Question - order of sections firing and does debuffall=2 change that

[timmy]

burn/dps/ae. which fires first? burn seems to always fire first when there is a named. cool. ae seems to fire after my debuffall/debuffall=2 dps entries but before my other dps entries. pretty consistently, actually. i thought maybe my dps section was firing off a greater range than my ae section, but they are both set to 100. am i drunk and imagining things or is this the order of operations? thx info ~

 

[ctaylor22]

@timmy DebuffAllOn 1 or 2 is used to prioritize Debuffing VS DPS. DebuffAllOn=1 will debuff as it can, but DPS takes Priority. DebuffAllOn=2 will debuff everything it can first, and if there is time to do some DPS between the Debuffing rotation it will try.

The AE routine gets check before the DPS routine in the Main loop, but once in the Combat routine, then AE is one of the first things checked in the combat rotation.

 

[timmy]

@ctaylor22 inc verbosity. i apologize. ><

the wiki tells me that AssistAt and MeleeDistance matter for casters/healers. i have my assistat set at 100 and i'd just like clarification that this is tied to CampRadius. if my campradius=100, will the assistat happen the moment(ish) the pulled mob is within 100? what sets this process in motion? a mob showing up on extended target? do the ambush tags fire before or after this assist check is made? if it's before, when exactly is it? a mob appearing on xtarget?

the info on meleedistance has kinda thrown me for a loop. it reads, "This distance applies to casters engaging with spells as well and will be checked even when MeleeOn=0." it's likely i'm misunderstanding this, but that help snippet is giving me the impression that the meleedistance is actually the range that casters/healers would use to start use their spells. confirm or deny? or is it only offensive spells and heals will be cast on any toon_needing_heal_01 in the campradius?

in one of your replies (the post is slightly dated) unearthed by my searching, you suggest that campradius should be lower than meleedistance. but in another reply you suggest increasing meleedistance in order to get casting toons to engage. is the first reply because of tanks/pulling/etc?

the primary practical/functional reasons i'm looking for clarification on this has to do w/ slows, malo, and dru debuffs. i'd like to cast malo/slow/drudebuff on the mob as soon as possible and not wait until it is in camp w/ the slacker melee. if the mob is in range, then it's time to start casting. i was under the impression that this was all based on campradius, but now the trepidation is creeping in that i've made a horrible mistake and i might need to rethink how i use spells in the ae section. stoked for the arrival of |single in ka12!

 

[ctaylor22]

@timmy Let me answer some of your questions with an explanation of how characters should react based on different settings.

First is how CampRadius and MeleeDistance relate to each other. CampRadius is checked to see if you need to move back to camp. This is checked in many different places.

Now MeleeDistance is checked in 2 different ways. First the first(outer) check, checks if the mob is within MeleeDistance of where you are standing. There is also a secondary check for if the MA is in CampRadius of you camp location and the mob is within CampRadius of the MA. If either of those conditions are true, then the outer loop is entered.

This is mainly for Melee characters and not casters, but as a caster it will get you into the combat loop.

Now When it comes to how AssistAt is checked. First you can set AssistAt to 100 and that will only get you past the first(Outer) check. The second check is done for each DPS entry, so if you have a DPS entry set to Like 75 and the mobs HPs is 90, you will make it past the First check, but fail the second. You have to enter the outer check before any combat is started that includes the ambush tagged DPS entries. The ambush tagged entries are triggered between the Outer and inner combat loops. Once in the inner combat loop you stay in that loop until the mob is dead. Now there are special situations where you can abort the combat routine, but for simplicity let's no go there.

CampRadius should always be less than MeleeDistance. MeleeDistance is the distance that the MA/Tank will use to engage the mob. If you set CampRadius equal to MeleeDistance, the MA/Tank will not run to engage the mob, but stand at his/her current location until the mob gets close enough to attack. If you want the MA/Tank to lunge/run to the mob on incoming, then set his MeleeRadius larger than anyone else in the group/camp. If the Tank is a caster, that is when the Tank will start casting.

Move your debuffs out of DPS/Combat by using the DebuffAll Tag and turn on DebuffAll. When using the Debuff Routine, If the mobs HPs is NOT at the AssistAt level then the debuff routine is entered. So if the mobs HPs is at 100% and enters MeleeDistance, then the caster will enter the Debuff routine. Make sure you setup DebuffAllOn to make Debuffing as the higher priority over DPS and debuffs will start ASAP.

I hope this helped.

 

[timmy]

that does help. thank you. honestly, i've never changed the default MeleeDistance (75) for any toon i have other than changing the MT's value to match the CampRadius based on a post about stopping the "lunging" behavior. i have no concerns w/ anything melee-related w/ any these settings as all my melee dps behaves and i'm normally controlling the tank. if i'm not, it's because i'm on the shm or dru's screen trying to figure out why they aren't doing what i want them to do. =p

if i have AssistAt set to 100, when does the toon run this check and get past the first(Outer) check? when the xtarget is first populated? i'm only looking for clarification because of using distance abilities. if i understand you correctly, once this check is made, the ambush tags will happen. makes perfect sense based on what you've written to me about ambush tags before. what about the AE routine? is that ever checked between these combat loops or only after we are in the inner loop and debuffall tags are done?

these are my shm debuffs:

DebuffAllOn=2
DPS1=Malaise|100|debuffall|malo|always|Cond1
DPS2=Turgur's Swarm|100|debuffall|slow|always|Cond2

this works flawlessly, other than perhaps it not firing as early as i want them to. the range on those abilities is 200 units, before focus effects, and i'd really like to see them fire at that distance. if i change the MeleeDistance value to 200, will they fire at that range?

my concern, which actually relates back to my initial post (!), is handling AE malo/slow/drudebuff. currently the use of ae debuffs in the ae section is sporadic. sometimes they fire appropriately, but more often than not, they are firing after some single target debuffing has been done. i'm guessing this might be related to the mobs in range being counted to determine if an AE should fire being hamstrung by staggered pulls. that is, if i pull 4, but 1 gets to camp first, then shm is going handle that one before the ae mob number check returns a multiple value that causes the ae to fire. i have my AERadius=100, vs my MeleeDistance=75, but it doesn't seem like the increased distance on the AE forces the ae debuffs to always be used first. again, i'm guessing this may be attributed to mobs not being tightly clumped when they are pulled into camp and start getting counted for the ae check.

for what it's worth, i'm not unhappy at all w/ how KA handles these things. my fumbling about like an 18-year-old virgin with $1000 in a whorehouse trying to understand exactly how and when things happen is only so i can force specific behavior regardless of circumstances. which, again, shouldn't be taken as a knock of how things are currently done. KA is a champ. after a day of throwing bales, i enjoy sitting down and drinking some water. KA is me sitting down and drinking some water. always enjoyed. always appreciated. but being able to make KA ae debuff consistently (pending my pulls not being the real culprit) would be like sitting down and enjoying some water in an air conditioned truck. i can live w/o it, but it sure does sound nice ~

 

[ctaylor22]

@timmy I will try and break down the flow used to get into both the inner and outer combat loops and what fires where. I think that might help you in understanding what is happening where and when.

I am going to try and keep this as brief as I can. I am going to use a shaman as my example and I will have DPSOn=1 and MeleeOn=0 and DebuffAllOn=2 and MeleeDistance=100.

Lets start at the CheckForCombat routine. This routine is used to check for several condition to see if any of the DPS routines need to be called including the combat routine.

Now one of the first things that this routine does is, try and get a count of mobs within MeleeDistance. If I don't have a count and I don't have any auto hater Xtarget entries populated, then we exit this routine back to the mainloop.

If we have a count or Xtargets then we need to assist off the MA and get our DSP Target(MyTargetID).

Next we enter the combat routine.

This is where things get stacked up. Here is the flow:

First you have to get past the Outer Check. Here is the code for the check:

        /if (${Spawn[${MyTargetID}].Type.NotEqual[Corpse]} && ${Spawn[${MyTargetID}].PctHPs}<=${AssistAt} && (${Spawn[${MyTargetID}].Distance}<${CombatRadius} || (${Math.Distance[${CampYLoc},${CampXLoc}:${Spawn[=${MainAssist}].Y},${Spawn[=${MainAssist}].X}]}<=${CombatRadius} && ${Math.Distance[${Target.Y},${Target.X}:${Spawn[=${MainAssist}].Y},${Spawn[=${MainAssist}].X}]}<=${CampRadius}))) {

Basically this is just checking that you have a valid DPS target and the mob is ready for you to start attacking. Notice ${CombatRadius} this is important.
For this explanation CombatRadius is interchangeable with MeleeDistance.

Outer Check
face the mob.
send in pets.
do ambush attacks
Inner Loop
get position on mob(Melee only)
check AE's
check Aggro
check if pet attacking(Sickum Fido)
check heals
check cures(If you have a lot of characters to check, this can slow things down a bit)
check debuffs
check DPS entries.(this is where pure casters go to do DPS)
check mana status
and finally if I am melee turn on attack.
If mob is dead exit Inner Loop
repeat Inner Loop.
close Outer Check

Now what happens if the Outer Check fails? Well I am glad you asked. There are 2 additional checks done.

The next thing that is checked:
can I send in my pet(based on PetAssistAt and mobs HP's) AND
is target within CombatRadius OR is the MA within CombatRadius and the mob within CampRadius of the MA.
if you pass that check then send in your pet(Sickum Fido)

and if the above check fails than the following checks are done.
if I am the mezzer, lets go check mezzes.
if DebuffAllOn==2 then check debuffs.(this check is dependent on the Target being in CampRadius distance of the MA) so the mob has to be near(CampRadius) the MA.
check ambush entries

End of Combat Routine

So as the Debuffer with DebuffAllOn you can play around with your CampRadius and MeleeDistance to fine tune things. But be warned, you will get attacked and knocked farther and farther away from your camp location, so you will need to tweak them a bit.

Thanks for the kind words and I hope this help again.