Thursday, October 28, 2010

Wicked Cool Idea, /castrandom Maul, ...

UPDATE:

Turns out this works like a charm with a couple changes. First off the !'s break it so I removed those, and second auto attack isn't 'Attack' it's 'Auto Attack'.

#showtooltip
/cast Mangle(Bear Form)
/castrandom [nomod] Maul, Auto Attack, Auto Attack, Auto Attack, Auto Attack

Upon further testing I think it may be beneficial to tweak the chance of maul based on the attack, for example a higher chance on pulverize and mangle and lower on lacerate, just due to the frequency of those keys being pressed. You'll also still need to watch rage a little bit and just hold a modifier key to hold off on mauls for a bit when needed. Also when performing a berserk mangle spam it would be a good idea to use a modifier to skip maul during that time.

I'm sure tweaks will be needed to increase or decrease mauling as gear and level progresses as well. All in all I think this is a big step forward for we bears who felt our old "rotation" was too simple and our new one was just a little too much.

ORIGINAL THEORY:

Not sure if this will work the way I expect or as well, but I will definitely test it tonight. Using castrandom to use maul 50%, 33% or perhaps even 25% or 20% rather than every keypress. Brief recap, maul when from trivially annoying to just plain annoying in the 4.0.1 patch due to threat normalization. Previously it was possible to use maul constantly and never have to worry about rage, so it was macroed into every ability. Now we have to watch it, or do we?

My idea for a macro would look something like this...

#showtooltip
/cast Mangle(Bear Form)
/castrandom Maul, !Attack, !Attack, !Attack

I'm not sure of the syntax for auto attack, but the idea is to use something that won't matter and won't do anything. It might even work to use a non existent spell/ability like 'nil' and still have it work properly. For all I know all the choices have to be unique.

So using this macro would cast Mangle and then have a one in four, 25%, chance of casting Maul afterwards. We bears might not have enough rage to cast it every cooldown, but one in four, perhaps. I am leaning toward 20% or 25% theoretically.

There may still be times with the glyph of maul or low rage that you don't want to cast maul and that can be done with a modifier key as before...

#showtooltip
/cast Mangle(Bear Form)
/castrandom [nomod] Maul, !Attack, !Attack, !Attack

Hell, you could go absolutely nuts and use a different frequency with or without a modifier...

#showtooltip
/cast Mangle(Bear Form)
/castrandom [nomod] Maul, !Attack, !Attack, !Attack, !Attack; Maul, !Attack

This would cast maul 20% of the time without a modifier and 50% of the time with.

I got to thinking about maul again after tanking last night after a brief break from my druid. I totally forgot to use maul for like the first two thirds of the raid. It isn't something I want to think about. The only time I want to look at my rage bar is when I pull. Sometimes I don't mind looking, but for the most part I've got more pressing matters (read as things that provide more amusement) to attend to.

I did a little searching on castrandom macros and didn't find anyone trying to do anything similar to this.

4 comments:

  1. I can't try this in-game until later friday evening, but... this makes sense and would be awesome! Can anyone else confirm it? I'll check back soon. :)

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  2. I use icehud, so the way I work in maul is just hit it every time my rage hits 100. (I set it so my rage bar changes color to white when it is 100).

    I'm not so sure I'd trust a macro like that, considering I sometimes mash mangle as the cooldown approaches completion.

    One thing I tried but could not get to work, that I want to try again, is a mouseover maul. It would be good as a way of spreading threat, in addition to the occassional swipe. Using threatplates, just hover the mouse over random mobs in a group and maul for two of them.

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  3. I think that should be as easy as, /cast [@mouseover, harm] Maul, but I'm not sure that tidy plates register as being moused over a target like player models or raid frames do. I've still not really gotten into mouseover macros, but have been meaning to give it a try for healing. Right now I just click on people and that adds one more step before a heal goes out to a different target.

    I've actually gotten away from mashing a little bit since the new ability queuing changes have made it so that mashing often causes me to use an ability I really didn't want to use for a second, third or fourth time. Like I'll be mashing lacerates and then go for pulverize only to have mashed lacerate once to much and try to apply a fourth stack rather than being able to use that GCD for pulverize.

    I use IceHUD currently as well, but I find myself only using it for combo points and plan on replacing it soon with an add-on that just handles combo points and now holy power. I've also noticed my awareness dropped significantly when I put everything I needed to see right in the middle. Having to glace occasionally at things on the edges of my screen really does help to keep your eyes moving.

    I've also tried threat plates and found it to be rather annoying that it flips modes based on spec and not form. Since I share a spec for cat and bear I have to pick one mode or the other for both. I did sort of like the ability to see debuffs on nameplates to quickly figure out what else needed a lacerate or whatnot. Totally useless in cat form as your focus is on a single target so I ended up getting rid of it because half of the time it was just clutter and clicking a particular nameplate isn't always easy in a large group.

    I suppose I am a bit of an oddball in that I play my druid and alts rather diversely. While I clearly identify with my druid as my main and feral as my primary spec, I don't cater my add-on choices or UI to that. I use the same settings for pretty much every class and spec I play so if they make a little sense for one, but not for others, I scrap them.

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  4. I had that same problem with threatplates, but you can make a macro to make it easier on yourself. /tptptoggle will do the trick

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