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View Full Version : melee: just add /follow to the attack macro?



Malekyth
01-14-2009, 06:28 AM
Isn't this the entire solution? I know I'm not the first one to have thought of this and expect there's something I'm missing, but I've been brutalizing things as 5x kitty form druids from 20 to 33, and don't see the downside. I'd be running off to try it with a team of DKs or rogues right now if my RAF wasn't a week away from expiring. I have a melee attack macro that basically goes:

/follow focus
/startattack [target=focustarget,harm]
/cast Tiger's Fury
/castrandom [target=focustarget,harm] Claw, Shred, Rip, Rake

The leader has to move around a bit to keep the mob between him and the alts, but there is never really a time when any of the alts stop DPSing. I spam the attack key and stuff dies.

btw, multiboxing cat druids is more fun than a really fun thing. I wish I had speakers on this computer, because the cacophany of claws, shreds, rips 'n' rakes shrieking through my headphones would probably sound even better were they really loud. :)

Feider
01-14-2009, 09:14 AM
I use a very similar macro setup on my Warrior/Rogues group. I add an /assist party1 to the slaves (I'm sticking with a focus-less setups)

Bigfish
01-14-2009, 10:18 AM
Yeah, that's pretty much all there is to it. Watch out for the naysayers though. Still a bunch of people who think melee boxing doesn't work.

Tonuss
01-14-2009, 10:33 AM
Just so I understand, this is the macro that you spam when you are attacking a mob? So that no matter how often /follow gets broken, you manage to keep them on your primary character?

FIra
01-14-2009, 11:12 AM
My method is alittle different. I macroed /follow for my 4 followers and put in on my action bar, then sat that action bar to W on my 4 followers, so everytime I press W, they /follow. I'm always using WASD to move so it works for me. My main still uses W from WSAD to move forward, so it's always used.

turbopinto
01-14-2009, 12:02 PM
I'ts how I set up my 4 (maybe 5) melee groups. There are some things you don't immediately want /assist on tho, so i set up those different (crowd control) but for the most part, any melee move has /assist focus and /follow focus on it. Oh yeah, and /startattack too, cause sometimes you don't have enough rage/ energy, whatever to do the next special, and the characters will just stand there not attacking waiting for the energy.

Gadzooks
01-14-2009, 12:08 PM
Yeah, that's pretty much all there is to it. Watch out for the naysayers though. Still a bunch of people who think melee boxing doesn't work.After hanging out here for a while, I'm of the firm belief that this group can figure out how to make most anything work! :)

d0z3rr
01-14-2009, 01:52 PM
I use a very similar macro setup on my Warrior/Rogues group. I add an /assist party1 to the slaves (I'm sticking with a focus-less setups)Warrior and 4 rogues? That's pretty cool, I was thinking of doing that group. Do you pvp with them? Or pve? Seems like instances would be a crapshoot.

Feider
01-14-2009, 02:28 PM
My pre-Boxing PvP skills consist of a /beg macro. I have always sucked at PvP on all my solo toons.

I would like to get into it and gett better but I don't think its for me.

The warrior/rogues group was gifted so I haven't played them much. It just seemed like a fun idea.

Malekyth
01-14-2009, 03:22 PM
Just so I understand, this is the macro that you spam when you are attacking a mob? So that no matter how often /follow gets broken, you manage to keep them on your primary character?Yep! That's the idea, you're constantly breaking follow but also constantly re-establishing it.

All right, cool, I'm glad I'm not on crack. Now I'm going to have to speak up every time I read someone put down melee boxing though. :)

Sam DeathWalker
01-15-2009, 12:30 AM
Oh well hummm ya well it takes some skill to keep the mob in position between the leader and your alts as you say so its not as easy as casters.

Keep in mind Tarun have a wider mellee range radius so if you gonna multi mellee then Tarun is a good choice.

If you keep agro on your main and your main dosnt move then the mob shouldn't move either and melee can get him if he is stationary once you place yur guys.

I did some multi melle with my 6 rangers in EQ (abonded them at level 70 for wizards) and I think that cornering the mob was best but as long as mob is on your main it works (I would make two rows of 3 and run the warrior to the end of the row so mob was between the two rows getting beat on.

That being said casters are so much simpler (espically aoe which dont need facing) and with the really fast mana regen in this game why mellee?

crazysithslayer
01-15-2009, 12:45 AM
I dual-box two feral druids and I set a Big Button macro on a keybind that goes:
/target focus
/follow
/assist
/stop casting

its a macro I found here on the forums and works very well combined with the Jamba addon.

So basically I mash this button during fights, and with Jamba I have autofollow set after combat, so I got follow almost all the time with melee :)

Multibocks
01-15-2009, 04:22 AM
Oh well hummm ya well it takes some skill to keep the mob in position between the leader and your alts as you say so its not as easy as casters.

Keep in mind Tarun have a wider mellee range radius so if you gonna multi mellee then Tarun is a good choice.

If you keep agro on your main and your main dosnt move then the mob shouldn't move either and melee can get him if he is stationary once you place yur guys.

I did some multi melle with my 6 rangers in EQ (abonded them at level 70 for wizards) and I think that cornering the mob was best but as long as mob is on your main it works (I would make two rows of 3 and run the warrior to the end of the row so mob was between the two rows getting beat on.

That being said casters are so much simpler (espically aoe which dont need facing) and with the really fast mana regen in this game why mellee?

This is no longer true, blizzard nerfed Tauren to have the same hit range as everyone else. ;(

RobinGBrown
01-15-2009, 05:31 AM
If you keep agro on your main and your main dosnt move then the mob shouldn't move either and melee can get him if he is stationary once you place yur guys.

That being said casters are so much simpler (espically aoe which dont need facing) and with the really fast mana regen in this game why mellee?
Mobs can move during melee so any melee multiboxing setup requires the ability to move the followers during combat.

I use seperate keys with a follow+assist macro to move my melee-ers:

Simple Focus-Based MultiBoxing Setup and Macros Guide ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=16772')

As to why you would want to melee? Because it's _better_ than sitting like a dork on top of a pile of totems. You can react to the situation; you are a fluid blitzkreig strike force, not a maginot line fortress (to draw an unpleasant parallel). Melee multiboxing is _cool_.

Anyone who enjoys a challenge, which should be most multiboxers who play for fun, can see that a bit of extra challenge seperates the men from the boys!

Bigfish
01-15-2009, 11:09 AM
That being said casters are so much simpler (espically aoe which dont need facing) and with the really fast mana regen in this game why mellee?

Mana runs out and regenerates painfully slow. Energy, Rage, and Runes only take a fraction of the time to completely re-fill. Spells are back loaded while Melee is front loaded. Melee are also capable of AOE.

Tonuss
01-15-2009, 01:37 PM
That being said casters are so much simpler (espically aoe which dont need facing) and with the really fast mana regen in this game why mellee?For many players, that *is* the reason-- most of us multibox because it's a challenge that we don't get from single-boxing because WoW is pretty easy to play. Multiboxing casters is also relatively easy for the reasons you state; they require less work to position and mana regen is very good in this game. With WotLK instances being made much easier than those in previous WoW builds, multiboxers will look for new challenges. Running a melee-heavy or all-melee group sounds like the newest challenge.

Vyndree
01-15-2009, 02:30 PM
Every time you /follow, you stop autoattacking because you've switched targets.

I.E. Every time you press a macro that includes /follow, you reset your swing timer because the next time you /startattack it's a brand new attack.

Now you MAY be able to get around this because you're /follow'ing with a person specified in the name...

Example:
/follow Name
versus:
/target Name
/follow Name

The second macro will most definitely kill your swing timer. The first? I'll have to twiddle with it to see.


Suggestion? Make /follow a deliberate action. Don't /follow unless you need to reposition.

Bigfish
01-15-2009, 02:37 PM
Now you MAY be able to get around this because you're /follow'ing with a person specified in the name...

Example:
/follow Name
versus:
/target Name
/follow Name

The second macro will most definitely kill your swing timer. The first? I'll have to twiddle with it to see.


Suggestion? Make /follow a deliberate action. Don't /follow unless you need to reposition.

Um, the act of following doesn't switch targets. /follow focus works just fine and doesn't reset the swing timer. I have /follow slapped at the front of all my melee characters and they DPS and stay on target perfectly.

Malekyth
01-15-2009, 03:15 PM
Every time you /follow, you stop autoattacking because you've switched targets.

I.E. Every time you press a macro that includes /follow, you reset your swing timer because the next time you /startattack it's a brand new attack.I haven't had any problems with this so far with /follow focus -- I spam the melee attack button and see the usual number of autoattacks fire off, though I'm sending a /follow two or three times a second. I'm not insisting that a swing timer reset isn't happening, but I don't think it is.

I want to try an FTL setup where I'll likely use /assist more than I do currently (I do a lot of /cast [target=focustarget] now). Is spamming calls to /assist likely to mess with autoattack? I mean, does it reset the timer if you re-target something you've already got targeted, or only when you target something new?

king.pa
01-15-2009, 06:55 PM
Use Jamba add on.. which have an amazing feature : follow every x sec..
you can turn on and off the auto follow feature (by a macro command) .. and belive me your melee toon will never stop fighting or loose /follow

I don't need anymore to press 'space' and then my "/follow the leader" key while casting my 280 % mount .. I just press 'space' and then fly around whitout even thinking about my toons... they're always here after following me like a bee after a piece of sugar...

MrHepp
01-15-2009, 07:42 PM
That being said casters are so much simpler (espically aoe which dont need facing) and with the really fast mana regen in this game why mellee? Well, there are several reasons. After a bit practice it isn't so hard to position your melee alts in front of the mobs, so playing a group with some casters and some melees isn't worse than playing a full caster group.

I play with one window maximized and the others minimized. As far as I know there is no way to send mouse clicks to minimized windows so I can't use a lot of the mage and warlock AoE spells, like Blizzard and Rain of Fire. But my warrior, rogue and retri paladin can easily chop the mobs to pieces with Bladestorm, Killing Spree and Divine Storm.