Is It Possible To Be A Good DNC Without Spellcast?

When I feel it became unnecessary to press 3 buttons in succession, I switched to spellcast. It's not like God of War or Street Fighter where pressing buttons fast will make you awesome or do some cool move, it's just some gear changes, nothing more :|

yup lol.

I nearly gave myself carpal tunnel syndrome playing mage jobs in the vanilla client and hammering a ton of macros for all those situational gearswaps. Spellcast made it reasonable to manage and I wouldn't go back to doing it the old way. Giving yourself a repetitive stress injury is not skill.

I use very extended macros. I should switch to spellcast and really don't have a good excuse <.>

Here is my Dancer spellcast as of today: http://pastebin.com/qbvtTx5K

I haven't checked if all the gear is correct in a while, but I also haven't made any changes in a while. Sometimes I decide stuff is better and then forget to update it for months though.

I didn't mean it as spellcast = you have no skill. I mean, to me, if you're playing a game in which everything is done for you and all you have to do is hit 1 button, I'd just go watch a movie. It will have the same level of enjoyment to me. Variables are what makes this game fun to me, and knowing when to use specific gear swaps over others is what determines skill level in my opinion. Spellcast removes the latter.

Also, I've played standard windower macros since NA release. BLM was my second job, I work all day as an accounts consultant (in other words, I have 2 computers infront of me nearly the entire day). If you're getting carpal tunnel from ffxi, something is seriously wrong. Invest in a more comfortable keyboard with wrist support maybe?

I find BLM a lot more boring now that I don't have to hit 3-4 macros per spell. I used to cast from the menu and had all my macros organized perfectly to minimize button presses. Playing that job with my setup was challenging, but optimal for the PS2.
Fast Cast macro -> Start casting spell from the menu -> hit two gear macros -> Spell goes off -> hit idle macro -> Stun -> Ice Staff -> Cast Bind -> Enfeebling -> cast next nuke -> 2x gear swap, etc.

Now it's:
Cast Blizzard V -> Cast Sleep -> Cast next nuke, etc.
It's much less engaging, I enjoy playing the job less, and I suspect I play worse because of that even if it lets me using Fast Cast gear more easily.

Dancer is a different beast. Even with only one macro per action, it's engaging and your value is entirely determined by how quickly you are able to use/stack your JAs.

Your spellcast obviously isn't convoluted enough if you believe this. You can change everything on the fly if you know what you're doing, most people just don't because spellcast confuses them so they only extract the most basic functionality out of it. In terms of utility, customization and the ability to change gearsets on the fly, it utterly skull@#%*s all the alternatives. But again, that's only if you know how to use it.

I've dumped plenty of money into altering my setup. Don't patronize me. Playing a mage job properly using the vanilla client involves frantically smashing macros to the point where it is damaging even with a nice ergonomic keyboard in front of you. Some folks just have it set in sooner than others.

Do you need spellcast to be a good dancer? Nope, and back in the 75 cap I don't think you needed spellcast to be honest, there just wasn't the much available to dancer to require it.

However, now with the addition of Presto and Flourishes III, it has become significantly harder to micromanage all your job abilities to their fullest. Without spellcast you spend so much time swapping gear you end up missing timers by 3-4 seconds, you'll sometimes even miss an entire presto because you were to busy gear swapping for reverse flourish, or NFR was up for 10 seconds.

The little 1-2 seconds you lose every manual gear swap adds up, and it hinders your overall micro. Spellcast fixes that because it handles the gear swaps for you.

With spellcast, due to the inherit auto swaps you can keep your eye on your JA timers and TP and focus on maximizing your management, getting your prestos off the moment they hit 0 and stepping every chance you get.

Overall my tp/m crawls up a good 20 points when using spellcast, as many have said, a good dancer doesnt need spellcast, but he will become a better dancer if he does use it.

I'd suggest you try it out, you'll quickly feel the difference, even when you do your first chocobo jig without having to hit a macro, and simply use the ability. Glorious.

Uh, what?

Hey, I'm a new noob to spellcast and we have a lot of similar gear so I checked out your spellcast xml and edited it a little bit for my gear.

I just have a few questions though. I see MDT, Evasion, PDT, WS, etc... but you also have 4 TP sets. How does spellcast switch between those TP sets? Which leads to my next question...

The Eva, TP, MDT, and PDT triggers at the bottom confuse me. Spellcast will equip my MDT set if Protectra III is cast? That doesn't make sense to me.

Thanks!

It's just a quick change spell, you use spells you can't get even by subjob then you can make a macro for it such as: /ma "Protectra IV" <me>

it'll equip the set, change any variable and then cancel the spell before it goes through basically.

Ah, thanks for that explanation. It makes sense.

I saved my xml, tried to load it in spellcast and now I'm getting errors on two lines... the </group> and </sets> lines. I did make a few modifications but just to the gear in the gear sets. Any idea why those would get jacked up? Thanks!

Edit: I can post the xml if that makes it easier but I didn't know if there was something that would def. cause the issue. ^^

Make sure all your tags open and close. That's the most common error.

Emi!

They all open and close though. Everything is practically the same except that I changed some of the gear and one of the sets. Windower is telling me that the </group> line is wrong... which is exactly the same as the original file (I have one on each screen to double check).

I'm not sure how byrth does it, but I personally have my spellcast set that it will change the TP gears in fonction of wich sub dagger I am using. you you have multiples dagger for dnc, it's pretty easy to set up.

I actually revised that spellcast a few days ago (don't worry, the sets are pretty much the same), and here is the new version:

Includes:
Yugl-Include.xml
Byrth-Include.xml

XML: Byrth_DNC.xml
Autoexec: autoexec.xml
Resources: status.xml

Most of my include functions are modified versions of Yugl's functions. I prefer to be able to toggle things instead of having a reset button, and he likes having a reset button.

You need to replace the "status.xml" in the Resources folder with the one above. You put the "autoexec.xml" in the Autoexec folder. The two includes are just stuck into the Spellcast folder and named as above. Change the "Byrth_DNC.xml" to be "Yourname_DNC.xml"

Oh yeah, this version eliminates the lag.

I actually saw this before you posted, mainly because I was fluttering around on pastebin. I'm going to try using that and make the appropriate gear changes. I thought I had a lot of gear...

Thanks!

Another noob question... where exactly is this Autoexec folder supposed to be? I don't see it anywhere in my Windower folder.

It's inside the plugins folder, or it should be. I was pretty sure it came standard with Windower, but it might be a plugin you need to get from Windower.net.

ugh, mines alot (ALOT) less complicated and covers the same thing.Not sure why yours is so long and needs 3 xml for 1 job >.<

Yes.

I would advise using a variable to let spellcast know which tp set to equip. ex:
Aftercasts will equip $GearSet.

Have a row of macros dedicated to setting the variable and eqiuping the set.

macro example:
/sc var set GearSet HasteDD
/sc set $GearSet

It uses includes so that the same functions can be used for multiple jobs. Similarly, the general Trigger Sets can be made to have the same function for multiple jobs, so you need a minimum of changes between jobs.

The idea comes from the BG spellcast thread, where they're trying to make a basic library of spellcasts for each jobs so when people Abyssea burn them up they have somewhere to go and grab a spellcast that they already kind of know how to use. It's also a very common coding strategy.

If you are happy with your spellcast though, there's no need to change it. I just volunteered to be the one to standardize it to Yugl's standard.

Simple solution drop the dinosaur platform ^^

<3 These "my hax wont work posts" XD

Alt + J >.> pulls up everything you need O.O

Pretty sure alt-j doesn't gearswap.

Where do i put the xml file and where do i put the gearsets at? What folders and stuff

EDIT: Spellcast made its own folder so i put the gearsets in here? where do i put the xml?

You put the xml in the spellcast folder, and rename it "DEEZEE_DNC.xml". You also put the two Includes in there.

You have to go in to the "DEEZEE_DNC.xml" and change the gear sets so that it works with your gear.