How does Charge Cast work?

[Day]

I'm totally stumped on how to get to work the right way. It says when you are charging a seraphic arte with right button after casting it, press left button to instead start casting a higher arte you've learned. However when I follow that, I just get a martial arte instead. And yes I am using a seraphic arte that has a higher version. I'm not for sure if the controls I'm using is the keyboard and mouse or if there's an exact timing-any help would be great~

[igurai]

You need to hold down both buttons together. Cast the seraphic arte by holding its button down then press and hold left button together with the arte button. Doing this should make the higher level arte start casting after the base arte finishes its cast time.

[Haksio]

Yeah brie, do that.

[Sigred]

Not really sure what the point of that is anyway. When I've channeled from a base seraphic arte to a higher one, only the higher arte is actually cast; unlike going from a base hidden arte to a higher one which actually chains both artes back to back. If you want a higher seraphic arte, just equip it? Is there actually any benefit of using the channeling method other than just casting it directly?

[XDustria]

The benefit it that you are using the higher level seraphic art while only using the sc conumption and cast time of the lower level one.

[Stabbey]

For the longest time I thought that after holding right-click, I needed to tap right-click again. It took me incredibly long to re-read that battle action and realize my mistake. Yes, hold right-click, then tap left click.

This is exceptionally helpful because it greatly shortens cast time (and apparently SP cost as well).

For instance, if you are playing Lailah and want to cast Flare Vortex/Tornado (whichever it's called), you could assign that directly to one direction and start to cast it... but it will take quite a while to cast. On the other hand, if you instead assign Pyrogenic Ring to a button, charge it, then use the left-click to charge it into Blitz Bomb, then left click to upgrade it to Flare Tornado, it ends up taking much less time overall to cast Flare Vortex.

[frubam]

That is actually a bit incorrect. The cast times are exactly the same, its just that they subtract the previous cast time from the new cast time. For example, let's say Pyro Ring takes 1 sec, Blitz Bomb takes 2 secs, and Flare Vortex takes 3 secs. If you cast Flare Vortex by itself, it will take the whole 3 secs to cast, but if you start from Pyro Ring, it will finish in 1 sec, charge it up and it subtracts that 1 sec from Blitz Bomb; 2 - 1 = 1, so Blitz Bomb will also finish casting in 1 sec, then charge THAT up to Flare Vortex, it subtracts the 2 secs from Blitz Bomb(or in this case, the 1 sec from Pyro Ring, and 1 sec from Blitz Bomb), thus FV also casts in 1 second. It subtracts the appropriate SC as well PR = -10SC -> BB = -6SC(16-10) -> FV = -8SC(24-16 or 24 -10-6, as in this case).

In actuality, it takes longer to cast higher tiers by at least a few frames, because between a spell fully charging and you actually pressing the button, time is lost. The benefits of using charge cast are, if you want to charge your SC back up(holding the charge before upgrading it, you can restore SC); useful as there is a battle action that subtracts 1BG when you use a Mystic Arte with 100 SC(e.g. MAs will only be 2BG instead of 3BG).

More importantly, by charge casting, you can decide whether or not you have enough time to make the next cast. Say you want to cast Flare Vortex, and an enemy is fast approaching. There's no way you can finish casting Flare Vortex, which you've already started charging for. You can just let Blitz Bomb cast before you get hit, so that you don't lose the attack you were going to put out.

It also saves room in the form of a slot. By having Pyro Ring and Photon Blaze on two hidden/seraphic arte slots, you have access to all 6 of Lailah's spells, controlling which ones you want to use in battle. Same goes with her healing spells, thus with those, you can have full access to all a seraph's spell list with one slot left over;
slot1: spell set A level 1(Pyrogenic Ring) -> Blitz Bomb -> Flare Vortex
slot2: spell set B level 1(Photon Blaze) -> Burning Strike -> Photon Burst
slot3: healing arte level 1(Imbuement) -> Refresh
slot4: debuff arte(Spirit Cage)
slot5: empty

[Guidsmaster]

Basically what Frubam said. I just wanted to correct one thing someone had said here, which is that you cast the higher arte at the sc cost of the lower one. That's unfortunately false, as everytime you upgrade the spell, more SC is consumed. However, I imagine that the "extra" cost is actually the difference between the completed spell and the one you're upgrading to. (let's say lvl 1 costs 5 SC, lvl 2 costs 10 SC, lvl 3 costs 20 SC... You cast level 1, 5 sc is consumed. You upgrade to level 2, 5 more SC is consumed (5+5=10=lvl 2 cost). You upgrade to 3 and 10 more SC will be consumed (10+5+5=20=lvl 3 cost).
I don't know if thats exactly how it works, but it would make the most sense. All i know for sure is that it does consume more SC every time you upgrade