Help with method to allow Spell Channeling?

[hephaestus]

Does anyone have a good way to set up a way to block key presses for a mixed group where you have some spells being channeled (bards, cabalists, inquisitor, etc...)? I tried the don't proceed to step 1, 2, 3, etc... for a specific period of time, but that doesn't ignore the key presses, it just doesn't pass along the one for the next step as far as I can tell.

I would really like to figure out a relatively non-complicated method to handle channeling type spells for my group, I even tried setting up a separate Keymap for my "channeler" characters, but it isn't working well either. Someone must have a solution, as tons are boxing bards, I must just be missing it...

Thanks in advance

[lax]

I apologize in advance for being somewhat general in this response, because I know someone is going to be looking for a step by step guide on how to set this up (click here, click there, etc) and my response is going to go way over their head. You sound like you will understand the ideas though. I'm adding a couple links for whoever needs them.

Does anyone have a good way to set up a way to block key presses for a mixed group where you have some spells being channeled (bards, cabalists, inquisitor, etc...)? I tried the don't proceed to step 1, 2, 3, etc... for a specific period of time, but that doesn't ignore the key presses, it just doesn't pass along the one for the next step as far as I can tell.

What you're missing is that "ignoring the key presses" needs to be a Step in your Mapped Key. Say you want it to press 7, only exactly one time, and then you want it to not do anything for 1.5 seconds even if you're hitting the same key. That's exactly two steps. The first step presses 7, and the second step has NO actions but has the "Do not advance" options at the top set.

You can keep these rotations separate per character by using separate Mapped Keys, and Do Mapped Key Actions.

[hephaestus]

Thanks a ton Lax - that explains it perfectly for my purposes, I was missing the second step . I knew there must be a simple solution. I really need to look into the Do Mapped Key actions, as I assume they can avoid the need for separate key maps for "channelers"/non-"channelers." (or at least allow you to combine all the keymaps into one -- which now that I think about it, I see the point of the do mapped keys ) I think I have kind of missed the point of the Do Mapped Keys and Virtualized Keys so far, I really need to look into both of them (just need to get some time to work on better setups). If I get a good setup working for my bard (maybe bards plural now), I will provide some screenshots.

[Alge]

I use this method on my Paladin+4 Bards team. My main spam mapped key (1) sends 1 to my warrior (and in game this has a big macro to do reactives, cooldowns and a fallthrough) and does a Do Mapped Key Action (a mapped key called Cadence) for the bards (who are in an Action Target Group, called bards). Then the Cadence mapped key has two steps: step 1 sends 1 to all bards, step 2 has no actions but does not advance for at least 2.2 seconds. It works pretty well. You may need to alter the timing slightly for your conditions.

The only issue arises when I occasionally press the spam key while the bards are moving. In such cases you can be "locked out" of that action for 2.2 seconds. However, you can manually change a mapped key to a particular step using an action. I use mouse 4 to drop follow (just sends DOWN key to all slaves) and added a Mapped Key Step Action (Target: bards ATG, Key Map: Combat, Mapped Key: Cadence, Step Adjustment: Set to 1) to my Mouse4 mapped key.

Alge

[hephaestus]

Thanks Alge, That got me thinking about putting everything into one routine. Now that I have figured out the point of Do Mapped Key combined with either repeating a step for a certain time period or going to a step and ignoring my crazy key presses 2.1 secs I am testing a new routine. I am running Do Mapped Key routines that initiate two Motifs for each of the Bard Team, then Do Mapped Key for Chord of Power + Cadence (with a wait step) followed by a debuff coda for each bard, and then run the Chord of Power + Cadence in a Do Map Key for then next 20 seconds before starting back with the Motifs again (I am going to virtualize a Heal Coda to run with pressing shift if I can figure it out). The Step Adjustment suggestion is awesome, I am going to try and add a Step Adjustment key that works for each Key Map off of the same button so I can also reset when I move to a new victim (or as you mentioned, forget to drop off follow).

The only downside to this is that the number of builds that I can play with has now increased exponentially, as I was previously avoiding builds with lots of channeled spells or ones that needed lots of timing (thankfully Rift is a fairly kind to my altitis - since I only need 4 characters to pretty much try everything). Now I just need to play around with sending mice clicks to my other slots and lose my hatred of area targeted spells on any character but my main (Pyromancer could greatly benefit from that...).

[hephaestus]

Oddly enough, when I try to use any ability in a sequence before or after the cadence step, it fails (cadence works like a charm though...). So I set up a rotation as a 4 step action. The action is as follows: Step 1 ---> Bards Press Key 1 (Power Chord), Wait at least 1.1 seconds until moving on to the next step; Step 2 ----> Bards cast Cadence; Step 3 ----> No Action (basically just blank, no key, nothing), Wait at least 2.2 seconds before the next step; Step 4 -----> Coda of Wrath, Wait at least 1.1 seconds until the next step.

As I understand it that should hit the mob with Power Chord (hit 1 again until 1.1 seconds later if I am banging on the keyboard to no effect); hit the mob with Cadence (then go to step 3, ignoring any key presses for 2.2 seconds); hit the mob with Coda of Wrath at 5 points for decent damage; then start over. However, what happens is that I wait for several seconds, cast Cadence, wait for several seconds and then cast Cadence again (it somehow even skips Power Chord as the first move). I am curious as to what could be causing this problem? It does the same thing whether I map it to a key or call it from another Key Map state using a Do Keymap Action. I even tried placing the 2 steps for the Cadence portion in a separate Keymap Action and calling it in the Attack Rotation as Step 2 of an action (Step 1: Power Chord key press, wait 1.1 secs; Step 2: Do keymap action Cadence, wait 2.2 secs; Step 3: Coda of Wrath, wait 1.1 seconds before next step), but that had the same result... Anyone have suggestions?

Thanks

[Alge]

What do you have the spell queue (or whatever it is called) set to in game? That may have an effect.

Also, I'd suggest starting simple and building things up a step at a time. That way when you get unexpected behaviour you can easily tell what broke it.

I take a different approach to you to try and separate out different effects and give me a little more control. I put Cadence on 1, finishers (codas?) on 2 and motifs on 3.

[hephaestus]

Thanks again Alge, when I broke them out, it turned out none of one of the attacks was working, I wrote them into separate Actions and everything worked off of one button. While I can get them to work with all one button, the timing is annoying if it gets off, so I broke the finisher and buffs out as you mentioned. Now I just Power Chord/Cadence and then go off the tank's finisher for the Codas (which lets me switch codas around depending on the situation). Working like a charm now

[Amrathe]

The way I got my channeled spells to work right was to setup the following:

In rift, make a macro for stopcasting and place it on your hotbar.

Then in ISBoxer I made a keymap with:

step 1 - call the stopcasting macro. This way if I am mid-cast on a spell it breaks the cast (happens often when I am spamming my "everybody attack/nuke" macro). If I am not casting, then no-harm no-foul. My Melee guy executes his attack macro here too.

step 2 - call the Channeled spell + have my melee guy execute his attack macro

step 3 - have my melee guy execute his attack macro with "do not advance for 3.2 seconds"



Without that first step to stopcasting there would be times when I would hit the channeled spell and it wouldn't cast right off (and screw up the don't advance for 3.2 seconds). By including my melee guy in the steps with the channeling I can continue to spam the button without breaking channel or missing a melee attack round.