Starsurge Use

[Ferrington]

I'm curious if my fellow boomkins have any tips or tricks they use to make the most of their starsurge procs. At present, I don't use any macros for starsurge. I try and stay on top of the procs as much as possible, but I still run into situations where I'm a bit slow in the heat of the moment. I'll be partway through a starfire cast and think, "Man, I should have cancelled this and starsurged instead."

I've seen people advocate the following macro to try and use those shootings stars procs that occur just before a starfire/wrath cast:

/castsequence Starfire
/cast Starsurge

I don't think I would use this on wrath because wrath is a much shorter cast, so there is less to loose from finishing it. Additionally, I prefer the control of getting that extra eclipsed cast at the end of solar. That being said, I've tried this macro on the dummies and it appears to add some separation between starfires. It's not much, but it would definitely add up during combat. To me, this seems to negate the worth of such a macro.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

The other macro I've considered using is a stopcast macro on starsurge itself. Currently, when I get a starsurge and want to cancel a cast, I just move to cancel and then throw my starsurge. Do you folks use a stopcast macro like this? Or do you stick to moving to cancel casts?

On this topic, is there an agreed upon time to cancel casts to use starsurge? I generally cancel starfires if I can react to a proc in the first .5 seconds of the cast or so. If I have my meta up, I typically let the cast finish. I'm curious as to the latest point you would cancel a starfire cast in order to use starsurge?

I think my play is pretty solid, but this is a topic that I don't feel completely sure on. I would appreciate any insight you folks can provide!

[Ankunegg]

i would just let the cast finish and then use that proc, often times we will have to move after a cast so its a nice time to use that proc on the move/ or re position yourself.
but sure i would cancel a starfire cast if im only 0.5 sec in

[Juvencus]

I don't use stopcast because it's a bit awkward and of debatable dps value.

I do use this though:

/cancelqueuedspell
/cast Starsurge

it just clears your spells queue and queues a starsurge.

[Ferrington]

Oh cool, Juvencus. I've never seen that command before. Sounds nifty.

[Fountaiin]

tap my e or q key (strafe left/right).

[Cybb]

tap my e or q key (strafe left/right).

Don't listen too this noob

tap my s or f key (strafe left/right).

[Fountaiin]

No wonder Chkchkchk does so much more dps.

Kappa

[Cybb]

No wonder Chkchkchk does so much more dps.

Kappa

woooooooowwww /claps

[Deleted]

I wouldn't cancel my casts unless you have to more in dire need and have a SS proc available. Considering you'll have to wait for your GCD to end anyway you might aswell just let your original cast go through, besides thanks to boomkin RNG and our SS proc rate being very irregular, I'd say finish the cast, (if in Lunar) if it's a wrath, I'd opt to cancel it. Given that Lunar eclipse is our highest DPS phase. So using more SS outside of lunar and during solar is a DPS increase over using SS during lunar cancelling your starfires.

[Glurp]

I generally only cancel my cast if I'm 1 cast away from an Eclipse and using the SS proc would put me there.

[boomkinhero]

Try saving the SS proc for eclipse, glurp.

The only time (I believe) you should ever consider cancel casting is at the end of your CD's - weave 1 more SS in, especially if your cast won't finish in time. (granted you've refreshed DoT's appropriately)

[Chkchkchk]

Don't listen too this noob

tap my s or f key (strafe left/right).

Do you have a chart to support your claim?

DIDN'T THINK SO.

[Cybb]

Do you have a chart to support your claim?

DIDN'T THINK SO.

As you can see, using ESDF as opposed too WASD opens up more of the keyboard, allowing for more keybinds to be used.

[boomkinhero]

As you can see, using ESDF as opposed too WASD opens up more of the keyboard, allowing for more keybinds to be used.

That may be true, but at the same time, the arm does not swivel both directions equally. In fact, most left arms swivel easier in the 'right' direction making a left-centric placement of highly used keys more logical. In addition, generic finger/hand size indicates that the ring finger (most commonly placed on the 'a' in 'wasd' can not comfortably reach the tilde key. More often than not, a hand shift has to take place - similar to keys 5,6,etc.

Thus brings me to my first conclusion: Using esdf has a benefit, but it should shift the priority of whatever is assigned to '1' down. Whereas using wasd, '1' is in close proximity and very easy to manage to hit (relatively speaking, as most keys are easy to manage to hit). The fact is, it does not increase 'effective' keys in range which I will consider to be the keys that can be reached without moving the hand. The other fact is, it increases the number of keys that can be reached from outside this 'comfort' zone, giving it that added benefit for less-struck keys like a cooldown or healthstone.

However, World of Warcraft in it's vast complexity has given us the ability to add modifiers making alt-3 different than 3, same with shift-3 and ctrl-3. With this added data, it becomes clear who the winner should be then, right? Wrong. As both 'wasd' and 'esdf' are still within comfortable range of ctrl, shift, and alt keys - 'esdf' does not move out of range of these modifiers! Thus the first conclusion remains true: 'esdf' gives more benefit than 'wasd'. In the end, it won't matter to the normal pve crit chicken - 4 mashed buttons, 1 constantly hit button, 1-2 moderately buttons, and a few cd's to bind elsewhere.

About me: I use 'wasd'. I tried swapping to 'esdf' but couldn't get used to it plus I wouldn't want to rebind all my other games. Also, I'm bored, this was meant as a joke, everyone knows 'wasd' is vastly superior because -everybody- does it.


Anyways, this is really off topic.. I do like learning of removing the spell queue thing though - I wonder if this affects much with respect to what spell queueing was supposed to fix when the macro is mashed.. i.e. constantly removing and add starsurge might remove the benefit of having a spell queue.

[Juvencus]

You are already spamming the SS button and that voids the benefits of spell-queue and as a result it can't hurt you. Unlike the stopcast command that you would have to have 2 separate SS buttons, 1 for procs and 1 for hard casting, as I would imagine spamming the /stopcast /cast Starsurge button would interfere with hardcasting SS itself.

I've been using the /cancelqueuedspell in my only SS button and it does not interfere with the rotation in any way (I would know as I'm very picky and it would annoy me if anything would interfere with my normal play :P)

[boomkinhero]

yea Im the same way about being picky.
However, the spell queueing was added because the system wouldn't register any spells until the GCD was available. So let's say you have a wrath cast of .5s -> then you'd have to wait .5s before actually sending the cast for the next spell. Being under the gcd like this had a very small affect on output, because there would be a small delay before the next spell queue (and thus dps loss to continue with haste past the GCD breakpoint). Anyways, neglecting spell queueing wouldn't affect us very much anyways since there shouldn't be many situations where we'll be under GCD.. but if the case does occur, I do hypothesize we would see something similar to what life was like before spell queues.

Already mashing it won't overwrite current spell queue, fairly certain it only gets overwritten on a new spell. Whereas forcing a spell queue drop 'could'.. was just kind of a food for thought thing - regardless, the macro should be still used.. I've had several times where spell queueing has screwed me over.

[daerellin]

I've already got response to Shooting Stars procs set in muscle memory, so if I'm at the beginning of a Starfire cast I just use strafe to cancel. Some people feel that it's too difficult to do reliably, but if you practice it for a while it doesn't take much effort at all.

As for any sort of macroing, I like to set up a macro to hit the boss in heavy add fights, like Horridon. If the huge burst from Starsurge isn't necessary for the add (which depends entirely on the rest of your crew), I hit a keybind that does:

/target horridon
/cast Starsuge
/targetlasttarget

Very simple, obviously, but it eliminates those odd occurrences where you aren't able to target the boss at all, no matter how fat he is. Bind that macro to R or something easy to hit quickly without forcing you to move your hands, and merrily DoT away at the adds while pumping your Starsurges into the boss.

If your latency tolerance is set up correctly in your settings, you'll get to a point where you know exactly when you can queue your casts without any sort of cancel macro being necessary.

[squid]

If you have dots on 5 targets on live and are getting procs every second you could just have...

/cancelqueuedspell
/stopcasting
/cast Starsurge

...in order to use that proc instantly no matter what, however its only going to be a dps increase if you are actually proccing about once per second, and this mechanic has diminishing returns in 5.4 so you wont be in that situation after the patch next tuesday so probably would just use the strafe-cancel for the few times you will actually need it.

[Foto]

Little bit of hostility in the boomkin community I see, not too sure if legit or not, but hilarious!

personally I do use the cancel qued spell macro and do cancel my starfire (often not wrath) if its less than a second through for SS as If I get another SS proc during the next gcd its often a dps increase rather than waiting for the cast to go through.

You don't want to always cancel your cast just sometimes depending on how far through your cast you are. Also I personally just double click mouse to move as my cancel then backpedal up if I need to reposition cozinoob

[boomkinhero]

Using left+right click to move to cancel is best imo, utilizes a different hand for quicker button smashing.