Wildabeast
03-20-2007, 02:11 AM
This is different from initial spell casting list, so please read carefully. So I've been doing some thinking, and a lot of respecing lately, and then I realized something as I was reading through the forums that I don't beleive has been brought up. Everybody talks about beginning cast order... and then after that it's up to the user.... but not really. This is where the term "spell priority" would come in. Lets say you have 3 spells up at one time, which do you hit in a general rotation? Yes, I know there can be some variation to this because of AA's (which seems to play a somewhat big part when looking at the cold line AA's, and somewhat even on the Fire line. ) AGI Doesnt play as big of a part, as ALL cast timers are reduce across the board, and basically the same thing will be done (just faster) . But when taking a closer look, and watching parses from multiple zones come in, I've seem to come to very similiar conclusions. And because of this, my dps HAS increases, because I made the "right" choice. After a while, many "right" choices will add up. And add up big. There are 3 other wizards in my guild, and really, only 1 out of the 3, I consider to be of any competition. I'm going to describe this in 2 parts, macro's, and then spell "order", which I'll actually refer to as spell "priority". So I'm going to base some conclusions on the following constants: For AA's:STR/WIS maxed out; frigid gift, coldshape, glacial wind, nova, BoL, Incapacitate and fusion is all max out. Rending Icicles, Sunstrike, Surging Tempest and Irradiate both have 3 in em. (I'm not going to get into why/why not about AA's, there's about 5 dozen other threads on that, my focus is ACTUAL spells) I started to macro spells and pair them. Here's some examples: Catalyst then freehand (since thats the most effective combo, and they have the same reuse timer. Coldshape then Frigid Gift (again, combo and reuse timer) Ice Shield + Rending Cicles (similiar recast/duration AND u want both up as much as possible) Cease+incapacitate (similiar recast times, both do the same thing to a certain degree) Most of the other spells I left alone, although you could concievably put tempest and protoferno together, and I'm sure a couple others too. These macros were made the basis of "Let's not forget to cast this spell too." I found (after looking at a bunch of parses) that I was missing out on occasional Ice Shield, or not really using frigid gift+cold shape as often as I should be, etc etc. Now, let me get to the root it all as to why I made these macro's in the first place, and what it has to do with cast priority. (I think cast order is too much of a "set word", nobody has a true casting order after the first few spells anyways) So after the initial cast order, you might be frantically hitting the next button/click with out totally thinking "Is this my best choice?" Most wizard choices are based on the following question (even if you dont really say it out loud): (Yes I know there's a few more, but these tend to be the generic ones) Will this next spell.... ... give me agro? ... be effective? ... be efficient enough? (power or damage-wise) ... be part of a combo? ... cause the raid to wipe? ... keep my dps up? ... hit the right target? (sometimes u want to hit the tank with ice shield, or put protoferno NOT on current target, etc) So I categorized the "spell priority list" from "best" to "worst". Keep in mind, that this is not set in stone, just something I use and can (and will be) improved upon. For single targets (and assuming power isnt that big of an issue) Fusion> Ice Nova> Frigid Gift combo> BoL> Ice Shield> Incapacitate> Firestorm> Glacial Wind> Tempest> Rending Icicles> Irradiate> Sunstrike (I didnt put cease and concussive in there, as those I do NOT forget about and are technically higher on the list than Fusion) Now, you might be asking yourself, [Removed for Content]? Glacial wind and Firestorm are AE's, right? Firestorm (incomparison to sunstrike) does more damage, but less efficient with power. There are plenty of other "filler" spells you can use before you really need to be using sunstrike (unless used in a combo) Glacial wind does about 5.5k damage/target for 4sec of casting, there arent a lot of spells that are that damage/time efficient. NOTICE I said damage to CAST TIME. The other big thing is this: Frigid Gift combo does about 650 dmg/hit, and an average BoL hit for me is 6k. So basically In 17sec I would need 9 hits to do the damage of BoL (with only 1sec initial cast), so now we look at hit/time/proc dmg ratio. The beauty of it all is that we can still use BoL to proc frigid gift. We could change our priority cast to something a bit quicker to get use of the proc and STILL do damage, so now I'd cast something like this (during the 17sec window) ::cease, BoL, firestorm, rending cicles, incapacitate,sunstrike, irradiate, firestorm, sunstrike:: In encounters of 2+ (again assuming power isnt an issue) Fusion> Frigid Gift combo> Glacial Wind> Nova> Firestorm> Shocking Flash> Ice Nova> Forge of Ro> Ice Shield> BoL> Tempest> Irradiate Now we see the full effect of the frigid gift combo REALLY ramp up in scale, to the point that it does more damage than Ice Nova (when all said and done). Also if there's a troub in the group (I'm not sure if this is a bug or not) but frigid gift double procs (once off your spells, and once off of the troub's spell) In essence, your dps increases significantly per mob in group. So priority has been established, so now what? I'm not saying how to arrange your hotbars/macro's, but I would invite you to satisfy curiosity and try arranging a couple of hotbars based on priority instead of initial spell cast, or whatever you have now. You'd be surprised at the results at what a little organization can do. I am open to suggestions, as I havent had all the time (and raids) in the world to test it out on, but I seemed to be doing better with my dps (In less button clicks). I jumped from 1200 to 1400ext zone dps w/o any type of gear/spell upgrades. Mind you, my gear isn't all what you'd call uber either. Lemme know what you think, or any modifications (or macros) that might help the click weary. ~Toodles