WoW IRC Dev Chat

[Watto44]

Eliminating Decursive by breaking some of its functionality is infeasible.

Decursive does several things:
1) Scan party members for debuffs
2) Decide which curing spell to cast on which party member
3) Cast the spell on the party member

Number 1 can't be disabled or the built-in target/party/raid interfaces won't be able to show you buffs and debuffs.

Number 2 can't be disabled because it is just if/then statements and basic logic. If party member 2 has a magic debuff then select Dispel Magic, etc.

Disabling number 3 would prevent all AddOns and macros from casting spells. Then the only way to cast spells would be from the spellbook and built-in action bars.
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That's good to know. My tekaknowlegicamal knowhows isn't that great.

Lissa: You're right, I never have. Thanks for the info. Dispelling is an issue all caster classes have to deal with to a greater or lesser degree. Unfortunately, warlocks get the shaft and get hurt most by dispells, and thus most by decursive. I should have thought of this, but my experience of warlocks is limited to reading 'Warlock's Shadow Bolt crits you for....ahh, who cares, your dead either way'. :D Consider my distaste extended to decursive. B)

What is your complaint with these mods? All they are doing is taking information already displayed to you and making it more visible. They are just suped-up versions of a mod that increases the font size of your combat log, in my opinion. And they are very helpful for people with bad vision or disabilities that prevent them from reading the scrolling combat log on the fly.
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Good point about those with visual disabilities. However, I still don't like them. I think - unless you're using them to compensate for a visual difficulties - everyone who uses them should try playing without them for one day of pvp. The changes to your game experience and performance are noticable. I for one found that a degree of sloppiness entered my game: I missed a couple of perception calls (and payed for it: mage's pyroblast crits you for...lots) and waisted countless charges.

While the effects of spellalert are a little subtle, they are definately noticable. The fact of the matter is that, even resized and organised, you're going to miss things in the combat log. You can't have your eyes glued to it constantly and things are going to slip by. (And before anyone asks, I do know you can mod up your combat log to clarify targets and remove the spam.) Thinking about it, with Lissa's coments in mind, spellalert fulfills a similar function to decursive: allows for efficient and precise gameplay that you cannot really achieve without it. You can reach a level of efficiency and precision without it, even a close level, but you cannot match it.

However, it's probably more a personal thing than anything else. I feel that spellalert changes game experience too much, but other's will probably disagree. :D