The Magician's Tower

Hi,
I was wondering about making hotkeys to cast spells. I kindof have an idea,but needin' some guidence on the usage of them.
How long can between casts can u make it pause?
How does the pause thing work,can't really remember how it works?
How do you take in account for fizzles?
Can you add another spell to the same hotkey?

to make a hotkey cast a spell is pretty simple. the command is /cast #.

the # is what ever spell gem you want to cast starting at the top.

The pause can be as long as you want it. The pause timer depends on spell cast time of the first spell plus you have to allow for gem refresh. For fairly quick casting spells I use /pause 40 but you can modify it for what you are wanting to do.

Example of a 2 cast hotkey would be.

/cast #
/pause 40
/cast #

making hotkeys is a good idea, but you should also take into account what Wire posted in this article;

http://www.eqmagetower.com/forums/viewt ... ?f=6&t=100" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

He talks about setting up hotkeys, and would probably help you out.

to squeeze in as much as possible in a single hotkey, you can write the pause within same line of the action. So you can get upto 6 actions in one Hotbutton.

/Pause 40, /cast 1
/Pause 40, /cast 2
/Pause 40, /cast 3
/Pause 40, /cast 2
/cast 3

pause is always in 1/10 seconds, so /pause 40 is 4 seconds.
to squeeze out max have a look at the spell itself.

Example:
Bolt of Molten Scoria Rk. II
Slot 1: Decrease Hitpoints by 5868
Cast Time: 3.50 sec
Recast Time: 5.750 sec

lets presume in spellslot 2

we know after any nuke there is generally a global "cooldown" of 1.5 seconds
The recast of this spell is longer than the global cooldown. If you want to cast it back to back it would be:
35+58 = 93

/Pause 93, /cast 2
/cast 2

this would not be very clever, as global cooldown is far less than the recast of this one. So you might want it to alternate with soemthing else.

sample:

Fickle Blaze Rk. II
Slot 1: Decrease Hitpoints by 4655
Recourse: Fickle Inferno Recourse
Cast Time: 3.25 sec
Recast Time: 5.349 sec

lets presume in slot 3

now we can take casttime of spell No 1 + global cooldown instead of his recast
35+15 = 50

/Pause 50, /cast 2
/cast 3

This is not considering spellhaste foci. ingame you can right-click and hold on the spellgem and you will get your real casttime. Recast is not focused as far as I remember.


while casting second nuke, the first is cooling down. Next would be a full burn, if mobs last long enought. This would be like:

/Pause 50, /cast 3
/Pause 50, /cast 2
/Pause 50, /cast 3
/Pause 50, /cast 2
/Pause 50, /cast 3
/cast 2

6 nukes alternating. Backdraw while Hotbutton is running you are sticked to it and can't do much else.

attention: pause always is appied after the action of the same line, never before. Doesn't matter where in the line it is written.


What to weave is another story .. maybe its not very clever to cast fickle after bolt

Please note that clickie-nukes are NOT on global cooldown.

You can weave in clickies between spells, this is what makes them specially valuable, even though the numbers they bring are not particularly impressive.

Be aware that once you start a hotkey, there isn't any way to get out of the sequence prematurely. You are stuck until your hotkey completes.

Building 20 and 30 second hotkeys can and will get you killed when something goes wrong.

falinkrin wrote:Be aware that once you start a hotkey, there isn't any way to get out of the sequence prematurely. You are stuck until your hotkey completes.

Building 20 and 30 second hotkeys can and will get you killed when something goes wrong.

Yes, I would agree there. Don't try to build a huge hotkey with multiple castings in it. You are not a bard with a /melody button!

Now maybe you are just a mage bot on a box and looking to make things easy perhaps?

But if you are a real mage looking to do some serious DPS, forget building a hotkey. You need to learn how to use clicky nukes and AA buttons in between your spell castings during the 2.5 second "cooldown" period (you weren't going to do anything in that 2 seconds anyway but wait for your pause). That's the way to maximize your DPS. Even my semi-casual self (just now starting MMM) has been getting some decent parses lately.

Rottrued the Twisted on 7/16/2009 in 190sec

Total
--- DMG: 16043257 (100%) @ 84438 dps (84438 sdps)
--- DMG to PC: 1357523 @7183dps

Zacatac + pets
--- DMG: 1109736 (6.92%) @ 5934 dps (5841 sdps)

Wizard
--- DMG: 991851 (6.18%) @ 5636 dps (5220 sdps)

Ranger
--- DMG: 958702 (5.98%) @ 5046 dps (5046 sdps)

Wizard
--- DMG: 777886 (4.85%) @ 4298 dps (4094 sdps)

Rogue
--- DMG: 758270 (4.73%) @ 4055 dps (3991 sdps)

Magician + pets
--- DMG: 721077 (4.49%) @ 4006 dps (3795 sdps)

Rogue
--- DMG: 714700 (4.45%) @ 3802 dps (3762 sdps)

Produced by GamParse v1.0.2

I do not use hotkeys for nuking. I want to be in complete control of what I'm doing at all times, and honestly I can chain nukes just fine without doing it, and this is with me almost always 2 boxing also.