For a long time I use to swear by Fastcast as the best mod going. Increased your dps when your chaincasting the samespell as it help with client to server lag. However, I was forced to disable it for a clearcasting mod a month ago or so and when turned it back on this week I found that it no longer works. You can adjust the slider to either extreme and the mod no longer interrupts you. Was this functionality changed with a recent patch and I just never noticed? All the other mages in my guild confirmed similiar results that fastcast is no longer working yet two warlocks swear up and down that fastcast increased their DPS (or at least they think it increased their dps) Anyhow, is fastcast broken?
And are there any other mods out there that help fight lag?
It still works on Live as far as I can tell. (As far as Patchwerk can attest when he wants to play with 600pingFalk)
2.0, on the other hand, abolishes the base functionality that Fastcast relies on. I'm hoping beyond hope Blizzard implements this kind of basic lag-deterrent functionality into their game. I've gotten so used to fastcast that losing it is going to be more of a blow than Decursive (which I'll hardly miss).
Honestly, how hard would it be to code their server to accept additional commands and just not execute them if a character is in the midst of casting, unless it gets a special override flag?
That way, the cast-or-not if/then logic doesn't even have to be client-side.
2.0 doesn't do anything to the BASE functionality of Fastcast, which is using spellstopcasting to interrupt a spell at such a time that the interrupt affects only the client and not the server.
Here's how you reimplement Fastcast in 2.0.
/cast Spellyouwanttofastcast
/stopcasting
Melador> Incidentally, these last few pages are why people hate lawyers.
Viator> I really don't want to go all Kalman here.
Bury> Just imagine what the world would be like if you used your powers for good.
Hmm... is there anywhere I can read up more on this? I'm not sure I understand the results of the macro interacting with the game - does this mean if I hit the macro a fraction of a second early, it interrupts the previous cast totally?
Hmm... is there anywhere I can read up more on this? I'm not sure I understand the results of the macro interacting with the game - does this mean if I hit the macro a fraction of a second early, it interrupts the previous cast totally?
Yes. Just learn to time it, it isn't all that hard; even easier the more lag you have, as your window to properly interrupt grows.
Melador> Incidentally, these last few pages are why people hate lawyers.
Viator> I really don't want to go all Kalman here.
Bury> Just imagine what the world would be like if you used your powers for good.
Timing it is no problem for me... I'm thinking more along the lines of the efficiency of caster classes in DPS races - our guild runs at 500-600 ping on average, and Lord knows how much every percent counts on fights like Loatheb.
We'll learn to adapt, I guess. It's just annoying that something that -should- have been part of Blizzard's default gameplay interaction has been overlooked, and the only 3rd-party solution is crippled. :X
With this you may cast a new spell as soon as your bar has reached the red area. If you use it too early the cast will interrupt. It's in your hand now!
2.0 doesn't do anything to the BASE functionality of Fastcast, which is using spellstopcasting to interrupt a spell at such a time that the interrupt affects only the client and not the server.
Here's how you reimplement Fastcast in 2.0.
/cast Spellyouwanttofastcast
/stopcasting
Wouldn't it be the other way around? Otherwise you interupt the spell just after you start casting it. The whole point is to interupt the casting of the spell client side and start casting the next spell instead of waiting for the servers confirmation that you cast the 1st spell.
The extremely stupid thing is the way wow handles spell casting events client side/server side, means an australian player needs and i mean NEEDS fastcast to compete against american players. Unless they introduce something like it into the base game engine then this mod or a mod like it remain essential parts of a wow dps caster's life.
Er, possibly it would be the other way around (I r rogue?), but the important part is that the disabled /script has a slash-command equivalent.
Melador> Incidentally, these last few pages are why people hate lawyers.
Viator> I really don't want to go all Kalman here.
Bury> Just imagine what the world would be like if you used your powers for good.
The thing that Fastcast does that can't be replicated (to my knowledge) by a mod in 2.0 is it adds a conditional on the /stopcasting depending upon how long the currently casting spell has to go before it finishes.
That SmartCast mod provides an "eyeball solution" but it's not quite the same thing.
I'm another who wishes that Blizzard would just add a 1 slot casting queue on the servers. With the global cooldown lengths a 1 slot queue would be all that's needed.
If you use it too soon, of course it will interrupt the first cast.
Regarding the client/server implementation, I like the idea of having a spell/action queue like some other MMO's, where you can activate a second action while the first one is casting/activating. When the first one completes, the second one starts, and you can queue up a third. There may be technological or balance reasons why Blizzard doesn't do this though.
While I love Beatmania, playing Beatmania while trying to keep people from dying is a needless complication to an already performance-intensive endgame.
If anyone figures out who to holler at for in-built intelligent lag compensation or queueing, add my voice to the list. Next week is -not- going to be fun. :(
I can't see any reason you'd ever risk a heal canceling in order to improve HPS. It isn't like a caster, where a false cancel just drops your DPS - it can kill a raid if you cancel when you shouldn't.
(Fastcast, incidentally, could also cancel when it shouldn't have, it just had a little tolerance for button spamming.)
Melador> Incidentally, these last few pages are why people hate lawyers.
Viator> I really don't want to go all Kalman here.
Bury> Just imagine what the world would be like if you used your powers for good.
I can't see a reason you'd risk canceling a heal early, ESPECIALLY on a spike fight.
Melador> Incidentally, these last few pages are why people hate lawyers.
Viator> I really don't want to go all Kalman here.
Bury> Just imagine what the world would be like if you used your powers for good.
The really useful functionality of Fastcast was that it allowed you to set-up according to your latency and then spam a few clicks right around the intended re-cast time. Early ones (according to the mod) would do nothing and the one closest to your predicted latency goes through to the server as "stop casting and cast X". Ideally this gets there after the first casting has expired and all is well. If you set it wrong for your latency it would on occasion cancel a cast and this has very significant effects on your dps in a chain-casting situation.
So essentially it did two things. It allowed you to tell the client to shut up about the fact you are casting already and directed it to tell the server to cast a new spell. This functionality has been around forever through the /script SpellStopCasting() kludge and now should work fine through a /stopcasting kludge. (The only reason I say "should" is there are still some strange things going on with multi-line macros and protected statuses like combat. It really should be fine.) The second thing though was to intelligently select if the situation were one where you wanted to send that command. That's gone and now you'll need to time things manually.
Sounds reasonable until you realize that even a .2 second consistent extra casting time on every spell is pretty hideous in terms of it's dps impact and the faster the spell, the worse it is. Instants, DoTs and channeled spells are fine but for the mages that are casting X frostbolts/fireballs in a row, it becomes a bit of a gamble. I've said it many times already but a .5 to 1 second spell queue would be a godsend for dps casters and even a boon for healing classes. I don't mind interactivity at all but if I feel like I'm playing PGA Tour Golf 3 for a few hours trying to hit that perfect tick every time, something is not right with the spellcasting system.
Well, Patchwerk is a fight where every millisecond counts. Some strats have people chaincasting heals without regard to overhealing (especially true about OT1 - chances are when you top him up, he goes back down again). Unless you have a ping of 100ms or some form of compensation, chances are human reflexes/judgement introduce a few hundred milliseconds extra betweencasts.
Granted, 0.1-0.2 seconds extra should be nothing major, but over the course of 5-7 minutes, a series of unlucky events can potentially mean someone dies. (Chances are near infinitesimal, then again we're talking of over 250 hits - it's the same basic concept of a tank with 430 defense praying for no crits - over a large sample size, it's bound to happen)
I'm not saying it's going to break Patchwerk... I'm just saying that the margin of error is much smaller, and that's just because the game doesn't compensate for latency. What Fastcast did is basically give us the same perks that a 2-digit pinger would have - the fastest possible chaincast without the risk of accidentally interrupting a potentially critical heal. As it is now, with human judgement, there's always a chance that a healer can erroneously interrupt heals trying to cut it too close.
Yes, it's button spamming. However I don't see why the option should remain open to some but not to others just because of latency difference.
*Shrug* I'm probably being too pessimistic. We'll probably go and one-shot Patchwerk next week and wipe two nights straight to Noth.
I can't see any reason you'd ever risk a heal canceling in order to improve HPS.
Sorry, didn't mean to start a derail. I just used Flash Heal in the example because I'm a Priest. I don't know what spells all you other people cast! :unsure:
Well, Patchwerk is a fight where every millisecond counts. Some strats have people chaincasting heals without regard to overhealing (especially true about OT1 - chances are when you top him up, he goes back down again). Unless you have a ping of 100ms or some form of compensation, chances are human reflexes/judgement introduce a few hundred milliseconds extra betweencasts.
Which are the strats most hurt by +healing nerf etc and weren't very well thought out strategy's but hey people found out they could pull it off with heavy consumable use and as a result do it anyways >_>
Edit: To me it seems I would say btw Patchwerk is one of those fights because people came up with strategies like this that they implemented the +healing nerf so you actually have to consider how to allow better mana efficiency by not casting instead of downranking low enough for nonstop chaincasting.
I know Blizzard reads this board, as some suggestions about hunters and other things have been implemented based on discussions we've had here (either that or we were just really close to the mark on what they were thinking).
2 choices.
1> implement a spell queue, 1 spell deep. When I push an ability and I am currently on the global cooldown, that ability should execute the instant the global cooldown has completed. If I am spamming the arcane explosion button, arcane explosions should be happening just as fast as it can be cast. If I'm spamming frostbolt, there should not be a latency-derived penalty on my dps because your client doesn't put up a castbar until the server acknowledges the spellcast.
2> have the client put up the casting bar the INSTANT I press the button. Have the spell complete when the client says it is complete, for re-cast purposes. The spell won't actually fly from my hands until the server says so (as it is now) but the client will let me start the next cast exactly 2.5s after the first. Or 3.0s, or 1.5s, or whathaveyou.
Well I took a look a supercast and ended up thinking the mod was nothing special as it wasn't working, then I realized it was BC mod ; / Anyhow, the current version is call Lagomat
Every time you cast a Spell LagOmat calculates the latency between the KeyPress and "SPELLCAST_START" and shows this time in your eCastingBar. It also let you cast a new spell when your Castbar reaches this time.
LagOmat is based on the idea of Cirk's Fastcast but is more dynamic:
When you Press your Cast-Button it takes some time till your CastBar shows up. This time is your latency to your server. From there you have to wait this time until the Server sends you "SPELLCAST_STOP", the event that fades out your Castbar. After that message you can cast your next spell.
LagOmat just shows this time in your castbar and let you cast a new spell right after the keypress+casttime elapsed, so you dont have to wait this latency between every cast.
And for a better example, I was goofing around with it last night and well when chain casting scorch, some of my casts looked like instants on my screen, I'd cast one scorch and immediately cast a second scorch with no cast time. (thats an extreme cast but still...)
It seems to me like they allready have the code for this in.
Now Im not often casting one spell continuously on one target but wouldnt the current pet autocast functionality work here?
Simply allow autocast to be applied to any spell. Sure its not going to be the most effiecnt way to do things as the UI is not making any decisions save for "chain cast this spell all the time till I run oom."
Thats basically what it sounds like is being asked for, and I have no problem with it.
11/29/06, 10:39 PM
Similar Threads
