Priority based skill casting

[rock5]

I've thought about this before but there wasn't much demand for it and I thought it would be too much work but I've thought of a way to add it really easily.

Currently skills are cast in order (based on the 'priority' value) and it goes through the whole list before starting at the beginning again. Of course it skips skills it can't cast. This is 'sequentially' based casting. This has it's limitations and for many of us who were used to 'priority' based casting from addons such as 'uberflex' this was fustrating.

'Priority' based casting means it looks through the list of skills and when it finds a skill it can cast it casts it then starts at the begining again. That means it casts your best skills more often and your worst skills less often if at all. Buffs and heals would still have to be checked though.

So my simple solution (which would be added as an option) would cast the attack skills by 'priority' and the heals and buffs 'sequentially' as before.

What do you think? Did anyone understand that?

[rock5]

To give you an idea how this is working for me with PRIORITY_CASTING enabled, this is how I have my M/Wd skills set up at the moment.

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		<skill name="MAGE_THUNDERSTORM" 		hotkey="MACRO" priority="100" aoemobcount="3"/>
		<skill name="MAGE_EARTH_SURGE"          hotkey="MACRO" priority="90" />
		<skill name="MAGE_EARTH_GROANING_WIND_BLADE"          hotkey="MACRO" priority="80" />
		<skill name="MAGE_FIREBALL" 			hotkey="MACRO" priority="70" />
		<skill name="MAGE_PLASMA_ARROW" 			hotkey="MACRO" priority="60" />
		<skill name="MAGE_EARTH_SCEPTER" 		hotkey="MACRO" priority="55" />
		<skill name="WARDEN_BRIAR_SHIELD" 		hotkey="MACRO" priority="40" />

If there is 3 or more mobs together it spams Thunderstorm because that's spamable (use of Thunderstorm and aoemobcount option is an upcoming feature). When there are less than 2 left it switches to the other skills. When attacking 1 mob it typically casts

Earth Surge
Earth Groaning Wind Blade
Fireball
Earth Surge

Notice it goes back to Earth Surge when it's off cooldown. It usually doesn't cast Plasma Arrow but will if all the other skills are on cooldown.

I think this is working perfectly with no need for special code in the onLeaveCombat or onPreSkillCast sections of the profile which is what you would need to get the same effect with the current revision.

[BillDoorNZ]

looks good to me Rock and should result in more efficient rotations

[kx9488]

firstly i would like to say that i greatly appreciate all of your contributions to this community, and this looks sweet.

i'm wondering if it could be part of, or used with a user function so that it can be turned off and on, or maybe it wouldn't have to from the way i am understanding it's use?

i would personally like to use this for boss-fighting so that my single target DPS skills get spammed off their cool-downs to burn down bosses,
then turned off to only spam my AoE skills in my profile through the instance's trash mobs (i'm loving you are adding thunderstorm).

putting a priority value on the skills instead of using a sequential list might eliminate the need to remove all single-target skills in my profile if i only want to use AoE skills for trash mobs and skip bosses.

so i guess my question about this feature:
since purgatory fire/thunderstorm really don't have cool downs, how would someone toggle between only using those skills to farm weak mobs, then skipping their cast on boss encounters with this feature?

will it just count the # of mobs?
or is there a ChangeProFileoption_Mage_Purgatory_fire_priority(100) function that can be used in way point for skills to be altered before/after boss encounters?

[rock5]

i'm wondering if it could be part of, or used with a user function so that it can be turned off and on, or maybe it wouldn't have to from the way i am understanding it's use?

The variable will be stored in

Code: Select all

settings.profile.options.PRIORITY_CASTING

So you could just change that value to turn it off and on.

i would personally like to use this for boss-fighting so that my single target DPS skills get spammed off their cool-downs to burn down bosses,
then turned off to only spam my AoE skills in my profile through the instance's trash mobs (i'm loving you are adding thunderstorm).

You're talking about changing skills priority or sequence. I'm not looking to add support for that but you could put your aoe skills with higher priority and add a 'mobcount' value so they don't get used until a group of mobs or adds appear.

putting a priority value on the skills instead of using a sequential list might eliminate the need to remove all single-target skills in my profile if i only want to use AoE skills for trash mobs and skip bosses.

Yeah, if set up properly the intention is that it can use aoe as part of the regular rotation. And I'm not "putting a priority value on the skills". Enabling priority casting just changes the meaning of the 'priority' values from, the sequence it gets cast to a true priority value.

so i guess my question about this feature:
since purgatory fire/thunderstorm really don't have cool downs, how would someone toggle between only using those skills to farm weak mobs, then skipping their cast on boss encounters with this feature?

will it just count the # of mobs?

Well there's your answer. You use the mobcount value to control when aoes are used.

or is there a ChangeProFileoption_Mage_Purgatory_fire_priority(100) function that can be used in way point for skills to be altered before/after boss encounters?

You can't change the priority of skills after they are loaded. The priority is only used when loading the skills so changing them afterwards would have no effect.

[lisa]

is aoemobcount="3" working?
I have it on thunderstorm but bot is casting it on single mobs or did I need the mob count userfunction for it?

[rock5]

The option should be

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mobcount = "3"

and no, you don't need the mobcount userfunction.

[lisa]

yup that got it, thanks =)

Should add in a couple of things in the default profile =)

[aspart]

I understood it and think it would be a great add I would definitely use it!