Spellcast Help Thread (Link your XML using Pastebin.com for help!)

[Xaru]

Not sure, but it is probably easier to code it so that if you have a spirit lantern equiped, you disable that slot.

If you find out let me know

Will give that a go, cheers man. Just used a charge to see what it's called and it gives "Enchantment" status effect lol--so doubt would be able to do it through BuffActive!

<if mode="and" EquipAmmo="Spirit Lantern" BuffActive="Enchantment">
	<ammo lock="t" />
</if>

This works fine, and will work for any other equipment that has to stay on while enchanted (such as Hydra gear)

[deac65]

Just in case someone else comes by wondering about the rule for HB triggers etc., I've been playing around with it a bit more. I've added in a midcast delay of 2.5, and changed my precast delay to .5. This seems to work fairly well, but I'm on a pretty crappy computer so I think lag is screwing up the timing of the gearswaps. Although another option could be making different rules for the shorter and longer casting spells all together. Anyway, if someone has a better rule or a more definite answer please post.

[Argettio]

If you can work out the right delays for each spell than you can easily add ifs to the existing rule.

<if spell="fastcasting>
<set low delays>
</if>
<else>
<set high delays>
</else>

Sort of thing.

[deac65]

Yeah, but that would be too easy....


(Thanks again)

[Argettio]

Yeah, but that would be too easy....


(Thanks again)

NP, stalking this thread gives me something to think while at work.

[fosgate]

Just curious, but why not simplify this and add a check for af helm latent? Cant see the rest of your XML, but if you dont have a check like this, you'll blink everytime you cast a spell your way. Kinda annoying if you are casting buffs and you dont meet the latent requirement.

Also, is there a reason why you put wyvernHB gear in a different set from your trigger set? My drg just has a preHB(af helm+legs and a midHB(saurian helm) then goes back to idle or engaged set.

<if CommandPrefix="/ma|/magic" HPPLT="50">
    <action type="castdelay" delay=".2" />
    <action type="equip" when="precast" set="HBTrigger" />
    <action type="equip" when="midcast" set="WyvernHP" />
    <action type="aftercastdelay" delay="2" />
    <if Status="Engaged">
        <action type="equip" when="aftercast" set="TPMAGE" />
    </if>
    <else>
        <action type="equip" when="aftercast" set="IDLE SET HERE" />
    </else>
</if>

[Nameless]

I actually have a question regarding the HB trigger line as well. I know alot of ppl like the idea of putting HPPLT="50" in there, but a few questions come to mind.

1) Would that mean 50% of your HP on your tp gear or your HB trigger gear? Somehow I don't see how spellcast would know that you mean 50% of your HB trigger gear. I am not very good with programing so I am just throwing this out to get the right concept, so please correct me if I am wrong.

2) I go Drg/blu or Drg/whm in party situation quite abit, some situation I can think of it is a pure Drg merit burn with no healer. In that situation, you are not just trying to heal yourself, you are healing other person as well. So if you put the HPPLT="50" rule in it and want to HB someone who is in orange, it won't trigger. I wonder if there is a way to make it work both way. That I don't want the rule during party play but I also don't want to blink for nothing during solo play.

3) I was checking Xanthe's xml and I noticed the same line "<action type="castdelay" delay=".2" />", he has it for .4. I wonder what is this for, is it there to allow your wyvern HP gears to kick in? My xml doesn't have that line cuz I hate even a small delay on my casting, and have experienced nothing wrong in particular in term of triggering HB at 50% HP etc. However, I do occasionally cure for only 346 instead of 434. I did the math and found out that 346 will occur if none of my wyvern HP gears kick in, which happens quite often even before I used spellcast (would say 30-50% chance that it happens), and if the .2 delay can fix that aspect, I might put it back up there.

Thank you.

This is Xanthe's xml, and I use an altered version which added in pollen type of self targeting magic for idle trigger and minus the castingdelay of .4 and the HP rule. Works great for me other than the above mentioned problems.

Spoiler: show

<if CommandPrefix="/magic|/ninjutsu">
			<if Group="Multipurpose">
				<if HPPLT="33">
					<action Type="CastDelay" Delay=".4" />
					<action Type="MidCastDelay" Delay="2.5" />
					<action Type="AfterCastDelay" Delay="5" />
					<equip Set="Healing Breath Pre" />
					<equip When="MidCast" Set="Healing Breath Mid" />
				</if>
				<else>
					<equip Set="Fast Cast" />
				</else>
			</if>
			<elseif Group="Defensive">
				<if Spell="Stoneskin">
					<equip Set="Stoneskin" />
				</if>
				<elseif Spell="*na|Bar*|Erase" PartyCountGT="1">
					<action Type="CastDelay" Delay=".4" />
					<action Type="MidCastDelay" Delay="2.5" />
					<action Type="AfterCastDelay" Delay="5" />
					<equip Set="Healing Breath Pre" />
					<equip When="MidCast" Set="Healing Breath Mid" />
				</elseif>
				<elseif NotSpell="*raise" PartyCount="1" HPPLT="50">
					<action Type="CastDelay" Delay=".4" />
					<action Type="MidCastDelay" Delay="2.5" />
					<action Type="AfterCastDelay" Delay="5" />
					<equip Set="Healing Breath Pre" />
					<equip When="MidCast" Set="Healing Breath Mid" />
				</elseif>
			</elseif>
		</if>

[deac65]

The reason I have different sets of gear is because I macro in a few pieces of +HP gear in my HBTrigger set. Being a Taru, the sooner I can trigger a HB the better while solo. Then my wyvernHP gear set equips Wyrm Armet +1, Drachen Brais +1, Chanoix's Gorget, Homam Gambieras, and Ostreger Mitts. I know most of that isn't necessary beyond the Armet, but I'm slightly OCD on things like that.

I also notice at times that the HB value is lower than it should be with the wyvern HP gear that I have. I haven't played with the timing enough at the moment to say anything, but I plan to separate the longer/shorter spells in my rules once I can put time into testing things.

As for the bit about putting a check in the code for 50% hp, what Nameless said about curing others definitely holds true. What I do is //sc set HBTrigger and then divide that hp total by two for each of my subjobs. Just don't forget what that HP is and you won't have an issue of unnecessary blinking.

[fosgate]

Ahhhh you know what... good thought. I forgot about being in a pt and your HP > 50%. There's an easy way around this.

I originally replied to help you simplify, but this makes it way more complicated.

setup some variables depending on each subjob in the variable section. Put how much hp 50% is with that sub and your +hp gear.

<var name="WHMsubhp">450</var>
<var name="BLUSubhp">475</var>

<if CommandPrefix="/ma|/magic">
     <if advanced='%PartyCount==1' Advanced='"$%SubJobsubhp" !="\$%SubJobsubHP"'>
         <action type="castdelay" delay=".2" />
         <action type="equip" when="precast" set="HBTrigger" />
         <action type="equip" when="midcast" set="WyvernHP" />
         <action type="aftercastdelay" delay="2" />
         <if Status="Engaged">
             <action type="equip" when="aftercast" set="TPMAGE" />
         </if>
         <else>
             <action type="equip" when="aftercast" set="IDLE SET HERE" />
         </else>
     </if>
     <else> <!-- party count >1 so always HB on /ma -->
          <action type="castdelay" delay=".2" />
         <action type="equip" when="precast" set="HBTrigger" />
         <action type="equip" when="midcast" set="WyvernHP" />
         <action type="aftercastdelay" delay="2" />
         <if Status="Engaged">
             <action type="equip" when="aftercast" set="TPMAGE" />
         </if>
         <else>
             <action type="equip" when="aftercast" set="IDLE SET HERE" />
         </else>
     </else>
</if>

[fosgate]

3) I was checking Xanthe's xml and I noticed the same line "<action type="castdelay" delay=".2" />", he has it for .4. I wonder what is this for, is it there to allow your wyvern HP gears to kick in? My xml doesn't have that line cuz I hate even a small delay on my casting, and have experienced nothing wrong in particular in term of triggering HB at 50% HP etc. However, I do occasionally cure for only 346 instead of 434. I did the math and found out that 346 will occur if none of my wyvern HP gears kick in, which happens quite often even before I used spellcast (would say 30-50% chance that it happens), and if the .2 delay can fix that aspect, I might put it back up there.

Keep me honest here, but to the best of my understanding of spellcast, it has a good idea when spells start and finish. Most likely depending on how good your if/else's are composed, it runs through and looks at all the rules and checks each condition for precast/midcast/aftercast.

It seems as though Spellcast grabs chat lines, checks your rules, and then reprocesses them back to chat depending on your rules. Spellcast can hold the chat as long as it wants, but the game still goes on. Thats the delays do. castdelay (before the spell goes off) midcastdelay (middle of the spell) and aftercastdelay (the time it thinks it takes to cast the spell).

For me, there is too much lag in dynamis that my cure cheat macro on PLD wouldnt work right, but works just great outside the mog house. I put in a rule in my pld XML to set a higher cast delay if the area was a dynamis area. Now it runs perfectly anywhere i go.

Perhaps it was just placebo affect. But it does seem that you may need to gauge your own lag/response times in your delays. Just because the other person has .2 it doesnt mean it will work for you.

Go stand in the thickets where there's no lag and test it. Then change it and test it again (/sc reload). Play with it till you get what works for you

[Deimos]

If you don't put a CastDelay, precast gear often won't have any effect, because it was swapped in at exactly the same time as the action. You're going to want to have a CastDelay on anything that needs the items to be in. For example, if I want to Focus with Temple Crown in, that needs a CastDelay, or I won't get the bonus. Same with swapping in a set with Fast Cast gear before spells start casting.

I generally use 0.3, but various numbers around there should work, depending on current lag.

[Nameless]

ah i see, does that apply to WS and JA? cuz I know WS usually has a slight delay between readies and actually going off, not sure about JA such as spirit link, jump, and high jump etc.

[Argettio]

Ok this has obviously moved on while I was asleep, so the HB cases are:

1. You are already below 50% HP before any gear swaps (this means you can skip the HB trigger set): SOLO

2. You are above 50% HP before any swaps, but switching to your HB trigger set will push you below 50% (so the HB set is needed): SOLO

3. You are above 50% HP before any swaps, but your HB trigger set will not push below 50% (so healing breath won't happen): SOLO

4. As 1 but in party

5. As 2 but in party

6. As 3 but in party (except HB may still trigger as there maybe some one below 50% in the group)

The reason I have broken it down into so many cases is you can reduce the number of gear swaps and the amount of delays needed.

Only case 2 and 5 need the HB trigger set, 1, 4 and 6 only need you to but your wyvernHP set and 3 doesn't need any swaps at all.

lets see what comes out (stealing some code from fosgate):
<var name="WHMsubhp">450</var>
<var name="BLUSubhp">475</var>

HB Trigger Set = 100 HP (just an example)

<if CommandPrefix="/ma|/magic">
<!-- General Rules (covers case 1,2,4 and 5)-->
    <!-- You are below 50% HP before you equip HB Trigger, Case 1 and 4 -->
    <if Advanced='%HP&lt;=$%SubJobsubhp'>
        <action type="equip" when="midcast" set="WyvernHP" />
        <action type="aftercastdelay" delay="2" />
        <if Status="Engaged">
            <action type="equip" when="aftercast" set="TPMAGE" />
        </if>
        <else>
            <action type="equip" when="aftercast" set="IDLE SET HERE" />
        </else>
    </if>
    <!-- You are below 50% HP after you equip HB Trigger, Case 2 and 5 -->
    <elseif Advanced='%HP&lt;=($%SubJobsubhp+99)'>
        <action type="castdelay" delay=".2" />
        <action type="equip" when="precast" set="HBTrigger" />
        <action type="equip" when="midcast" set="WyvernHP" />
        <action type="aftercastdelay" delay="2" />
        <if Status="Engaged">
        <action type="equip" when="aftercast" set="TPMAGE" />
        </if>
        <else>
            <action type="equip" when="aftercast" set="IDLE SET HERE" />
        </else>
    </elseif>
<!-- Solo rules -->
    <!-- Solo, You aren't below 50% HP after you equip HB Trigger, Case 3 -->
    <if advanced='%PartyCount==1' Advanced='%HP&gt;=($%SubJobsubhp+99)'>
        <action Type="Return" />
    </if>
<!-- Party Rules -->
    <!-- Party, You aren't below 50% HP after you equip HB Trigger, Equiping HB gear to heal party member, Case 6 -->
    <if advanced='%PartyCount=!1' Advanced='%HP&lt;=($%SubJobsubhp+99)'>
        <action type="equip" when="midcast" set="WyvernHP" />
        <action type="aftercastdelay" delay="2" />
        <if Status="Engaged">
            <action type="equip" when="aftercast" set="TPMAGE" />
        </if>
        <else>
            <action type="equip" when="aftercast" set="IDLE SET HERE" />
        </else>
    </if>
</if> 

Disclaimer, untested code (but check for syntax errors) and written for SC 2.2

[TacoTaru]

Okay, as someone who is a complete idiot (understatement of the year) when it comes to using spellcast I have a question that I can't seem to get a complete answer from anyone in game: how would I actually use an XML I make for say NIN TP gear specifically for night? I know (somewhat) how to set up the XML but I'm confused on how to actually USE it. I know that when you set the XML for spells, as the spell fires, spellcast does what it need to do to use the XML; however, what about for gear sets where there isn't an action for spellcast to catch and I just want to swap from TPing in day gear to TPing in night gear?

[Xaru]

Okay, as someone who is a complete idiot (understatement of the year) when it comes to using spellcast I have a question that I can't seem to get a complete answer from anyone in game: how would I actually use an XML I make for say NIN TP gear specifically for night? I know (somewhat) how to set up the XML but I'm confused on how to actually USE it. I know that when you set the XML for spells, as the spell fires, spellcast does what it need to do to use the XML; however, what about for gear sets where there isn't an action for spellcast to catch and I just want to swap from TPing in day gear to TPing in night gear?

AutoExec + SpellCast sets.

[fosgate]

Okay, as someone who is a complete idiot (understatement of the year) when it comes to using spellcast I have a question that I can't seem to get a complete answer from anyone in game: how would I actually use an XML I make for say NIN TP gear specifically for night? I know (somewhat) how to set up the XML but I'm confused on how to actually USE it. I know that when you set the XML for spells, as the spell fires, spellcast does what it need to do to use the XML; however, what about for gear sets where there isn't an action for spellcast to catch and I just want to swap from TPing in day gear to TPing in night gear?

I think people really underestimate the power of spellcast. I mean you could set autoexec to trigger a gear set depending on time of day, but that just seems more complicted than it needs to be to me. There's a millions ways to do anything with spellcast. There's no wrong answer, just more efficient ones.

Every time you do something in the game, spellcast checks your rules. If you engage, disengage, rest, die. If you set up your rules correctly, you can have your day night sets equip with any action. Especially with ninja being such a heavy magic/ability user, there wouldnt be many cases where you wouldnt pop into your night set more than 10-15 secs after night time hits.

Voke, utsusemi, enfeebles, engaging, ranged attack, disengaging, weaponskills, even death. These are all actions that trigger your rules. I thought about this too when makin my nin XML, but the i realized what triggers a rule check and decided unless i want my gear to change while im afk in front of the mog house, let spellcast do it all.

Why use spellcast to use autoexec, to use spellcast. Seems redundant. Just write your rules cleanly and with logic. (or obtain help and examples)

[Siniroth]

Why use spellcast to use autoexec, to use spellcast. Seems redundant. Just write your rules cleanly and with logic. (or obtain help and examples)

I don't use Autoexec, but afaik, you don't, auto-exec catches the day change to night, and either puts in a dummy action, or says to windower 'sc set TPNight', then any action you do will automatically notice it's night and just use the night TP set, but if you're meleeing as the change occurs, and not paying attention for whatever reason.

[Nameless]

a few things like buff wearing off during engaging will require autoexec, at least for those who doesn't want to waste a sec of having the wrong gears on. Best use of it is probably those with relic aftermath, apoc comes into mind, which has big gear difference with/without aftermath. I use it for last resort, SE, and diabolic eye.

[Xanthe]

3) I was checking Xanthe's xml and I noticed the same line "<action type="castdelay" delay=".2" />", he has it for .4. I wonder what is this for, is it there to allow your wyvern HP gears to kick in? My xml doesn't have that line cuz I hate even a small delay on my casting, and have experienced nothing wrong in particular in term of triggering HB at 50% HP etc. However, I do occasionally cure for only 346 instead of 434. I did the math and found out that 346 will occur if none of my wyvern HP gears kick in, which happens quite often even before I used spellcast (would say 30-50% chance that it happens), and if the .2 delay can fix that aspect, I might put it back up there.

You're correct, the .4 delay is to account for processing wHP gear. The delay hasn't proven to be a problem for me; I can still time Cocoon as a HB trigger between attacks on a Sea Puk without any sort of slow on it. I had to revise the PartyCount variable checks after better learning how they work, i.e. solo would be PartyCount="0" and not "1". Below is my current magic section.

      <if CommandPrefix="/magic|/ninjutsu">
         <if Group="Multipurpose">
            <if HPPLT="33">
               <action Type="CastDelay" Delay=".4" />
               <action Type="MidCastDelay" Delay="2.5" />
               <action Type="AfterCastDelay" Delay="5" />
               <equip Set="Healing Breath Pre" />
               <equip When="MidCast" Set="Healing Breath Mid" />
            </if>
            <else>
               <equip Set="Fast Cast" />
            </else>
         </if>
         <elseif Group="Defensive">
            <if Spell="Stoneskin">
               <equip Set="Stoneskin" />
            </if>
            <elseif Spell="*na|Bar*|Erase" PartyCountGT="0">
               <action Type="CastDelay" Delay=".4" />
               <action Type="MidCastDelay" Delay="2.5" />
               <action Type="AfterCastDelay" Delay="5" />
               <equip Set="Healing Breath Pre" />
               <equip When="MidCast" Set="Healing Breath Mid" />
            </elseif>
            <elseif NotSpell="*raise" PartyCount="0" HPPLT="50">
               <action Type="CastDelay" Delay=".4" />
               <action Type="MidCastDelay" Delay="2.5" />
               <action Type="AfterCastDelay" Delay="5" />
               <equip Set="Healing Breath Pre" />
               <equip When="MidCast" Set="Healing Breath Mid" />
            </elseif>
         </elseif>
      </if>

Unfortunately there isn't a check for party HP %, so I limit my selection of spells that will trigger in a party situation. In a solo situation I can be more liberal in what will trigger. Raise and Reraise are ignored since changing to wHP gear would drop my MP below 150 when weakened. At some point I will figure out specific HP values for various subjob combinations and buffs, but I don't have the time currently.

[Katoke]

fixed problem