If a spell says casting time 1.5 sec (1.2), can I trust that 1.2? Is that with both AA (Quicker Damage) and worn foci? And is the total cap for casting time 50%?
It probably is just me, but when doing the social macro's I add 0.5 to the cast time and increment up as needed.
You can trust that at some point in the button press -> spell takes effect chain there's a 1.2s time period, but you can't trust much outside of that. Solution? Spam all casting/abilities and try to overwhelm the server into giving you loot.
If you are macroing 2 spells to cast with one button push remember you have the global cooldown to add to that. I have read that is 1.5s, but by my measure its more like 1.75s - and that is with decent latency (54ms=0.054s).
There seems to be a small amount of time after the spell is cast where all spells are locked for cast. because of this, i tend to add 0.5 to 1 sec to all pause macros. Just try the macro and watch for messages that say "you haven't recovered yet..." and if you see that, continue increase the pause until you no longer see that message.
Thanks everyone, It was actually to a) make a better model for my spell DPS analysis and b) understand if worn foci really have no effect if I am getting the 20% from AA. I spam the hotbutton 10 times pr second, so when it is up, it goes of, I guess. I model this as a .2 sec cost. That GCD is actually more than 1.5 sec is really good info. I wonder how I can make an experiment to measure this... log study perhaps?
Re: this thread and also the Mage BP thread, I've mostly given up on trying to model DPS to try to find optimal weaves / rotations / burns. I spend a lot of time in front of a target dummy with different buff configurations trying to experimentally determine optimal actions. Beyond the incredible complexity of buff stacking in EQ, there's a lot of slop in the game that is hard to model, ex: I know if that 0.2 cost for spamming buttons is accurate, because it seems to me there's some window where if you request a spell cast, that spell is "queued" and will cast as soon as it's able. If I wanted to test that theory I'd set up a logitech keyboard or something to press a key at 3hz, 5hz, 7hz, 10hz, 20hz etc and compare the number of spells cast.
@svann mentioned latency and that is a very important consideration: your cooldowns and recast times will change depending on where you are and what you are fighting (in a raid, in a crowded zone, fighting 1 mob, fighting 15 mobs, etc.). Nothing worse than getting all your spells and macros all set up in the guild hall and then having them all fail on the first real pull. And if you increase the timers long enough to account for laggy situations, you are needlessly lowering your DPS in less-laggy situations. It's one of the reasons I strongly prefer multi-binds over macros, but I don't play a mage so they may not lend themselves to multi-binding?
I think they do, however multibinds are dificult for noobs like me, I can't really get it to work in a controllable manner. I am quite sure the problem is located about 50 cm from the screen...
Load up a low level spell with short recast time. I think the shortest you get would be burst of flame with a 1.5 second recast time and a base cast time of 1.5s - but that castime will shorten with gear. Cast it as fast as you can for 10 casts with a timer then figure it from there. TBH, I dont macro multiple spells except for buffing. It takes away too much flexibility imo. But then I never played a mage.
Figure out what your weaving and tie those spells to a key. Mash that key like you've never mashed before. That's the proper thing to do.
Well if you are going to mash you might as well set a keyboard/mouse macro to hit it 100 times a second. Save your tendons.
"Of course, you can trust the casting time. The casting time has great ability, there is no question about the casting time's ability. Everyone says the casting time has great ability, I can tell you."
Well thats why I dont like mashing in game macros in the first place. Inflexibility. But if you are going to do it anyway might as well do it the easy way. Can always click stop the mouse macro and do it the right way - one key per cast.
I have the Logitech G502 Proteus, a wonderful mouse with 10ish buttons in total. I have set it up so one of the buttons replicate a "3", and I have set the mash rate to 10/sec. With Ee-S-Boxar I replicate the "3" on all three toons, and those toons then execute their hotbutton mash, with no pauses, or very short ones (1-3 tenths). That way I have defined a number of phases in the combat (assist phase: "1", Pet Attack/debuf phase: "2", Standard DPS phase: "3", etc. I then add as many AA-effects to the hotbuttons on the spare locations, so that I will try to cast Spire on all toons on "1", try to cast Chrome Haze on the enchanter on "2", etc so that I get as many AA in play, distributed over time, so it is not a burn, but it functions very well in the group game. I would like to multibind also, but I haven't figured it out yet, since I want to mix AA and spells in my multibind, and it sort of doesn't work that well for me. I would like to have 4-5 spells in the bind, as well as Orb, Force, and Banestrike...
