Cast or Speed?

[Prince Silvermane]

Which one is better? Getting to the turn where you can cast or being slower but casting faster?

[Ghaleon]

Both.

Seriously though, thing is cast quartz caps at 2, action caps at 5. I imagine action 5 is better even for strict casters. But if you have someone who rarely does anything other than arts, I'd probably prefer a cast 2 over an action 2 or even 3.

[RegalStar]

You should always have both. Speed is VERY important in any ATB-like system. High level spells are NOT worth sacrificing that, especially since high level spells in this game are mostly crap anyways due to having only a (rather insignificant) flat damage bonus on lower level spells, but cost more time to cast and way more EP.

[rkkn]

I put action on every character. always
and then I put cast on anyone who will cast a lot. only ones i don't put cast on are Tita, Agate, and Zane. With them I almost exclusively use crafts. though Tita could do with a cast, since I find I sometimes use clock up ex, though that's about it

[butterbattle22]

Originally posted by Prince Silvermane:

Which one is better? Getting to the turn where you can cast or being slower but casting faster?

Neither one is always better. But, generally speaking, I use action quartz more than cast quartz.

I usually have cast quartz on my dedicated spellcasters and action quartz on everyone else, but I also often have both. E.g. I usually have cast on Kloe, but not action, and action on Agate, but not cast; on Estelle, Joshua, or Tita, I often have both. These still aren't set in stone. It depends on my current team comp, and what I'm planning on doing with each character. E.g. if I already have two strong casters, then I take off cast on Joshua because I'm going to max strength and spam crafts.

It does seem that a cast quartz will increase your cast speed by a higher percentage than the corresponding action quartz, although I'm not sure what the percentage increase is for cast quartz exactly, as it's not shown. It might be a different percentage for arts with longer cast times.

Cast time is a lot more important if you're in a tough fight where enemies might impede your casters (e.g. mr. bladelord).

[articulate]

Both. But often enough, for a caster to get maximum firepower down one element "tree", you don't have enough slots. Most "grand" arts require an obscene amount of one element, and a substantial number of supporting elements.

The grand example would be Cocytus. 25 blue means you need 3(even with end-game quartz). So if we use Kloe as an example, you'd have 3 slots dedicated to blue(she's locked to that anyway). 1 to Cast 2, 2 to green quartz and that leaves just 1 more slot. I usually put EP Cut 4 in that.

While she certainly doesn't need attack arts since she is mostly a healer...Certain equips, late game or otherwise, make her the best arts-user, topping even Olivier by a mile, in the region of about 100+ ATS over him. Though for the moment, I'm only at Ch8, so maybe I don't know everything yet.

[RegalStar]

Originally posted by articulate?:

Most "grand" arts require an obscene amount of one element, and a substantial number of supporting elements.

You don't need them. You don't want them. They utterly suck. Let me lay out some data for you:

-Cocytus does about 100 more damage than Titanic Roar (and this is always true as long as your ATS and whatever your targets' ADF and elemental resistances are the same). Kloe will probably end up having it anyways while trying to get area heal spells, but there's no way that it's worth dedicating that many slots to this thing for anyone else when Titanic Roar requires two slots.

-Arc Prominence does about 350 more damage than Titanic Roar if the caster has the same ATS, but it's EV means that you're either sacrificing a Mind quartz (which means that you will lose around 500 damage from not having those ATS), or you're sacrificing Cast which means you're taking 50% more time (after considering both casting time and recovery time to next turn). Why would you even want to do that?

The other "ultimate spells" are similar. You don't want them. They take too much slots and has next to no advantage. The only damaging spells you want to cast most of the time are Blue Impact/Earth Lance, Aerial, possibly Aero Storm, Titanic Roar and Death Scream (which at least is easy to assemble).

On the other hand, Onyx Gem (Action 5) increases your speed by 50%. Cast 2 decreases casting time by 70%, which means that for most 10/20 spells (the ones you SHOULD be casting - Blue Impact, Aerial, etc.) takes about 33% less time to go through, while 20/20 spells like Titanic Roar, Death Scream, and Earth Wall take about 50% less time. Sapphire gem's ATS boost is worth about 60% of the character's ATS in damage. Those boosts are MUCH more important than the flat damage boosts from those so-called ultimate spells.

[Nonexistinghero]

Originally posted by Ghaleon:

Both.

Seriously though, thing is cast quartz caps at 2, action caps at 5. I imagine action 5 is better even for strict casters. But if you have someone who rarely does anything other than arts, I'd probably prefer a cast 2 over an action 2 or even 3.

There's actually a 3rd cast, but it doesn't seem to have any noticeable effect. At least, in the PC version. And it decreases strength, defense and ATS by a whole 15%, so it's really not worth it. For that kind of sacrifice I expect instant-casting for high-tier spells, not an ability that's not even noticeably better than cast 2.

[ladynadiad]

Both. The only high level art worth anything is Death Scream anyhow and you'll need an action quartz for that one.

[articulate]

Originally posted by RegalStar:

You don't need them. You don't want them.

Alright. Let me just say. Regardless of whether you want them or do not want them is of no consequence to me. I never said they were useful, just grand. And some people like grand, I like to see major spells go off occasionally and have fun with the game. During that time, I'm not silently calculating differing values to realise the most effective strategy. Also, this "data" is really nothing short of arrogance. The combat in this game isn't rocket science, you don't need a DPS parser nor a sit-down with mathcraft wizkids to figure out that Flare Arrow only does a few hundred damage more than Fire Bolt. Most people would and should realise it partway into the game.

Also, with Kloe, there's really no way around it. Assuming you want Athelas and La Tear-All. Then there's no space for an Action quartz no matter how you slice it. Unless you forgo the Cast quartz for an Action quartz.

[Nonexistinghero]

Dunno what Athelas is (revive spell? pretty useless then), but I've had both action and cast quartz on Kloe the entire time. Never had a problem getting the highest La Tear I needed. And I'm now endgame and she has access to all regular tear spells, all la tear spells (yes, also the one that cures all for a massive cost of 300... but only 150 for me) and Death Scream. And she's also been set up as an offensive mage, so she's done a ton of damage throughout the game as well.

Now, she didn't get access to Death Scream and the highest la tear spell until chapter 9, but it's not like you need them on her before that either. You get another character in chapter 6 who has fairly good magic power and is capable of using death scream whenever necessary until then.

[RegalStar]

Athelas is the full revive spell. And yes it's rather useless; by the time you have it you will only really die a few times to bosses maybe (even on nightmare), and you can just pop Zeram powder/capsules.

[T]

Apparently "time gem" (cast 3) has been fixed in the latest patch(es) and actually speeds up casting quite a bit more than Cast 2 now.

[Rand]

Yes some sacrifices have to be made by the end game, and to take both Cast and Speed means you're losing out on something else be it a high level spell or even an entire branch. For example if you want Kloe to have all the healing spells (single heal, group heal, status heal, KO heal), I you need an Earth, Wind, and Gold/Silver quartz. That leaves only one spot for Cast or Speed, and for my Casters I went cast 2. A big key for me was everyone in my party to have Clock Up Ex and you can get that with a Gold Gem/EP Cut 4 quarts and Cast 2.

I also really loved the Zodiac spell which hit your entire party for +25% STR & DEF, which recquires 4 of every colour but black and 8 silver. Hard to fit both Cast + Speed in there... I think technically you can but you won't be able to have a big hit all wind or earth spell.

[RegalStar]

Zodiac is pretty useless; La Forte is easy to assemble and has the same attack buff, and the defense buff doesn't really do anything, especially since buffs work off raw values only - even Kevin at level ~90 will only get about 127 DEF from it, which reduces damage by ~360 - and to any attacks that can actually threaten your party members, this is a laughable amount of reduction. And you can use La Crest to get the DEF buff anyways if you really want it for prosperity or something. You can at least make a case for revive spells in that they have unlimited Range (using item is limited by the user's move stat); stat buffs are something cast at the start of the battle before people start moving all over and the full screen effect of Zodiac is meaningless at that time. And by the time people can actually cast Zodiac without crippling their EP pool, buffs would already last entire battles.

Seriously, no spell is worth removing the speed advantage of either Cast or Action for.