An idea I had: What would casters think about a melody function for casters? The way it works (currently) for bards is we macro something like /melody 1 2 3 4.. etc and it keeps repeating those songs over and over without having to push or mash buttons. If one or more are on cooldown it just skips those. That way people dont have to mash keys. It automatically goes as fast as possible, and saves the server from having to respond to so many keypresses where no spell is ready to cast yet - which im fairly sure causes some raid lag.
Sign me up! That would be awesome for healing! And save a lot of repetitive stress injury to hands. If it's modeled after melody, it shouldn't take too much to implement? Could it include activated abilities for melee?
even just a lil' hopper to put spells in the top of, to line up the next spell instead of spam clicking.
Svann ... let me introduce you to something called global spell cooldown. It's not something that bards have to worry about, but pretty much all spell casting classes do (except for rangers spamming root and shaman combo dots). The great thing about GCD is that the expected 1.5s is actually longer AND different for every single caster depending upon connection and lag. Now if you are telling me that if I cast a /melody of spells and I get to use the fake 1.5s number, I'll sign up in blood today! However, if you tell me that no ... the system will just assume 1.5s and I'll end up missing every second cast, no thank you. It sounds like a good idea, but there are major difference between spell and song casting. I suspect those differences are why we have not seen anything like this for spells. I'm also skeptical of your lag argument.
I don’t know why this had never occurred to me, but I love the idea. Obviously I tailor spells as needed, but most fights follow such a standardized order of spells it sure would be great to help with that.
this would be so nice. There is no point in making us just push the same button over and over and over and over and over and over. Its like melee not having auto attack.
It's a good idea for mages since they're extremely simple. I'm not sure if other casters would get much out of it though.
Even for "extremely simple" mages there are questions about AA's and clickies usage. Should spellcasting version of /melody allow Force of Elements or Malo AA? How about clickie Orb or staff or robe or whatelse clickable? If, say, Force of Elements needs a mash-button press, then we are back to the current situation even with /melody for spells. Perhaps increasing the line count for a hotbutton macro and adding a "loop" command would address most of the spellcasting needs.
I think that would only work for mages, because they are simple. I kid, I kid (but not really) When /melody came out, there were discussions about bring the same thing to casters. And the same things that were roadblocks then are still roadblocks now - GCD variance, things cast inbetween spell casts during GCD, etc. Either people weren't there or don't remember (or both). I hear bards complain all the time about having to restart their melodies when they want to hit a non-instant clicky/aa ... casters have many, many non-instant things they want to be casting during GCD (well, if they are paying attention). Until a developer comes out and says ... this is what we can do for spell casting automatically ... it's hard to react. I just assume it's not possible and go on with my caster existance.
Your saying the ultra complex wizard class does not use a mash key? Perhaps you just mouse click? Being able to stop repetative button presses and only click things that matter (aa, specific spells that aren't recast continually, other abilties, ect) would be a GREAT improvement for play.
Well there isn't one perfect spell lineup where you always cast in the same order if that's what you mean. And if you really want to do that today there's plenty of options. Even my amazing MX518 mouse from 2005 has a basic repeat/auto fire feature.
