Spellcast

[cidbahamut]

Re: Spellcast

Yes. There is a very real risk of letting too much be automated and losing a lot of control. You want to still be able to think on your feet and change tactics on the fly, but if you've automated everything, you're locked in and screwed.

[tdh]

Re: Spellcast

I cancel spells like that on my own as well, and primarily because if the spell isn't up and I hit the macro, it will still run the cancel command. Killing sneak in a bad spot, and getting caught with my pants down.

My Utsusemi rule sometimes catches me in a rough spot due to unfavorable Seigan timers, and putting more pressure on my mages. And this is specifically why I wanted a rule that would recognize that any spell was not available for casting, and would cancel the entire process.

Now I did stumble across a rule that would recognize if you were Terrored, Amnesia'd, had less than 100% TP, or were too far away from a mob to use a WS, and cancel it. Was tired of losing TP due to knock back moves, hate resets, or mages not caring about hate lists, and this has helped out greatly.

My only issue with it is on huge NMs. Because the mob is so big, you can be much further away from it and still WS with out losing TP. You can be almost 7' from Glavoid and still WS, and I think my rule is set to 4.5' for normal mobs.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Spellcast

The only time I've ever had a problem with it is when I unloaded Cancel by mistake, and I didn't realize it before casting Sneak - which has no effect - and then running like hell to the zone.

For Stoneskin, I just liked that I wouldn't accidentally cancel some other buff by manually taking it off, and since I also used StatusTimer, I'd know to cast when I had about 8 seconds left on Stoneskin. It was usually down for no more than three seconds I think, and generally you shouldn't be unable to withstand one - maybe two - hits without SS.

My stoneskins generally last for 15 minutes or until there is a vicious NM tearing them off along with part of my face.

I guess I could make some additional rule checks to time it based on which Arts I'm in.

Definitely liking the thought of not having to deal with Sneak's bullshit though.

[tdh]

Re: Spellcast

It seems to me that too much of the game can be automated with spellcast.

This is a valid criticism. But on the other side you can also optimize much more for a number of things in the game.

The main reason I started using SpellCast was because of Dusk Gloves. I was tired of forgetting to hit a macro to remove them, and in turn was left behind everybody else. From there I have used it to max out specific stats at different times. Like loading Fast Cast before a spell, and still hitting all your stats or Haste for the end of the cast.

I also find it easier to update macros with new gear when I just have to change 1 line in my XML. Upgraded a Magian item to +2 that you'd use for different types of spells, or idle? Quick change in SpellCast, reload, and you're done.-

There are pros and cons to everything, and again your comment is valid, but my SpellCast doesn't play the game for me (Because it just about can.), and is built so I can switch my focus on the fly to meet the situation.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Spellcast

I cancel spells like that on my own as well, and primarily because if the spell isn't up and I hit the macro, it will still run the cancel command. Killing sneak in a bad spot, and getting caught with my pants down.

My Utsusemi rule sometimes catches me in a rough spot due to unfavorable Seigan timers, and putting more pressure on my mages. And this is specifically why I wanted a rule that would recognize that any spell was not available for casting, and would cancel the entire process.

Now I did stumble across a rule that would recognize if you were Terrored, Amnesia'd, had less than 100% TP, or were too far away from a mob to use a WS, and cancel it. Was tired of losing TP due to knock back moves, hate resets, or mages not caring about hate lists, and this has helped out greatly.

My only issue with it is on huge NMs. Because the mob is so big, you can be much further away from it and still WS with out losing TP. You can be almost 7' from Glavoid and still WS, and I think my rule is set to 4.5' for normal mobs.

Okay, that makes sense. Generally though for sneak, there wasn't a time I was casting it without wanting to cancel my existing sneak. I casted everything by typing, so there was never accidental macro hittage or anything like that.

For Stoneskin, most of the time (for me, at least) it wasn't a big deal if I knocked it off by accident, but I wasn't ever really tanking anything, and if I was, I was canceling Stoneskin with shadows up anyway.

I never felt like the game was being played for me at any time. I felt that having to click up and cancel my buffs was a pain in the ass. I am a type-caster, so having to grab my controller to click on something was a hassle. I had no problem taking my controller to move, obviously, but while moving I wasn't trying to cast anything. I would have preferred being able to right-click those buffs off or if the game had given a /buffremove "Stoneskin" command or something. (And if spellcast had done that I may have used that instead of cancel) That function didn't exist within the game so I used it for the two most annoying of spells, which were Sneak and Stoneskin. Nothing more annoying than doing the math, assuming your SS will wear on the next hit, start casting it to pre-empt it, and then the mob misses you and your spell has no effect. At least that always used to annoy me.

But that's a play preference some people have. I preferred to not have to reach up on that buff bar and deal with rapidly clicking - and potentially misclicking - buffs when I could keep my fingers on the keyboard and continue to cast spells.

Generally, I did a lot of things at a very fast pace, though, so I was looking for little things like that - not so much with Sneak, as that wasn't as relevant in fights - which would make my life easier and allow me to move at a rapid pace.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Spellcast

I still get caught in Dusk sometimes. Usually when I've expanded the chatlog to look for buffs wearing. I'll get some annoying error message and none of my gear will change. Is there a workaround for that or am I just gonna be stuck having to manually equip AfterCast gear if I want to scroll through the log while a spell finishes casting?

[Taskmage]

Re: Spellcast

That's just a limitation of the game. You can't swap gear if you have practically any window open, and spellcast has no way to check for that, so you're stuck switching back manually.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Spellcast

No workaround for the chatlog thing. I've always hated that function about the game.

[tdh]

Re: Spellcast

For that I just have an idle Macro that has /sc set Idle in it. Or I type it out. Usually happens when I was trying to scroll up and find something in the log or cancel a buff.

[Truece]

Re: Spellcast

This tutorial contains a fair amount of advanced spellcast techniques. Some really neat stuff in there...

GenesisX's Spellcast Tutorial / Guide / Discussion - Windower

[cidbahamut]

Re: Spellcast

I've been reading through it during down time this week. There's definitely some stuff in there I could nitpick, but overall it's pretty solid reference material.

[Taskmage]

Re: Spellcast

The main thing I'm trying to do with spellcast right now is consolidate my macros. I've been trying to get Sleep II and Sleep into one macro somehow since 2004. It just annoys me that I have to take up another of my limited slots to do essentially the exact same thing when I already have more commonly used spells than I can fit on one bar. Phalanx and Phalanx II are easier. <if mode="AND" Spell="Phalanx*" TargetType="self"><action type="ChangeSpell" Spell="Phalanx" /> should do the trick, I think.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Spellcast

I'm not seeing how it would really be practical to consolidate Sleep spells TM. How would you want it to behave exactly? Because all I can see is a ruleset that will inevitably cast the wrong tier of Sleep at a critical moment to mess you over.

[Taskmage]

Re: Spellcast

The only time I ever want to cast Sleep is when I've just cast Sleep II on something and either it resisted or there's a second add.

[Cotners]

Re: Spellcast

A useful script might be one that sleeps a mob and then overwrites it with sleep2 about 60 seconds later.