Haste vs. Fast Cast vs. -Songcasting

A quick summary of the separate effects:
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Haste
*Increases melee attack speed
*Decreases spell recast timers
*Does not decrease the casting time of spells, only the recast.

Applicaton: Useful for Bard Elegy and Lullaby recast builds. Elegy recast can be a problem in very fast merit parties. You have the option to use both the stronger Carnage Elegy and the weaker Battlefield Elegy to pull in a merit situation, but I prefer to keep only the stronger elegy on my macro bar. If my elegy isn't up for whatever reason, an elemental threnody is an acceptable alternative as a pulling tool.
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Fast Cast
*Decreases casting and recast times of all magic (Ninjutsu, Songs, Cures, etc.)
*Gear effects are typically labelled with the amount of -%Casting
Ex: 5% Fast Cast on the Royal Redingote = ~5% -Casting and ~2.5% recast

Application: This is my favorite effect to stack. Bard has a fair amount of Fast Cast gear. The Marduk's set is ~8%. /RDM has a Fast Cast Job Trait that gives ~5% at a subjob of lvl 15 and ~10% Fast Cast at lvl 30. These effects are not additive -- which means that ~10% is the best you'll get out of the Subjob.

Other available gear:
*Loq.Earring: ~2%
*Rostrum Pumps: ~2%
*Warlock's Mantle: ~2% (available as a latent effect while /RDM)
*The ACP body and the Moogle expansion hat can be potentially augmented to ~5% each. The hat, however, would take using two separate augments -- whereas the ~5% on the ACP body is contained in a single augment.
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-Songcasting
*Calculates as part of your casting speed, only.
Ex: Minstrel's Ring and Sha'ir Manteel (Manteel has additional 2% Haste effect that applies only to recast timers)

Application: Most useful for reducing the time it takes to buff pt members. Time spent buffing is time not spent pulling, curing, or using -na spells on PT members. In combination with Job Abilities and HQ Instruments, this stat will allow you to spend as little time as possible casting buffs that last as long as possible.
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-Song Recast
*Applies only to the recast times of songs.
Ex: Sha'ir Gages (-2 Seconds to all song recast timers) and Sheikh Gages (-4 seconds to all song recast timers)

Applicaton: The single most powerful way outside Bard JA's to reduce the recast timers of your songs. The gages are part of the Sha'ir BRD JSE set available at lvl72. The primary drawback to using the gages is losing 5 singing skill from the AF1 Choral Cuffs (and as much as 10 singing skill if they're AF+1). The general rule of thumb is to wear these when you can reliably land debuffs, and to wear the +skill when you can't. There's an (untested?) rumor that singing skill is more powerful than wind skill, which makes wearing the choral cuffs very attractive in many situations (and they're available much earlier in a bard's career).
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Conclusions
These separate effects can be used as tools to achieve a number of desirable bard goals I'll be going over in my next post. They include:
*12-second Lullaby Recast (Applicaton: Dynamis and large links)
*12-second Finale Recast (Application: Sea Jailers, the popular Lamia No.13 Assault, etc.)
*Max -Casting gear (Application: Buffing merit parties)

I'll be treating the Bard Group2 Job Abilities in a separate post on merits.

Marduk's Jubbah Set

Expensive Salvage gear. It's also (mostly) good for bard.

The stats in full:
(Image credit staronion.com)



Rough Costs
Head ~3.5million
Body ~10million
Hands ~1million
Legs ~150K
Feet ~170K
*Varies on each server.

Conclusion: Most bang for your buck is the Shalwar. They're a great debuff piece. However, the Marduk's Tiara is the best -- overall -- that you can wear. The Jubbah is nothing to sneeze at, but if you only want it for the Refresh? Dalmatica is 9million cheaper on my server -- to say nothing of V.Cloak. The introduction of Einherjar has made Dalmatica a possibility for many players without needing to camp HNMs. Granted, the abjuration only drops from Odin.

Fast Cast Facts
FFXIclopedia lists the Fast Cast effect of the body as ~5% and the Fast Cast effect of the set as ~10%. Many people add these numbers together and assume that the full set gives you ~15%. This is incorrect. Wearing full Marduk's will net you ~8% actual Fast Cast effect (source: BG). Wearing only a manteel (~11% real song casting) will give you a similar effect for songs only, but will not reduce the casting or recast times of spells like Cure, Stoneskin, and Utsusemi. FFXI calculates Fast Cast and Haste as approximately 1% slower than the effects are labeled. So in order to reach the 50% Haste from gear cap, you'd have to wear a listed 51%-53%, assuming you lose 1% haste from every piece of gear you're wearing.

Conclusion:
Full Marduk's set is a personal choice. It is not the fastest possible way to cast songs. It has useful regen and refresh effects. The MP bonus is good. The CHR bonus on the body is excellent. Nothing beats the Marduk's Tiara. Whether or not you want to invest the time and the money in the gear is your choice. On the bright side! If you are lotting Marduk's at this point in time you will probably be the only one who wants the gear. My group often floored Marduk pieces before I joined. Take heart: if you plan to join an experienced Salvage group as a bard, the field is usually wide open.