I kinda don't like spell batching

[Ziryus-doomhammer (Ziryus)]

Where the spell lies in a batch is of no consequence. Yes, they are executed in sequence, but the conditions under which they execute are always the conditions at the start of the batch. Then all the plussed and minuses are tallied and you end up with the conditions at batch end.

A good player understands spell batching and plays the odds - hoping at times to get a counter to land in the same batch as what they try to counter. It is odds playing - like a good poker player. To ignore the fact that batching is going on is to give up an edge.

A frost mage hopes to pull off a shatter combo - because they do more damage. But if their spells land in different batches, that’s the breaks.

Whether two spells fall into the same batch of utmost important for spell batching, as you noted it’s what makes a lot of things work including shatter combos.

And that is what you as a player can’t control, can you try to game the odds a little? Can you completely control them, no. Which is why two spells can go off say 100 MS apart and not always have the same results.

[Afflextion-thaurissan (Afflextion)]

I have 5Mbps internet in 2019 in Australia…

[Eaglesgift-ravenholdt (Eaglesgift)]

Why do you not understand. I do not need to CONTROL which spells fall into the same batch. I only need to play the odds and hope they do. That gives an edge that a brain dead player would overlook. Nobody ever claimed they could make shatter combos work everytime. But if it happens just 50% or 20% or 10% of the time - there is advantage.

[Afflextion-thaurissan (Afflextion)]

you could probably make a batch rate add-on tbh… you only have to query the server at logon to know when a batch is, then it’s the same interval after that

[Ziryus-doomhammer (Ziryus)]

Why do you not understand. I do not need to CONTROL which spells fall into the same batch. I only need to play the odds and hope they do. That gives an edge that a brain dead player would overlook. Nobody ever claimed they could make shatter combos work everytime. But if it happens just 50% or 20% or 10% of the time - there is advantage.

/shrug if it makes you feel better to pretend that RNG is skill more power to you. It’s more knowledge, just like knowing how to increase your crit rate is knowledge. However actually getting a crit is not skill.

[Eaglesgift-ravenholdt (Eaglesgift)]

Can’t say, but seems it would be stilted game play.

A good frost mage uses an instant cast right after a timed cast into a frozen target - fishing for a combo. A brain dead mage sees a frozen target and throws one frost bolt after another - no chance ever to get a combo.

[Ziryus-doomhammer (Ziryus)]

you could probably make a batch rate add-on tbh… you only have to query the server at logon to know when a batch is, then it’s the same interval after that

Now if blizzard would actually provide a spell batch window ticker that the scripting API could use that would be interesting and move it a lot more into the realm of skill.

[Afflextion-thaurissan (Afflextion)]

it was more luck than skill in vanilla with low net speed now that latency is lower than the batching window it’s easier to manipulate and play with, watching streamer duels they are cc’ing each other alot, pally can hoj a charge, etc…

[Eaglesgift-ravenholdt (Eaglesgift)]

Do you think good poker players lack skill. It is not all luck you know. Apparent good luck can be made with skillful decisions.

[Ziryus-doomhammer (Ziryus)]

It can to a certain degree.

[Eaglesgift-ravenholdt (Eaglesgift)]

If I get more crits than you because I understand the mechanic and I fish for combos and you do not, you don’t understand that my play is more skillful than yours?

[May-stormscale (May)]

Except you are factually wrong with everything you said. As confirmed by Kevin (actual classic dev). Not to mention that on the beta even interrupting early is causing wierd behaviour.

If you interrupt a spell within the time of the spell cast it should always execute regardless of spell batching or anything else and this historically was the behaviour. The backend was coded to enforce this notion as well.

So your misguided opinion and nonsensical feelcraft that if “a spell is 85-90% done it is through” is not in line with the reality of the actual game design and true gameplay in any iteration of the game.

actually I’m certain that the cast gets through and the kick does. The spell school gets kicked but the cast is through.
That’s what happened.

[Ziryus-doomhammer (Ziryus)]

If I get more crits than you because I understand the mechanic and I fish for combos and you do not, you don’t understand that my play is more skillful than yours?

Crit is literally broken down to a % chance to crit no matter how hard you hit the attack button it doesn’t change what that percent is, if you are talking about using abilities that increase crit sure. But then that’s different than something like where your spells fall in batches as you control when you use abilities.

[Ziryus-doomhammer (Ziryus)]

Except you are factually wrong with everything you said. As confirmed by Kevin (actual classic dev). Not to mention that on the beta even interrupting early is causing wierd behaviour.

If you interrupt a spell within the time of the spell cast it should always execute regardless of spell batching or anything else and this historically was the behaviour. The backend was coded to enforce this notion as well.

So your misguided opinion and nonsensical feelcraft that if “a spell is 85-90% done it is through” is not in line with the reality of the actual game design and true gameplay in any iteration of the game.

actually I’m certain that the cast gets through and the kick does. The spell school gets kicked but the cast is through.
That’s what happened.

Yep, just like how two people can CC each other. It’s pretty stupid.

[Palaceknight-sargeras (Palaceknight)]

actually I’m certain that the cast gets through and the kick does. The spell school gets kicked but the cast is through.
That’s what happened.

Yep, just like how two people can CC each other. It’s pretty stupid

This is not the normal behaviour for interrupts and not how it was in vanilla. Very rarely would you ever experience this behaviour and it was not because of spell batching.

Interrupts where explicitly coded to over ride the spell going through as long as it was executed properly within the cast time. The backend was explicitly coded to over ride this spell batching behaviour.

Interrupts where very crisp in Vanilla and this has even been confirmed by Kevin a man who actually developed classic and knows what he is talking about vs your abritary notion that all spells that have executed to 85-90% being almost guaranteed to execute due to spell bathing. This is simply false.

This behaviour was super rare in vanilla and not due to spell batching. It was infact a bug if anything vs intended behaviour.

[Ziryus-doomhammer (Ziryus)]

This is not the normal behaviour for interrupts and not how it was in vanilla. Very rarely would you ever experience this behaviour and it was not because of spell batching.

I’m very certain they haven’t gotten spell batching right in classic. Given they are using the retail batching system but modified to try to emulate the 400MS window. It’s just very hard to prove especially as we have no visibility to the actual batching.

But I agree that things seem to be stacking up in the same batch more often than they should.

[May-stormscale (May)]

@Palaceknight-sargeras

Interrupts where very crisp in Vanilla and this has even been confirmed by Kevin a man who actually developed classic and knows what he is talking about vs your abritary notion that all spells that have executed to 85-90% being almost guaranteed to execute due to spell bathing. This is simply false.

Kicking in the 90% range was risky even back in wrath when the same happened. In the spell batching thread itself blizzard confirmed behavior that says that the spell-school should’t even get kicked:

@Kaivax

It was relatively common in the original game to see a warrior Pummel a mage who simultaneously and successfully Polymorphed the warrior. The mage suffered Pummel damage but no spell-school lock, because the mage didn’t get interrupted. This could seem paradoxical, but it could happen because the Pummel and Polymorph were both in the same batch, and were both valid actions at the start of the batch. For the most part, things like that don’t happen in modern WoW, but they still can. We’ve made improvements to batch frequency, and the game is much more responsive than it used to be. Still, if you manage to get both a Pummel and a Polymorph into a tiny processing window in modern WoW, you’ll experience the same behavior as in original WoW.

Idk what your problem is. You don’t like it?
Cool.

And if it is really bugged and blizzard was wrong, they will certainly have checked it by now, you’re not the first to claim that its off or whatever.

[Palaceknight-sargeras (Palaceknight)]

Idk what your problem is. You don’t like it?
Cool.

I really do not have a problem but you just directly responded to me something that was subjective and false and I simply pointed that out.

I explicitly stated that I am all for spell batching, however the current iteration on the beta is not accurate nor true to how it was in Vanilla and needs to be refined.

And if it is really bugged and blizzard was wrong, they will certainly have checked it by now, you’re not the first to claim that its off or whatever.

I actually wouldn’t be surprised if they are actively looking into this issue, considering we are still in the beta phase and that is the ultimate purpose. Just because they haven’t actively said anything about it recently does not mean it is not actively being tested and refined on their end.

I am also going to trust an actual dev that played a big part in the actual code base of the original game i.e., vanilla up to WoTLK. Over a CM subjectively talking about the game 15 years later.

I already stated that this behavior was seen, however the notion of it being “relatively common” is subjective and false. These cross cc events were not as guaranteed and common as they currently are on the beta.

Interrupts also followed a separate paradigm to begin with from a CODE perspective. The notion you claimed about interrupting a spell at 85-90% almost guaranteed to go off due to spell batching is just factually wrong.

I never once stated I want spell batching removed, or that I dislike it. I in fact am all for it, however this wonky iteration simply needs to be refined to be a true representation. The current iteration might as well be a completely new implementation that the game has never seen before.

Edit:
Also lets call a spade a spade, your initial passive aggressive response towards me was simply a thinly veiled biased response because as a caster main you felt threatened by the notion of interrupts being actually tuned and balanced to their original design as that would directly impact your personal game-play perspective in a negative manner.

[Galdor-maelstrom (Galdor)]

I explicitly stated that I am all for spell batching, however the current iteration on the beta is not accurate nor true to how it was in Vanilla and needs to be refined.

And how do you know this? Blizzard would probably have said something by now if it wasn’t functioning properly.

Is this another “feeling” based on 15 year old memory? What ms do you think the batches are set to in the Classic beta?

[May-stormscale (May)]

Also lets call a spade a spade, your initial passive aggressive response towards me was simply a thinly veiled biased response because as a caster main you felt threatened by the notion of interrupts being actually tuned and balanced to their original design as that would directly impact your personal game-play perspective in a negative manner.

Getting personal so quickly?

I simply know, as I played the game A LOT from classic to wrath (and pvp only), that kicks often DON’T get through when you kick late. Making the 0,5 second wl pet recast more of a read than a reaction, cause of the behavior stated above.

Doesn’t mean that you’re wrong, but it was common for late kicks to not get through. Maybe it is too much on the beta, Idk. But you make it seem like 90% cast time kicks almost always went through, while they certainly didn’t.

This is about authenticity not personal preference.