The only way to cast spells past level 1 it to bring up the spell wheel and charge?

[DecalMan]

Is there a way to assign a button hotkey to them?

How in the world do you cast a spell while bringing up that wheel and charging it without getting hit?

[Lesmir]

there is many way to boost cast speed ( spell like haste , passive affinity with red mage , lunatic command etc ) which will make charging spell almost or even instantly.

as to safe casting , most caster will use the ninja as a secondary class for the ability to auto dodge 3 attack for 2 ninja tool/scroll

[Celgaming]

Some command abiilities and skills that help:

• Reinforce, makes casting faster and you can't be interrupted.
  
• Runic Protection, if you have MP, you won't be interrupted.
  
• Sentinel, health based buff, can't be interrupted while buff is up.
  
• Lunatic, speeds up casting, disables break regen.
  
• Red Mage 400% affinity speeds up casting.
  
• Haste spell speeds up casting.
  
• Smithing "Reduce Casting Time" to gear. Takes up first 2 slots.

[DecalMan]

Ok thanks. Im not that far into the game yet i just dont understand how to cast a spell past level 1 without bringing up the spell wheel, select it, then hold down the button. Seems alittle much when all they had to do was add a dedicated button fore each element to cast, or even hold that button to charge it.

[Lesmir]

Originally posted by DecalMan:

Ok thanks. Im not that far into the game yet i just dont understand how to cast a spell past level 1 without bringing up the spell wheel, select it, then hold down the button. Seems alittle much when all they had to do was add a dedicated button fore each element to cast, or even hold that button to charge it.

the wheel is because you can have lots of spell , like with my sage i have access to 14 spell on the wheel ( black magic and white magic ) as for the charging well its a gameplay mechanic you either fast cast lv 1 spell or wait to charge up , but once a spell selected you just need to press the button to cast it and if you have super fast cast rate then you barely need to hold it for instant charge spell cast

[Clay Roks]

In this case it is a bit closer to casting high level magic in the turn based games. Fire, quick easy no problem. Firaga? You gonna need to chant it out. If you've got your homies grabbing the bosses attention, along with what was posted above, you'll have plenty of opportunities to cast high level spells

[DecalMan]

Wonder is i can set up a macro on my keyboard for each spell?

[Kon]

Also, this game is on console. So a lot of the controls were with gamepads in mind as well, probably as a priority.

[TwoHands]

I don’t see this mentioned, but if you already have a spell selected, you can just hold down R2 and it will start charging. The wheel will still show up, but you only need to use it to select a different spell, which you may not need to do often. Just remember that if you charged fire up to firaga, you can use the wheel to change to another level 3 spell at anytime without having to charge again. And if you have sage, after three black magic spells cast, each spell will start at a level 2 charge.

For faster charging, Red Mage 250% affinity is a must. It should also charge faster if you have haste active too. You can also charge up a spell, and use soul shield to cancel. This way you can prepare, thunder before a battle instead of selecting it during combat. R2 will always use the most recently selected spell

[Eventide]

Originally posted by TwoHands:

I don’t see this mentioned, but if you already have a spell selected, you can just hold down R2 and it will start charging. The wheel will still show up, but you only need to use it to select a different spell, which you may not need to do often. Just remember that if you charged fire up to firaga, you can use the wheel to change to another level 3 spell at anytime without having to charge again. And if you have sage, after three black magic spells cast, each spell will start at a level 2 charge.

For faster charging, Red Mage 250% affinity is a must. It should also charge faster if you have haste active too. You can also charge up a spell, and use soul shield to cancel. This way you can prepare, thunder before a battle instead of selecting it during combat. R2 will always use the most recently selected spell

What hasn't been mentioned either is the fact that while not casting you still retain your charge though it's going down. So if you charge to firaga and dodge an attack you can immediately start casting and it'll still be like halfway from fira to firaga.

Also, the only time you would have to start the wheel over is if you're on Sage and switch from white magic to black magic and vice versa. If you charge like a full Firaga then switch to white magic it'll reset the wheel.

Casting is extremely easy to get used to and actually very intuitive. Hence why I said the OP is just a troll. He can't seem to figure out the most basic mechanic in the game.

[This is fine.]

Casters excell in Co-Op. Otherwise give your NPC teammates an attack command to distract enemies before you start casting.

[Eventide]

Originally posted by MateAndMead:

Casters excell in Co-Op. Otherwise give your NPC teammates an attack command to distract enemies before you start casting.

With the right things you don't need co-op or a distraction really. Lunatic or just Haste will increase your cast speed considerably. They stack with each other too. There are plenty of other solutions that were listed earlier as well:

Originally posted by Celgaming:

Some command abiilities and skills that help:

• Reinforce, makes casting faster and you can't be interrupted.
  
• Runic Protection, if you have MP, you won't be interrupted.
  
• Sentinel, health based buff, can't be interrupted while buff is up.
  
• Lunatic, speeds up casting, disables break regen.
  
• Red Mage 400% affinity speeds up casting.
  
• Haste spell speeds up casting.
  
• Smithing "Reduce Casting Time" to gear. Takes up first 2 slots.

Though I wouldn't get the smithing part. Save that for MP cost reduction. Doing that along with things like Riot Magic from 400% Black Mage and MP Regen can get you infinite MP very easily. So then you have fast casting speed and infinite MP and you can just spam away at all your favorite spells.

[SpoonyBard]

Should be noted that Sentinel stops damage, but not break. So if you get hit too much you will break still.

[This is fine.]

Originally posted by Eventide:

Originally posted by MateAndMead:

Casters excell in Co-Op. Otherwise give your NPC teammates an attack command to distract enemies before you start casting.

With the right things you don't need co-op or a distraction really. Lunatic or just Haste will increase your cast speed considerably. They stack with each other too. There are plenty of other solutions that were listed earlier as well:

Doesn't change my point. Casters excell in coop. I never said they can't be good in solo.
Sure you can do lunatic or whatnot to cast spells whoile theres a short opening on a boss. Sure. It's good.
But lunatic and casting 5 spells while hes attacking your teammates is inarguably better.

[Eventide]

Originally posted by MateAndMead:

Originally posted by Eventide:

With the right things you don't need co-op or a distraction really. Lunatic or just Haste will increase your cast speed considerably. They stack with each other too. There are plenty of other solutions that were listed earlier as well:

Doesn't change my point. Casters excell in coop. I never said they can't be good in solo.
Sure you can do lunatic or whatnot to cast spells whoile theres a short opening on a boss. Sure. It's good.
But lunatic and casting 5 spells while hes attacking your teammates is inarguably better.

Then literally everything excels in co-op for the same exact reasoning. So your entire point is moot.

[Celgaming]

Originally posted by MateAndMead:

So then you have fast casting speed and infinite MP and you can just spam away at all your favorite spells.

Except you don't regen mana from a casted spell, unless that is what Riot Magic does? Even so at later stages of the game you need to be defensive and evade. Most great loot comes from boss fights and the rift will put 4-5 bosses in a row. You can't stand in a corner casting. They can dodge the spells or walk out of the AoE.

Even as a Red Mage with super fast casting I can miss 2-3 lightning bolts.

What I did was get Ramuh as my primary blessing. With 1-3 1H sword combos, especially multi hit ones, the boss would get paralyzed. THEN I'd cast and blast off like 10-13 casts in a row.

However I'd be low on MP at that time and engage the boss again. I had enchanter as my 2nd job so I'd buff my weapon with the same element.

There are some unique debuffs certain elements do, but I only know a few. For example ice debuff will slow the monster down ever so slightly. I believe water debuff makes them more vulnerable to lightning?

I tried googling but found no results nor anyone testing if any of this is true.