Paladin rotation problems and solutions

Cataclysm has brought with it new challengers for multiboxers and dps rotations. Almost every spec requires paying attention to procs or new resources (such as holy power and lightning shield charges) in order to maximise dps. Previously we have managed to closely simulate the dps achieved by a single player on multiple toons, but these changes are causing some problems.

Ret Pallies seem to be the most difficult case in question currently. For PvP I think the only real issue is being able to keep track of all holy power on all toons at once. Currently this is possible through Pitbull4. I just use a rotation of judgement and 2 crusader strikes to generate HP and once I have 3 charges then I have a separate button for TV on all toons.

PvE rotations are more difficult. As we know rets run on a first come first served priority rotation. Because these are dynamic, it is impossible to work them into a castsequence macro even with the /cast fallthrough trick. What I want to do is brainstorm different ways to get around this difficulty using addons such as Jamba and repeater tools like ISboxer.

There are 2 or 3 FCFS helper addons that are available currently. One shows an icon of the next skill to click. Another generates a new batch of skill buttons and flashes a green border around the best skill to click at any time. Another flashes the button which needs to be hit next.

I was wondering if it might be possible to combine an addon like this with something akin to the mouse repeater in isboxer.
ie. Use the addon which causes a flash of the action bar button as an indicator of where we want the mouse cursor to go. Bind a keypress which tells the cursor to go to a certain point on the screen defined by the particular colour of the flash used by the addon (hopefully a unique colour). Bind the release of this same key to click the left mouse button, activating the spell indicated by the addon.

Now I have no experience at all with writing addons so I have absolutely no idea whether this is a feasable idea. I am also aware that some people may see this sort of system as something approaching automation. It does not seem to violate Blizzards first commandment of one click, one action however. It does remind me a bit of some of the things people had tried to macro aimed AoE spells.

It would be interesting to see if anyone has other ideas on how we could get dynamic rotations to work in Cataclysm. It seems that the complexity of rotations has increased whilst the tools we have to perform them are lessened. If Blizz continues down its current path, it may be that all classes become as complex as rets and if this is the case, a new tool for performing dynamic rotations would be invaluable.

/muse about joe multiboxer...

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Originally Posted by Noids

I think the only real issue is being able to keep track of all holy power on all toons at once. Currently this is possible through Pitbull4.

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Viewable on the main? What's the setup option for that? I tried to set it up once the patch came out, but nothing seemed to work.

To be honest mate, I already had the rotation setup up to run at least three CSs so that I knew TV would be maxed regardless. I have enabled the holy power bar in PB4 but I can't see all 4 using Pitbull on my main. I use Power auras to flash up on my slaves down the side of the screen when a toon hits 3 HP. I assume that we will get the functionality to see HP like we do with combo points on PB currently though.

You can create multiple smaller Repeater Regions, around each button in question.
You could also create a larger Repeater Region around all of your buttons.

If you will sometimes want to use this, but not always, you could create an Action Target Group as the recipient of the click and enable KVM mode to block the click in the local window.
Then create a two step mapped key, to add/remove the desired targets from the ATG.
Actions > New Target Group Action > Add/Remove Target from an ATG.
Probably combine this with a Pop Up Text action, for each step to give you visual notification of your state.

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Originally Posted by Noids

ie. Use the addon which causes a flash of the action bar button as an indicator of where we want the mouse cursor to go. Bind a keypress which tells the cursor to go to a certain point on the screen defined by the particular colour of the flash used by the addon (hopefully a unique colour). Bind the release of this same key to click the left mouse button, activating the spell indicated by the addon.

Now I have no experience at all with writing addons so I have absolutely no idea whether this is a feasable idea. I am also aware that some people may see this sort of system as something approaching automation. It does not seem to violate Blizzards first commandment of one click, one action however. It does remind me a bit of some of the things people had tried to macro aimed AoE spells.

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I wouldn't do this, because Blizzard (blue post) have explicitly stated that moving the mouse cursor to predefined mouse coordinates is bad. Also, the system is making a decision for you as well (based on the colour), so definitely not something I would use.

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Originally Posted by Jafula

I wouldn't do this, because Blizzard (blue post) have explicitly stated that moving the mouse cursor to predefined mouse coordinates is bad. Also, the system is making a decision for you as well (based on the colour), so definitely not something I would use.

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Quoted for emphasis. Anything that makes in-combat decisions for you or bypasses the "Protected" control/widget status intent = verboten. Note for the comprehensionally challenged: pre-mapped clicks/buttons that do not change based on in-game events is not what I'm talking about here.

I realise we don't want to have a system that is necessarily making decisions for us, but it seems that it is already established that "suggesting" the next button to press is a perfectly fine thing to do. In the case of the addons already in use, it is not like the player is really choosing which spell to use next, the addon tells the player which is the best key to hit based on a set of variables at any one time and the player hits it. All I am looking at doing is streamlining the method of hitting the skill which the addon recommends.

Thanks for pointing out the cursor movement bit Jaf, I wasn't 100% sure if that was the case, but given the issue with targetted AoE I assumed it was something along these lines.

Would there be another way to export the information from WoW used by the addon to make the decision or possibly export the decision itself so that we could use ISboxer to execute the suggested skill?

ie. Have a bank of skills macroed to virtual keys. Addon makes suggestion of which skill to hit next, isboxer receives this information and your dps keybinding then actuates your virtual key for that particular skill? This would remove the mouse cursor issue from this problem.

Please understand I am not looking to cross boundaries that have been set here. The changes that have been made mean that we need to look for new solutions within those boundaries though and this might mean discussing whether any new solutions actually do lie within, overlying or outside of what is permissable?

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Originally Posted by Noids

Would there be another way to export the information from WoW used by the addon to make the decision or possibly export the decision itself so that we could use ISboxer to execute the suggested skill?

ie. Have a bank of skills macroed to virtual keys. Addon makes suggestion of which skill to hit next, isboxer receives this information and your dps keybinding then actuates your virtual key for that particular skill? This would remove the mouse cursor issue from this problem.

Please understand I am not looking to cross boundaries that have been set here. The changes that have been made mean that we need to look for new solutions within those boundaries though and this might mean discussing whether any new solutions actually do lie within, overlying or outside of what is permissable?

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You are still moving the decision making process away from you to a machine. Addon giving information to ISBoxer which adjusts keybinds automatically is bad (IMHO).

Basic rule of thumb for me is, if you can't do it, using the in game system (i.e. keypresses and macros) don't try and do it out of game.

Yeah fair enough. This was always my thinking also. I wasn't aware of the addons that suggested the best skill to hit next and highlighted it for you, which is what prompted me to start along this line of thinking.

Out of interest though Jaf, do you consider adding in a stopcasting macro for exo to be along the lines of taking away decision making? This seems to be a similar sort of issue to me (admittedly only one component of the rotn not the entire thing) where Blizz intends us to see the AoW proc and then hit Exo rather than be spamming a button which automatically fires off an exo only if AoW is up?

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Originally Posted by Noids

Out of interest though Jaf, do you consider adding in a stopcasting macro for exo to be along the lines of taking away decision making? This seems to be a similar sort of issue to me (admittedly only one component of the rotn not the entire thing) where Blizz intends us to see the AoW proc and then hit Exo rather than be spamming a button which automatically fires off an exo only if AoW is up?

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No, as far as I am concerned, that is using the mechanics of the game. Obviously I want to get as much of an advantage as possible out of the game to make multiboxing easier (hence Jamba). Anything that is in game, that Blizzard allows, I'm all for using.

I would think, a macro which automatically casts a spell with a cooldown (Lava Burst, Exorcism, etc), every time it is available, without a conscious choice on our part... ie, we have coded the macro to auto cast at every opportunity.

Well that is further towards automation and having decisions made for us, then having an addon which color codes a button, which we still have to push on our own after deciding whether to push or not push.

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Originally Posted by Noids

Yeah fair enough. This was always my thinking also. I wasn't aware of the addons that suggested the best skill to hit next and highlighted it for you, which is what prompted me to start along this line of thinking.

Out of interest though Jaf, do you consider adding in a stopcasting macro for exo to be along the lines of taking away decision making? This seems to be a similar sort of issue to me (admittedly only one component of the rotn not the entire thing) where Blizz intends us to see the AoW proc and then hit Exo rather than be spamming a button which automatically fires off an exo only if AoW is up?

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Huh, does stopcasting actually work? I thought it resets your auto swing timer. So you get the proc out, but lose a white swing.

Anyway, this is what you need for holy power.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHUOcFcmHGM

pop the big ass picture in your slave window. when you see it, mash that TV button like no tomorrow.

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Originally Posted by remanz

Huh, does stopcasting actually work? I thought it resets your auto swing timer. So you get the proc out, but lose a white swing.

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From what I read recently, /stopcasting doesn't reset the swing timer anymore, it simply delays it the duration of the cast. The problem with stopcasting in a fallthrough for melee is that it isn't instant. I have a little breakdown of some testing I did with it on an Enh Shaman and a Ret Paladin here.

Yeah stopcasting doesn't really work for me. If I work it into a macro I can go up to 10 seconds without actually getting an auto hit.

I have resigned myself to 3 separate buttons for the pallies at this stage. One is a FCFS rotation for holy power generating abilites which is my standard spam macro. I can maintain about 3.5k just spamming this macro ignoring AoW and holy power.

If I add in TV as a separate cast when all 4 pallys are loaded and same with Exo, I can sustain up to 4.8k dps.

Running a single pally manually hitting keys I can get 5.5-5.8k. The best castsequence I have come up with is 4-4.2k.

On a sidenote 4.0.3 Divine Storm has gone back to mana based with 4.5sec cooldown. Less damage than prevously but half the cooldown and some sweet sweet passive healing back for PvP etc.

use a movement instead of stopcasting .. u can do it manually by pressing (for example) "e" for the dps macro and "r" for jump with your fatty multibox ned fingers (:D) at the same time or (much more "i have no fucking clue if it is allowed") add a action to press the "r" key everytime the "e" key is used . (i woulnt bind the default space key as jump cuz well ... i cant spamm e+space for a complete bossfight + jumping tank/healer sucks bigtime ;D)

jumping has the + that in wont break follow (what strafing would do) and the - that if u spam your dps/jump key + iwt key the toons will jump through the "boss" into the tank and will be cleaved :D

@Fuzes:

The problem with jumping is that when you're spamming IWT you will be out of melee pretty frequently. It's a great idea on paper but just doesn't translate.

u could use a strafe left/right combo too (its only a minimal movement but still no swingtimer reset) , for now i have the following bindings q = interact with target , e = dps macro WITHOUT the jumping , alt + e == dps/jump action ... as long as the palas arent in melee range to the mob i only use the macro without jumping . so iwt works as intended .

as soon as your ret toons are in melee range u can jump as much as you want even with a iwt in the same secound ... they will only spin in the air .

it will not work in pvp at all for obvious reasons (tanking nightelf rouges on one spot dosnt work that often ;D) ... on the other side u dont need "stopcasting" at all cuz your toons move 99% of the time and wont try to cast non instant exorcisms

New exo doesn't actually seem to proc that much anyway, I am happy with the manual stopcasting key to hit when the proc is up on all toons for some nice burst.