Reworking all my macros and assist completely

[magwo]

Edit: I posted this in the pvp forum because I want to discuss pvp friendly assist/macro models.

Since I've been using focus for assist, and am now seeing the immense benefits in arena (and WOTLK hex) being able to use focus for other purposes, I am forced to rewrite all my macros.

I can't seem to find an assist/macro model that does it all. What do you recommend?
Everything I look at is either very complex or messy, or does not meet all requirements.


Assist by always having master as target: Has weird flaws on master when you switch targets quickly and press buttons quickly, aswell as weird effects when having other friendlies targeted.
Assist by focus: Well obviously you lose the great focus utility.
Assist by having a long assist list in every single macro: Does not meet the switch-master-quickly requirement.
Assist by using pages: Seems to require different macros for master and slaves, so limited to the 12 action buttons?
Assist by using party assignment: Not reliable.

Anything else? What is Ellay and others using?

[magwo]

Actually, I'm playing with the pages model.. and I'm getting some weird behaviour.
When I switch to page 3, it displays the buttons on one of my multi action bars that are already displaying on another bar.

I was not expecting this at all. Is this normal, or is some addon messing with me?

I expected the pages to be completely different, empty bars.


Edit: Bartender3 fixed this situation - I am now working on the best assist model ever!

[Toned]

Actually, I'm playing with the pages model.. and I'm getting some weird behaviour.
When I switch to page 3, it displays the buttons on one of my multi action bars that are already displaying on another bar.

I was not expecting this at all. Is this normal, or is some addon messing with me?

I expected the pages to be completely different, empty bars.


Edit: Bartender3 fixed this situation - I am now working on the best assist model ever!To answer your reason that they had buttons. Is because bottom left action bar, bottom right, and the right 2 action bars come from pages 2,3,4,5 leaving page 1 as your primary bar and page 6 as an empty page. Is there a page 6 lol ?? I think there's only 5 I'm at work but this is the reasoning.

[magwo]

Yeah, it just seems weird to me that they share actionbars.. I would assume most user will want the pages in -addition- to the extra bars.
Anyway.. it's working reasonably now.. the big problem right now is fitting my healing macros within 255 characters:




/cast
[bar:1, target=Boohm-target, nodead, help][bar:1, target=Boohm-targettarget, nodead, help]
[bar:2, target=Bhoom-target, nodead, help][bar:2, target=Bhoom-targettarget, nodead, help]
[bar:3, target=Bhoohm-target, nodead, help][bar:3, target=Bhoohm-targettarget, nodead, help]
[bar:4, target=Boomh-target, nodead, help][bar:4, target=Boomh-targettarget, nodead, help]
[] Lesser Healing Wave

[BobGnarly]

I like the "party1" targeting system as long as you don't have to worry about splitting groups (bgs). Basically all your macros look like:

/cast [harm] [target=party1target] somespell

The first "harm" allows me to manually target if I want (I use this for things like poly in pve before the pull, etc), and for the leader. My follow macro clears all toons target so they automatically cast on the party1 target.

As you can see, it's very simple, and it leaves both "target" and "focus" to be used elsewhere.

On major drawbacks are:
only works if you're in the group together.
things like "/follow party1", if you are the group leader, don't behave like you might expect (it will follow what you might this should be "party2"), but it's not a huge deal.

Really, that's pretty much it.

[magwo]

I would consider the party1 etc model if it worked in the most critical part of the game - arena, which it doesn't.

[magwo]

I am now rolling with a full page based model.. I was forced to put my "smart" healing macros on the pageable bar, because the "smart" healing macros need to be different for master and slaves when you are not using focus for assisting.

A full action bar is dedicated to focus-based damage spells, and I have the ability to set focus individually for each shammie.. so it's a great starting point for hex in WOTLK.

[bugilt]

It would be nice to see a addon that could change the variables in a macro on the fly. It would be nice to have a list of all the possibilities for a targeting scheme.

[wetstreet]

It would be nice to see a addon that could change the variables in a macro on the fly. It would be nice to have a list of all the possibilities for a targeting scheme.
The problem with this is the API won't allow you to change the macro's during combat. You could, however, start with something like TrinityBars and generate the macros out of combat then change pages based on which character is your 'leader'.

[BobGnarly]

I would consider the party1 etc model if it worked in the most critical part of the game - arena, which it doesn't.Why doesn't it work in arenas?

[magwo]

Because the order is different on all the clients, so party3 might be another character on another client.

[BobGnarly]

I'm not sure I follow you here, but maybe I'm not being very clear.

You are always assisting the group leader with everything, unless it's a "fixed" cast (like i have binds to heal each toon by name, for example). To all the "slaves", the leader of the party is always "party1". If you change leaders (toon dies), you promote the new toon to leader and now he is "party1" in everybody's eyes. I have my "promote" macro on the same button as my PiP changes, so one button press PiPs in the new region and promotes that toon to leader. IOW, there's never a need to use "party3".

Again, the only downside I see is if you can't control the group (like bgs), but that's obviously not the case in arenas.

[magwo]

Aha, yea.. that's probably doable in arena then.. hm. However my page-based setup works well now.

[Kaynin]

I use the leaderless set up. Using keyclone's keymapping tool.

Basicly, that set up will make two buttons for all your dps macro's. Every char has one for when you are in that window and one for if you are in any of the other windows.

On the char I actively posess, my casts have the following cast system:

/cast [target=focus,harm,nodead][harm,nodead] 'Spell'

On the chars I don't actively posess, I use the following targeting modifiers:

/target <insert leaderless set up targeting system using shift/ctrl and alt modifiers to target the shaman you actively posess.>
/cast [target=focus,harm,nodead][target=targettarget,harm,nodead] 'Spell'
/targetlasttarget

Basicly, what it does is, if I focus a certain player with my characters, My dps buttons will kill that character no matter who I target, so I can target for example a healer on my main, DPS down a DPS class, even throwing an earthshock on the healer if I have time for it, without having the healers anticipating who I dps first. Since I dont actually target the dps'd target.

Should this plan fail and a target have to be swapped. All I have to do is /clearfocus and instantly, and I really mean instantly, all my chars dps the target I have on my main right away if I already had the new target active on my main. It's a seemless switch.

A few major positives about this set up.

If I kill the first target, but already select the second dps target before killing the first using focus, the instant, and I mean the instant! the focus target dies, all my chars go directly on the target I have targeted on my main, seemlessly once again without targeting lag. Since my alts already have my mains targettarget before the focus dies.

I only installed this last night, have yet to test it, but I can only imagine good things to come of it. I came to this idea when I was facing a relatively easy team (Good gear but not an unbeatable set up or antyhing.) I beat them 3 times, then I faced them another 6 times which I lost, all of them.

They adapted to me by spamhealing whomever I targeted with my main, even if I switched mains and targeted with that, they seemed to catch on quick. Quick enough to heal so I couldn't wear anyone down. All because they could see my targets. Using the focus fooling system, it would make it really hard for teams to anticipate my moves, plus, I can seemlessly switch to the second dps target without any loss of targettime.

[magwo]

Good stuff. I'm using something similar, except I have duplicated buttons for my primary offensive spells.

Key = nuke
Shift + Key = focus nuke

[Tizer]

Good stuff. I'm using something similar, except I have duplicated buttons for my primary offensive spells.

Key = nuke
Shift + Key = focus nuke

That's what i'm trying to achieve at the moment

i.e.

Q = LB Target - Other windows depress [ to execute target macro
E = CL Target - Other windows depress ] to execute target macro
3 = Shock Target - Other windows depress ; to execute target macro
F = Purge Target - Other windows depress ' to execute target macro

This is as far as i have got at the moment, i need to do the focus macros tonight, i want these like so:

SHIFT + Q = LB Focus - Other windows depress I to execute target focus macro
SHIFT + E = CL Focus - Other windows depress O to execute target focus macro
SHIFT + 3 = Shock Focus - Other windows depress K to execute target focus macro
SHIFT+ F = Purge Focus - Other windows depress L to execute target focus macro

Now, once these are introduced i'll have to change the spells in Q,E,3 and F to Macros to detect the SHIFT modifier i think?

e.g.

/cast [mod:shift,target=focus,harm] Lightning Bolt;Lightning Bolt
/cast [mod:shift,target=focus,harm] Chain Lightning;Chain Lightning
/cast [mod:shift,target=focus,harm] Frost Shock;Frost Shock
/cast [mod:shift,target=focus,harm] Purge;Purge

(Think these might be cocked up?) :o

edit: Actually i dont need to piss about with these do i as they will be new keys! so all i need it /cast [target=focus] LB (doh)

I don't have to worry about detecting shift modifiers on I,O,K or L since they are hard coded to target the focus.... \o/

I think i'm on the right track?

The next thing to overcome is the insta nuke ability. At the moment i can only think of putting

/use 13
/cast EM
/cast NS

on an entirely seperate button, so i can then decide if i want to nuke my target (E) or my focus (SHIFT+E)

Now i could bind that to my middle mouse button to activate it but there would be a small gap between firing it off on my chosen target, enough time to have it dispelled.... perhaps..

....

Pointers please if any! :D


Humm just read the new entry on the Wiki added today :http://www.dual-boxing.com/wiki/index.php/Focusless_Targetless_Leaderless_Setup

Seems i'm kinda on the right track ;o)

[Tizer]

And i'm done! yey

All macros redone and working as intended. It wasnt half as hard as i thought when i realised i didnt need to create new hotstrings for the target focus macros as i dont need to require a target to assist since its my set focus im going for now!

So i can now cl,lb,shock and purge my target or my focus target easily.

The only thing is miss is the 1 button insta nuke although having the option to pop my trinket, NS, EM on a seperate key gives me the choice of using it on my target or my focus target. Just needs some quick thinking and some practice i think :x

Ta for yer help in this thread <3 Hopefully i can get some arena games in this weekend after i've got used to the new setup in the BGs xD

[Tizer]

after a fair bit of effort i decided my way was shit and the focus=target ][ target=targettarget] option was nicer :) <3