Designing a hunter shot-rotation helper addon - Page 2

snape · 11/27/06, 2:34 AM

I will echo what Vazu said, and add that if you take such a basic part of playing the game away, how much of the game are you actually playing?

Decursive borders on too much decision-making/aiding for my taste (although of course I use it because encounters have been designed around it).

Evert · 11/27/06, 2:39 AM

Originally Posted by Vazu

No offense, but do Hunters actually need mods to help them with shot rotations?

I dont see how a shot timer is much different than a cast bar

Zurai · 11/27/06, 2:40 AM

Originally Posted by snape

will echo what Vazu said, and add that if you take such a basic part of playing the game away, how much of the game are you actually playing?

Decursive borders on too much decision-making/aiding for my taste (although of course I use it because encounters have been designed around it).

So you'll turn off your cast bar and make it so that when you hit "cast" it starts the new spell immediately, interrupting the one that was already casting - right?

Vazu · 11/27/06, 3:28 AM

Comparing a Hunter using shot rotation mods to any caster's casting bar is pretty lame.

How many timed shots do Hunters have? ..and no, I'm not implying that you use all of these in PVE raids, but if we're gunna talk about Hunter's needing a mod, we might as well throw PVP into the mix. All of the stuff below is used in both.

Serpent Sting: Instant
Arcane Shot: Instant
Concussive Shot: Instant
Distracting Shot: Instant
Multi-Shot: Instant
Scorpid Sting: Instant
Viper Sting: Instant
Silencing Shot: Instant

Auto-Shot: Instant (..although I suppose you could have a casting bar related to weapon speed)
Aimed Shot: 3 sec cast / 6 sec cooldown
Wyvern Sting: 1 sec cast
Steady Shot: 1 sec cast

I'm not implying that Hunter's shouldn't use this mod, but please, don't compare it to a caster's casting bar. You guys have a whopping 2 talents/shots/spells + Auto-Shot to worry about in PVE raiding. Everything else is instant. Would the mod help? Yes. Is your raid going to crumble if Hunters don't have this mod. No, it won't. It hasn't and it will not. We casters don't rely on our casting bar to know when we should start casting another spell. I know exactly when 2.5 seconds is up, and I need to re-cast Shadowbolt. Hell, half the time I don't even look down at my casting bar. The same will apply to any new spells I get in TBC. Once you've played a class for long enough, you have casting bars in your head.

Edit: I think people need to stop using mods for everything and play the game.

Gonkish · 11/27/06, 3:41 AM

Originally Posted by Vazu

We don't rely on our casting bar to know when we should start casting another spell.

A.) If you have no reason to be here (and you quite clearly do not), go away. This does not concern you as you don't understand how we handle things.

B.) Yes. We do. It helps a lot considering that Auto-Shot is effectively half of our DPS. It helps massively when attempting to not fuck ourselves by interrupting Auto-Shot. What the hell is wrong with trying to be more effective, instead of being a lazy waste of a raid slot? Do you really WANT more "lol auto-shot afk" hunters on your raids? No. You don't.

C.) I _do_ have it timed in my head. But I also find that, given lag, I prefer having a timer set up for Auto and a cast bar for Aimed SOLELY because it helps me do my job better. It's a useful, effective tool which, I think at least, HELPS ME. Is that a bad thing?

So I'm assuming that by "no offense, but..." you meant "try to explain and then I'll take offense for some random reason and make an ass out of myself by spouting random shit that I don't understand or really care about", and as such, you've been quite successful. Congratulations, you opt not to use a tool for whatever purposes. I'm glad. Do I care? No. I really don't.

Evert · 11/27/06, 4:01 AM

Don't be dumb Vazu. WoW is a mod in a sense, its just a GUI around a bunch of math and dice rolls. and you are right you shouldnt compare hunters shots to a cast bar, casting before a spell is finished doesnt cancel your current spell. It doesnt kill tanks or lower your dps. So its not at all the same.

Bit of a question: Why isnt aimed shot useful in the expansion? Couldnt you work it into a steady, aimed, multi, arcane shot rotation? My hunter is just a baby and I'm really inexperianced with shot rotations

Boevis · 11/27/06, 4:17 AM

iirc. Aimed show now interrupts auto-shot's cooldown, instead of allowing it to continue while casting aimed. so instead of:
-0:1 Auto
00:0 begin aimed shot
03:0 cast aimed
03:1 Auto

It's now
-0:1 Auto
00:0 begin aimed
03:0 cast aimed
03:0 + Weapon speed so 05:9 Auto when using Ash.

And I should add, I doubt many hunters would complain if "Shoot bow" became a cast bar, and spamming multishot wouldn't interrupt the 'cast' unless they wanted it to (much like mages and casting fireball while spamming fire blast)

Proeliata · 11/27/06, 5:29 AM

Originally Posted by Vazu

How many timed shots do Hunters have? ..and no, I'm not implying that you use all of these in PVE raids, but if we're gunna talk about Hunter's needing a mod, we might as well throw PVP into the mix. All of the stuff below is used in both.

Serpent Sting: Instant
Arcane Shot: Instant
Concussive Shot: Instant
Distracting Shot: Instant
Multi-Shot: Instant
Scorpid Sting: Instant
Viper Sting: Instant
Silencing Shot: Instant

I use Distracting Shot all the time in PvP; it's what makes me such a good PvPer.

Evert · 11/27/06, 5:31 AM

look a distraction

wins everytime

Zeza · 11/27/06, 8:12 AM

Originally Posted by Vazu

No offense, but do Hunters actually need mods to help them with shot rotations?

Originally Posted by Snape

I will echo what Vazu said, and add that if you take such a basic part of playing the game away, how much of the game are you actually playing?

Decursive borders on too much decision-making/aiding for my taste (although of course I use it because encounters have been designed around it).

Part of this post is a desire from me to get into addon coding. Its not my intent to have the mod make the button presses for you, just like it's not the charter of BigWigs (the core package) to provide anything outside of boss timers.

Think of it as a retraining tool, since our finger memory has to be relearned next patch.

McInaction · 11/27/06, 9:20 AM

Originally Posted by Vazu

I know exactly when 2.5 seconds is up, and I need to re-cast Shadowbolt. Hell, half the time I don't even look down at my casting bar.

No you don't. Human reaction will always be off and so will the timer in your head. And when your entire dps relovles around your autoshot and how you time your other abilities around that you damn well better have a timer for it if you are at all serious about contributing your all to the raid.

Please don't come in here with a condensending tone and talk down to us when all you do it pass out the healthstones dot it and shadowbolt spam, thanks.

dakalro · 11/27/06, 10:00 AM

Originally Posted by McInaction

Originally Posted by Vazu

I know exactly when 2.5 seconds is up, and I need to re-cast Shadowbolt. Hell, half the time I don't even look down at my casting bar.

No you don't. Human reaction will always be off and so will the timer in your head. And when your entire dps relovles around your autoshot and how you time your other abilities around that you damn well better have a timer for it if you are at all serious about contributing your all to the raid.

Please don't come in here with a condensending tone and talk down to us when all you do it pass out the healthstones dot it and shadowbolt spam, thanks.

[OFF-TOPIC rly sorry :)]
Your words hurt poor little me. (won't add more cause they'd be much worn insults and, actually, I don't believe them, I'd just be directing "anger" from one person to an entire class, much like you did)
And yes, every player thinks their main class is more complex. Get over it, they're the same. The more you try to get better at things the more you discover the complexities of the class and thus come to the conclusion it is more complex to obtain maximum efficiency (compared to the other classes you may play where you do not strive to get the same).

To everyone that commented on the importance of rotations ... please read up a bit before deciding to post an idea without arguments. Don't know what rotations are like in betas but a well executed rotation adds up decent dps.
[/OFF-TOPIC]

Now to what I wanted to post originally. Seen some tests on the net about reaction time. Purpose was to click a stationary, known button that lit up randomly between 1 and 7 seconds. Avg reaction time for most, 0.2 sec. On the proposed rotation method with the button row, lack of another cue (increasing/decreasing casting bar type) would end up adding that reaction time every time.
I believe that a cast bar will help with that reaction time. Practice would help more than those (go for pressing the button before the bar ends so that you actually cast when it does end - not possible with buttons lighting up imo). It seems to me that casting on gut would at some point become faster than reacting to a visual cue on the screen.

Bigwigs type bars that run every cooldown/cast-time, ordered by remaining time and recycled is the best option (including auto-shot timings that you have to wait for)

Nfariessence · 11/27/06, 10:43 AM

Non-hunter here, but I've dreamed of an Addon that could work for both Hunters and Affliction Warlocks that would allow you to use established theorycraft logic to optimize your shot/DOT rotations and would display what to shoot/cast when for keeping to that rotation. It's a tad more complicated with Warlocks since so many of our fights have multiple adds, or adding Life Tap into the rotation, and +damage gear and available healing can widely vary what's the best rotation.

If I weren't a coder (nor played one on TV) but had an idea of a useful mod, what's the best way to 'put it out there' for a mod maker to get inspired and pick it up?

Rennoko · 11/27/06, 11:12 AM

Shot rotations are unique to anything any other class has to deal with. The reason being, is that if any class that has a spell, is to sit there and spam that spell, it will simply not let you mess up your dps by canceling that spell. Warlocks and mages especially should just leave this thread, simply because watching the DOT bar and waiting till it gets to zero and mashing casting spells, isnt even close to the same concept.

A good example of a spell that uses the same mentality as aimed shot/steady shot is slam, that is if slam did not reset the attack timer. Basically you have a cast bar, and an attack. If you use that ability just before an auto attack, you lose or delay damage.

Maximizing dps isnt as easy as mashing our cooldowns every time they come up, which has been proven many times. If it was as easy as 2 sinister strikes, a slice and dice, followed by 5 sinister strikes and an evic /REPEAT, we wouldnt be having this discussion.

The point is, that casting bars are nice and visually appealing, but really lack the insight to produce a max dps cycle. The difference between a hunter who has his rotation polished and one who doesnt is 100's of damage points. I use shot bars, but i find that between my lag and the server lag, i have to anticipate to cast aimed shot at the best possible time. This means that the better i get, the closer i am to casting that aimed shot a millisecond to late and losing an autoshot. The precision required to play a hunter at the max dps is really very difficult to maintain over any length of time.

Personally i take pride in being able to do a good rotation, since so few people understand how difficult it can be. Im really not sure that any addon would be able to help, simply because the real culprit here is the lag time of the shot. For people who have been using clipped cycles and mashing cooldowns every time they come up like our warlock friends, im sure an addon like this would help, but i doubt that it would be able to improve a solid rotation very much.

dakalro · 11/27/06, 11:54 AM

Originally Posted by Rennoko

Shot rotations are unique to anything any other class has to deal with. The reason being, is that if any class that has a spell, is to sit there and spam that spell, it will simply not let you mess up your dps by canceling that spell. Warlocks and mages especially should just leave this thread, simply because watching the DOT bar and waiting till it gets to zero and mashing casting spells, isnt even close to the same concept.

This just proves you have no idea and are not interested to have an idea about what max dps for other classes means.

Show some interest and knowledge, then speak pls. Casting a dot before it has it's last tick makes it ineffiecient, removing it for a cycle or delaying for more than necessary, cause you got lazy, lowers dps. Like I said, get over the idea that some classes are more complex. Every class has complexity when you're trying to squeeze every ounce of dmg, it's not something unique to hunters.