Please help - New to tanking with DPS

[knopstr]

Hachoo and Toned....

I spent most of my time last night rebuilding my macros, cleaning up UI/Bt4 things and I changed my talents to be more in line with Hachoo's tank. I found that putting points as suggested by Hachoo into Bladed armor and toughness that I gained close to an additional 350-400 AP. I'm 1 bar from 72 so I'll be hitting that tonight. I'm finding that I don't miss unholy blight with the shamans backing me up.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-t...r&n=Laydnblack

Here's where I need help. I re-read the entire thread from Hachoo entitled "Hell yes". In it and the previous post from Toned, I think that a single button tanking and dps approach is what will work best for me.
I'm old, lazy, and usually have had a couple of glasses of vino when I'm playing.

My 1st step was to create a tanking macro. I'm just starting out, so I stuck with something easy like the following;

/castsequence Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence, Blood Boil, Death Strike

I bound this to the #1 key

I then created a /castrandom dps macro like the following (from Fur's original thread);

"Mine" /castrandom Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst, Flame Shock

********************

"Fur's" /castrandom [target=focustarget] Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst, Flame Shock


If you'll notice, mine has no "target". I use the FTL approach to boxing so I'm a bit uncertain as to what I actually need to put. I noticed right away that when I targeted something and had my tank begin her tanking macro that her spells rotated as normal and that the shamans didn't cast anything. More than likely due to the fact that I didn't give them a "target".

If I don't use "focus" what do I need to put in place in order for the shamans to actually begin firing off spells as the tank begins her sequence as both are bound to the #1 key? I don't know the identifier to place in the macro for them to target what the tank is targeting. I see in Toned's reply the following; Looks like one of these is what I'm looking for. Is the syntax correct?

That you can mash while dpsing /cast [target=focustargettarget] or /cast [TankName-targettarget] or /cast [Target=Targettarget]

I bound several F# keys to handle healing for each shaman to tank, themselves, and next char in line. I feel like my healing should be ok and I can always manually /cast something should I need to. Things are finally starting to fall into place.

Please help where you can after reading my ramblings. Please be specific with examples as there are probably others who struggle with the simple details as well. Thanks as always.

[Hachoo]

I don't use FTL (never needed it) but don't you have to put the huge FTL code at the beginning of your shaman DPS macro for it to work? You know the one that goes something like:

/assist [target=ToonA,mod:ctrl,mod:alt][target=ToonB,mod:alt,nomod:ctrl] etc etc etc

? That is what will tell your shamans what to target. Otherwise if your shaman have no focus and no target you have to tell them to focus or target something before you can tell them who to attack

[puppychow]

you can do a /assist <nameofyourDKtank> at the beginning of your DPS macro and they will assist him. The advantage of a FTL system is that you can swap mains quickly (just by changing to a new window) and you can use your focus for assigning a "burst" target or CC target, neither is necessary for heroics. If you want to arena a lot then FTL is very good, since you can assign focus to their healer, have everyone target someone else, and then quickly swap DPS targets without the other team "knowing" until its too late.

If all you want to run are heroics, then there is no reason to do FTL (imo), just makes everything more complex and there are no situations in which you are going to have your tank die and your team keep going (in clutch times when boss is almost dead and DK dies, you can still just keep boss targeted with your dead DK and spam attack keys and hope boss dies before team does). Stick with your tank having his tanking macros, then all your DPS macros would be something like:

/assist focus OR /assist nameofDK
/castrandom etc, etc,etc

You can set focus to your tank if you ever want to have multiple tanks swap in and out, or you can just hardcode the name - doesn't really make much of a difference imo. Either way will work when you are solo too, although you will get minor UI errors that focus is empty or nameofDK is not in party.

Remember Jamba has stuff to dealing with name assignments in its macros and auto master switch when focuses are set, its powerful stuff and can be used with this. I have a prot pally and a DK tank and I swap betweem them all the time, all my DPS macros are exactly the same and I just have a single macro that assigns focus and Jamba takes care of the rest.

[knopstr]

I have the FTL system in place because I kind of act as the guild enforcer when people are getting ganked. I had it set up for 5 shamans...now I only use the 4. After I came to the forums a couple of months back it began to pique my interest on how to run instances so I gave up a shaman and picked up a DK....which is why I'm so far behind in understanding how to tank and make tank + dps rotations work at the same time.

Yes, the huge code is in place for me using BindPad addon and "hidden" keys. The advantage being that I can just drag LB to the #2 key and they will all fire LB.

Thanks again to all who reply.

[Dorffo]

assist macro:

/assist [target=dorffo,help,nodead];[target=cyraani,help,nodead];[target=cyraanii,help,nodead];[target=cyraanie,help,nodead];[target=cyraanei,help,nodead];[target=player]

follow macro: (as you can see - used to run a focus based setup, that's commented out at the moment)

/target [target=dorffo,help,nodead];[target=cyraani,help,nodead];[target=cyraanii,help,nodead];[target=cyraanie,help,nodead];[target=cyraanei,help,nodead];[target=dorffo]
#/focus target
#/assist focus
/follow 
/run SetView(5);SetView(5)

trash spam:

#showtooltip lava burst
/use [combat] 13
/use [combat] 14
/cast [combat] Elemental Mastery
/castrandom Lightning Bolt,Chain Lightning	#comment this line out for bosses if needed
/cast lightning bolt

spam dps key: (calls my assist macro with the first click, then the lightning bolt macro in the 2nd)

#showtooltip Lava Burst
/click MultiBarLeftButton9
/cast [mod] flame shock
/click MultiBarLeftButton10

Sham lesser healing wave macro:

#showtooltip
/cast [mod,target=focustargettarget,help,nodead,exists] lesser healing wave;[target=focustarget,help,nodead,exists] lesser healing wave;[target=focus,help,nodead,exists] lesser healing wave;

pali spam key (mapped to dps spam key):

/startattack
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast [mod] judgement of wisdom
/castrandom [combat] Hammer of Wrath, Hammer of the Righteous, Shield of Righteousness,exorcism,judgement of wisdom
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/run UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

pali pull / concescrate key:

#showtooltip
/startattack
/cast [mod:alt] Avenger's shield;
/castsequence reset=8 Holy Shield,consecration,
/castrandom judgement of light,
/script SetRaidTarget("target",8 )

[knopstr]

Awesome. Thank you Dorffo...

Concise, clear and full of useful examples.

[Toned]

I bound this to the #1 key

I then created a /castrandom dps macro like the following (from Fur's original thread);

"Mine" /castrandom Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst, Flame Shock

********************

"Fur's" /castrandom [target=focustarget] Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst, Flame Shock

This saddens me you are nerfing your own dps.
For the FTL setup and your dps macro you need to add a /click SomeRandomButton# which contains a macro to do your targeting for you, or you need to at the top of the macro:

/target [nomod,target=Toon1], [mod:ctrl, mod:alt, mod:shift, target=Toon2] etc... 
/castrandom [target=targettarget] Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst, Flame Shock
/taragetlasttarget

Also I'm assuming you are using hidden buttons. Your /castrandom Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst, Flame Shock should be on each shaman on whatever slot you have it in. Then what I put should be on your hidden button.

[pinotnoir]

Just something to add. Putting your tank spam macro with your dps spam macro is the way to go. I agree what the others have said. Right now I am working on leveling my dk's They are 74 and I have 4 of them with 1 priest. My tank is speced frost and this is the macro I use. The macro is long so I needed to download macaroon. I use macaroon on my other dk's so I have enough space for their cast sequence. I have two tank macros. One macro is for single target and the other is for aoe.

Single Target Macro:

/run SetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX","0")
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Rune Strike
/cast Blood Fury
/run SetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX","1")
/startattack
/follow Focus
/castsequence [target=focustarget] reset=nocombat Plague Strike, Icy Touch, Blood Strike, Blood Strike, Obliterate, Plague Strike, Icy Touch, Obliterate, Obliterate, Frost Strike,

AOE Tank Macro:

/run SetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX","0")
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Rune Strike
/cast Blood Fury
/run SetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX","1")
/follow focus
/startattack
/castsequence [target=focustarget] reset=nocombat Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence, Howling Blast, Blood Boil, Frost Strike, Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence, Howling Blast, Blood Boil, Frost Strike

I use focus so it will be diferent than FTL setup. The good thing about macaroon is my dps DK's have their dps macro bound to key 2 and key 3. My tanks Single Target Macro is key 2. My aoe tank macro is key 3. Because I have both key 2 and 3 bound to the One DPS macro it never screws up my sequence if I am shifting from AOE tanking to Single Target Tanking. My advice to you is download macaroon and use it if you need long macros. If you have it great. I chose frost as my tank because my other dk's cover the blood aura and unholy aura. I have all the group buffs each spec dk can offer. The frost tank is very nice right now adding all the special abilities buffs and resist aura to the group. Dk's have many tank options so choose what suits your needs. Goodluck.