Is It Possible To Be A Good DNC Without Spellcast?

So I have heard this spell cast thing a lot, I have always played old school way with macros given by game: macros can all be linked to a single macro and it is great now that SE took wait from having to have its very own line.

That being said, this spell cast thing looks really great! and would save a lot of down time in the /wait put in each linked macro using SE's system. I play all 20 jobs and have for a while, and have on occasion been complimented on my abilities.

I wonder how much more effective I could play using this. I shall do some more research (*^.^*)

Why use failcast when you can easily do anything almost with windower macros, and alittle patience testing? Just make .txt macros for everything all ending in TP sets. Then just add in wait timers according to the macro if you want to use EVA set afterwards.



Just some examples of whats in the text files for those~

input /equip Head "Aias Bonnet"
input /equip Ear1 "Hollow Earring"
input /equip Ear2 "Brutal Earring"
input /equip Neck "Rancor Collar"
input /equip Body "Loki's Kaftan"
input /equip Hands "Charis Bangles +1"
input /equip Ring1 "Epona's Ring"
input /equip Ring2 "Thundersoul Ring"
input /equip Waist "Chiner's Belt"
input /equip Back "Atheling Mantle"
input /equip Legs "Tumbler Trunks"
input /equip Feet "Lithe Boots"
input /ws "Evisceration" <t>
wait 2
input /equip Head "Charis Tiara +1"
input /equip Ear1 "Hollow Earring"
input /equip Ear2 "Brutal Earring"
input /equip Neck "Charis Necklace"
input /equip Body "Charis Casaque +2"
input /equip Hands "Dusk Gloves +1"
input /equip Ring1 "Epona's Ring"
input /equip Ring2 "Rajas Ring"
input /equip Waist "Twilight Belt"
input /equip Back "Atheling Mantle"
input /equip Legs "Charis Tights +1"
input /equip Feet "Ballerines"

input /ja "Presto" <me>
wait 1
input /equip Ear1 "Choreia Earring"
input /equip Hands "Dancer's Bangles"
input /equip Feet "Etoile Shoes"
wait 1
input /ja "Feather Step" <t>
wait 2
input /equip Ear1 "Hollow Earring"
input /equip Hands "Dusk Gloves +1"
input /equip Feet "Ballerines"

Why would you set up a system of Windower macros with a bunch of scripts when you could just use a single Spellcast XML that can handle more complicated situations?

I hate XML, but spellcast is really good for handling something delicate & optimizing the result (especially precast, midcast, and aftercast stuff).

Other than that, I don't like further automation on my gameplay (auto-step, auto-presto, auto-RF) even though you could do it by spellcast.

In any case, I use both spellcast and windower macro.

XML can also be a lot more confusing and time consuming too, depending how much you know of writing code.

Windower (and spellcast) makes gameplay a lot easier by taking your focus off of random stuff like button pushing or paying attention to spell timers or status effects on other people or the mobs, but it is by no means absolutely necessary to be good at a particular job, and it shouldn't define that job. Anyone can be a decent player with or without 3rd party programs, without just takes a little more time, effort, and planning but if you know what you're doing and are willing to put in that extra effort, it's possible to do anything that windower can do, without using windower. That is, aside from using bot scripts and whatnot. xD

Spellcast allows you to just use ability/magic from Menue and still change gears.Wich makes easier on macro side, Insead of have 3 CTRL and ALT full of macro.I personally lag because I play on a old PC, going to the third line on CTRL 6 with a controller isn't always fun and time efficient (for whm cures especially).

I'm an old Xbox player (played on xbox for nearly 3 years), Hell I did the 3-4 macro for 1 spell thing, was no where near fun but I had no choice.Then went on PC and windower macro and eventually learned/changed for spellcast.Been using spellcast for nearly 2 years now and I would never go back.

You still need skills to make the right gear set for the right spell, spellcast doesn't buy gears or give you skill.Just enhance your skill to the top level w/o giving yourself finger cramps/Headache.

I'd argue that I was a better Dancer immediately after writing a spellcast for it than I was at any point on PS2.

Our job relies on instantly swapping gear for job abilities. If you aren't using Spellcast or something, you're going to end up eating a round once in a while in your Step Acc gear. Swinging once in a blue moon in your WS gear. Not fully swapping back from your Waltz potency gear, etc. If anyone thinks that they're doing this and somehow perfect, they're wrong.

meh, been using a spellcast for dnc, for only the past 2 months.And I been dnc for at least 3 years now.I'm exacly the same DNC, nothing changed.

Though my BLM did alot, making uses of af2 pants/obis more efficiently, because it's very easy to don't pay attention to day/weather.Pretty much the same for all my other mage's job, there is so many prolly too many situational gears D:

I think my old DNC macros were worse than mage macros. At least with a mage you have a little bit of time to change gear and such due to spell cast time; with DNC it's instant instant instant. Having 3 macros to change gear to do an instant JA and switching back via 3 more macros has a high chance to mess up due to not being able to hit macro 1, 2, and 3 in quick succession. The client side macro system lag is terrible and makes me wonder how SE can make so much shituational gear and leave their macro system so crappy. It's like they WANT you to use windower/spellcast.

Not using windower or spellcast macros puts you at risk for TPing in a Twilight Torque, Cuchulain's Belt, and Sturm's Report! [No thanks]

I have gotten this in many occasions with spellcast, to be honest.
But still, spellcast is convenient, and I still have windower macro to swap my gear to tp set to avoid this kind of sitation. (Hence, I like combining manual method and automated method)

You can also use a trigger in Spellcast to make it (re)check your current situation and swap to the appropriate set. Yugl's templates on BG do that with the Dancing Chains trigger, for example.

I still don't understand how the mechanism work, mind explaining it to me?

So, initially when Yugl made his spellcast, it resulted in quite a bit of lag following each action on lower end computers. Motenten, Yugl, and some others figured out that this was due to the way Spellcast processes commands. It forms sets and does all of the variable operations pre-cast, including your midcast and aftercast gear.

The easiest way around this is to defer gear swaps to a dummy spell that automatically executes after your cast. This way your computer doesn't have to form aftercast gear sets (which are typically more complicated than Midcast or Precast sets) before the cast.

If you look in any of Yugl's newest xml (or the one I posted), you'll see:

That causes Dancing Chains (which puts on your TP/running around/etc. gear) to be used any time those conditions are met. So when you engage, when you go idle, when you're in the aftercast phase after using an ability, or when you're resting. Thus, the aftercast calculations are deferred to the aftercast and your computer isn't left processing everything at once. Also, if any of your variables change between using the JA and having the aftercast execute, it will be reflected in your aftercast gear.

The only time I end up TPing in stupid gear is if I have the menu open when it tries to swap me back. You can actually kind of get around this by putting in another line:
but it adds some lag and I don't feel it's worth it.

^

The simple, end-user result is that if you're using one of his templates you can make a macro with /ma "Dancing Chains" and it'll check what set you should have on and equip it. (it'll do that automatically, but should it not, you can force it with the trigger)

You can also, say, do /ma "Poison V" to toggle between a few TP sets.

(not to take away from Byrth's explanation - I started using Spellcast over the weekend, and started with my DNC using the XML he posted on BG, so, thanks Byrth :) ).

Yeah, I guess I should provide a little segment on how the trigger spells work. Bolded are ones that apply to all of Yugl's spellcasts. Italicized are the ones I customized/added in mine. Underlined are the default states when appropriate:

Dancing Chains : Equips whatever idle set you should have on, including TP gear when appropriate.

Poison V : Cycles right through your TP set options.
Diaga V : Cycles left through your TP set options.

Poisonga V : Toggles between an Acc and Attack heavy WS gearset.

Scop's Operetta : Toggles between midcasting in Evasion or PDT for Utsusemi. I'm considering automating this so that if I have Stoneskin on (Cureskin), it'll default to a PDT set. Trying to decide if it's worth it or not first though.

Raptor Mazurka : Puts on or takes off your movement speed gear for your current idle set (including TP).

Shackled Fists : Sets the "Distance" variable to your current distance from the monster. This variable controls how close you have to be before Spellcast will allow your weaponskills to execute, to prevent you from WSing an out of range monster. Personally, I don't bother with this and just leave it at 10, which is out of range but prevents me from WSing things like 40' away.

Grim Halo : Toggles the resistance level expected between NM and R (regular). This would put more MAcc gear on for debuffs if you're a mage, maybe more Acc gear on if you're a melee, etc. I generally don't use it.

Vulcan Shot : This resets your PDT/MDT option variable to nothing. I prefer toggling, so I don't use it.

Aegis Schism : This puts on your max MDT gear.
Aegis Schism : This toggles between your normal and MDT gear.

Barbed Crescent : This puts on your max PDT gear.
Barbed Crescent : This toggles between your normal and PDT gear.

Carnal Nightmare : This put on your max evasion gear. I didn't bother to remake it as a toggle in mine because I rarely use it, but I can do it for the next version.

That's about it! Instead of using macros for these, I'd recommended binding the less useful ones to F-keys that you aren't using.

Hmmm
I tried to read over your DNC XML Byrth.
So what would be the difference if I cast the dummy spell Poison V and Diaga V? One is in TriggerSetTwo, and the other is in TriggerSetThree... both do the same routine. Any reason to do it that way?

I pre-empt you once again!

I just like being able to swap between two gear sets (for instance, Evasion-TPing and Haste-TPing), so I made a second spell that would bounce me the opposite direction.

Yugl left the TriggerSetThree options empty so people could use them as they like. I chose to do that with it.

Gah! three times tonight.

Now I see the reason of doing dummyspell.
I am not sure I have fully grasped the concept, but I'll read again later.

anyone else using Byrth's SC getting errors like crazy in abyssea?
I keep getting stuff like "Spellcast: Did not find Set: TPBlankSet in Group: Abyssea-R". or WSBlankset etc.. I straight copypasted it and am a .xml newb so don't know what is causing it.

You don't need to have experience in Spellcast to see what the problem is. There's no set by the name of "TPBlankSet" in the group "Abyssea-R". All you need to do is copy a TP set and put it in the Abyssea-R group and change the name to TPBlankSet.