GWOnline's webpage on Fast Casting shows that 16 Fast Cast roughly decreases casting time by 50%.
Now, how fun is it when Shielding Hands or Guardian casts in 1/2 second? Better yet, how fun is it when it's effectively used to counter a R-Spike? Although I just thought of this, it seems like a very effective build to counter ranger spike. Current counters are all 1/4 second casts (infuse, healing hands, Reversal, Divine Intervention). 1/2 is a very decent cast time, you could easily get off a shielding hands or guardian in the middle of a spike. Then you have the elite part where you would fit Mantra of Recovery (for Shielding Hands every 13 seconds) or Shield of Deflection (which is useful with such a short casting period).
Although to have a decent cast time, you'd need FC at 16, which means at 12 base. And you need to have a high prot which is like over 10... the only problem would be energy management.
Me/Mo Fast Cast Protection?
Trance Addict
Vexed Arcanist
Guardian is not very slow to cast and Reversal of Fortune is fast enough to get passed anything that interrupts aside from an interrupt spammer that gets terribly lucky. Fast casting protection spells isn't necessary, certainly not blowing 16 into Fast Cast.
With a Monk and Divine Favor at least your Guardian heals. The cool down on Shielding Hands makes it generally unuseful in PvP.
With a Monk and Divine Favor at least your Guardian heals. The cool down on Shielding Hands makes it generally unuseful in PvP.
Trance Addict
It was mainly for an anti-ranger spike prot monk. Aside from RoF, protection monks can't do much against Ranger Spiking, this is where the 1/2 second cast Guardian and Shielding Hands come in. With Mantra of Recovery, Shielding Hands would take 13 seconds to cool down, which is probably enough to use it for every spike.
Schorny
1/2 sec cast time guardian won't help against ranger spike.
Fastcast always help for protection - but the question you want to ask yourself: is the fastcast worth the less healing?
You need fastcast only on an anti-spike prot. Because without spike, it doesn't matter if the guardian come now or in 1 sec. It hardly matters.
Against a spike team, 1 sec is too much. Against a spike team 1/2 sec is still too much. So you are left with protective spirit and reversal.
Bot are fast enough. But do they help?
Against a spike you want your prot monk to get the healing monks time to Infuse/Heal other the victim. That's why Boon Prots are so famous atm
I don't have to concrete Numbers and I'm too lazy to look them up, but the calculation is something like this:
You have 45 DF bonus and 70 Devine Boon bonus. Therefore the reversal your prot casts heal for about 120, which is, considering a 455 Health char, which is about 25% of the health of this char. Therefore in itself healing for a significant amount.
And in addition you gain the reversal effect, which negates another 60 (depending ob what you catch).
You 'healed' the victim in 1/4 sec for about 180. Most times this will bought your healers enough time to react.
On the other hand: in this case a fastcast prot won't have helped. The reversal will be there in 1/8 sec, but will only negate 50 damage and most likely your healers will come too late...
Fastcast always help for protection - but the question you want to ask yourself: is the fastcast worth the less healing?
You need fastcast only on an anti-spike prot. Because without spike, it doesn't matter if the guardian come now or in 1 sec. It hardly matters.
Against a spike team, 1 sec is too much. Against a spike team 1/2 sec is still too much. So you are left with protective spirit and reversal.
Bot are fast enough. But do they help?
Against a spike you want your prot monk to get the healing monks time to Infuse/Heal other the victim. That's why Boon Prots are so famous atm
I don't have to concrete Numbers and I'm too lazy to look them up, but the calculation is something like this:
You have 45 DF bonus and 70 Devine Boon bonus. Therefore the reversal your prot casts heal for about 120, which is, considering a 455 Health char, which is about 25% of the health of this char. Therefore in itself healing for a significant amount.
And in addition you gain the reversal effect, which negates another 60 (depending ob what you catch).
You 'healed' the victim in 1/4 sec for about 180. Most times this will bought your healers enough time to react.
On the other hand: in this case a fastcast prot won't have helped. The reversal will be there in 1/8 sec, but will only negate 50 damage and most likely your healers will come too late...