Why does this macro work?

[Tehtsuo]

I've seen this macro scattered in different places on this forum, and assumed it wouldn't work because of what I know about WoW macro mechanics. I decided to try it just in case, and discovered that it works! Now I want to find out why!

/castsequence reset=combat Flame Shock, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, etc
/cast Lava Burst

I assumed that since every item in the castsequence triggers the GCD, it would prevent the Lava Burst from casting. Instead, it casts the flame shock first, then the lava burst, then lightning bolts while lava burst is on cooldown, and lava burst whenever it's ready.

What. The. F.

I did notice that if I don't spam the key, (press it once, flame shock, wait for gcd to be gone, press again) it casts the lightning bolt next instead of the Lava Burst. Therefore, you have to spam this key to get Lava Bursts to go through. Does this mean that GCD forces the macro to fall through the cast sequence and land on the Lava Burst? Is this behavior maybe due to the spell queue system for lag?

[EaTCarbS]

These kinds of fall-through macros have worked since 4.0

personally, I would take back the /click ,,,, back any day over this.

[Starbuck_Jones]

It works because of spell queuing. If you cast a spell, then try to cast another, the client will auto cast the second spell when the first is done. Lavaburst is that second spell, but when it's on cool down it whiffs and moves to the next one in the cast sequence.

[Tehtsuo]

It works because of spell queuing. If you cast a spell, then try to cast another, the client will auto cast the second spell when the first is done. Lavaburst is that second spell, but when it's on cool down it whiffs and moves to the next one in the cast sequence.

Ah, I think I get it. The downside to this is it means the only spell that ever gets queued when spamming the macro is Lava Burst, right? After the flame shock, the rest of the castsequence will only be used when the client receives the notification from the server that nothing is casting and the GCD is over.

[Noids]

There is a tiny gap between each of the castsequence spells being queued which allows the lava burst request to be squeezed in when it is off cooldown. Castsequences do not queue the next spell in the sequence until the previous spell has finished casting. This requires the client to query the server to see if one spell has finished casting (approx 200ms based on my average latency) before sending the command to cast the next spell in the sequence. During this time, the command to cast lava burst is fired off and received before the next castsequence spell is.

This is the reason that the macro:

/castsequence lightning bolt, lightning bolt

used to produce inferior dps to

/cast lightning bolt

when spammed.

I am not sure if this is still the case with the new tuning that you can do with your UI to take into account average latency and if this can override the limitations of the castsequence process.

FWIW an identical system to /click can be engineered through sending multiple keybinds through a single keypress in Isboxer if you still prefer that system.

[Ashley]

I've seen this macro scattered in different places on this forum, and assumed it wouldn't work because of what I know about WoW macro mechanics. I decided to try it just in case, and discovered that it works! Now I want to find out why!

/castsequence reset=combat Flame Shock, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, etc
/cast Lava Burst

I assumed that since every item in the castsequence triggers the GCD, it would prevent the Lava Burst from casting. Instead, it casts the flame shock first, then the lava burst, then lightning bolts while lava burst is on cooldown, and lava burst whenever it's ready.

What. The. F.

I did notice that if I don't spam the key, (press it once, flame shock, wait for gcd to be gone, press again) it casts the lightning bolt next instead of the Lava Burst. Therefore, you have to spam this key to get Lava Bursts to go through. Does this mean that GCD forces the macro to fall through the cast sequence and land on the Lava Burst? Is this behavior maybe due to the spell queue system for lag?

So, would this be sufficient key replacement for all 10 of my toons to spam?

And maybe made even faster through ISBoxer to pass the key on press OR release?

[Tehtsuo]

So, would this be sufficient key replacement for all 10 of my toons to spam?

And maybe made even faster through ISBoxer to pass the key on press OR release?

That's what I did for my 5 shamans. It seems to work pretty well, although I'm betting once I start getting closer to 85 and/or geared the 2 step system may need to come into play to provide max dps. One thing I like about it is if you have glyph of unleashed lightning, it's completely compatible with movement without making any changes, as long as you only have shocks and lightning bolts in the castsequence.

[Ashley]

Yeah I'm currently at 85 and even though all my characters are equally geared, one seems to only do 9k dps compared to the 15k+ on my main with every other char doing something between both.

I'd like to try and level it all out equally rather than having such a weird, curve.

[Toned]

I get more dps out of this setup.

Manually Flameshock / Earth shock

Spam this button:
/use 13
/use 10
/cast Blood Fury(Racial)
/use 14
/cast Elemental Mastery
/cast Lightning Bolt
/cast Lava Burst

[MiRai]

And maybe made even faster through ISBoxer to pass the key on press OR release?

You can't cast faster than the global cooldown allows so... it doesn't matter.