Sharp skill curve adding a tank to the mix?

[Vyndree]

I don't understand. Its not like you can't be dynamic while having a castsequence for the 90% of the times when your hitting the same abilities in the same order, particularly for those of us running multiple classes.

I think you misunderstand my definition of "dynamic".

For example:
Let's say a person is running a moonkin.
Let's say they decide to do a common /castrandom Wrath, Starfire (or even castsequence)
Let's say they come upon a mob that is immune to Nature. Can they adapt? Perhaps, depending on if they get lucky with the /castrandom or if the mob doesn't hit too hard or how much they have to DPS to kill it...
Let's say they come upon a mob that is immune to Arcane. Can they adapt? Perhaps, depending on if they get lucky with the /castrandom or if the mob doesn't hit too hard or how much they have to DPS to kill it...
Let's say they come upon a mob that is magic-immune. Can they adapt? Did they bother to bind other abilities as simple as /startattack and/or catform and catform's various DPS buttons?

Exacerbate the problem, add a mage:
Does the mage need to sheep? Is the boomkin alt prepared not to accidentally break the sheep?
Does the mage need to interrupt/silence?
Does the mage need to frostnova?

Exacerbate the problem more, add a priest:
Can the priest heal a specific target at a moment's notice?
Can the priest use AoE fear?
Can the priest AoE heal without accidentally /castrandom or /castsequencing Holy Nova such that they don't break the mage's sheep?


Keep in mind -- people here are talking about having 1 button to end all buttons. I was a bit obscure having not specifically called that out as what I was addressing. I'm talking about a 1-button castsequence/castrandom spam, and added a little personal opinion about what sort of castsequences I use/don't use.

Having a /castsequence "i'm doing easysauce content that I outnumber/outgear/outlevel" to mash when fighting a brainlessly easy opponent is no problem (though I don't do so, personally). However, assuming that one button will fit all of your needs is a bit of a stretch -- interrupts, cc, not breaking cc, tanking, healing, totems, buffs... those all deserve adequate attention.

By "dynamic" I'm saying "I can adapt to whatever the world throws at me". Nature immune mob? Yea, I bound shocks that aren't in the nature school. Spellcaster mob? I've got an interrupt button. Groundings too. Fearbomb mob? I can tremor, and I've got trinkets bound. Mana running low? Manatide/watershield/manaspring baby!

That's dynamic.

/castsequence [nocombat] Healing Stream Totem, Wrath of Air totem, Tremor Totem, Searing Totem, Water Shield, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt
/castrandom [combat] Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning

THIS is not dynamic.

How can you interrupt?
How can you deal with nature immune mobs?
How can you deal with spells that need to be grounded?
How can you deal with not hitting CCed targets with your CL or Searing?

How do you do ANYTHING but that rotation?

The point is, saying that "You only need ONE button on a /castsequence" is oversimplification. It's more appropriately "You only need ONE spam button for leveling, since you outnumber almost every quest encounter anyway" or "You most likely will be pressing a spammable DPS button".

ONE button does not rule all. ONE button can be used more OFTEN than others, but it doesn't mean the others aren't useful or necessary.

Personally, I take a bit of pride in the fact that my characters run themselves pretty darn efficiently for pressing 2 over and over.

That's fine, it's why I used the phrase "IMO".

Efficiency is relative. Is a castsequence efficient in raids? Depends on the class and how well they fit into a rotation. Is efficiency your ability to react to PvP situations where the same thing almost never happens twice? Certainly. Is efficiency the ease at which you can power through quests and level because you have 5x the firepower designed for the encounter? Sure, but personally I still think you can do that without relying totally on /castsequences.

/castsequences are not efficient for DPS that cannot easily be put into a reliable sequence. They're also unreliable because "reset=12" does not mean "reset 12 seconds from the first time I pushed the button". It means "reset 12 seconds from the LAST time I pushed the button" -- and that means if I have 3 DoTs with different timers, it's not efficient DPS uptime. If I have 3 DoTs, pressed the button once, ran around for a little bit, and pressed the button once more, my timers will be "off" so that, if I wanted to skip DoT #3 and go straight back to refresh DoT #1, I can't.

That's what I meant by dynamic.

EDIT: This post gives some more good information about why castsequences are not ideal for maximizing DPS. For mixed groups it may be a necessary evil, but still applicable on a per-character basis.
http://dual-boxing.com/forums/index....932#post152932

Extra healing, moving around, changing targets, all make long castsequences that are cooldown based a pain. All mostly upsetting the cooldowns so much it's not worth it. The only reason castsequences seems good for is for when you get in that situation when you do still have thge cd's and need to totally nuke as much as possible, or a few fights where you do indeed not have to heal/move. Patchwerk in naxx for example. Or when testing dps. But with the vast amount of various tactics needed for pretty much all five man and the lack of hp on trash causes castsequences for us to be more of a pain then to be effective.

/castrandom is as close to effective as it will get, but even then you would stumble upon problems with changing targets, blowing flameshock cd's on low targets and lava bursts on flameshockless targets. The problems come with the AI needed to apply flameshock at the proper targets and the timing on the lava bursts.

(emphasis mine)