Fast Cast Fail? (Spellcast)

So I've finally got my spellcast XML file working perfectly as I like it, *except* for the fact that my Fast Cast gear works when it wants to, and not all the time, which is very troublesome trying to solo.... In particular in even the slightest lag it doesn't work right, sometimes I finish casting a spell at 37%, and sometimes it just decides it wants to finish casting at 50%....

I don't know what to do, I've messed around with delays a lot and not seen any noticeable difference, other than that now my spells lag half a second behind for only half-functionality with fast cast...

Can someone please help me with this irritating problem?

Here's my XML file..

Eburo's RDM XML

Is it not working on your nukes or other spells as well?

Mostly spells that cast in less than 4 seconds, like cures/blink, but sometimes it happens on nukes, which causes me to fail hard at soloing ... Very discouraging.

Your delays could be too short, I've had the same problem before with RDM/BLM/WHM spellcasts in the past. Try increasing your midcastdelay's so they're ~1sec

I just removed the midcastdelay altogether, and it seems to have *somewhat* fixed the problem, during lag I sometimes cast in about 43%...

Some spells do go off at 37% again though, and it's hard to tell with a lot of them since they go off while I'm still blinking. (Which is even better though, since I don't get locked in place by my spell when buffing)

I have a similar problem with my BLM XML, equiping my minusHP gear while nuking.

Although this is somewhat fixed by just hit minushp set and back to idle gear and have Sorc. Ring equiped in the dmg set.
Works since its easy to hit ~~76% in abyssea (for me atleast) but not like it designed to do.

Sorry for derail~

I'm fairly sure that putting a cast delay in your precast just so Fast Cast gear can equip properly is a bit ridiculous. The point of Fast Cast gear is to get the spell off sooner. A Cast Delay kinda defeats the purpose... I'm fairly sure that you would need either a TON of Fast Cast (Possibly more than a RDM can even get in gear), or a VERY long spell just to offset a .75 second delay.

The math isn't exact, but if you have the max amount of Fast Cast available to RDM (~+30$ in gear unless I'm missing something) then the spell would have to have a base casting time of ~4 seconds just to break even from a .75 second cast delay. Anything less than that, and you might as well cast in your midcast gear to start with.

On the longest spell that RDM has access to (Raise) a .75 second Cast Delay is like throwing away 5 Fast Cast (and it gets worse as the cast time of the spell gets lower).

So yeah, figure out a better way to fix your spellcast than a Cast Delay if your goal is to optimize Fast Cast.

On a side note, you can't eyeball Fast Cast results by your casting bar. Fast Cast has been shown to be calculated server side, which means the cast bar is subject to both Lag AND Latency. What you see on the cast bar is not necessarily what is actually happening. Besides that, it's damn hard to notice when a spell takes effect and see where the bar is at the same time unless you're casting Raise while Addled or something.

If you only wanted to see if you were getting the effect off FC at all you could test using stoneskin.

Calculate your cast time for SS with, and without your fastcast gear.

In my case, on PLD/WHM I have 21% in FC gear. SC resources list SS as having a 7 sec base cast time. So, a 5.53 SS cast with FC gear.

So, we set the cancel for SS between those two values. In this case, I went right in the middle with 6.26.

Then you start casting. If fast cast gear's effect is being received, then the spell will resolve before the cancel triggers, and the SS cast will have no effect. Followed by the SS effect being canceled right after.

If the FC gear effect isn't proc'ing then SS should be canceled before the spell resolves then reapplied.

After turning off the 0.3 cast delay I'd been using and trying this, after 20-something sets of casts, SS always had no effect. Meaning my FC gear worked every time.

I suppose I can remove that cast delay now. Although it might be good to do some field tests in a laggy zone before doing so.

O.o That's a nice test method.

The other good test method I learned about (Credit to Yugl from BG) required 2 characters with a program that sent commands to both simultaneously. You put one amount of Fast Cast on one character and another amount on the other and both cast a Cure spell on someone who was only missing a few HP. You could tell who had less Fast Cast because they were the one that typically healed for 0 HP. (Results were 90% Constant, so lag definitely has SOME effect)

It was a good method to use to narrow down FC values of items with too low of values to rely solely on recast.

Good that someone finally got around to answering this. :)

I will test out using both methods! I'll have to remove all the precast delays, that is a good point. I just didn't trust that spellcast was actually putting my fast cast gear on quick enough when spellcasting.

My test is an on/off kinda test. It won't help much in terms of precision and measuring. But you can tell that you are getting your Fast cast effect. I couldn't say for certain that All of it is proc'ing every time, but there was at least enough to show consistent results.

I saw that test on BG as well. The fast cast thread in the mathy parts is fascinating. o.o