Greetings

As I work to try and be a better mudder, I work to identify my
shortcomings and eliminate them as best I can. I work on my gear, my exp, my
knowledge of the mud as a whole. I try to watch a little less TV when leading
as I do when tanking. While I have long list of things that I still work on, I
have identified one area where I currently just have to suck.

While I certainly don't fully understand how the mechanics of the 'between
hearbeat' crap that goes in on combat actually works, I can see that there are
multiple meta checks and possible spell completion timings. Between this
unreliable 'sub-tick' and my intrinsic latency, it is counterproductive to try
and begin a spell in the same round as I completed one.

Previously this was simply a thing to be accepted. Now, as I actually
want to try and be considered something other than a fill-in slot, this is an
area where i will always lose to someone with a physically closer connection.
Given any run where we are in for more than 1 blast, I will be 1 round slower
on all subsequent spells for purely geographical reasons. When most mages will
reliably knock a blast out in 2 rounds, that is 2 for some, 3 for others. This
very very quickly becomes a HUGE differential in damage.

Granted, the large majority of people do not work to time their blasts to
do this, those that really wanna excel do. I would like to excel. In just
about every other area I have a route to do so. This mechanic however is one I
am completely unable to address.

I would propose there be some type of command queue, very limited in
nature and scope, that would help address this divide in effectiveness.
Perhaps a switch on a spell like cast 'acid blast' -keepfrackingdoingit. I
would not propose being able to queue different spells, or changing spell
characteristics in between, as that would provide too much cruise control, but
perhaps in this very limited scope it would be viable.

Duty, Honor, Gold
Darian