Biased Items

I play a mesmer as my main character and was wanting to get a nice staff...I looked at both the suntouched and Chrysocola staff. These staffs can drop with a req suited for each caster proffession. The requirement is always the primary attribute for that proffession (ie divine favour, energy storage etc) apart from the mesmers, where it is inspiration magic...not the primary attribute making it far less useful and versatile..........why is this?

fast casting is borderline useless in PvE?

Most people who play memsers usually only put 7 or 8 points in fast casting; it's like Elemental storage in that you want some points in it, but you don't want to max it out.

its because fast casting is a worthless attribute

the requirment is 9, and from 8 to 9 there is a BIG(in some cases) gap

true, but still fc is useful in some builds, ie AP chained with PVE skills and FC nuker.

Inspiration is only really good for auspicious unless you use a specific build/resistance.

Many may not use FC but it still remains why is the req for inspiration magic and not the core attribute?

Some may argue FC is worthless so they made it more appealing with inspiration req. However if you think FC is not good this means you don't appreciate some of the mesmers best qualities.

Just use the staff without meeting the requirements. If you really have to wand a target just switch.

You'll still get all the mods on the staff the only thing that does effect the req is damage.

[channeling][power drain][leech signet][inspired hex][revealed hex][drain enchantment][ether signet][ether feast][hex eater signet][signet of humility]

Those are just a few of the skills I use. In fact, those aren't even the ones I use for farming builds, or on a Mesmer secondary character. Nor does that incluse elites like [lyssa's aura].

Inspiration Magic offers the best energy management skills around, provides utility skills like hex removal and enchantment removal, and will drain energy from foes.

Fast casting is very nice, but I would rather boost Inspiration Magic to gain more benefit from the skills I use than to cast a spell faster with higher FC.

Out of curiosity, have you actually played a Mesmer? I mean, get down and dirty play one? If so, how can you say that uber-speed spell casting is "worthless", especially when you can get, for example, Meteor Shower off, with time to spare to interrupt your foe's Elementalist trying to get Meteor Shower off? (Okay, that was a bad example, but it was the best I can come up with). But if you haven't actually play a Mesmer, then I'd have to say that comment comes out of ignorance and not experience.

As for that particular staff in question, I've no idea why it doesn't have a Fast Cast counterpart. Mainly, I've never seen one, nor am I looking for one (I got a decent staff as it is).

/winthread. Unless you are wanding them to death req doesn't matter.

if i were you i'd rather have an inspiration req. there are few good skills in fast casting. and i'm not sure what builds your running but there are quite a lot of good skills in inspiration.

...and attribute req affects HCT mods.

And why would you want a HCT time on a fast casting staff?


If you're going for HCT and HSR you're better off using a 40/40 set... unless you're running a 40HCT/20% enchant prot staff.

Ermm... what? You use Fast Casting to spam ele spells? I am sorry but you've just pulled out a really bad example to illustrate Fast Casting usefulness.

And Fast Casting is indeed obsolete in PvE, where everything is about big damage. It's kinda okay in PvP. Look at all mesmer interrupts, they're 1/4 s spells, so no point in reducing them any further. The only spells that benefit from FC are those disabling spells like [Diversion] and tbh, you will also need to have a 40/40 casting set as FC alone won't help much.

Fast Casting is, admittedly, not especially useful in PvE. However, this is NOT because Fast Casting is bad, but rather because in PvE classes tend to have set "roles", with Mesmers being used as supporting casters. In PvP, as well as in some more arcane Mesmer builds, Fast Casting is incredible. Fast Casting is the answer to all those skills that you look at and say "Wow, that would be incredible if it didn't take 4 seconds to cast." The problem, of course, is that most of these skills are not Mesmer skills, which is why people tend not to realize the value of Fast Casting.
As an example, one of my favorite builds for arenas is the Stone Daggers Machine Gun. The Elementalist analog to this build is basically terrible because of the casting times of the enchantments the build uses, but on a max FC Mesmer, it's vicious because it can mete out a solid 60 dps AND keep itself nearly unkillable.
Try playing around with Fast Casting some time. Its power is subtle, but that's what makes it so powerful.

P.S. - Big damage is, to the good PvE player, meaningless. The important thing is DPS, which is why spamming Ele spells with a Mesmer is actually quite good. I'd take a Mesmer spamming Flare for 56 damage twice a second over an Ele hitting for 68 damage once a second any day. (BTW, I know most self-respecting Eles aren't going to exclusively spam Flare... I'm just making a point)

P.P.S. - While 40/40 complements Fast Casting well, it is certainly not required. At 9 FC, cast times are reduced by 34%. At 15 FC, cast times are reduced by 50%.

Eh no. Mesmer spamming Flare = good as useless. I will take a mesmer who can divert, disrupt monster skills and remove hexes to ease the monk's workload. And for your info, the physical professions (E.g. warrior) outdamage a flare spamming mesmer.

And a further note, nobody specced more than 9 Fast Casting. And 40/40 set is mandatory for any casters since it not only increase chances of reduced casting time but also reduced recharge time. And we all know that if casters ain't casting something, they're better off dead since your threat generally comes from your spells/skills.

So, Fast Casting's usefulness is similar to Ritualist's Spawning attribute which is near obsolete. The only set of skills which fully benefits from Fast Casting are signets and denial hexes such as [Diversion]

Nonsense. Sorry, but it's very clear you have not used a mesmer before. 1/4 secs is slow in a mesmer's books. I'd like to see you try and interrupt reversals (or any other 1/4 spell, indeed as I have to) with a very slow 1/4 interrupt. And FC is not obselete, thank you.

On topic: I believe the arcane staff skin uses FC.

I'd say the main reason has to be with inscriptions.

Aptitude not Attitude
Halves casting time of spells of item's attribute.

Would you stick that of a FC staff?

If general skin staves where made FC then they would be far less useful for a mesmer, thus cutting down their weapon skin options.
If you really need a FC staff however there are a variety of unique FC skins to choose from as well as multi-att staves you can get such as destroyers, asuran, tormented etc.

Only the good folks at NCsoft know the answer to this. But, ShadowRequiem gave you the best advice. As a Mesmer, you are not going to be concerned with actually doing damage with your staff (although you may at times be attacking between spells), so you could use any staff with any requirement really. The only thing the requirement affects is the damage - someone said HCT was affected too, but I don't think that's true, and FC would offset that anyway.

However, there is one BIG problem with using a staff you don't have the requirement for - the Aptitude Not Attitude inscription and the Adept Staff Head both are tied to the weapons attribute. This makes staffs that are linked to the primary attribute less appealing for any class. But if you are using other non-linked Heads and Inscriptions, it doesn't matter.