Castrandom Change

[Meeo]

Just wondering if anyone else notice the change to Castrandom? and if you have figured a work around using other castrandom sequence changes or another macro build.


What i mean about the castrandom change is that, cast random was "corrected" to work as originally intended, to where it does not skip a spell anymore, it waits until that spell is cast-able before continuing.

[Tonyx]

Hasn't it always worked like that?

[Chilaxx]

Well, what would u like it to do instead? In my opinion this isn't a bad thing..

[coupas]

Noooo... that isn't good at all.

So if it's not off cooldown it will wait until it gets off cooldown, cast it and then move on the next random??

[Tonyx]

Noooo... that isn't good at all.

So if it's not off cooldown it will wait until it gets off cooldown, cast it and then move on the next random??

Pretty sure it always worked like that.

[Khatovar]

No, the way it used to work is it would try to cast something, if it was on cooldown it would say "oh well" and "roll" another skill with the next push. Sometimes it would pick the same skill, other times it would pick something else, as it was an entirely new randomized attempt.

From my understanding {I don't have any castrandoms to try atm} it now refuses to move on or "roll" a new random attempt until it casts the skill it tried to cast...exactly like a castsequence that gets caught on a cooldown.

For example, my hunters used to have :

/castrandom Kill Shot, Kill Command, Rapid Fire, Steady Shot, Tranquilizing Shot, Viper Sting

as the tail end of a /click macro. At random points, it had the ability to throw those abilities in as filler. If, say, a mob didn't have mana and it tried to cast Viper Sting, it would throw an error message and then ignore the cast attempt and next time around it could try casting something else {or Viper again, depending on luck of the draw}.

Now, it would try to cast Viper, say "I can't cast this" and keep trying to cast it every successive push saying "I still can't cast it", like the guy that walks into a window and says "Hmm, I can't get outside" and proceeds to keep walking into the window.

[blast3r]

ugh...no wonder my dps dropped by half on my pallies. THIS SUCKS!!!

[Fef]

Ouch, this is very bad news. I rely A LOT on /castrandom the way it used to work. Ouch, very ouch ...

[Greythan]

Ouch. Didn't play my team last night, just my mage so I didn't notice this.

This will force my hand to choose between a full blown cast sequence for my shaman or just a straight lb spam. I was using a lightning bolt, lightning bolt, chain lightning random for heroic trash pulls. Sorta gimps that.

Really, what's the point of cast random compared to cast sequence with this change? If I have to have all spells fire before any spell can be fired again, I'd rather control the cast order.

Odd.

[Owltoid]

I'm curious if this will stop remove curse. My server, Dalaran, was pretty much nuked all last night so I didn't get to test anything.

Currently my macro is something like:
/castrandom [target=party1] Remove Curse,,,,
/castrandom [target=party2] Remove Curse,,,
/castrandom [target=party3] Remove Curse,,
/castrandom [target=party4] Remove Curse,
/castrandom [target=party5] Remove Curse

(it's a well known macro on this site that I take zero credit for)

Is this macro still going to work since it's not getting hung up on a cooldown or is it going to continue trying to remove a curse from someone who doesn't have one?

I just did the cure poison quest for my druid since the abolish poison always successfuly casts and I wanted my remove poison mechanic to work the same as remove curse... could be lots of time wasted :(

[Taliesin]

I didn't get to really do anything last night either due to the server lagging to high hell, so I simply haven't been able to play with anything yet. I don't think I use /castrandom very much, since I never really liked it for anything except for just trying to reduce the chance something might cast by using a bunch of commas. I always preferred controlling my rotations more.

I suppose there's a chance that this change wasn't necessarily intended and may get set back in the near future if people complain enough about it. Doesn't seem to really make sense to pause the macro on a spell when it is specifically supposed to act randomly. *shrug*

[Catamer]

/castrandom holy shield,
/castrandom x,y,z

this doesn't work anymore. It used ot have a 50% chance of making sure holy shield is up. per say it still makes sure holy shield is up except that it now has a 50% chance of locking up my macro.

I have ot rewrite everything on15+ toons, this change sux.

[Lyonheart]

I started a thread on this yesterday. http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=23146

I had just logged in and was trying to do the Grand Melee with my alts assisting me like always. I noticed some of them not casting for long periods of time. I'm upset for the simple fact that with ALL the good changes that came in this patch. this cast random just turned what should have been an exciting day, into a big bummer and let down. My top geared guy was doing 3.1 k dps before the patch, and yesterday i was not able to get above 2500.

So I guess ill be learning /click

[Marious]

Wow that blows, I mean all my dps macro's are /castrandom based I really like them that way. Well looks like its either /click or /castsequence now.

[Tamu]

Hopefully this is an unintended change and /castrandom will be set back to the way it used to work.

[heffner]

/cry

Yes, this is a bit of an annoyance. I believe it is an intended change as I was reading a post about it that was dated about a month ago.

Time to get creative.

[offive]

Hmm need to figure out replacement /click version of warrior dps spam button.... ah well. Guess converting all my other classes over to /click a while back was a good idea. Honestly it's not too bad a conversion. 4 macros and some tweaking for haste and people should be good to go.

There are plenty of samples for most classes. I found the boomkin to be the tricky one trying to get insect swarm and ferrie applied but not over written to fast.

Bummer about /castrandom not being "random"... :confused:

[Moorea]

Anyone could kindly link a thread or wiki tutorial on how to use "/click" ? and the examples offive is referring to ?

[blast3r]

/cry

almost for real.

[blast3r]

somebody try this:

/castrandom [target=focustarget] reset=1 spell1,spell2,etc

See if that fixes it. it seems that the reset is whats broken.

Old version: It was randomly choose a spell every time you push the button
New version: it randomly chooses a spell BEFORE you hit the button, and only randomly selects another after a successfull spell cast.

So the problem seems to be in the reset functionality. Normally you wouldn't use a reset in a castrandom.. but maybe this will fix it.

If this works I'll build a Fursphere shrine at home and worship it every day.

[SmartJelly]

/castrandom [target=party1] Remove Curse,,,,
/castrandom [target=party2] Remove Curse,,,
/castrandom [target=party3] Remove Curse,,
/castrandom [target=party4] Remove Curse,
/castrandom [target=party5] Remove Curse


As I understand it this will work in 3.2. Something like...

/castrandom x,y,z

can be replaced by...

/castrandom x,,
/castrandom y,
/castrandom z

if your macros have the space for it.

[Greythan]

Fur, problem with the reset=1 is real for you and me: we're self stated button mashers.

In a fight I've NEVER gone more than a 10th of a second without smashing my dps button. ;)

For those looking at sequence vs /click, make sure you consider if you are a button masher. Click, as I've experience, requires a predictable, consistent button press-rate. Mine goes up in big fight and lags in trash pulls. So, I've never adopted /click.

[Greythan]

castrandom x,y,z

can be replaced by...

/castrandom x,,
/castrandom y,
/castrandom z

if your macros have the space for it.
Unless the logic "stores" the execution of options 2 and 3 (i.e., the two commas in your first line) and simply keeps trying to execute option 1 (the cast of spell x) until it comes off cooldown.

[Dorffo]

Anyone could kindly link a thread or wiki tutorial on how to use "/click" ? and the examples offive is referring to ?

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=18539&highlight=%2Fclick

[Owltoid]

My co-worker and I were joking (he's a five boxer too) about getting a metronome to train ourselves to not spam so hard - because in reality you don't need to spam it like crazy, because almost everything has a 1+ second cast timer. lol

I guess it depends on how many toons are receiving that key broadcast. Once one gets a little out of synch it needs the button mashing, otherwise it's sitting idle.

For solo playing button mashing is probably overkill. For multiboxing, it's required.

[blast3r]

Fur, problem with the reset=1 is real for you and me: we're self stated button mashers.

In a fight I've NEVER gone more than a 10th of a second without smashing my dps button. ;)

For those looking at sequence vs /click, make sure you consider if you are a button masher. Click, as I've experience, requires a predictable, consistent button press-rate. Mine goes up in big fight and lags in trash pulls. So, I've never adopted /click.

If it works I'll be happy. I can still mash the button 10 times a second but at least it will work once a second instead of...say once.

[Dorffo]

I'm actually trying to think of a way to manage the rotation manually, as there is a 4-boxer in my guild (4x Shammies) that has less gear than my Shaman, but out DPS's me by a crap ton. Its actually a little embarrassing. lol

I started doing this as well once I started raiding. The difference is stunning (I believe niley pointed this out a while ago, but wow!)

Ease yourself into it.

I started by separating out my LB spam button from everything else. So for a week or so I had a 2 button approach for shock/burst/bolt (already had CL on another key):

button 1: /cs reset=8 fs,LvB
button 2: spam button= /cast lb

This didn't change my rhythm too much, I just had to be sure to remember to hit the FS/LvB combo key every 8-10 secs. After a bit of playing around with that for a bit I broke the Fs/LvB macro into separate macros and stuck the lavaburst on a modified keypress:

button 1: flameshock
alt+button1 : Lavaburst
button 2: lightning bolt
alt button2: chain lightning

I think it took me a good 2-3 weeks before I felt like things were fluid after spending so much time 1-button mashing =p

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I guess it depends on how many toons are receiving that key broadcast. Once one gets a little out of synch it needs the button mashing, otherwise it's sitting idle.

For solo playing button mashing is probably overkill. For multiboxing, it's required.
This. And the longer the castsequence or the more toons with random procs that affect cast times (like druids, paladins, shammies, etc.), the more chaotic your fight becomes. With short cooldowns on abilities and normal mobs, it isn't an issue. It's instance fights/bosses that are the problem. ;)

[Void]

Only breaks PVE for me instead of mashing 1 key i get to mash 4 now. same thing i do for pvp. but least now we can drop 16 totems at once!

[Fef]

I started by separating out my LB spam button from everything else. So for a week or so I had a 2 button approach for shock/burst/bolt (already had CL on another key):

button 1: /cs reset=8 fs,LvB
button 2: spam button= /cast lb



I have been doing that for a very long time on my main team (Paladin + 4 x Shaman). I am not too concerned about this one group.
Now, on my Druid + 4 x Hunter team, that's a different story. EVERYTHING is basically /castrandom, range and close combat/escape dps on the hunters, druid DPS casting ... Everything.

I simply have to learn a new way to play that group.

That's even worse on my 5 x DK group ... I just don't know how I will make a castsequence work.

Well, no choice. Let's see an interesting challenge into that !

[blast3r]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19110332343&sid=1

I have posted a thread on the Blizzard bug report forum asking for clarification on the nature of this change (bug or intended). Hopefully I'll get a response.

for some weird reason they refuse to even answer questions about this. I just tried the reset=1 and it does not work. I also tried a castsequence and couldn't get it to work either.

/startattack
/stopcasting
/castsequence reset=10/target/combat Judgement of Light, Hammer of the Righteous, Hammer of Wrath, Holy Shield, Shield of Righteousness, Hand of Reckoning

I'm so pissed right now if I don't get my dps up to where it was before I am disabling my accounts and not coming back.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Big Big hit for me.

No sure at this point what I will do at all .....

Sadly it dosnt look like its unintentional:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19109951917&postId=191082419505&sid=1#0


Have not seen a blue post on this, except people theorizing thta this was intended...

How many times are you going to write this same sentence? In how many threads? I'm putting you on ignore - this has gotten ridiculous.

When the change went to the PTRs with the very first version of 3.2 Test, there was just as big an uproar on the PTR Forum. There was no "blue response" but all the threads reporting it as a bug were deleted or locked. That means that the development team knew about it and left it that way for the weeks and weeks and many iterations of 3.2 Test that were patched to the PTRs.

This was purposely coded in. If you somehow still think it's a bug, then go to the Bug Report Forum. I suggest reading the sticky there regarding how to post a useful bug report, because, "Blizz you suk make /castrandom work the way it did before 3.2 or I qwit," will just get ignored.

If you can come to the conclusion, based on examination of the code and the manner in which the PTR testing process proceeded for 3.2, that this is not a bug but you would like to see this decision on the part of the developers reverted, then post on the Suggestions Forum. Again, read the sticky there regarding how to create a proper post in that forum because the usual whining and threats will just get ignored.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19110332343&sid=1

I have posted a thread on the Blizzard bug report forum asking for clarification on the nature of this change (bug or intended). Hopefully I'll get a response.
After looking at that, and then doing some searching on similar threads there and in the UI/Macros forum, MAN is there a lot of pre-pubescent nerdrage over people wanting a blue confirmation. Mostly, "NO AND YOU ARE ALL IDIOTS FOR ASKING!!!11"

Sheesh.

[edit] By the way, if this was intended and there's a way around this using /click, be prepared for /click macros to start breaking, too.

[Moorea]

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=18539&highlight=%2Fclick
Thanks a lot ! but i see on that post

"Disclaimer: This assumes you press the button 5 times per second. If you press the button faster or slower, you will need to adjust the number of commas to Keystrokes/second times seconds between casts."

That's seems useless to me I don't want to be a robot hitting keys at same pace - maybe I'll stick to a castsequence

[SERE]

By the way, if this was intended and there's a way around this using /click, be prepared for /click macros to start breaking, too.


Please dont say that!

I am curious if these changes were put in place to get rid of the totem stomping macros. ?

[Greythan]

So as I said, castrandom is purely a gimmick now. Its purpose is to pick between what type of critter you want to ride or turn your polymorph target into.

Silly.

[Owltoid]

Castrandom isn't a total loss for multiboxing moonkins who are trying to get some benefit out of eclipse. It's still more idea than castsequence and given that you don't know which one has proc'd it's better to have:

/castrandom wrath, wrath, starfire

But yeah, this change really sucks for the most part.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I think you can get around it with two keys (not 100 percent sure though).

Clearly if you press a key tied to a single spell (say an instant cast with no cooldown) it will stop the castrandom from trying to cast the spell on cooldown.

Thus is seems to me that you could have short term (i.e. no cooldown) spells on one castrandom tied to one key and the long term castrandoms tied to another key. The short term castrandoms will always fire. The long term might hit one on cooldown but then you go back to the short term key, it fires then you can go back to the long term key ....

And you have a bit more flexibility this way you might have only 30 seconds spells on your long term cast random and need only hit it once every 30 seconds. So you spam the short term key then hit the long term key every 30 seconds or so.

[Jubber]

It's definately an annoying change but nothing gamebreaking. We as boxers will learn to adapt just like everyone else will.

[Crel]

Whoa, this explains why my dps has gone to crap :P. Ill have to re-write ALOT of macros. Like Fur said, it(was) very usefull for situational procs, one being my Dk's Rune strike. Glad I saw this, was about to heroic farm!

[blast3r]

Well, my DPS isn't near what it was but at least I can still down all the heroic bosses i could before the change. So maybe I'm not leaving just yet. :)

[Dorffo]

Thanks a lot ! but i see on that post

"Disclaimer: This assumes you press the button 5 times per second. If you press the button faster or slower, you will need to adjust the number of commas to Keystrokes/second times seconds between casts."

That's seems useless to me I don't want to be a robot hitting keys at same pace - maybe I'll stick to a castsequence

I dont find that I need to metronome myself at all, its just a matter of figuring out roughly how much you spam (or don't) and putting in the proper padding in the form of commas.

[LokNarash]

I've entered the heroic HOL to get my first 2 Emblems of Triumph, and i just had to go out after the first two packs. This change to /castrandom has serious impact on my mixed team. I've enjoyed the very relaxing way to play this game (the mash button was associated to 'mousewheel up')

For balance druid or holy priest it's not big hit, there are just few spells on CD, so /castsequence was always the option.
For my other three classes, prot paladin (everything has CD), elemental shaman and destro lock, it's fatal impact as /castsequence is not useable (paladin) or just very gimped for them, due to spells that have CD. Puting spells with CD into castsequence is just possible when done carefuly and it results in significant DPS loss.

I've tryed to se up the /click macro yesterday, but with no luck. I'll try again if this still has the same function like before 3.2.

Maybe it would be possible to implement 'randomizer' feature to Keyclone, that should allow to send for one keypress one random key (from user defined list) to all clients. I guess the value of the software would be one step higher.

[HelmoAlkou]

I just got redirected to this thread. WOW, no wonder! My Shaman spend more time standing around looking at each other now.
Personally I tested and retested /castrandom vs. /castsequence on the dummies in SW. Large majority of the time my /castrandom gave a higher dps and total dmg. But different people get different results. It's a long ongoing disscution, , well it WAS ongoing.....may be over now ;o)

[heffner]

Not to derail the thread, but if you put a series of /click commands into a single macro will they every get stuck/held up? Been awhile since I messed around with click, but what happens in this case:

main macro
/click button1
/click button2
/click button3

Does it try to press 1,2 and 3 simultaneously or do I have to press the main macro button three times to get button 1, 2 and 3 to go off in sequence??? I never managed to figure it out when I was trying to optimize my arcane mage macro.

[Greythan]

For the mixed team this is a challenge too.

My paladin is on a 696 castsequence macro. No impact.

My priest doesn't random or sequence anything. All direct called spells.

My shaman was using a castrandom to get chain lightning in the mix for trash pulls. I'll either go castsequence back to flame shock/lvb/lb/cl or a straight lb spam.

My mage uses a gimped castsequence anyway because I haven't cared to try to optimize. 3 arcane barrages followed by an arcane blast and arcane missles (hoping to take advantage of the mage missle proc).

Warlock is demo specced so I've been using a straight shadowbolt spam + Felguard on him. Suboptimal I've noticed, but no impact here.

I clear Gundrak in under an hour without wipes.

My point is for grinding badges in heroics, this is not a death blow. For optimizing DPS in raid or other "stretch" settings.... it probably hurts a bit.

[Maxion]

I noticed this bug/change when i tried playing my multiclass team today.
/castrandom was unable to cast anything at all for me, even when i tried to make it cast random pally blessings, so i replaced all my castrandoms with castsequences and /cast's.

[Ualaa]

My paladin uses:

#show Holy Shield
/stopmacro [mod]
/click MultiBarBottomRight10

On MultiBarBottomRight10, I have:

#show Holy Shield
/castsequence reset=8 Holy Shield,Hammer of the Righteous,Judgement of Wisdom,Shield of Righteousness,Consecration,Hammer of the Righteous,Holy Shield,Shield of Righteousness,Judgement of Light,Hammer of the Righteous,Consecration,Shield of Righteousness

The second macro is 255 characters long, so this runs fine even without any addons. Honestly, I'd like double Judgement of Wisdom, but Light is a character less then Wisdom and I'm at the 255 character limit.

My shammies have:

#show Lightning Bolt
/Click MultiBarBottomRightButton9
/Click MultiBarBottomRightButton10

On 9, I have:

#show Lightning Bolt
/castsequence reset=8 Lightning Bolt,,,,,,,,,,,(comma's to 255 limit)

On 10, I have:

#show Lightning Bolt
/castsequence reset=8 Flame Shock, Lava Burst, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lava Burst, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt

With their level of haste, this gets me 1x Lightning Bolt and then Flame Shock refreshed just after it expires, with two Lava Bursts along its duration. Lightning Bolt spam in between. The reason for the first LB is to give my pally a moment to build a bit of aggro.

For the pally, I'm clicking a simple sequence, with each ability clicked at about the point it is clickable. For the shammies, they're going 1 LB, and then a castsequence.

I personally spam at 2 presses per second. For this team, I'm not really utilizing /Click to the fullest. Will definitely need to adjust my hunter in the mixed team - was using the /click's posted in the /Click thread.

[Nuclearone]

Due to this change and the effect it has had on my dps, I am canceling three out of five accounts. I may continue to still multibox my healer and tank, but I'm not sure.

I'm aware that there may be other ways to make my characters still work, but I'm not really interested in changing after 2 years + of playing them the way I was.

I don't really know how you guys feel about it, but I find that this stealth change by Blizzard is poor form. It is as if they knew it would be grossly unpopular, and wanted to hide it as if no one would notice. It's a pretty big change from how things were done, and it affects more than our admittedly small comunity here. The crying on the wow forums, both for and against, demonstrates this.

When I found out how badly my characters were performing following the patch, I got a distinctly unpleasant feeling in that place you don't talk about at parties.

This is a low point for me in my multiboxing career. No other changes that I've dealt with have made such a difference to me as a multiboxer. With that actually typed out, I fear I may be over-responding, but the sick feeling remains.

[mmcookies]

make sure you express all that in your cancellation form now

cuz we ain't gonna do anything about it

[HPAVC]

Might be worth finding out of there are any reset verbs

/castrandom reset=1 spell, list, here

[Simulacra]

Due to this change and the effect it has had on my dps, I am canceling three out of five accounts. I may continue to still multibox my healer and tank, but I'm not sure.

I'm aware that there may be other ways to make my characters still work, but I'm not really interested in changing after 2 years + of playing them the way I was.

I don't really know how you guys feel about it, but I find that this stealth change by Blizzard is poor form. It is as if they knew it would be grossly unpopular, and wanted to hide it as if no one would notice. It's a pretty big change from how things were done, and it affects more than our admittedly small comunity here. The crying on the wow forums, both for and against, demonstrates this.

When I found out how badly my characters were performing following the patch, I got a distinctly unpleasant feeling in that place you don't talk about at parties.

This is a low point for me in my multiboxing career. No other changes that I've dealt with have made such a difference to me as a multiboxer. With that actually typed out, I fear I may be over-responding, but the sick feeling remains.

It's bizarre isn't it? I really haven't noticed any difference by removing castrandom. I just removed all castrandom from the team, replaced with castsequences. All good, no drop in dps and I don't need to mash my keyboard a 1000 times a second. BTW, I'm totally going to steal Ualaa's macros above - looks good.

And to finally answer your post: Yes you are over responding. Very much so. lol.

/castrandom is dead - oh well bye bye - it did always feel a little like an exploit to me anyway

[Khatovar]

Annoying, yes, but enough to cancel over? Not for me. Castrandom never stood up to castsequence or click macros, it was utility for things I didn't feel like weaving in. Now I'll just throw them in to my macros in other ways, probably just longer, more elabortate /click usage.

[lans83]

I stick with castsequence macros on all my toons. The only ones I've setup castrandom on were my hunters. I used their melee attacks in the castrandom but only when the targets get too close. That way they would all get a chance to hit Wing Clip on the targets at different intervals. Guess I'll have to change that up now. All my dps macros are all set to where they'd hit right when the cooldowns are reset on the spells. And then just in time to reset my hunter's stings and such.

[kadaan]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19110028260&pageNo=1#0

"We allow players to use macros for convenience, especially when automating tasks that they do often. Where macros cross the line is when they are making the decision instead of the player. In the old-days, there were addons that would essentially target a player with a debuff and cure it. That crossed the line for us – the mod was playing the game instead of the player.

In the /castrandom case, players were sometimes using these macros to cast the ability that wasn’t on cooldown without having to recognize this fact or hit the right button. Players using this system had an unfair advantage against players that weren’t. Instead of having to cope with the complexity built into the class, players could just spam one key and have the game “do the right thing.”

We recognize that in some cases, certain classes are probably over complex or else the default WoW UI doesn’t provide the information you need in a form where you can quickly notice that say an ability has proc’d or another is on cooldown. In these cases, we would like to fix the class or UI problem, not require all of our players to use macros to get around the limitation. You can help us identify those situations where you feel overly-dependent on a /castrandom macro so we can start to address those problems.

We also recognize that players sometimes used /castrandom for options that were truly random and with no gameplay consequence, such as picking a random polymorph animal, companion or mount. In these situations, we want to give you specific commands you can use to get the desired functionality. We have no problem with you rolling the dice in this manner. "

[lans83]

Might be worth finding out of there are any reset verbs

/castrandom reset=1 spell, list, here

Tried this tonite on my hunters and it did not work for me. the macros I made were:


/assist focus
/castrandom Raptor Strike, Mongoose Bite, Wing Clip, Counterattack

kept hanging up when it would reselect the same spell again after being cast


/assist focus
/castrandom reset=1 Raptor Strike, Mongoose Bite, Wing Clip, Counterattack

wouldn't even recognize the first spell and didn't even give me an error message

So I redid this macro to the following:

/assist focus
/castsequence reset=combat Raptor Strike, Mongoose Bite, Wing Clip, Counterattack

it works, but slaves stop attacking if it gets caught up on a spell that's on cooldown. Gonna add into each macro /startattack and see if this will make them autoattack when in melee range.

I changed the order of Wing Clip on each slave so that they cast it at different times as to keep it on the target after one ends.

[shaeman]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19110028260&pageNo=1#0

"We allow players to use macros for convenience, especially when automating tasks that they do often. Where macros cross the line is when they are making the decision instead of the player. In the old-days, there were addons that would essentially target a player with a debuff and cure it. That crossed the line for us – the mod was playing the game instead of the player.

In the /castrandom case, players were sometimes using these macros to cast the ability that wasn’t on cooldown without having to recognize this fact or hit the right button. Players using this system had an unfair advantage against players that weren’t. Instead of having to cope with the complexity built into the class, players could just spam one key and have the game “do the right thing.”

We recognize that in some cases, certain classes are probably over complex or else the default WoW UI doesn’t provide the information you need in a form where you can quickly notice that say an ability has proc’d or another is on cooldown. In these cases, we would like to fix the class or UI problem, not require all of our players to use macros to get around the limitation. You can help us identify those situations where you feel overly-dependent on a /castrandom macro so we can start to address those problems.

We also recognize that players sometimes used /castrandom for options that were truly random and with no gameplay consequence, such as picking a random polymorph animal, companion or mount. In these situations, we want to give you specific commands you can use to get the desired functionality. We have no problem with you rolling the dice in this manner. "

So - how long do you think the /click alternative will remain unchanged?
The reasons they quote for changing castrandom seem equally applicable to the /click way of doing things.

[Otlecs]

The change is definitely intentional. I read a blue post about it a couple of days ago. The WoW forums are all down at the moment, so I can't link, but if you head over to somewhere like http://blue.cardplace.com/search.html and search for "castrandom" there's confirmation right there.

I'm a bit puzzled as to why most people are so upset really (in fact, I'm amazed they ever allowed castrandom to skip abilities on cooldown). I changed my shammy and hunter teams from castrandom to castsequence in a matter of minutes and there's really no appreciable difference in their damage output.

I imagine it's more a problem for people who run classes with procs you have to actively respond to though.

edit: ah, the forums are back now.... here you go:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19110028260&pageNo=1&sid=1#0


Where macros cross the line is when they are making the decision instead of the player.
<snip>
In the /castrandom case, players were sometimes using these macros to cast the ability that wasn’t on cooldown without having to recognize this fact or hit the right button. Players using this system had an unfair advantage against players that weren’t. Instead of having to cope with the complexity built into the class, players could just spam one key and have the game “do the right thing.”

[Ishar]

I think what people meant by /click alternative fur, is specifically /castsequence macro's where comma's are used to emulate delays. For instance, refreshing a dot every 20 seconds or so. /click doesnt necessarily enable this, but it makes it cleaner. I really foresee an eventually /castsequence nerf; since it seems like their whole intention is to create a MMO version of whack-a-mole. (I refer to the fact that they think every class should watch every cooldown like a hawk, waiting for something to pop up, or an ability to proc, etc. while simultaneously dealing with all their gimmicky things such as dodging cones and spikes and whatever silly mechanic they came up with for fight xyz.)

"In the /castrandom case, players were sometimes using these macros to cast the ability that wasn’t on cooldown without having to recognize this fact or hit the right button. Players using this system had an unfair advantage against players that weren’t."

the "refresh sting evry 15 second' macro is an example of /castsequence enabling a player to not have to pay attention to their stings at all, much less when to reffresh them. (also used I'm sure for many many dots and Hots)

Additionally, if you chain together many /castsequence macros of the format /castsequence chain lightning,,,,,,,,,,,,(approximately 5 seconds or whatever of comma's) together, the whole /click sequence allows the player to press one button and have that button decide to cast abilities that are off cooldown, without the player haing to recognize this fact.

Its their game, so they can do what they want. I suppose we could still graph out abilities and make really long /castsequences that don't rely on comma spacing. But then, that is pretty similar to the dot refreshing every x seconds too...you could simply fill the intervening x seconds with regular abilities. So, by their logic, /castsequence makes decisions for the player as well, although its a predictable sequence like playing a piano, so they might think that aspect of castsequence is ok.

I'm not 'freaking out' or anything; just saying that after reading their logic, i'm thinking /castsquence might be headed for a nerf as well. because sooner or later the masses will figure out how to use /castsequence; and there will be 'all in one' /castsequence macro's all over wow-wiki; which will bring down the ire of blizzard. lol.

maybe by then some other interesting game will be out. I really don't want to have to hit 10+ keys on my keyboard just to do my DPS rotation, while trying to target and move about/heal/etc.

Ishar
Edited for typos.

[shaeman]

Ishar,

you hit the nail on the head, this was my point with the /click spam technique.
They could "fix" this in a second by disallowing empty clauses in castsequence.

However after giving it further thought it's not a huge issue even if they did remove it.
We all multiboxed perfectly well before it became a common technique (I'm multiboxing perfectly well without it already :) )

Okay, it might mean that a team won't sustain flawless, maximum DPS 100% of the time but unless the content is very challenging to you, you don' t need maximum DPS all the time.

[Khatovar]

cast sequences do not offer the same hands off approach that Blizzard found issue with in castrandom. Our castsequence and click macros do not decide anything. Everything they do is explicitly mapped out in advance.

Now, take a normal person, playing one character. Would you tell them to use a massive /click sequence in order to raid? No, you wouldn't because they would put that player at a disadvantage to players who use shorter castsequences and watch their timers for refreshing debuffs/stings/hots/whatever.

There is nothing gained in a longer castsequence or use of commas and usually people who depend on them give up some flexability. That whole "refresh stings every X seconds" castsequence is all well and good....what happens when you miss? What happens when the poop hits the fan and you have to spam some other keys for a bit? Now your timing is all off.

There was none of that tradeoff whatsoever with castrandom. There was no reason at all not to use it, and you didn't have to plan out or think about anything. Just throw all your random crap that you occasionally might find useful or never remember to use into one long castrandom and never worry about it again. This is why they changed it. It made using cooldowns and situational abilities essentially free passive DPS.

[Bigfish]

Gerneally speaking, I'm not too happy with the cast random nerf. Not that it broke anything ground breaking for me, but its this notion that Blizz values their whack-a-mole mechanics more than making tedious tasks less annoying.

The really annoying thing is its the fault of Blizzard to begin with with stupid mechanics like MC bosses who curse an entire raid, or procs that amount to mashing a button when a light turns on.

I don't see /click being on the chopping block. /Castsequence likely is though. Can't have people not manually timing their button presses you know.

[Feider]

/bump only because I've been playing strong but have been away from Dual-Boxing.com for a few months. I was poking around yesterday and found this thread. Thankfully I use mostly of /click macros anyway but some of my toons are screwed. (poor prot warrior)

Anyway, anyone coming back needs to see this.

Thanks for the discussion guys.

[robtest]

I take a couple months off to enjoy being outside and learning how to fly RC planes, and come back and my glorious macros just don't work anymore... Damn, just damn... :(

[Lyonheart]

I take a couple months off to enjoy being outside and learning how to fly RC planes, and come back and my glorious macros just don't work anymore... Damn, just damn... :(

/click macros gave my DPS a 20%+ boot over the /castrandom! And for that I <3 Fursphere