Some of these ideas overlap a bit with what CasterWeaponSwapper does. For example, CWS will swap to a set of weapons/totem when you shapeshift, if you configure it to. CWS also handles weapon and totem/idol/libram swapping depending on mana levels.
For pallies, I'd recommend the mod LibramMeister, which handles most librams, swapping them based on your current spell and buffs. I don't know if there are similar mods for shamans/oomkin/etc but there certainly could be.
For melee specs, I can also confirm that it resets the swing timer. Someone was going to edit CWS to swap druid idols, but they stopped work when finding this out.
There is one situation in which it's absolutely worth it for Feral Druids to switch relics (and weapons) in combat, and that's upon shifting.
I have the following macros set up, and they work beautifully:
/cast Dire Bear Form
/equip [stance:0] Pillar of Ferocity
/equip [stance:9] Wildfury Greatstaff (I switch the 0 and 9 when I want to change which staff the macro equips, rather than rewriting the item name).
/equip Idol of Terror
/cast Cat Form
/equip Staff of the Forest Lord
/equip [stance:0] Everbloom Idol
/equip [stance:9] Idol of Terror (switched for grinding)
/cast Healing Touch
/equip Gavel of Naaru Blessings
/equip Touch of Inspiration
/equip Idol of the Emerald Queen (I used to use Avian Heart here, but I find that in general I want to switch on my lifebloom idol when I start healing at short notice).
The biggest problem with this setup is, as previously mentioned, that if you hit one of the macros while inside a GCD it will restart the GCD without shifting you, which in the worst case can strand you in bear with a boss barreling toward you. However, with practice, you can avoid doing this, and the instant swapping of weapons can be an enormous help, particularly when you have to switch from DPS to tanking at a moment's notice, your tanking weapon's armor makes a huge difference.
You can probably add a "/stopmacro [nostance:1]" line after the form cast to cancel the rest if you're not in the right form.
You can probably add a "/stopmacro [nostance:1]" line after the form cast to cancel the rest if you're not in the right form.
I'll try this when I get home today; however, most of my experience points to the macros in general being too "fast" to tell if you're in the right stance for conditionals. I was thinking about adding a GCD check similar to the one used in the current iteration of the bearpot macro; does anyone know if such a script check works with /equip commands?
Some of these ideas overlap a bit with what CasterWeaponSwapper does. For example, CWS will swap to a set of weapons/totem when you shapeshift, if you configure it to. CWS also handles weapon and totem/idol/libram swapping depending on mana levels.
For pallies, I'd recommend the mod LibramMeister, which handles most librams, swapping them based on your current spell and buffs. I don't know if there are similar mods for shamans/oomkin/etc but there certainly could be.
For melee specs, I can also confirm that it resets the swing timer. Someone was going to edit CWS to swap druid idols, but they stopped work when finding this out.
Friendly hunter invading this thread. My SO is a space chicken and has been using a recently created mod, DruidItemSwap for idol swapping, as well as weapon swapping for innervate and heals, and has been quite pleased.
I used to do the relic switch on my shaman but I eventually took it out of my macros completely.
At least on a Paladin, when you swap Librams in combat there is no GCD. However, there may be a small 0.5 second time for the libram to swap in, but since Pallies can never chain cast faster than 1 second, it will never be an issue.
It does however reset the swing timer so it is a bad idea for melee dps (this is not an issue for Holy, and perhaps not really an issue for Protection spec).
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
At least on a Paladin, when you swap Librams in combat there is no GCD. However, there may be a small 0.5 second time for the libram to swap in, but since Pallies can never chain cast faster than 1 second, it will never be an issue.
Correction: There IS a GCD, but since the GCD generated by the libram swap and the GCD generated by the spell cast happen at the same time, it doesn't affect how fast you can chain cast*.
*Exception 1: If you have spell haste, your Flash of Light's cast time and GCD will be less than 1.5 seconds, but your libram swap GCD will stay at the constant 1.5 seconds, preventing you from benefitting from the spell haste on the first FOL after a libram swap.
*Exception 2: If you cancel your cast, the game is supposed to clear the GCD generated by the spell immediately, but again the GCD generated by the libram swap will persist.
Keep in mind though that in both cases, this should only come into play if you're switching from Holy Light to Flash of Light (and vice-versa) or if you're switching from healing a target with Blessing of Light to a target without it (since Libram-swapping addons usually assign a different Libram for each, even if it's the same spell)
At least on a Paladin, when you swap Librams in combat there is no GCD. However, there may be a small 0.5 second time for the libram to swap in, but since Pallies can never chain cast faster than 1 second, it will never be an issue.
It does however reset the swing timer so it is a bad idea for melee dps (this is not an issue for Holy, and perhaps not really an issue for Protection spec).
Since the patch and Mending hopping to 22MP5 I've used a Libram swapping mod (Holy Librams).
I can confirm that I DO get a 1.5 second GCD when swapping. It slightly clips my hasted Flash of Light (1.47 seconds with [Blessed Band of Karabor]).
Even with .03 seconds preventing chain casting, I don't have issues. It will still allow you to begin a new cast before your client shows completed cast (from latency). So you only effectively lose those .03 seconds, you simply could get a "Spell not ready yet" message and have to press your heal button a few extra times.
With 0 spellhaste GCD delay is a completely nonissue and swapping an extreme effectiveness boost for healing.
The libram switching between the two HolyLight librams are more than worth it. Plus the spell haste GCD clipping wont occur unless you have crazy spell haste to get <1.5 HL.
The problem with the suggested ret pally and prot pally judgement libram is that judgement doesnt trigger GCD meaning u cant piggy back the GCD from the spell cast. For ret its even worst since the swing timer reset is much more significant.
I really wanted to see this theory work unforunately I don't think its going to fly, I spent a while testing it out down in the blasted lands. I did it with a full totem twist going on with searing up for 2 mins (tested each variation twice) I go oom after 2 mins exactly (didn't bother to use rage to extend the test)
With the mod my dps ranged from 1120-1250 on a constant basis
With only stonebreaker equiped, 1300 dps
With only Astral - 1250-1275
I really wanted to see this theory work unforunately I don't think its going to fly, I spent a while testing it out down in the blasted lands. I did it with a full totem twist going on with searing up for 2 mins (tested each variation twice) I go oom after 2 mins exactly (didn't bother to use rage to extend the test)
With the mod my dps ranged from 1120-1250 on a constant basis
With only stonebreaker equiped, 1300 dps
With only Astral - 1250-1275
I thought it was decided twisting reset attack timers. How many attacks/wf hits did you have in each of those?
Correction: There IS a GCD, but since the GCD generated by the libram swap and the GCD generated by the spell cast happen at the same time, it doesn't affect how fast you can chain cast*.
[i]*Exception 1: If you have spell haste, your Flash of Light's cast time and GCD will be less than 1.5 seconds, but your libram swap GCD will stay at the constant 1.5 seconds, preventing you from benefitting from the spell haste on the first FOL after a libram swap.
What you say makes perfect sense, but have you tested this or seen data that confirm the statement? As a resto druid who relic swaps each time I cast a different healing spell, this issue will be significant as I start to accumulate spell haste gear. Right now, I have very little spell haste gear, so I cannot adequately test myself.
Again, the issue: Does spell haste gear only reduce the global cooldown for spell casting time, or does it also reduce the global cooldown time to swap a relic (or off-hand or weapon)? Given that the name of the stat is "spell" haste -- focusing on spells -- I assume your statement is correct, but it would help to confirm with real data, a blue post, or something similar.
What you say makes perfect sense, but have you tested this or seen data that confirm the statement? As a resto druid who relic swaps each time I cast a different healing spell, this issue will be significant as I start to accumulate spell haste gear. Right now, I have very little spell haste gear, so I cannot adequately test myself.
Again, the issue: Does spell haste gear only reduce the global cooldown for spell casting time, or does it also reduce the global cooldown time to swap a relic (or off-hand or weapon)? Given that the name of the stat is "spell" haste -- focusing on spells -- I assume your statement is correct, but it would help to confirm with real data, a blue post, or something similar.
It is true. Spell haste does not affect libram/relic/totem/weapon swap gcd - as has been stated multiple times on this forum.
If you want to test this yourself, remember that you have to be in combat to get correct data - out of combat there is no gcd for swaps.
Last edited by charriu : 05/30/08 at 11:52 AM.
Reason: Grammar ;)
in the latest patch the changes say that spellcasting will be cancelled if you swap weapons. I think the reason is to stop you using the spellhaste weapon and spelldamage weapons together (since haste benefits before the cast and spelldamage on the cast), however it will also ruin the libram swapping for paladin healers.
I wonder if it will still be worth swapping in libram of mending every 30s to keep the 22mp5 buff up? Costs you a GCD every so often, but the benefit is quite nice if you have slack in your healing.
Assuming the item swap change goes live, yes you could weave Mending, but it would be challenging to know when it is safe to swap it in/out. Note if you used a different libram and swapped Mending in and out, you lose 3 seconds.
It seems to me that swapping any librams is a hard sell now, due to needing 2 GCD's to swap and swap back. If you do that even every 30 seconds, you're losing 10% of your spellcasting time.
I actually think the changes related to combat-swapping are specifically targeted at nerfing libram/relic swapping, not towards swapping the haste weapon or other uses. It seems to me that any class that can use a mod to swap between 2-3 relics or totems to effectively get the benefit of all of them will no longer be able to effectively do so due to this change.
I kind of agree in principle that such swapping mods undermine the whole relic system, with unique buffs on each item... but I also think this change illustrates the current poor itemization of this slot. Hopefully in the expansion, there will be more of a variety of librams/etc, like there is with trinkets, so players can make more interesting choices for them.
04/29/08, 5:25 PM
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