Overview
This WA try to mimic normal queuing by freezing your client until the spell should have finished casting. It will only do that when your target have between 1 and 3 spark vulnerability.
Usage
You need to use a macro to use this WA:
#showtooltip
/run ABarrFakeQueue()
/cast Arcane Barrage
You can configure the window and the offset in custom options.
The window is similar to the spell queue window, with the default value of 150 ms, it will fake queue at the last 150 ms of your cast. It is similar to the SpellQueueWindow CVar.
The offset allow you to change how aggressive it will assume that the cast have ended. When you cast a spell the game give us an expected end time, allowing us to render the cast bar, it's not entirely accurate, latency can affect it. You can change that value to cast barrage sooner and reduce the gap between your casted spell and barrage or increase it if it's still queuing your spell or fail to cast after the last.
Why is that WA needed?
This WA try to solve a common problem with radiant spark. Rather than trying to explain it here, you can find an explanation by Porom here: https://www.wowhead.com/guide/classes/mage/arcane/faq#radiant-spark
You can find the dps difference between queuing and various pause time on this sim: https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/qtLmftSQxJWH2ZjGZWBNnq
A simple /cqs isn't enough to fix the problem, also this WA can conditionally allow you to queue or not depending on spark vulnerability stack.
How does this work?
When you press the macro, if you are currently casting arcane blast or arcane surge and are in the last x seconds defined by the window settings it will pause your client until the estimated end of cast time. It will then use the /cast which should be used immediately since we are supposed to be done casting. The final part of that macro is just like /cqs but conditional to only be used when we are in a situation when we need to block queuing, it gives us a protection in case the cast is currently not over and barrage have been queued.
Limitation
If you have problem with your computer clock this WA will not work correctly. It's also possible for other addons to break this WA functionality, but as far as I know no popular addon do that.
Alternative
- https://wago.io/ABarrAntiQueue: A similar WA that instead of trying to mimic queuing barrage, stop your barrage key from being pressed. It's less annoying as you don't see your game freezing but as it stop queuing, you need to press your spell a bit more frequently to have a small gap.
/castsequence Mana Divining Stone, Arcane Barrage: This is a no external code alternative, that work by using another ogcd item or spell before barrage in this example we are using Mana Divining Stone. For it to work, you have to press this macro two times. It also doesn't automatically stop queuing or not depending on situation, so you might need a normal barrage bind if you also want to use a queued barrage. I wouldn't recommend it unless you don't want to use external code or dislike the working of this aura and can't use the anti queue aura.