There are many ways to increase your dps as a caster:
- Gear -> Spell damage, Spell hit, Spell Crit
- Talents
- Player Skill -> Spell sequences, reaction time, ability in situational encounters
However, as you progress as a DPS caster class, there starts to become a ceiling to your dps, something beyond the control of the 3 points above. That limiting factor is server lag created between your connection and the server which can be anywhere between 0.1 seconds to a full second of lost dps per spell!
1 second doesn’t sound like much, but lets break it down in an example boss encounter:
In Gruul’s Lair DPS is vital due to the incrementing grow stages which make Gruul hit harder on your tank. There becomes a limit to the amount of punishment your tank and healers can handle before it is a sure wipe.
Here you are with your fireball spell that takes 3 seconds to cast (with talents of course) shooting away trying to take him down (as well as top the damage meters) in this 10 minute encounter. So if you could chain cast your fireball spell for that whole duration you should be able to cast 200 fireballs, well not with server lag. This will bring the amount of fireballs you can cast down to 150! that is a 25% drop in your overall dps the entire encounter.
So how do you overcome server lag? That is what I’m going to share with you.
There is an add-on called Quartz (<- download link) which measures the amount of latency you are experiencing from the server and shows this lag on your own casting bar. The red area on the casting bar (shown below) is the time in which you could interrupt casting your spell (which is the true end of your spell according to the server) and begin casting the next spell right away.
When the bar reaches the red area, cast your next fireball (or desired spell). In order to do this though you will need to make a quick macro on each of your spells you are planning to do this with.
To make a macro type “/macro” and then click “new”, pick a picture to correspond with your spell, then in the command area type “/stopcasting” on the first line, on the second line type “/cast (your spell here)”
It should look like this:
Take the time and set up this macro, it may take a little getting used to at first. Make sure you don’t cast your next spell too soon before the red area or your whole spell will be interrupted.
Let me know how much this has increased your dps, your feedback is great to hear.
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thanks for the info, are you sure this isn’t against the TOS tho?
thanks for your comment DreadG, and to answer your question, according to a blizzard blue post on the forums, http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=388011140&sid=1&pageNo=1 they state it is perfectly legal to use this addon.