)"

/ma "Blizzard IV" <t>
/wait 1
/equip casting gear

Using this macro strategy you can gain the very tangible benefits of SCH's Fast Cast ability without sacrificing scarce macro space in the process. Also, while i mainly use this for Dark Arts casting, it can easily be applied to Light Arts as well for spells such as Stoneskin. I highly recommend giving it a try! Note that using this gear, SCH can stack more Fast Cast than RDM can...

Concerning the Royal Redingote, I was very torn between adding the MACC/MATK Augments or going with Fast Cast; in the end I decided on Fast Cast for three reasons:

- It's an excellent upgrade that, prior to A Crystalline Prophecy, required too much inventory to be worth the trouble.
- Coupled with Enmity+5, it is quite useful for my RDM as well.
- After reading the excellent comparisons between our current nuking body choices and the Redingote done in xXxNaobixXx's thread, it seemed at best a lateral/hybrid choice; not enough justification for the inventory space.

Again my apologies if this is old news; besides, SCH forum needs more topics anyway. =D

Edit: Only 49% Fast Cast is possible without the Redingote, until we figure out how to wear two pairs of shoes at once.

Edited, Apr 12th 2009 7:46am by LyltiaofLakshmi

The recast reduction is a nice side effect of this gear, but i don't find it very useful for the most part. Drain/Aspir/Bind only. Also, the last thing you want to be doing is actually casting your spells in this gear, as there's usually something better to be casting in. Scholar's Loafers are especially useless for accuracy/potency, even the +1. The above spells are the only ones I actually cast wearing the Loafers; There's really very few spells and situations where i find focusing on maximizing recast times at the expense of accuracy/potency is really crucial for SCH, as compared to RDM. The point is to macro this equipment in, cast the spell, then switch to casting gear. It makes an enormous difference on your tierIV nukes; I can start running around 35% on the Casting Time bar.

To give you an example of how useful this is, consider something like Temenos North 1F solo. I was able to shave entire minutes off my time once i perfected using this gear, from 21 minutes down to 17 minutes. Don't underestimate how much time you will save by using this gear... 3-4 seconds off every tierIV you cast will make you vastly more efficient over time.

The beauty of using Fast Cast gear is that it eliminates the need to use Celerity or Alacrity to increase casting speed, allowing you to conserve charges for other uses. Spells such as Raise II or Klimaform you can simply cast in Fast Cast/Haste gear, which brings the recasts low enough that using Celerity/Alacrity becomes a wasted Strategem. The only instance in which i ever use these is when i need to maintain a full strength, half recast Bind, such as while taking out the Kronzprinz Behemoths in Apollyon NW.

Any situation in which your main focus is damage efficiency over time, such as farming triggers/NMs in Sky/Sea or timed instances such as Apollyon/Temenos, every Strategem not spent on Parsimony is 60-70 MP lost. Using Fast Cast gear with Parsimony spam will allow for faster kills with maximum MP conservation. This especially shines when nuking targets with 10k HP, such as you find in Limbus zones; you can speed up each kill by as much as 30-40 seconds, while maintaining maximum MP efficiency. If you have a Uggalepih Pendant you can put it to maximum use with effective Parsimony/Sublimation management to further increase your kill speed.

It's important to remember that only 2 sets of Strategems produce an immediate and unique effect; Accession/Manifestation for Area of Effect, and Parsimony/Penury for instant, guaranteed MP savings.The effects of Celerity/Alacrity, Ebullience/Rapture, Altruism/Focalization, and Tranquility/Equanimity can all be duplicated/compensated for by appropriate gear. That's not to say that these Strategems do not possess situational usefulness; only that their effects can be gained to varying extent without using Strategem charges. (This is what makes the Merit Category 2 White Magic Strategems so useless.) It's all about weighing the opportunity cost of each remaining Strategem to maximize your efficiency in any given situation.

Negatron, it caps at 50%. You also cant get recast below 50% either. That's assuming SCH has to follow the rules like other mage jobs.