mrchris wrote:Ok, heres a question, what is linking?
I can deduce chain casting as being simply casting the same spell over and over, but dont know what is mean't by linking.
Any help greatly appreciated.
Those two terms are related due to gameplay reasons.
As stated in the previous posts, some spells need you to form a link to be truly effective, typically offensive and deffensive afflictions. When casting afflictions there are several degrees of "efficiency":
* Your incantation fails: failure depends on your level and the level of the spell you are using. A way to reduce the failure rate is to overcredit spells (use more credit stanzas than required) or use lower level spells. For example, iirc, a lvl 185 healer will fail less with a double lvl 100 heal than a single lvl 200 spell. This is the % you'll see when setting up your action.
* Your incantation is broken: typically when the target is attacking you, it will affect your chaces of casting due to "interrupts". To increase your chances, use the "Concetration skill"
* You cast successfully, but the target resists your spell (you'll see a white/gray bubble around the target and an annoying sound
). This takes into account your skill level and the mob resist to that spell. It is part of the lore to know which mobs resist/are immune to what spells
* You cast successfully and your spell affects the target, but with instantaneous effects (with 1-2 secs of intertia) but you can't really see the "bubble" on top of your head. You do see some effects (visual and FX) on the target. The common term is "the spell lands". "Lands" is used as a generic term to refer to a spell (link based or not) that is not resisted.
* You cast successfully and your spell affects the target, and you form a "link", which duration depends again on the levels: periodically, the target will try to break it, taking into account your level and the target's level.
The link based spell will be considered as a successful action if at least it "lands", thus getting a proportional share of the XP according to the actions you have performed.
In this sense, in order to get XP you need to make sure that the spell lands. Since the time it takes to make sure your spell lands is greater than the minimum inter-cast time by "chain-casting" spells you increase the chances of at least "landing" thus getting XP.
Although (and most noticeable at high levels) there are slightly-but-not-reliable visual clues to know if the spell will land or not (this is my own theory), with the short duration of kills, chaincasting is a common technique to improve your levelling rate, at least at lower levels, when your chance of landing is low.
The main problem is that chaincasting means that the second cast is considered an action, and it may break a perfectly good link. At higher levels, chaincasting becomes less needed, and with average kill durations, you may make sure the spell did not link before casting again. Yet, you will miss xp a few times.
Hope this helps,
Anissa
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