RTL Setup

[Wrecking]

Greetings DB Forums,

I wanted to run this idea by you all to see if any of you had input on how this might work given your experiences multiboxing. The idea is simple. Most multiboxing is done either with a FTL or tank-leader system; however, what is the limitations placed on a ranged targeting leader (RTL)?



A little background:

After approximately 3 months of researching multibox setups, I think that I am ready to finally dive into the experience. The issue is that I have been playing wow since day 0, and I have extensive "habits" and how I like things. I have occassionally tried to break these, but they are too entrenched at this point! Where this comes into play is my healing style. I have always had a mouseover form of healing, and healing by any other means is more or less doomed to failure with me, so I wanted the healer to be where my primary mouse functions where going to.

The main con to this is of course tank positioning. With unique movement keys though, I think that I could manage most of this. As a long time raid MT, most of my "tanking" movement has been with keys anyway to ensure that I am strafing and not turning my back.



What thoughts and advice do you all have?

[Gurblash]

Go Paladin as your tank and you should be able to do this. I drive with my healing shammy while tanking with my paladin. You can castsequence everything as a Tankadin.

[Pocalypse]

You might also want to check out this thread ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=175329&highlight=mouseover#post175329'), it allows you to main your tank while using mouseover on the tank's window to control healing on your healer.

[offive]

Having tanked with my warrior and my paladin... yeah go pally, much easier rotation and better buffs. DKs are nice but more complex. You can always swap tanks around to spice things up.

As for focus-less, target-less leader-less setup versus main - followers setup. I think it really depends on what you want to accomplish in the game, which hardware/software your using, and how complex you want to make your setup. There are many threads on DB.com that explain how to do both. Your concern about click based healing is valid, when I want more control over my priest I mouse over to that window and use healbot for more granular heals. I have some basic tank and aoe heals tied to key mappings. The ranged targeting leader idea is going to be rough as your tank is going to be the most mobile toon in your team in instances, unless your running all pallies or all dks (multi-tank boxing!)

Good luck with your boxing!

[Catamer]

I'm not understanding what your asking for. I guess you want to mouse over a target with your tanks mouse and get your healer to heal the tanks mouse target.
per say there is not macro feature for this like [target=focus-mouseover] and even if there were I would think lag would make it iffy during a serious battle.
besides, your tank is not always in a position to see the team for this type of mouseover.

( maybe you want healbot displayed on the tanks screen to control your healer on another screen ... don't think that's possible either )

if you are doing it right, your tank should be taking most of the dmg so having a button to heal the tank ( screw where the mouse is ) is probably a must.
I pretty much have #2 as all out dps+tank and #3 has all out dps+tank+tank-heals and spam between button #2 and #3.
for my setup I run 5 copies of wow on 3 screens, two of which are controlled by the same PC. I always run my tank and healer from the same PC so I can use the same mouse on them.
I use healbot mostly as a nice large print display of everyones health and it's easy to click on it for heals.
I usually get the tank working on the boss or mobs and I move my mouse to my healers screen and use heal bot and chain heal on the team as needed. ( shaman healer )

[Wrecking]

I'm not understanding what your asking for. I guess you want to mouse over a target with your tanks mouse and get your healer to heal the tanks mouse target.
per say there is not macro feature for this like [target=focus-mouseover] and even if there were I would think lag would make it iffy during a serious battle.
besides, your tank is not always in a position to see the team for this type of mouseover.

( maybe you want healbot displayed on the tanks screen to control your healer on another screen ... don't think that's possible either )

if you are doing it right, your tank should be taking most of the dmg so having a button to heal the tank ( screw where the mouse is ) is probably a must.
I pretty much have #2 as all out dps+tank and #3 has all out dps+tank+tank-heals and spam between button #2 and #3.
for my setup I run 5 copies of wow on 3 screens, two of which are controlled by the same PC. I always run my tank and healer from the same PC so I can use the same mouse on them.
I use healbot mostly as a nice large print display of everyones health and it's easy to click on it for heals.
I usually get the tank working on the boss or mobs and I move my mouse to my healers screen and use heal bot and chain heal on the team as needed. ( shaman healer )

I should have been more clear. I want to have 100% mouse interaction with the healer toon (the leader), and there will be no mouse interaction with the other toons. In other words, imagine that for all the times that you are looking at your tank's screen as a "main" screen, look at the healer's. I will probably even have it set up to where on monitor 1 I will just have the priest, and on monitor 2, I will have the 4x4 of the rest.

Also, as to the suggestion to just use keys, I can't. It's just habit. It is like scratching a metal screen door.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

I was defianetly planning on using a paladin tank (effective castrandom macro, non-targeted aoe, absolute damage mitigation with block on small-cap damage intakes, etc).

As for movement, I was actually hoping to simplify this by having a ranged leader. I was imagining a few different movement macros, assuming a melee heavy group as well.

Key 1: /follow focus {broadcast to all / modifier to all but tank for WW's or aoe}
Key 2: Interact with target {all but ranged dps/healer / mod all for facing issues}
**Tank would also be uniquely controlled with a thumb joystick so that I could move "just" him around with an interact with target macro turning him around if needed.
**Every toon would have a unique follow / mod-stop follow macro so that I could "guide" them to safe spots for fights like Grobbulus.

The team make-up will most likely be:

(assuming special characters will be neccessary)

Team 1: Seed
Paladin - tank Squall
Priest - healer Rinoa
Mage - DPS Quistis
Warlock - DPS Selphie
Shaman - DPS (Ele) Pandamonium

Team 2 / Guild tag: Crew
Paladin - tank Wrecking
Shaman - healer Wrecking
Warrior - DPS Wrecking
Rogue - DPS [I think you get the idea]
Hunter - DPS (surv) with dog Reveille OR Rogue :S

[wolpak]

Do this:

Setting up a Melee boxing team HOW TO** (ie how to use click to interact to make melee boxing work! ) ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=21424')

You basically can make your melee toons pets (or other ranged). All you have to do is make sure your tank has a good rotation and you send it from your healer's window. Think of the healer as the general issuing orders and the others as grunts running into the fray.

[wowphreak]

For allot of instances this is doable but there some instance where yeh have to move the tank so if yeh can setup some macro to move yer tank...

One of the problem yeh will have is when the "oh shit" moments happen and something gets away from the tank yer gonna have to setup a taunt macro for each char

But there is no reason why yeh cant do an "RTL" setup

Allot of times this is what I do when the pali has so many critters on em and back to the wall that I cant see anything I'll switch to the healer and heal just so I can see.

[Gurblash]

taunt will be easy to accomplish, set healer as focus. /cast [target=focustarget] pally-spell-taunt-name (or avenger's shield)

[alcattle]

Have you ever used HealBot? The best add-on for easy mouse healing, lots of set up options and let you 2-3 click heals plus cures,debuffs or unpoison you team. I love it when I have a healer.

[Gurblash]

I have always had a mouseover form of healing, and healing by any other means is more or less doomed to failure with me
Have you ever used HealBot? I think the goal here is to try and find a way for RTL to work inside what he's comfortable with (mouseover).

Although I do highly recommend Healbot to anyone who hasn't tried it yet, or Grid if you have an itch for massive possibilities.

[heffner]

Well, for me, my healing is primarily AOE, which you will use a lot as a priest healer. So, I don't know if you would even use mouse over for that.

You could still use a tank as the leader and mouseover to heal. Just set up your hotkeys on your tank UI so that you click them with a mouse and heal. So, you fool yourself into thinking your the healer but your not =) There are a lot of add-ons that can do this.

[Wrecking]

Thanks for all of the advice!

As a poster above stated, most of this complication resolves around my OCD healing style.

The general setup was going to be 2 rows of the identical set of heals. Row 1 would be the identical 1 button single target macros for all of the tank/dps. Row 2 would be the 1 button aoe macros for the tank/dps. The theory would go like this. Of course there would be auxillary buttons to this setup, most notably movement keys, mitigation buttons, taunts, begining of pull buttons, etc.

The keybinding setup would look something like this:
On keyboard
"Row 1" = 0-9
"Row 2" = qwertyuiop

On hotkey net
<hotkey 0-9>
<sendpc local>
<sendwin wow1>
<key 0-9>
<sendwin wow2>
<key 1>
<sendwin wow3>
<key 1>
<sendwin wow4>
<key 1>
<sendwin wow5>
<key 1>


<hotkey q, w, e, r, t, y, u, i, o, p>
<sendpc local>
<sendwin wow1>
<key q, w, e, r, t, y, u, i, o, p>
<sendwin wow2>
<key 2>
<sendwin wow3>
<key 2>
<sendwin wow4>
<key 2>
<sendwin wow5>
<key 2>

Macros on the rows would be
Healer - different mouseover macros
Tank/DPS - 1 = single target, 2 = aoe


Actually, on that note, did I do the syntax right? I can't test any of this for another week or so.

[Catamer]

I've kind of tried your setup when I made a priest + 4 warlocks or shammy+4 hunters.
the healer was the leader but I eventually found that I didn't think these teams were very dungeon viable, at least not without more work that I was willing to put into them.
There were just ok in pre-WoLK instances and I'm sure they would be kind of fun in an A/V style PvP.
But none of these teams had a tank and I can't image how you would manuver the tank without it being on your "main" screen.

good luck with that.

[Wrecking]

I've kind of tried your setup when I made a priest + 4 warlocks or shammy+4 hunters.
the healer was the leader but I eventually found that I didn't think these teams were very dungeon viable, at least not without more work that I was willing to put into them.
There were just ok in pre-WoLK instances and I'm sure they would be kind of fun in an A/V style PvP.
But none of these teams had a tank and I can't image how you would manuver the tank without it being on your "main" screen.

good luck with that.

I guess it didn't make much sense before, but I'll be moving the tank with a small thumb joystick that is attached to a series of keys that are off the keyboard. The effect of the joystick would just to be emulate wasd style movement for JUST the tank with interact with target buttons keeping him angled correctly.

At this point, I'm just going to have to wait until I can get home and try it. If all else fails, I guess I could try mouse emulation and still try to macro/healbot heal that way.

Thanks again for all the feedback!