Stop Cast

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

I'm still confused why you'd want to purposely cancel a cast so you can cast something else. But if you want a single button press to "stop" a cast, try pressing escape (or whatever button it is for console players). This forcefully stops your current cast as long it's within the range where it can be interrupted.

As for losing procs as a bard, there are actually intervals for river of blood between each procs. You could easily finish your current cast to use whatever proc you have after that aside from Straight Shot.

Even if you consider the chances of losing procs:
River of Blood has a 2x 10% chance to proc, assuming 20% crit rate
Straighter shot 20% chance to proc

Odds are much higher that you don't get a proc in comparison to wasting a proc. Where in most casts you may interrupt your cast for a proc and don't get a proc after your next cast; You simply lose GCD time like this.

It's a bit more complicated for Machinist where reaction speed's a much bigger factor

[Malevicton]

Stutterstepping is about moving before your finished going through the full cast / animation sequences as soon as your ability has been registered as cast by the server. In FFXIV, much like pre 2.3 WoW, there is an amount of time between the server actually registering your cast and when you can move. Same way you can cast a spell and then start moving and still have that spell go off if you time it right. Stopcast would just make it easier by eliminating the need to move. Do you see what we're talking about now?

FFXI had this as well, wherein a blm could begin casting a spell and, if they timed it right, cancel out and already be moving or readying another spell while the first one is still casting.

If you are dealing with a game that doesnt track casts and movement in real time like 14, 11, or old pre 2.3 WoW, stopcast lets you game the system. Or least it makes it much easier to.

I know what stutterstepping is. The point of it is to be able to move while finishing your cast; it gives you more movement, not less casting. Your movement is the ends, not the means. Stopcast would straight up interrupt your cast.

It sounds like what you want is to overlap casts, which is not at all how stutterstepping works. The game still q's the abilities.

[MrCookTM]

Bard with WM would benefit by no longer having to delay hitting a proc, and in doing so may gain a proc they would otherwise have lost, all more efficiently than by hitting a cancel button or moving. Its like Prya said, it would allow you to effective cut out a lot of the penalty of WM and play bard much more like it originally played.

But... cancelling a weaponskill in order to cast a proc is a dps loss... o.O

Also, no, the way it is now, you don't lose potential procs, since you can only get one proc every 3 seconds/server tick.

[Shirobi]

But... cancelling a weaponskill in order to cast a proc is a dps loss... o.O

Also, no, the way it is now, you don't lose potential procs, since you can only get one proc every 3 seconds/server tick.

Not for bard. You can easily get two procs back to back. If you could stop a hard cast, fire off a proc then go right back into hardcasting, its not gonna be a dps loss. Not to sound like a broke record, but since I keep getting the same replies, look at how things worked in 2.3 or earlier WoW. Thats the same system we have going here, and there is a reason people used stopcast and addons to give them a view of when the cast had areached the "point of no return" as it were so they could stop cast and begin another one.

[Shirobi]

In the time you are moving, you can already be taking another action. Its like how you could use stopcast in a macro in early WoW to "interrupt" a cast and start a whole new cast while the od one continued to go off. You could do the same in FFXI, except no macro there made it less efficient (Essentially the same thing here.).

[Kacho_Nacho]

I think I'm missing something here.

Why would you ever want to plan around breaking a cast? If you're planning not to cast then just don't cast...?

It allows you to quickly start casting another ability without waiting for a prior cast to finish. Example: I'm casting Stone II on my white mage. Suddenly, the tank gets hit with a big attack because he didn't dodge far enough. I could stopcast the Stone II and start casting a Cure II on the tank, getting the healing spell to the tank around two seconds faster.

How it would work as a macro: I'd have /stopcast cast/cure II macroed. Every time I tapped the button of this macro, a command would also be sent to cancel any ability in the process of being cast and cast cure II instead. You'd need to be mindful not to accidentally hit it multiple times lest you cancel the cure II being cast and lengthen the cast time unless that's what you wanted to do.

Personally, I use my spacebar to stop casting. I just tap the spacebar with my thumb, my character jumps, and I've already started the other cast.

To sum up: Stopcasting is a great way to quickly react to the environment. It would be a useful addition to the macro commands especially for your big emergency buttons. i.e. your OH SHIT! skills.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

It allows you to quickly start casting another ability without waiting for a prior cast to finish. Example: I'm casting Stone II on my white mage. Suddenly, the tank gets hit with a big attack because he didn't dodge far enough. I could stopcast the Stone II and start casting a Cure II on the tank, getting the healing spell to the tank around two seconds faster.

You're using the wrong comparison, though. Healers switch from one priority to another: From maiming to mending. In case of Bards and Machinists, they don't switch at all. They just create an unnecessary pause between their attacks to cancel their attack in favor for another.

Not to sound like a broke record, but since I keep getting the same replies, look at how things worked in 2.3 or earlier WoW.

Have you read my previous post about this?

[RiceisNice]

As for losing procs as a bard, there are actually intervals for river of blood between each procs. You could easily finish your current cast to use whatever proc you have after that aside from Straight Shot.

It's a bit more complicated for Machinist where reaction speed's a much bigger factor

Just to add clarification; Bloodletter can still overlap if you're multi-dotting. While it's not a problem on it's own (multi-dotting or not), it does become a problem when you have a cast time on top of reseting oGCDs, as well as the entirety of the moveset which also includes an oGCD with cast time.

On MCH, it's entirely on their reaction time. If you ever have to stop cast because you got a proc, that's your own fault (or latency, but that's an outside factor that should never be considered).

Not for bard. You can easily get two procs back to back. If you could stop a hard cast, fire off a proc then go right back into hardcasting, its not gonna be a dps loss. Not to sound like a broke record, but since I keep getting the same replies, look at how things worked in 2.3 or earlier WoW. Thats the same system we have going here, and there is a reason people used stopcast and addons to give them a view of when the cast had areached the "point of no return" as it were so they could stop cast and begin another one.

It actually is a dps loss since you're delaying the use of your weapon skill by half a GCD if you have to cancel it. Getting back to back procs is more of an annoyance which still shouldn't exist due to the circumstances (until you actually hit SS the same time you get the proc, which is a different issue all together)

While it's nice to have some more expansive macros (including stopacst, other features like cancelaura or casting AoE on your cursor without a recitle), I don't think it'll help that much due to the gameflow of FFXIV (and the less-than-ideal serverside-detection)

[Kacho_Nacho]

You're using the wrong comparison, though. Healers switch from one priority to another: From maiming to mending. In case of Bards and Machinists, they don't switch at all. They just create an unnecessary pause between their attacks to cancel their attack in favor for another.

I stand corrected.

[MrCookTM]

Not for bard. You can easily get two procs back to back. If you could stop a hard cast, fire off a proc then go right back into hardcasting, its not gonna be a dps loss. Not to sound like a broke record, but since I keep getting the same replies, look at how things worked in 2.3 or earlier WoW. Thats the same system we have going here, and there is a reason people used stopcast and addons to give them a view of when the cast had areached the "point of no return" as it were so they could stop cast and begin another one.

No, you just can't. BL can reset every 3 seconds at most, this has been the case since 2.0 and there is no room for argument here tbh.

And cancelling a WS in order to use proc IS a dps loss, the math for this has been done as early as Brd got minuet. If you still disagree, you might want to have a discussion with some of the in depth theorycrafters for the class like Krietor or Aurily.