WTB [Idea], I need to dual-box heals and dps in raids!!

[Restodruid and elesham]

As the title says, my guild has recently recruited me, a resto druid and an ele sham, as heals and DPS...At the same time...

I'm not quite sure what software I'll end up using, and need to know if additional hardware will be necessary for the trickier stuff (Scattering and grouping on Saph, or Thaddius charges)

What has me worried most is the implementation, how do I maintain solid main/group heals as well as dpsing on my other account?

Right now I heal with mouseover macros, plus a few specific /target macros for WG (ranged and melee groups), and I dps with the usual target and charge lasers.

I'd like to keep my mouseover macros if possible...



What I'm thinking (and this may be ridiculous) is to '/assist (tank) /castsequence' macro up my ele sham rotation, and hook that macro in to every mouseover heal macro I use, as well as a 'blank' to mash when no one needs heals.

Would that work? Any problems I could be having with that?
If not, please, suggest an alternative! I need this up and running by this weekend!!




Much love and respect,
Some newb that needs help.

[Sajuuk]

Assisting the tank would probably suffice.

As far as Thaddius with two characters is concerned I think if you had your characters strafe to be outside the groups when the polarity shifts would give you SOME time to move them if their polarity is different.


Something like this:


(+) Heal -------THADDIUS ---------- DPS (-)

**** Polarity Shift Imminent ****



<Both Characters Strafe Right>
____________________________________<----moves DPS(-)
Moves to -------------THADDIUS-----------
(+)HEAL moves ---->

[daviddoran]

I would just play as the healer, target the mob to be DPS'd, and heal with Healbot, or a separate spell bar with just healing spells. DPS as normal, and click heal :) Or set your focus on the healer to the tank, or whoever else you are assigned to heal, and use macros for that.

I find healbot invaluable. I use it when I need a quick heal on someone other than the mob's target, so I just mouse over to my priest and click the appropriate health bar. I've never played a resto druid, but I think it's all about keeping the HoTs up, so that should be pretty easy to macro in /castsequence [target=focus] lifebloom,lifebloom,lifebloom,rejuvenation etc. Something to that effect.

When I was running a priest and 4 mages around, I did all the dps via keybinds and had no priest spells in bar1 for bosses, and bar2 had SW:P and Smite, etc to help finish off trash. Now I run with a paladin main, and only heal with my priest, zero dps (well holy nova does some lol) and I do it all with one huge /castsequence macro, tied to all of my DPS buttons (same macro on 7 buttons, keeps the same part of the sequence) so I can manually do my mages DPS rotation, but keep the heal sequence rolling. I have a lot of blank commas in my macro, so if I need a lot of healing, I press the button faster, if I dont need much, pressing once every GCD suffices. I also manually add a heal or two when necessary, and for AOE heals, but for the most part, the macro does the job perfectly. I use /cast [target=focustargettarget] so it always heals whoever the mob is attacking, which has saved my behind on more than one occasion. And my manual buttons, are small heal on aggro leader, big heal on aggro leader, small heal on focus, big heal on focus.

[davedontmind]

My approach would be similar to the above poster.

I'd control the healer, using Grid & Clique for healing.

For the DPS, I'd find someone in raid (probably another caster) to be my "main assist". I'd focus this person, and have all my DPS macros set to "/cast [target=focustarget] ..." so that I always attack his target.

I could then spam my DPS button with one finger while using Grid/Clique for healing, which requires a lot more concentration (in general) than DPS.

Fights involving movement would be very hard though, especially Thaddius. Not sure I'd like to dual-box that one.

[puppychow]

for grobbulus just park your DPS in a unused area (the little "bookcase hallway" near the start, the top of the ramp grobb goes up/down, etc) and let him die. Don't need full DPS, and after a while imo its too hard to try and move a poisoned person while still DPS/healing/moving the other.

For thaddius park the healer at the top of one of the bridges you jump, and don't jump. Just help heal one side. Its too hard moving two chars through charges accurately, you are almost guaranteed to blow up the raid when you are too slow. This is more of a DPS race fight than a healing fight, and stacking charges is part of the DPS race, so having the DPS help increase charges is more useful (you could move the healer too and leave the DPS at the ramp if you prefer or if you have other healers who tend to die early).

[Restodruid and elesham]

Very good ideas, all of you!

But...
I'd like to keep doing complex mouseover healing thing (used to it and it gets the job done VERY well), and slave the dps down to as simple as possible, would I be able to macro his rotation into a /castsequence and spam it, or would it go forward one spell every time I pressed the button? If so, how the hell do I do this...

[Ualaa]

The easiest would be for the shaman to auto follow the druid and assist their focus who is another dps caster.

For the shaman, I'd go with a castsequence... Flame Shock, Lava Burst, LB, LB, LB... until you can Lava Burst... LB spam until you need another Flame Shock, possibly another LB before the Flame Shock so you can immediately Lava Burst after the Flame Shock which makes it a truely looping sequence. It is not optimal, compared to playing the dps solo, but its passable.
Another option would be to use /castrandom with those four spells, but because you want Flame Shock up always and to not cast it while its up, a sequence is probably better.

I agree with previous posters, give the shaman a DPS macro which you spam.

[Restodruid and elesham]

The easiest would be for the shaman to auto follow the druid and assist their focus who is another dps caster.

Another option would be to use /castrandom with those four spells, but because you want Flame Shock up always and to not cast it while its up, a sequence is probably better.
Good ideas, Spamming a '/castrandom Lightning Bolt, Lava Burst' should work if I periodically reapply Flame Shock with another button, at normal dps, right?

Or actually, I'm going to start targeting bosses on my healer, so WG casted at THEM, the boss, will affect melee regardless of boss size and distance between meleers. I could just be nice and self-contained with /assist <resto druid>. Thanks for giving me the idea!