Help with telling group about spells i castFollow

Alot of people send tells to the group when they are casting certian spells....clerics for instance "INC HoT on %t <<Please Stay Close>>" something like that...

I play a Shaman, and i know how to do this with heals...

My question is, is there any way to do this with DoT's, Malo, and Slow's. I know i can get a tell to come up when i cast it, but is there a way to make it two different things depending on if the mob resists or not?

For example can i set hot button 8 to A.) Cast Malo B.) say then once it lands that "%t has been slowed by ______" and C.) say "%t has resisted my ______ spell, lets try again!" if it resists it.

I think that would be really helpful for casters to know when i have maloed or slowed the target, what DoTs i have put on it, that kind of thing, right now i use two buttons, one for if it lands, and another for if it sticks. Well just wondering if thats possable and how to to it. Thanks

If I am understanding the question correctly you want 1 macro to differentiate whether the spell landed or was resisted and then tell the group. The answer to that is no, it can't be done. A macro is a list of pre-programmed commands that will only do EXACTLY what is typed into them. They can't tell if a spell landed or not.

On another note, spell spam gets old quick. If your going to use it keep it short and sweet and try to stick to the basic spells. Heals, slows, malo, evac, lull and mezz. I wouldn't use it on nukes or DoT's. Just my

I think most people are interested in knowing that a mob HAS been slowed. They can assume or you can tell them beforehand you will be malo/slow-ing. Sometimes you can kill so fast you do not need slows or mobs are not resistant and you don't need malo. In those cases just tell people you wont be doing that.

In other words, you do not have to be all that specific about what YOU are doing. Tanks and clerics WILL want to know if a mob has been slowed or not, but they do not need to know every time it gets resisted.

I like to keep spam to a minimum.

I've been playing a lowbie cleric now and again (lvl 51) and I have noticed how much heal spam I'm dishing to the group chat window. I have a CH message, HoT message, and Quick Heal message. All of these are short and to the point, but I mainly use HoT's/Quick heals and it seems there is still a lot of group spam.

Thinking about only using the group message for CH and lose the others. Average player want to know I'm casting HoT's and/or quick heals every time?

The best rule of thumb IMO is to only inform the group about things that they *need* to know.

We assume that the slower is slowing, the debuffer is debuffing, the healer is healing, the dps folks are assisting, etc...

However, there are some actions where the rest of the group needs to know *when* you are doing them. Specifically, when you are doing something that is a "trigger" for someone else doing something, you should probably send a message to the rest of the group.

So, when you successfully slow a mob, that's a good thing to tell the group. Healers change their rate of healing based on whether a mob is slowed/unslowed. Tanks will additionally adjust their agro generation based on that as well (it's kind of a sprint for agro at the beginning to counter slow/debuff agro, then a different pace for the rest of the fight). There can be a significant improvement in group efficiency just by having everyone get that message.

Slow failures aren't really that critical. Assuming you *always* send a message when you succeed, then I don't really need to know when you fail. I can simply assume that the mob is unslowed until I see the slow message. I can even realize that if I don't see it for a bit, that you might be getting resists. Both the tank and healer (assuming it's not you) can and should adjust to that as needed. I personally don't see a need for a "slow resisted" message, but if you have an extra hotkey button available, it probably can't hurt to have one and use it if you get a couple resists in a row.

I don't need to know if you've snared the mob. I assume you've done so. This one kinda goes the other way. I'm not going to change my process during combat based on when you snare the mob, however, if you *never* snare it for some reason, then I do need to be prepared to stop a running mob. So snare resist/immune messages are useful to the group.

Quick heal messages aren't needed. If your heal spell casts in less then 5ish seconds, by the time I see the message and realize what it's saying, your heal has landed. It really doesn't matter. While there are some situations with multiple patch healers where those kind of messages might be needed, that's pretty situation specific. Generally, I don't need to know when you're casting a normal heal.

CH messages *are* useful, however. Since CH takes a long time to cast, it's pretty nice for the group to know that it's comming, as opposed to the cleric just falling asleep or something (don't laugh! I've had that happen. It sucks...). As a paladin tank, CH messages are super useful to me since I can judge the rate at which I'm taking damage, and choose to drop a stun or two to give that CH time to land if needed. While it's not a huge deal, it kinda sucks to waste time stunning a mob for the last 4 seconds of a CH cast when I wouldn't have come close to dying anyway. If I'd known about when it would land, I could increase group efficiency dramatically by waiting for it to land, and then chaining a couple stuns so that the cleric has 8 more seconds before he has to worry about dropping the next one.


"Assist Me" messages are needed. This is not absolute, but as a tank, I always keep one ready. If there is any confusion at all about the target or when to attack, I can clear it up with a single push of a button. Again. The group will change their actions based on the message, so it's a useful message.

"Assisting %t" messages are *not* needed. I assume you're assisting me. I don't need a message in groupchat everytime you do it. In the same vein, I don't need a message everytime you nuke, or dot, or whatever it is that your class does normally every single fight. I assume you're doing your job. I only need to know things that will affect how I do my job.

Like Gbajj, I'm a pally tank....I don't need to know when folks are assisting me. I assume they are. Now when multiple mobs are pulled to camp, I *really* don't need to hear or broadcast that I'm on so and so mob. If there's CC in the group they should know what I'm on by target circles, etc. Mezz, root whatever else. I very rarely change targets when multiple mobs are pulled. ONLY if there is a specific need to do so. Otherwise assume I'm attacking the mob the puller has assist on.

Now the in some cirumstances where the group doesn't have a *mezzer* and say 2 mobs are pulled to camp. Both can be rooted, but one is a healer type mob. I will change targets in those cases to take out the casters/healers first, and leave the melee type mobs rooted.

Telling the group about a successful slow is not important I think as the expectation is that the mob will be slowed. But telling the group about a failed or partial slow is important so that the healers and tank can adjust to cope with the situation.

I think anouncing malo every time is annoying after a while, I prefer to sort it out at the beginning and announce that you will malo every mob and then every one just gets on with it.

Thats what I do with druid dubuffs anyway.

The only heal I announce is CH so that the target (hopefully) doesn't wander off mid cast.

But Samira's point about working in co-operation with a cleric is a good one, its a 50/50 call as to whether to clutter the chat box or waste a bit of mana/time. In critical situations whee the back up healer really needs to support the main healer, it is probably better to call it.

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Edited, Tue Jul 12 03:04:48 2005 by jchapin

Yeah. It is assumed you're going to be slowing the mob. However, you start the combat in "unslowed mode" and then change when it's slowed. So the assumption you have to work on is that the mob is unslowed until you are informed otherwise. Worst case with that assumption is that you waste some mana. Doing it the other way (assuming mob is slowed after X seconds or something) can easily result in a wipe.

It's kind of a 50/50 as well, I just tend to think the correct assumption is unslowed until I get a message otherwise. Thus, it's most important for me to see a message telling me when the mob is slowed and its save to change what I'm doing.

excellent info in this thread

it all comes down to communication and trusting each other doing his job, being comfy really.

I also recommend
1 - getting those 6 points for spell awareness asap
2 - reading the casting messages...then you know when mobs is e.g. slowed ("mob yawns")

PS: I like to know though, when malo is being resisted...I may pick a different nuke with a certain resist modifier.

I used to announce Tashes, slows, and mezzs

I am down to just mezzs. I announce them becasue if I don't people seem to panic when they realize 15 sec later that there is a mob standing 3 feet away.

They assume I am tashing and slowing. They dont need to hear about it every pull.