5 replies to this topic

[Vikkie]

Im kind of confused at what it does, does it decrease the *cooldown time* of people's skills or does it decrease the casting time? (so at level 3 (decrase of .3) it decreases a skill that takes 1.5 seconds to cast to 1.2...) Just wanted to clear that up cause i reall don't notice much of a difference on either side... lol

[Rimmy]

It decreases the cast time. So, for instance, if a skill takes 1.5 seconds to cast normally and you have level 5 Casting Acceleration active, it will only take 1.0 second to cast.

It might not seem like a huge difference on the surface, but it can actually be pretty effective when paired with certain skills. For instance, if you use CA in tandem with level 5 Wide Heal, Wide Heal becomes almost an instant cast skill. Also, level 5 CA is almost a necessity for using Spark Rock effectively.

CA affects party members or teammates in regular PvP and EW, too (not in BSQ, though). If you use CA on a myrm/overlord, their Stumble skill is more or less an instant cast. Ninja/assassin's Wood Rush casts faster, WM's Snow Blues, Gren/Destroyer's Camouflage, etc., etc. There are numerous useful skills that can be further enhanced with CA.

[Vikkie]

oh okay thanks for the clarification... so right now, as a second jobber, it seems somewhat useless because pretty much all my skills are instant, and my friends say it doesnt really help them cause pretty much all their skills are instant... but on 3rd job+ it will be more useful? Also as a side question, you said when paired with wide heal it's really useful. I was using an outdated dragonica guide and they didn't reccomend wide heal for it's long casting time.... (then again, they also didn't reccomend casting acceleration). So I went with instant heal instead and kept wide heal at lvl 1. Would you reccomend having wide heal over instant heal, or having both? wide heal + instant heal. I'm so dumb I never even considered casting acceleration with wide heal lol

thanks again for your help and sorry still noob at this game and couldn't find an up to date monk guide

[Rimmy]

Well, the Casting Acceleration effect really isn't necessary in PvE at all, so unless your friends are regular PvPers, they likely won't need it.

But yeah, it becomes more useful once 3rd job skills are available (both for you and for other classes). As a monk you don't have Spark Rock yet, but wait until you become a priest, then try that skill without and with CA and you'll see what I mean. Your friends won't be getting most of the long-cast-time skills until 3rd job, too.

The general consensus on Wide Heal + Instant Heal is this: Since Instant Heal has an 8-second cooldown, there are going to be times when it's on CD and you need to use another powerful heal to keep yourself or your teammates alive. That's when level 5 Wide Heal + CA (in other words, a near-instant Wide Heal) comes in handy the most. Basically, it acts as a good backup.

I have a guide hidden here somewhere on the forums, but the posted version is outdated. I have a new, updated Monk/Priest/Invoker guide that's more or less finished, and I'll probably be posting it sometime this month to get the added benefit of entering it into that "veteran contest" thing going on right now. I'm just working on seeing if I can get it uploaded to an external website I created for convenience.

And don't worry, everyone starts out as a noob and the easiest (and smartest) way to improve is to ask veterans for advice. Hence this month's event. :-P

[Vikkie]

ah okay thanks again for clearing things up for me. I wasn't planning on wide heal at first but now I really think I should go for it as well as casting acceleration. Geez I see what old guides mean by saying there's not enough skill points going around for monks to get all their skills haha

Edited by Vikkie, 16 May 2011 - 08:33 AM.

[Rimmy]

ah okay thanks again for clearing things up for me. I wasn't planning on wide heal at first but now I really think I should go for it as well as casting acceleration. Geez I see what old guides mean by saying there's not enough skill points going around for monks to get all their skills haha

Just wait until you hit 4th job. That's when the shortage really begins, b/c you start needing to put all of your new points into Magnet and Wraith (well, Wraith is debatable, but most use it).