Marroc

Right but that's not how you maximize dps using it.

As a warlock, you'll find very little use for it as you don't have a set 'cycle'. This greatly reduces your lag dependency while dpsing and most of your spells being instant cast just makes it even less of a problem.

But, because it was asked, here is how it works.

1. Get a cast bar with a lag estimator.
2. prefix all of your spells with /stopcasting
3. you can now 'shave' seconds off of casts that end up in the lag time of your cast bar.


That is to say if fireball takes 3 seconds to cast normally, your cast bar will have a normal bar if you're not lagging, but if you are lagging there will be a red section at the end of the bar... The end of the bar being when the client thinks the cast will finish, while the beginning of the red section is when the server actually casts the spell. By /stopcast'ing any spell in that 'red' section, you do not prevent the spell from executing, but you DO allow yourself to start casting again, essentially shaving off some of the time you would have otherwise spent waiting for the client to catch up to the server.

 

vyedma

I have this happen to me every once in a while and have no clue what causes it. I haven't been able to reliably recreate it.

For reference my macro is just:

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast Shadowbolt

(trinkets are tied to UA)

If anyone has any insight into this I'd be curious to hear an explanation. It's not terribly annoying as it only happens to me maybe once every 4-6 hours of raiding, but it's just odd.

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

 

Arnath

I too have this issue with my Shadowbolt stopcasting macro sometimes and I don't really know why.

 

Silmeria

Yes, it's happened specifically on my shadowbolt spam segments. It's rare, but it happens. I too have been unable to recreate it, but I can confirm that it exists. One time that this happened, my spell had actually "cast", but I was never given a castbar (or animation for that matter) for that particular spell.

I used to get this much more frequently on my healer when I started doing antics with holy light cancelling (was just messing around), and I got Quartz to completely confuse itself to the point where my spells would complete but my castbar would be no where close to the red zone. I had originally assumed mod issues, but I never dug into it. Perhaps the two are related; I've never really screwed around with it on my warlock.

 

Apate

You're going to have to trust my memory on this (WARNING), but I recall either Sluoken or perhaps Iriel (et al.) responding to this concern. The gist was that while the use of /stopcasting is OK and useful, it was designed as a slash command to cancel a spell. The lag interaction is an unintended side benefit. Essentially, using /stopcasting in this unintended but permissible way can cause the server (client?) to get confused and "break."

I don't recall any workaround suggestions, sorry.

See you, auntie.

 

Boramere

The only instance I can imagine it helping hunters is when you are trying to thread a steady shot and an instant into a single autoshot. I'm not familiar enough with hunter rotations to know if this is a common occurrence or not. However, one thing my hunters have noticed is that using stopcasting appears to drop autoshots quite regularly. The only explanation I can think of is the stopcasting hitting during the autoshot cast time, canceling it.

 

Copernicus

No, it's not.

Violating the ToS would be creating a G15 script that allowed a player to do unattended gameplay. The origin of this false rumor is from a guy who macroed raising weapon skill with a healer (attack closest target, heal every X amount of time) and didn't respond to several GM tells while they were doing so.

 

◊ Asgorath

I'm trying to understand how /stopcasting works in an effort to help my guild's casters, and I'm not sure I get how your macros work Manly. Aren't you trying to time the /stopcasting to chop off the latency from the previous cast? Please forgive me, but I'm not seeing how the 1.57 second delay between the /stopcasting and the Scorch gives the same result as a manually-timed macro like:

/stopcasting
/cast Scorch

The timeline should look like this, right?

0.00 - cast Scorch
1.57 - stopcasting, cast Scorch
3.14 - stopcasting, cast Scorch
4.71 - stopcasting, cast Scorch

Now, maybe I'm just brain-dead today and am missing the obvious, but could you describe in a little more detail how your macros give the same result as the classic stopcasting ones?

 

Copernicus

The G15 keyboard has the option of including a precise time delay in a macro. WoW macros can't do that, so anyone who is trying to "catch" a stopcast via Quartz has to rely on visual feedback. For most people with experience, that's a delay of 0.2 seconds, resulting in a usual cast time of 1.7 seconds.

 

Apate

Actually, when it was a hot topic, there were contradictory Blue posts on the use of delays. When the dust settled, though, it came down to "use common sense."

Banned from WoW for using a programmable keyboard for the curious.

See you, auntie.

 

◊ Asgorath

Right, the thing I don't get is the order of the lines in his macro. Again, maybe I'm just not understanding how the G15 macros work, but the way I read his post suggested his macro does this:

0.00 - /stopcasting
(G15 macro delay here)
1.57 - /cast Scorch

All with a single button press. Doesn't that mean there's a 1.57 second delay between the stopcasting and the next cast of Scorch, when as I understand it, you want a 1.57 second delay between the Scorch and the next stopcasting? Or did I just misunderstand what he meant by his macro?

 

adlwow

This is why using the G15 delay to create macros is crossing over into a very shady area. Will you get banned for it? Doubtful. Is it against TOS? From what I've read, yes.

Replicating what can already be done in game with WoW macros = okay
Using the G15 to do something that can NOT be done in game with WoW macros = not okay

edit: Here's the clearest Blue post I found on the subject (the 2nd one in this thread) -

WoW-Europe.com Forums -> Logitech G15 illeagl?

Now in this case you are using the keyboard macro to give the /stopcasting command, pause however many seconds, and then cast the spell. It isn't two spells but it definitely isn't possible to do this "by normal in-game macros."

Not trying to be argumentative, but people who want to give your suggestion a try should know all the facts.

 

◊ manly

Well, a few things. I stopped using precisely timed g15 macros for stopcasting. That was back in the day when I was trying to lazy-things-up and get easymode stopcasting. I now use regular in game macro with /stopcasting then /cast, since it simplifies things like adjusting your interval when you get bloodlusted.

I searched many times on google to se if it was against the TOS, all I could find was people that were using it to level up their players; ie: unattended gameplay.

However, I did spend an afternoon to do many many test runs on DRBOOM with the G15. One thing that became immediately apparent was that I could not reliably cast scorches below 1.57s; they would always be stopcasted too early. 1.51s scorches gave me 100% interrupted scorches (keep in mind, the spell is supposed to be 1.50s cast time).

Something important to note. I also had a macro that would spam 50 scorch every second (so that I could reproduce test results with ease). That macro would not attempt to do any stopcasting, just regular casts. I could not get scorches any faster than 1.68s. I tested on a cumulative of approximatively 500 scorches. This was the average result I was getting. Regular scorches would not get better than 1.68s. Whereas the most reliable stopcasted scorches worked at 1.57s.

 

◊ Asgorath

Great, thanks for the reply. I'm still encouraging my casters to get Quartz and experiment with the standard stopcasting macros, so it's good to know that's all you're using.

 

Roland Deschain

Manly, what are you using to determine this?

 

Taryenne

Recently started using this with RDX cast bar



I'm really surprised at just how effective the whole /stopcasting macro is

Does anyone else using a lag timer find that after using the /stopcast macro there is no apparent latency at all
ie. First cast shows 256ms, hit your macro, next cast shows 0ms

 

◊ manly

Use a wristwatch. Make sure swstats is open. Begin counting as soon as you begin casting scorches. As soon as 50 scorches were casted, I recorded how much time it took. I averaged over 500 scorches that way to come to that number. I did the same with precisely timed stopcast macros.

 

galzohar

When trying really, REALLY hard I could get 2 3s cast frostbolts and a scorch and still get a 1.5s cast AB after that with AB stacked to 3 right before the frostbolts. So getting sub-0.13 ping by just watching your castbar with the standard ct-mod pack *is* possible. I doubt I can do it if I'm watching anything other than the castbar though, it was hard enough to do on Dr. Boom.

I think this might not be totally accurate. When you see your castbar start is actually when the server starts casting, and when you see the castbar finish is when the server actually casts. However due to lag if you wait for the server to finish the cast before starting the next cast you will have a delay, so you stop the cast before it's really finished in a way so that when the command actually reaches the server (200ms or whatever your ping is later), the spell is already finished and another will start right away.

There is a bug I noticed that's pretty consistent - when your UI is showing a spell being cast properly, and you interrupt the spell to immidiately start another (looks like any peroid that is <your ping is fast enough to cause that), no matter if with /stopcasting or moving or whatever, the next spell will be BUGGED. This can be worked around, though, as all the bug does is bug your UI and not the server so your spell will really be cast, but your class will not show any casting animation. Also interrupting a spell with /stopcasting at this phase is NOT POSSIBLE, however if you hit your macro like you would in order to chain-cast it'll work just like you want it to. This bug only matters when you actually try to interrupt a spell with /stopcasting. When you're just chain-casting this bug has no effect on gameplay other than lack of animation. To actually interrupt a spell in a certain way when using /stopcasting, you must MOVE to interrupt the spell.

As for the G15, I think the reason you can't get it below a certain level is the variance of your ping. If your ping was 100 when you hit the first scorch cast and went down to 30 before you clicked it again 1.5s after the first click, there will be 1.43s difference between the "clicks" on the server therefore interrupting the spell. So the minimum lag you can have is probably directly dependant on your ping's variance (and your ability to time your click, but with G15 that's a non-issue - I should get myself one of those although I do love the fact my very old keyboard has no microsoft buttons between the ctrl and the alt).

 

Revenj

I play from the Middle East (500-1k ms) and pre-TBC FastCast was great.
As a former Mage, the difference FastCast made in my DPS was definitely noticeable and as a Priest it was absolutely required.
I was almost going to quit the game when I realised that FastCast would be completely broken in TBC - I made several petitions but to no avail.


Anyone who has more than 200ms, I strongly suggest you get accustomed to this "/stopcasting" style of play (especially healers, a split second can mean death).

1) When you re-do all your spells with "/stopcasting" - keep in mind that you will NEVER be able to spam your buttons. You will end up chain-cancelling your spells. This can be a disaster if you are a healer, especially in intense situations when you tend to get hyper and spam. The first 1-2 raids I had a hard time getting used to this style of casting and it was quite frustrating - but keep with it... you'll reap the benefits soon enough.

2) Don't bother with those addons that "predict" the lag on the castbar. The very definition of lag/latency means that those addons will be largely inaccurate.

3) As a Priest, put /stopcasting on your Fade, Dispel and Shield spells (even if you play with 0 ping). Those spells, by definition, are required in "emergency" situations... hence you can't afford the split second delay in "moving/jumping" in order to cancel your existing spellcast.

 

galzohar

[quoet]3) As a Priest, put /stopcasting on your Fade, Dispel and Shield spells (even if you play with 0 ping). Those spells, by definition, are required in "emergency" situations... hence you can't afford the split second delay in "moving/jumping" in order to cancel your existing spellcast.[/quote]
Due to the bug I described you have to move anyway or it sometimes won't work (if you're actually trying to cancel and not just speeding up your casts)

 

Lodi

Wrong (about the definition/reason) - if you have a consistent route without packet loss, that has a great many hops over a long geographic distance, you can have a consistent, predictable e.g. 300ms ping.

However, exceptionally high ping is usually associated with congestion and packet loss, which do give a varying latency. You'll have to figure out yourself what's reliable under such conditions.

Obviously, with /stopcasting, an absolutely constant 200ms ping should be prefered to a varying 100-200.

 

Akomos

A little MS Paint diagram that I used to help explain this to my guildies:



Also, one of the tanks in my guild tried to convince me that moving to cancel the cast and start a new one works just as well as /stopcasting macros. He has an alt priest, you know. That was funny.

Incredibly, incredibly useful for raiding mages to the point of being gimped if you don't use it. Other casters as well, to be sure, but nobody relies on nonstop bolt spam like a raiding mage does. I hear good things from our healing Paladins as well.

 

ilthel

well moving is just as good at canceling the spell :P it's just when you want to start the next cast that you run into problems

 

Marroc

It's not as good. you can't start a new spell cast as you're moving :P

 

ilthel

Hence the part of my post after the emoticon.