Comments on: It’s so hard to walk and chew gum…

By: Dblade

Dblade — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:09:58 +0000

It’s mostly to prevent glass cannons from kiting, often ranged attack classes like ranger in FFXI suffer the same penalty. Also it balances out the ability for those classes usually to escape aoe range, and makes positioning important.

There are a lot of conventions, my most hated is dual wield. It’s not like ambidexterity is a common trait or you can pickup easy, and I remember some games using offhand penalties to make it more realistic.

By: Cor

Cor — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:11:02 +0000

I play a witch hunter in WAR, which is not really a caster but still I like use the pistol shot on the run. RvR fight would really suck if I had to stand still in order to use the gun.

By: Tolthir

Tolthir — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 07:29:31 +0000

Vanguard lets casters move, and it makes a huge difference. As another poster mentioned, movement is slowed while casting, which limits the ability to kite.

It’s too bad Vanguard doesn’t get more attention, because it has some really nice features.

By: Wolfshead

Wolfshead — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 04:44:38 +0000

Great point! I too have long wondered about why this rule exists. At least in WoW most casters have at least one insta-cast spell that they can cast while moving.

By: Psynister

Psynister — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:14:24 +0000

We call those people “Hunters”…

By: We Fly Spitfires

We Fly Spitfires — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:34:03 +0000

I think it was originally designed to stop players from just kiting mobs and nuking them as they run without ever being attacked. I guess the convention stuck. Still, I could imagine caster classes being incredibly overpowered if they could cast whilst they run. Imagine being a melee class trying to cast someone running away and hurling fireballs at you! Ouch.

By: spinks

spinks — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:28:32 +0000

Ahah, that’ll be where I’ve seen casting on the move recently. On my little dirge in EQ2. Thanks for helping clear that up

By: JC

JC — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:21:22 +0000

I messed up in prior post — should read bards could always move while doing the melee combat arts, not “casting moves.” Sorry.

By: JC

JC — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:19:47 +0000

As was mentioned — you can cast while moving in Vanguard, you just move at a walk while doing so. Makes it so you can kite at a spellcaster, not just as a ranger, so it works pretty well.

In EQ2 the 2 bard classes are “hybrid” melee/casters and for a long time it was kinda weird. You could always moves while doing the casting moves, but with the spells you could move while casting some, but not others. There were enough complaints made that moving while casting was rather recently enabled for all the bard spells as well. But they can’t move while using their special bow attacks — those get interrupted by movement. Go figure.

For all the other EQ2 classes any spell that doesn’t have a duration was recently enabled to be cast on the move. Those spells are buffs and it was always a pain after a wipe to have to stand around the respawn point buffing, so now you can cast them while on the run back to where you wiped. That’s kinda nice.

You still can’t cast any combat or heal spells while moving on any class other than a bard, though

By: Green Armadillo

Green Armadillo — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:10:52 +0000

The kiting problem isn’t limited to tabletop strategy games. During the TBC beta, a bug accidentally took the channeling requirement off of Arcane Missles, effectively making the spell a DOT. Until the bug was fixed, mages could solo anyone and anything by casting Slow on them and strafing away, spamming full damage missiles.

Blizzard has actually taken a crack at a more balanced form of this in the Wrath era Arcane tree. You can cast Arcane Barrage on the run, but it only does full damage when you’ve got Arcane blast stacks. I’ve found it much more fun than the other mage specs.