#0 - April 18, 2010, 4:36 p.m.
( http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24401849960&sid=1&pageNo=1#1 )
Q u o t e:
Q: How will haste affect channeled spells. Will it be similar to DoTs and HoTs?
A: They will channel faster but their duration will remain unchanged. You will get more ticks on the same cast.
No haste
0.0000 Start casting blizzard
1.0000 Tick
2.0000 Tick
3.0000 Tick
4.0000 Tick
5.0000 Tick
6.0000 Tick
7.0000 Tick
8.0000 Tick, Blizzard complete
8 ticks over 8 seconds. Add 5% haste
0.0000 Start casting blizzard
0.9524 Tick
1.9048 Tick
2.8571 Tick
3.8095 Tick
4.7619 Tick
5.7143 Tick
6.6667 Tick
7.6190 Tick
8.0000 Blizzard complete
That's .38 seconds of wasted cast there, thus encouraging the use of /stopcast macros again to regain the lost DPS time at the end of the cast. At its most extreme (at around 12.4% haste for Blizzard) you have ~.87 seconds to clip off the end of the spell since it won't result in a new tick.
For DoTs this whole leave the duration only change the frequency thing works fine if you allow refreshing DoTs to just tack on extra duration. But for channeled spells it doesn't. It just brings back an obnoxious mechanic that was removed as a requirement in 2.3 with the precasting system. All that assuming that we don't get a tick at cast completion, which is ugly.
So the question, will we get an extra tick at cast completion, either at full tick damage or modified by how much dead space there was, or will we be using /stopcasting macros again?
Preemptive counter-counter arguments:
But dude, they could just make it if you cast another blizzard / arcane missiles / mind flay / whatever that it just extends your cast bar, just like how a DoT works
They could, but unless something radically changes, I don't want to cast multiple blizzards in a row, I want to rotate between flamestrikes and blizzards. Even if something does radically change, somewhere out there there's going to be a situation where you don't want to follow up a channeled spell with a second cast of that same spell. Thus, it would be best to use a /stopcasting macro. This shouldn't be the case.
0.87 seconds? pshaw
It may be small, but it's still wrong.
Dude, stopcasting macros aren't wrong, it just shows your skill
No, it shows that you follow the online theory community. /stopcasting macros were a requirement pre 2.3 to be optimal. Blizzard said they didn't like having users optimal output tied to use of a macro and an addon (quartz in that case). Thus we got the current system of precasting.
Who cares about Mage AoE?
Well, it's not just mage AoE. It's Mage, Hunter, Balance Druid, Shadow Priest, and portions of Lock AoE. It's Arcane mage, and Shadow Priest baseline damage output. It's Disc priest healing. I'm probably missing a few channeled effects, but you get the picture.
They could just tack on an extra tick at the end, modified for how much time was left at the end of the spell as related to the tick frequency
They could. Or they could make haste influence the channel duration and not introduce that much complexity into the system.
