castsequence lowers dps big time. 500dps loss

[Kicksome]

I just took my gear off to test, but did not respec. I'm probably not going to run anymore tests, I'm positive it's making a difference, for me at least. Along with all the other tests I've run that convinced me, I've gotten my dps up to 2.7k manually running the rotation - never under 2.5k. I never got above 2.3K before this with the /castsequence I used. This is in line with what the other ele shaman in my guild is doing, so it answers my question on why my dps was low when I had almost the same gear.

It's really clear when I switched between the /cast and /castsequence there is a delay between casts. It's really apparent. The cast bar disappears for a micro second with /castsequence but with /cast it never goes away. I'd bet that many people who use /castsequence felt something was a bit off, but might not known what it was. I know I felt that way.

I'm pretty sure that before the next part of the castsequence is sent to the server, the server needs to tell your wow client that the other spell is done, and it's okay to send the next in the castsequence (otherwise the sequence would jump ahead). That's what's causing the lag. With /cast it just sending requests to the server.

[Bigfish]

Well, for OP's macro:

/castsequence Flame Shock,,,,,,,,, Lightning Bolt,, Lightning Bolt,, Lightning bolt,, Lightning Bolt,, Lightning bolt,,
/castsequence , Lavaburst,, Lightning Bolt,, Lightning Bolt,, Laveburst,, Lightning Bolt,, Lightning Bolt,

MIGHT/SHOULD work. Assuming laveburst isn't instacast or anything.

[Kicksome]

Well, for OP's macro:

/castsequence Flame Shock,,,,,,,,, Lightning Bolt,, Lightning Bolt,, Lightning bolt,, Lightning Bolt,, Lightning bolt,,
/castsequence , Lavaburst,, Lightning Bolt,, Lightning Bolt,, Laveburst,, Lightning Bolt,, Lightning Bolt,

MIGHT/SHOULD work. Assuming laveburst isn't instacast or anything.

This doesn't work like the original macro. It just goes through the first castsequence that you listed.

[Bigfish]

This doesn't work like the original macro. It just goes through the first castsequence that you listed.

Are you using Macaroon?

Edit: I'll look in to it later and let you know what I come out with. Chances are its an issue with the commas. Things are so freaking hard to work out unless you're looking at how the macro runs when you're writing it.

[maxel]

So this explains it. I was noticing something very similar on my lock and mage dps comparisons. The mages with just a /cast frostbolt macro were far outpacing my lock in the conversion of Gear to DPS while he was using a castsequence.

Perhaps the solution lies in more fancy macros with branching? What I mean is maybe make the macros simple and without castsequence altogether, but have the last line hit a new bar or move back to the start. Let's say we want a 3 sequence spell rotation Flame Shock >> Lava Burst >> Lightning Bolt >> LB >> LB. We could do the following:

Bar 1 - Button 1:
/cast [target=focus] Flame Shock
/changeactionbar 2

Bar 1 - Button 2:
/cast [target=focus] Lightning Bolt

Bar 2 - Button 1:
/cast [target=focus] Lava Burst
/changeactionbar 1

Assuming you've bound the keys for Button 1 and 2 to 1 and 2 your sequence would now be spam 1 > 1 > 2 > 2 > 2 > etc

I'm at work and unable to test and throwing out some brainstorming. Would this work?

[Bigfish]

I considered something like that myself. I think the problem you run in to is that the command to switch action bars will still run even if the spell assigned in the macro doesn't.

[genocyde]

That's a very good idea. Unfortunately I have all 10 of my available action bars full on my druid due to a bar for caster/bear/cat and a bar for caster/bear/cast for mboxing and for pvp and well you get the idea :P Are there any addons left that allow you to add more than 120 action bar buttons or more specifically more then 10 bars?

[Harem]

I'm at work - but here's two ideas.

1) How about casting for ~65secs and using combat log to upload to wow webstats or just opening in a editor and counting how man LB in exactly sixty seconds starting from the first cast?

We are saying the dps loss is the result of casting less often - so lets actually count the number of casts we manage to get off in a certain period of time. (this eliminates crits etc. causing the dps difference)


2)Why can't we solve this with /click?
/click lavaburstbutton
/click chainlightingbutton
/click lightningboltbutton

This would bypass the need for server response (which is what we are theorizing is causing the /castsequence slowdown) and essentially spam 3 buttons at once in the order of largest cooldown to smallest. (I'm afraid this functionality will be nerfed).

[genocyde]

2)Why can't we solve this with /click?
/click lavaburstbutton
/click chainlightingbutton
/click lightningboltbutton

I guess the problem is does that
A) cast the best dps rotation?
B) refresh flame shock for you?
maybe:
/castsequence reset=target/combat/6/etc. flame shock,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,
/click lavaburstbutton
/click chainlightingbutton
/click lightningboltbutton

Edit: holy fail at quoting

[Harem]

/click flameshockbutton
/click LVBbutton
/click CLbutton
/click LBbutton


how about that?