Training to use Click macros

[Psych]

Here's a question regarding click and such.

Let's say you've got your click macro and it's firing 3 or 4 macros for you, each containing a castsequence of one single spell. In this case, let's say it's one for Moonfire, one for Insect Swarm, one for Wrath and one for Starfire. All of these are clicked by the click macro.

Now, all of the castsequence macros that come from click macros, at least that I've seen, are riddled with commas after the actual spell, that's the buffer of clicks until you'd want to recast it. Question is, could you not just put ", null" in there and have the reset condition on the castsequence reset whenever you'd normally want to recast it? ie:

"/castsequence reset=combat/target/12 Insect Swarm, null"

Would that not fire Insect Swarm once, until out of combat, target changes or 12 seconds passes, and do nothing else until one of those conditions was met?

Maybe I'm missing something that would prevent that from working, but if that DID work, that would mean you could garauntee a re-fire of the spell exactly when either the cooldown was up, or when the spell dropped off the target, which would be ideal.

[Khatovar]

"/castsequence reset=combat/target/12 Insect Swarm, null"

Would that not fire Insect Swarm once, until out of combat, target changes or 12 seconds passes, and do nothing else until one of those conditions was met?

No. The point of the commas is timing. For a spell like Insect Swarm, you want it to reapply every time it is dropped {or better, every time it is about to drop}. Combat and target are acceptable reset conditions, but /click is still performing actions on that sequence, even if it is not actually doing anything, so that castsequence will not have 12 seconds of inactivity.

[Ualaa]

If you were a warlock with say four dots.
Each dot had the same duration.
You could have /castsequence reset=mod:alt Corruption,Null
And the like for each.

I've not messed around with reset on modifier keys, so am not positive if that is the correct syntax even.
But I'd assume, a reset as a mod key would then reset each sequence, resulting in another cast of each.

In the case of actual wow, pretty much any class, we have different timings on ideal recast.
For example Lava Burst cannot be cast more then once every 8 seconds. So we want enough comma's in there that is doesn't get stuck trying to recast while its on cooldown.
Or Flame Shock lasts 18 seconds before it needs to be recast, so there's no point in recasting before then.

If there was a reset condition such as the Alt modifier key, we'd be reapplying Flame Shock even while its still up, or Lava Bursting every 18 seconds even though we could recast after 8.

So technically, you could use a reset condition in the place of comma's.
But in practice unless every ability in the click sequence had the same desired refresh there would be no point.

[Otlecs]

Question is, could you not just put ", null" in there and have the reset condition on the castsequence reset whenever you'd normally want to recast it

Hang on.

Are you saying that null is actually a reserved word in macros? I always thought that was urban legend, and the word "null" is treated just like any other spell that the client doesn't understand.

What does it do if that's not the case?

[Gadzooks]

Wow. That would be intense. I'm a button spammer through and through and would be totally screwed if I had the buffering problem you have, Gadzooks.

Between varying haste rating across my team, pushbacks, interrupts and pressing the wrong key at the wrong time, any sort of rhythm goes out the window even before I come under stress!

A web-based metronome is an interesting idea though

I've pretty much narrowed the issue down to ClonedKey, the software causes the back-up. I'm going to try that new Mac keycloner that's posted in the Software forum this weekend (can't play until then), and if that does the same thing, then I'm going to back my drives up, and install Windows 7 on a BootCamp partition and just play in Windows, and I'll buy KeyClone.

When it happens, and I turn ClonedKeys off, the backup clears immediately, nothing else will stop the lagged commands. It's pretty annoying, I ran and cleared the Nexus the other night, and my team was casting for over a minute after the elemental boss fight, because I did'nt know the fight, and started spamming keys.

Try the steady beat thing on a target dummy, tho - my dps goes way up when I do it. Granted, I'm using a lot of tweaked /click macros, and been adjusting them to my beat, but it's pretty significant, the boost I get - I'm hitting more procs, and there's a lot less "That spell is not ready" spam. Plus, when you get it to be a habit, you can do it and keep an eye on heals, procs, DBM messages - I think of it like learning to drive a clutch, after a while it's habit and you don't think of it, and you can do other things while driving.

[Psych]

Hang on.

Are you saying that null is actually a reserved word in macros? I always thought that was urban legend, and the word "null" is treated just like any other spell that the client doesn't understand.

What does it do if that's not the case?

Beats me, saw it in a macro once, added it into my Faerie Fire click macro and it fires it the first time, then never again until the reset condition happens on the castsequence. Not sure if that means it's a reserved word or if it's just jamming up my macro in a very pleasing and expected way...

No. The point of the commas is timing. For a spell like Insect Swarm, you want it to reapply every time it is dropped {or better, every time it is about to drop}. Combat and target are acceptable reset conditions, but /click is still performing actions on that sequence, even if it is not actually doing anything, so that castsequence will not have 12 seconds of inactivity.

Ahh, right, I forgot that whole "inactivity of the macro, not a cooldown timer" bit. Oh how sweet would it be if it was a "timer since macro started" thing.

[Flekkie]

Hang on.

Are you saying that null is actually a reserved word in macros? I always thought that was urban legend, and the word "null" is treated just like any other spell that the client doesn't understand.

What does it do if that's not the case?

I heard it is not a reserved word, and that any other unrecognised word has the same effect - ie stalling the cast sequence but allowing it to fall down to the next line of the macro and continue. However, 'null' is easy to remember, so people use it.

Since I can't put it off any longer I'm hitting the macros myself for the first time (properly) over the next week (or 2, or 3), so I can't quite confirm it yet. At least I finally transferred my FTL away from macaroon. That only took me 3 months of procrastination, so CC / DPS / healing macros should be a breeze, right? >.<

[Otlecs]

Ah, so if the sequence is stalled then the reset clause triggers even if you're still hitting the castsequence keybind?

That's handy!

[Flekkie]

Ah, so if the sequence is stalled then the reset clause triggers even if you're still hitting the castsequence keybind?

That's handy!

Good question. No idea! But I wouldn't have thought so.

Mind you, the reset on modifier looked like a good idea, it that works. If I play with either this weekend I'll report back..