The Warlocks Den - WoW Warlock Discussions

What if you could cast two spells at once? How would that change your game play? The following information will help you to improve the mechanics of casting with the use of macros and in turn, aid you in boosting your DPS and your contribution as a Warlock.

Understanding how your cast bar works:
Have you ever noticed how you can jump at the last second when using your mount, or move just before the cast bar has finished and you still complete the action? Well the reason you can, is due to the moments of latency between you and the server. Blizzard puts a buffer on the cast bar to attempt to equalize the advantage of someone with good latency vs someone with bad latency. While the server takes a variable amount of time to register that your spell has been cast, your client (the cast bar you see), is a flat amount of time. Blizzard makes it so that you can not cast before that cast bar is done. BUT there is a way around this.

When casting a spell with a cast timer, you have to wait for two things to be true before you can recast. You have to wait for the global cool down and the spell to finish casting. This can be improved however with the use of macros containing the /stopcasting command, and when used with a mod like quartz (a cast bar mod) you can time your spells using the latency to your advantage and get around the limitation of waiting for a spell to complete. Note: you’ll still have the global cool down however.

Now, the problem with this is the inability to spam the button. When you hit the button, it will stop whatever cast you are currently casting and it will begin to cast the next spell. If you hit it too early, it will cancel your current cast! So get ready to stop spamming your buttons. WARNING: Be wary for you spammers that you cannot spam with that macro or it will stop casting in the middle of the cast.

The Macro!
What you need to do is make a macro that has: (You’re also not limited to simple macros either, feel free to improve them to you own needs.)

/stopcasting
/cast <desired spell and rank>

E.g.
#showtooltip Shadow Bolt
/stopcasting
/cast Shadow Bolt

The point of the /stopcasting is to cancel the casting of the previous spell before casting the next one. The first spell finishes casting before the UI realizes because of latency. /stopcasting gets around that limitation of the UI.

Addition help via Quartz:
Quartz shows the amount of latency that you have as a red (by default) portion of the cast bar. This is important, as it helps you time the casting of spells so you can fall into the dead zone of latency, the dead zone is where the latency between you and the server differ on timing.

When you cast a spell the server is told that you’re casting, it keeps a track of the time required for the cast. If you’re interrupted in this time the spell will fail, such as moving or and unfriendly pummel. However, due to the time it takes for the communications from you to the server, there is a point where your new actions won’t matter and you’re going to complete the spell.

The /stopcasting portion of the macro stops the current action to permit a new action. When used in the dead zone, you can begin casting before the spell has completed. This is nice when using Fear and then an instant DoT, the casting effect is the Fear and the DoT will go off at the same time. Using this effectively reduces your casting time by a little. I noticed about a 10-20% increase in damage after using it.



Is this against the game rules?
The point of the /stopcasting is to cancel the casting of the previous spell before casting the next one. The first spell finishes casting before the UI realizes because of latency. /stopcasting simply gets around that limitation of the UI and as such, isn't seem as an exploit or a violation of the gaming rules.

Posted by Slouken 07/20/2007 [ Link ]
FYI, we're working on something for 2.3 to help make /stopcasting lag workarounds unnecessary. To answer the original poster, yes, using such an addon is fine.


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