castsequence simulation

[Ualaa]

Well the entire macro system is radically nerfed on in BETA for testing purposes. There was another thread on this topic, in which Khatovar linked the blue post stating the nerf in beta was for testing purposes.

If they ever decide to apply the nerfs to the regular servers or if the nerfed system remains in place once Cataclysm goes live, I'd have to agree a software duplicating a removed feature would be a bad idea.

As it stands, the software is not giving you any advantage or new feature that cannot already be done with the existing macro system, and as such the feature is completely fine.

[wonz]

Well, thanks for the concerns.

The next i would do then is to think about other alternatives. Should we get back to pure castsequences then?

That would be a huge damage loss i would assume.

[EaTCarbS]

Well, thanks for the concerns.

The next i would do then is to think about other alternatives. Should we get back to pure castsequences then?

That would be a huge damage loss i would assume.

The biggest loss for me was that my /castsequence would get stuck up when you use bloodlust/heroism. The nice thing about /click is that it accommodates for the haste increase.

Other than that, I managed with just 1 /castsequence for quite a while.

[Iceorbz]

This thread is EXACTLY why I love this community!! A potential issue is identified and even before we get hit by it people are figuring out what to do about it. You guys are awesome.

Toonarmy

Your not having it send it for you, it's just disabling from a key being sent. Automation would be your G-15 sends that key two seconds after your first press... this is just not sending a key until a time limit has expired. Think of your keypress being on a token ring =p it wont work till its allowed to again.

[wonz]

it's just disabling from a key being sent.

Yeah, because of that i just wonder why it should be against the TOS.

It's just as if you hadnt pushed the key.

I still think we should be carefully.

[ShadowKntSDS]

I've been brain storming on this a bit myself, as I box lotro which doesn't have a castsequence or /click. I was thinking you could accomplish this in iSBoxer by having a chain of Do Mapped Key's with the longer cooldown/duration abilities in the outer loop(s):


15SecondsStyleKey:
--Step 1: Press Alt+Shift+1 (or w/e key),
----Check "Do not advance to the next step for at least 1.5 seconds"
--Step 2: Do Mapped Key 8SecondsStyleKey
----Check "Do not advance to the next step for at least 15 seconds"

8SecondsStyleKey:
--Step 1: Press Alt+Shift+2 (or w/e key),
----Check "Do not advance to the next step for at least 1.5 seconds"
--Step 2: Do Mapped Key CooldownLoop
----Check "Do not advance to the next step for at least 8 seconds"

(This part can be done as a formal loop, or can be done in a way that just mashes all the keys)
CooldownLoop:
--Step 1: Press Alt+Shift+3
----Check "Do not advance to the next step for at least 1.5 seconds"
--Step 2: Press Alt+Shift+4
----Check "Do not advance to the next step for at least 1.5 seconds"
--Step 3: Press Alt+Shift+5
----Check "Do not advance to the next step for at least 1.5 seconds"

---OR----

--Step 1:
----Press Alt+Shift+3
----Press Alt+Shift+4
----Press Alt+Shift+5

The idea is that if you haven't pressed anything yet, you'd press Alt+Shift+1. Then, for 15s afterwards, you fall down into the loops that follow. As the 15s skill is the one in outer loop, it gets evaluated first; It either activates the skill, or passes the buck down to the next level. The 8Second loop is the same. If both the 15s and 8s skills are during their wait period, you fall through to the final loop which either just iterates on the remaining skills (lotro), or just mashes them and one of the skills not on coolddown fires.

This would work a little better on Lotro where you have longer cooldown skills (say 30s) and a fairly controlled loop centered on 10s cooldowns.

Thoughts?

[Ualaa]

Disclaimer: Not sure, we should use a Click like functionality, if Blizzard has chosen to remove it.
Not sure this would work, but theorizing...

Let's assume you have multiple abilities, each on their own cooldown.
And you want a priority system, the same as with Click.
For the example, let's say the old Balance Druid rotation.

You want:
A) Moonfire, every 15 seconds.
B) Insect Swarm, every 12 seconds.
C) Fall-Through of either Wrath or Starfire.

You'll have a spam key, which is mindlessly spammed over and over.
A consistent pace is less important, as the software is controlling when a step can advance instead of commas in a macro.

You will need something like MSBT or JambaProc to notify you when you gain a Lunar or Solar eclipse.
Have it tell you, to press the hot key for that druid's Toggle Key.

Spam Key
Do Mapped Key A
Do Mapped Key B
Do Mapped Key C
Do Mapped Key D

Mapped Key A
Step 1: Send Keybind for Moonfire to Warcraft.
Step 2: Do Not Advance for 15 Seconds.

Mapped Key B
Step 1: Send Keybind for InsectSwarm to Warcraft
Step 2: Do Not Advance for 12 Seconds.

Mapped Key C
Step 1: Send Keybind for Wrath to Warcraft

Mapped Key D
Step 1: Send Keybind for Starfire to Warcraft

Toggle Key
Step 1: Enable Mapped Key C; Disable Mapped Key D
Step 2: Disable Mapped Key C; Enable Mapped Key D

[ShadowKntSDS]

Please excuse me for not being too up on WoW macro's, but what prevents MF/IS/wrath from going off at the same time, and when they do, which one does WoW pick?

Imagine a case where MF and IS are both ready to go and both Mapped Key A and Mapped Key B are in step 1. Both will trigger on the next press of Spam Key.If we assume that Mapped Key A always gets triggered before Mapped Key B, and WoW accepts the request to cast MF and doesn't cast IS, you've now put Mapped Key B into step 2 without casting IS. It will not try to cast IS again for another 12s, and you may miss a cycle. This may work perfectly in wow as I'm not 100% up to speed on the mechanism.

Once again, excuse my ignorance of wow, as I haven't played it in over 2 years. The skill queue in lotro is goofy, and the lack of macro support in game means we have to code all the smarts into ISBoxer.

[Ualaa]

IS Boxer and Warcraft both execute macros top to bottom.

So initially, you press MF + IS + Wrath.
But MF is fractionally ahead of the others.
And because of the GCD, only one can fire off.

On the second press, MF cannot fire off in the 15 second window.
But IS + Wrath are both fired off, with IS slightly ahead.

On the third press, you'll likely still be on Step 2 for MF.
IS will likely be on Step 2 as well.
Which leaves only the Wrath keybind to be sent to Warcraft.



Looking up at an earlier post in this thread, you can also set a Step to not advance for "x" seconds.
Which if you were spamming a key, would likely guarantee it went off, before you advance to the next step.

You'd want to combine that with Warcraft macros, to the effect:
/castsequence reset=3 Moonfire,Null
So even though the Step won't advance from 1 to 2, until 3 seconds have passed.
You won't cast your MF more then once in those 3 seconds.

At least I think it would work that way.
You might have to adjust the Step 2, to 12 seconds (from 15), to account for the 3 seconds in Step 1.

[ShadowKntSDS]

Ok I follow how the execution works with the GCD.

However, I can still see the case where you are in step 1 for both A & B (sending MF + IS + Wrath, but MF just slightly ahead) and then both A & B enter step 2 and you only send Wrath. It seems like any time the cycle line up, MF will win over all the other key strokes, but you can miss a cycle with anything below it. You can offset the start of them any number of GCD's, but you'll eventually hit a rotation where they line up. It might not be a big deal with 2 skills like this, but with more skills and even multiples (like 8s and 16s timers), you could lose a lot of DPS. Maybe if you offset them by a fraction of a GCD (such that you have 0.5s of IS/Wrath after MF/IS/Wrath, but before the Wrath only part of the cycle) but that might not be reliable.


Seems like a setup like this would overcome that problem, by incrementing the IS step only when we don't execute the MF step:

Spam Key
Do Mapped Key A

Mapped Key A (auto reset after 18s)
Step 1: Send Keybind for Moonfire to Warcraft.
Step 2: Do Mapped Key B, Do Not Advance for 15 Seconds.

Mapped Key B (auto reset after 15s)
Step 1: Send Keybind for InsectSwarm to Warcraft
Step 2: Do Mapped Key C, Do Mapped Key D, Do Not Advance for 12 Seconds.

etc.