*cough*Patchwerk*cough*

Strat-dependant, of course.

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.

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:

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.

Thanks.

Hey look, a Patchwerk thread.

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

Lagomat is an addon to ecasting bar.

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.

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...)

Turn on Autofrostbolt go AFK for 5 minutes come back pickup loot ;)

Heh of course any actual interesting fight this wouldn't be possible but the idea of something turning into that is reasons to avoid implementing such functionality.

Pretty much. On the other hand, it does put the point on the deeper issue, which is that some classes are (way) more one-dimensional than others. The worst offender is probably the frost mage, who only needs to press one button against single targets. Kind of sad, really, especially contrasted with tanks/healers, or even another ranged DPS class like warlocks/hunters.

Based on the following, all the bars are tracked Client-side. If not you could use the following to create your own client side casting bar.

* UNIT_SPELLCAST_SENT, "player", spell, rank, target
* UNIT_SPELLCAST_START, unit
* UNIT_SPELLCAST_STOP, unit
* UNIT_SPELLCAST_FAILED, unit
* UNIT_SPELLCAST_INTERRUPTED, unit
* UNIT_SPELLCAST_DELAYED, unit
* UNIT_SPELLCAST_SUCCEEDED, "player", spell, rank
* UNIT_SPELLCAST_CHANNEL_START, unit
* UNIT_SPELLCAST_CHANNEL_UPDATE, unit
* UNIT_SPELLCAST_CHANNEL_STOP, unit

These are ALL new to TBC.

Can you expand on this a bit? Does this mean the need for fastcast-like mods would be eliminated since your latency isn't a factor in the casting of spells anymore? I guess I don't grok the whole system just on your listing of the events here.