Focus vs FTL

[Kayley]

I've been searching for a bit, I can't find what I want specifically.
Focus vs FTL.

Some people swear by /assist focus being faster, others by the FTL system. If anyone has seen a thread recently discussing the pros and cons about either, share a link? :>
(or even if it is an older thread, I dont mind). All I have found has been one random person in each thread (that search has picked up) saying xx is better than xx. Yet providing no proof D:

So again, if you have the info.. halp me out a bit.

(I'll end up trying it out and doing my own research etc, but if someone else has done it.. i can think of different things to do with my time :P)

Thanks :)

[Maleick]

It depends if your going to focus on pvp or pve. While focus is faster I am sure, FTL is leaps better if you need to seemingly switch leaders at any point. Also leave focus open so you can focus flameshock/EM lava burst someone.

[mrtwentyfourth]

As the lazy person I am, i have a mix of Focus and FTL. I have made it so that the focus ( aka main) is switching when i go to another window and push follow. This is because i dont need the focus for something atm, and i dont have to rewrite a single macro to utilize it. I need to set up just one string ( per character) and im all set, instead of the immense job of implementing the big macros for every spell. It is also easier to create new macros to new spells.

[Zappy]

I've used both starting with the focus method. /assist focus is no faster than doing an /assist <toonname>

The only real difference is the macros. Focus is very straight forward and can be set up and running rather quickly. FTL takes a little more work to set up, but can be just as easy to configure once you understand it. One big advantage for me using the FTL is that I have two main macros on all 10 of my toons (I run both 5 shammys and 5 druids). One for following, and one for assisting. The assist macro is referenced from every command that needs to be targeted, and the advantage is that if I decide to interchange some of the toons (ie. 3 shammys, 2 druids, etc), it's a simple as logging into them, and all the macros already perform the correct assist / follow. The real challenge here is deciding how each keys will be mapped (ie. my flameshock and insect swarm fire together, starfire and chainlighting, etc).

Someone on here posted a link to SuperDuperMacro or something like that that allows huge macros, so both my assist and follow macros are using that. The cool part is that if I decide to roll up another new team, I simply add their names to both of the macros and the rest of the foundation is already set so that the team can be interchanged.

The real question you need to answer is that if you care if you can control all aspects of your toons regardless of which window happens to be in focus at the time. In pvp, this can be a life saver as your lead toon is usually easily identified and focused down rather quickly, and when this happens, you'll lose your other toons if you have no way to attack or defend.

With FTL, I find myself constantly switching leaders between arenas, BGs and WG, so when your opponents see you, they don't formulate a quick strategy to focus your leader down for a quick win, and realize that there really is no leader.

[Kayley]

MACRO 13 "Focus" Ability_Ambush
/clearfocus
/focus Char1
/stopmacro [target=focus, exists, nodead]
/focus Char2
/stopmacro [target=focus, exists, nodead]
/focus Char3
/stopmacro [target=focus, exists, nodead]
/focus Char4
/stopmacro [target=focus, exists, nodead]
END

Is how I change focus on the fly, all spells ingame have been macrod. /assist focus /cast lightning - etc.
Having the ability to make my alts take other focus targets for fear, deathcoil and more would be nice (New team, which is why i'm asking. 1priestx4warlocks heh).

I just had to be sure, I was called stupid for having mine setup the way I do. "Idiot, don't you know that the FTL system is much faster. It responds quicker ingame, picking targets up faster"
But I like the sound of setting up focus targets (that I can keep an eye on easily) to CC. Thanks. - Doing a bit of PvE and PvP :)

[Lax]

I just had to be sure, I was called stupid for having mine setup the way I do. "Idiot, don't you know that the FTL system is much faster. It responds quicker ingame, picking targets up faster" Most people seem to have the wrong idea about the difference between Focus-based and FTL. There is exactly one tradeoff between the equivalent Focus-based setup, and FTL. FTL frees up Focus, at the cost of additional keyspace -- that is, your ability to have additional key-bound macros in the game. FTL limits the combinations of modifier keys you can use for a given key binding, because some will be reserved for the FTL modifiers. There is no difference -- at all -- between the amount of time it takes for the other characters to acquire a target. Either way, the main character sets his target, which is sent to the server, and then back to the other players before they can acquire the new target.

The difference in Macros is length of the macro. One method uses a chain of conditionals (which can be copied and pasted) to identify the Hot Character (the one currently played), and one method uses [target=focustarget] or /assist focus.

The number of macros to be made is identical, when comparing both methods with the same manual or automatic assist option -- again, they can both be Targetless and Leaderless, the difference is focus or not focus. You can use the FTL conditionals method and still use manual assist (technically dropping the "targetless" part), and be up and running in the same amount of time as with Focus and manual assist. Likewise, you can use automatic assist, and be up and running in the same amount of time with Focus.

The other difference is the number of places your character names appear. With focus, it's in your /focus macros, and nowhere else, regardless of auto or manual assist. With FTL and auto assist, it's in every macro.

Finally, an unsolicited mention: ISBoxer makes setup between FTL and Focus negligible and allows you to switch between them by simply checking a couple boxes, or effortlessly use a combination of both. ISBoxer manages the macros for you, so you don't need to do any making or editing macros in the game. Switching to a different set of characters (swapping one in for another, etc) is also simplified. You can find links to this in the Software Tools section, for anyone interested.

[wowphreak]

FTL and focus is basically an idea depending on how yeh implement it will depend on how complicated it gets.

One of the drawbacks of the focus setup is that there can be some lag when yeh switch focus to when the others char have the new focus this can be a pain if yeh switch back and forth trying to get a new target.


That being said I did my FTL setup a lil differently the only 2 keys need the ftl (ctrl,shift,alt modifiers) setup are follow and assist keys all the other ones get passed normally. That way I can use modifier on all my other keys.
Another thing that I did differently then whats on the wikki I didn't bind 2 keys to do one thing there's really no need for "hidden macro keys".

Another thing that I added was "click infused" with the ftl, basically what I did is create five buttons that have /target char_name one for each account any time I want drop out switch it up I can just add the chars name in there and that's all I have to change no need to tweak my macros for anything else.

[Kayley]

Thank you again for the information :)

[Ughmahedhurtz]

One of the drawbacks of the focus setup is that there can be some lag when yeh switch focus to when the others char have the new focus this can be a pain if yeh switch back and forth trying to get a new target.
I'm not sure what you mean here. My focus changes are instantaneous because you set focus directly on each toon. Unless you're talking about an arbitrary delay from some wonky automagic focus-changing feature of a multiboxing software app, which is a detail in the software, not in the setup. ;)

Or are you talking about _target_ changes? If that's what you're referencing, then that has absoutely nothing to do with focus vs FTL. :P

[wowphreak]

One of the drawbacks of the focus setup is that there can be some lag when yeh switch focus to when the others char have the new focus this can be a pain if yeh switch back and forth trying to get a new target.
I'm not sure what you mean here. My focus changes are instantaneous because you set focus directly on each toon. Unless you're talking about an arbitrary delay from some wonky automagic focus-changing feature of a multiboxing software app, which is a detail in the software, not in the setup. ;)

Or are you talking about _target_ changes? If that's what you're referencing, then that has absoutely nothing to do with focus vs FTL. :P

As in changing focus till all yer chars have acquired the new target. When switching focus it first has to acquire from the server the new focus then acquire the target with ftl it just gets the new target
it'll also depend on how yeh implement it, what will also affect it is how much lag yeh have if yer lag is really low yeh might not even notice a delay but with any good amount of lag say over 150 yeh start to notice it

As far as I can tell using /assist focus is about the slowest way of getting a new target
The fastest seems to be using [target=char_name-target] within the cast macro.

No idea, thats just the way it appears to me meh need more coffeee :P

[Lax]

As in changing focus till all yer chars have acquired the new target. When switching focus it first has to acquire from the server the new focus then acquire the target with ftl it just gets the new target
it'll also depend on how yeh implement it, what will also affect it is how much lag yeh have if yer lag is really low yeh might not even notice a delay but with any good amount of lag say over 150 yeh start to notice it

As far as I can tell using /assist focus is about the slowest way of getting a new target
The fastest seems to be using [target=char_name-target] within the cast macro.

No idea, thats just the way it appears to me meh need more coffeee :P I went over that, and I'll point you back to my post:

There is no difference -- at all -- between the amount of time it takes for the other characters to acquire a target. Either way, the main character sets his target, which is sent to the server, and then back to the other players before they can acquire the new target.
Whether it's /assist focus, [target=focustarget], [target=mychartarget], or otherwise, it's relying on the current client having the other character's target information. It doesn't get it from somewhere different if you use FTL than if you use focus, the only difference is how it is referenced in the macro -- the word "focus" versus the character name. All your client is essentially doing is converting the word "focus" to your character's name (not literally, but the result is the same).

If you notice a difference, it's from other variables, not whether you used focus or FTL :)

[thinus]

As in changing focus till all yer chars have acquired the new target. When switching focus it first has to acquire from the server the new focus then acquire the target with ftl it just gets the new target
it'll also depend on how yeh implement it, what will also affect it is how much lag yeh have if yer lag is really low yeh might not even notice a delay but with any good amount of lag say over 150 yeh start to notice it

As far as I can tell using /assist focus is about the slowest way of getting a new target
The fastest seems to be using [target=char_name-target] within the cast macro.

No idea, thats just the way it appears to me meh need more coffeee :P I went over that, and I'll point you back to my post:

There is no difference -- at all -- between the amount of time it takes for the other characters to acquire a target. Either way, the main character sets his target, which is sent to the server, and then back to the other players before they can acquire the new target.
Whether it's /assist focus, [target=focustarget], [target=mychartarget], or otherwise, it's relying on the current client having the other character's target information. It doesn't get it from somewhere different if you use FTL than if you use focus, the only difference is how it is referenced in the macro -- the word "focus" versus the character name. All your client is essentially doing is converting the word "focus" to your character's name (not literally, but the result is the same).

If you notice a difference, it's from other variables, not whether you used focus or FTL :)

He is not talking about the time required to acquire the target, he is talking about the time it takes to switch mains. You can change your main locally with FTL, you do not need any server interaction. With a focus based setup you need to change your focus which requires server interaction.


EDIT: In other words if I want to change mains to CharB in a FTL setup I hit my CharB key and I can immediately assist off CharB and get CharB's target. In a focus based setup you need to change the focus of all characters to CharB (wait for server) and then you can act on your focus target.

[Pocalypse]

He is not talking about the time required to acquire the target, he is talking about the time it takes to switch mains. You can change your main locally with FTL, you do not need any server interaction. With a focus based setup you need to change your focus which requires server interaction.


EDIT: In other words if I want to change mains to CharB in a FTL setup I hit my CharB key and I can immediately assist off CharB and get CharB's target. In a focus based setup you need to change the focus of all characters to CharB (wait for server) and then you can act on your focus target.

Changing your focus does NOT require any server interaction. Focus is a client side setting.

The only different in speed between FTL and focus based methods is focus based methods require an extra key press. This key press does not need any server response, so is only limited in speed by how quickly you can hit your 'set toon x as focus' key.

Example:
FTL: move mouse to window B, click on window B to move it to front, target mob, wait for other clients to update toon B target, hit dps key
Focus: move mouse to window B, click on window B to move it to front, hit focus toon B key, target mob, wait for other clients to update toon B target, hit dps key

Both of those have the same server lag of toon B targetting something, and the other toons waiting for the server to update with that target (bolded). This part is the only part that requires waiting on the server, and it is the same wait in both methods.

Of course, this difference only comes about when you switch your main. If you tend to use one character as your main, there is NO difference in speed between the two methods.

[thinus]

Changing your focus does NOT require any server interaction. Focus is a client side setting.

Are you sure about that? So if I type "/focus garbage" it will work? It doesn't check if "garbage" actually exists?

EDIT: Confirmed, you can type "/focus <anything>" and it won't give an error so it seems to be completely client side.

[Pocalypse]

Changing your focus does NOT require any server interaction. Focus is a client side setting.

Are you sure about that? So if I type "/focus garbage" it will work? It doesn't check if "garbage" actually exists?

EDIT: Confirmed, you can type "/focus <anything>" and it won't give an error so it seems to be completely client side.

It might give you an error saying "unit not found" or something similar. But such an error is from the client, not from the server.

[Lax]

Even if Focus was server side, it would be the same. When any given client selects a target (focus target or otherwise), the client is instantly updated. You don't wait for a server round-trip to acquire a target. If you did, then any time the server lagged you'd click, and have to wait around just for the target frame to update.

If you experience any delay in setting the Focus Target, it's your method of setting the Focus Target (e.g. the software used to broadcast), not a delay in WoW updating the Focus Target. You can act on the new Focus Target instantaneously.

[wowphreak]

Then it may be just the way I setup things.

The problem I ran into initially I had a separate assist key(using assist focus) and a dps key(just a basic castsequence). if I hit the assist key then if I hit the dps to fast what would happen is one or more other chars wouldnt have a new target when they dont have a target and the dps key gets hit it'll just start casting on next target which may or may not be the target I was going after. For the longest time I couldnt figure out why some of my chars would get the wrong target.

When I switched to a /assist char_name macro it happened less frequently but still on occasion one would get the wrong target.

When I switched to castsequence [target=tank-target] never really had a problem.

What I have now is an ftl setup which does /target char_name basically forces a target and then /assist plus in the castsequence macro I have [harm][target=char_name_tank-target] basically what this does is if there is a target keeps casting if no target get the tanks target.

There is definitely some lag between when yeh /assist till the char gets a new target. I think if yeh have yer assist in the same macro as yer dps it'll wait till the target has been acquired then start cast but if you have a separate assist and dps then what happens if the target hasn't been acquired before yeh hit the dps it'll just do a "next target" and start casting.

The higher my ping the worse it got.

[Lax]

I shall explain! :)

The issue you're describing comes from the client not having the other guy's target in order to attack. If you have no target (or maybe more accurately, if your target is dead) and you start spamming attacks, the game will sometimes pick a target for you -- very annoying, and I'm pretty sure it's a bug in the game. This is, as you describe, more of an issue when using /assist than when using [target=x], because (I believe) the game will no longer pick a target for you.

So the issue is not at all related to Focus. The same problem is experienced if you put your [target] in the /assist line instead of /assist focus, e.g. /assist [target=tank] -- this would be if you use FTL modifiers with a manual assist key. The problem happens because you hit assist (or assist+attack) faster than the round-trip time -- the time it takes for your main to pick a target, have it sent to the server, and back to your other clients. All you can do is try to mitigate that, either with /stopmacro, or by using [target=x] as part of the /cast, /castsequence, /castrandom, etc.

What I do in my attack macro is put this at the top (or after /assist):

/stopmacro [target=target,noexists] [noharm] [dead]
This works around the issue of the game randomly selecting a target, and would have pretty much the same behavior as /cast [target=x] y, but with my additional conditions.

Hope that clears it up a bit.

[thinus]

/stopmacro [target=target,noexists] [noharm] [dead]

Why target=target, isn't it the same if you just omit it?


/stopmacro [noexists] [noharm] [dead]

[Lax]

I'm sure it is the same if omitted, yes. It took me several renditions to figure out how to get the conditions working correctly for this one in the first place, and once it was working as needed, I saw no reason to change it.

[Dominian]

Its a pretty simple.. If you need to use focus for ccing in pve or blow people up in pvp without targeting them the go FTL.

If you cba to use focus for either and dont like spending much time on settings go with Focus.

Personally i use FTL, when i pve i use same chars but different clients. (wich means i just have to restart wow and my pve totems,settings etc is ready) thats thanks to macaroon who saves my buttons localy.

This is the way i use focus in the arena.

My slaves just assist my main so i got to target him at the start of the match and wait 1 second due to the "assist delay" (note: i havent setup ftl keys for this since i usualy just use it once per match)

My macro looks like this:

/target [target=focus]
/cast elemental mastery
/cast blood fury
/use 13
/castsequence reset=10 flameshock,lavaburst
/targetlasttarget

What happens now??

The focused target i set on the start gets a flameshock and lava burst instantly with my trinket,racial and elemental mastery. But since i added /targetlasttarget you can never see what im targeting.

What skilled teams ususaly do is to look at my mains target, everytime i change to a new target they start to cast hots/shields/dispell. What i also love with the feature is that i pretty much blow them up anyway without knowing if they are behinde/infront/whatever i just spin my slaves around. (i have to look out for damage migations like pain suppresion etc thought)

However im looking for a better way then /target [target=focus] since it seem to bug at times.

[Ualaa]

Generally speaking, you can go with either:

A)
/assist [target=focus]
/assist [target=party1]
/assist (However FTL assists)

and

/cast or /castsequence or /castrandom


- or -

B)
/cast [target=focustarget]
/castsequence [target=party1target]
/castrandom (However FTL assists]


With method A, each of your slaves assists your main (thereby gaining the target) and then does whatever.
This is especially nice if you'd like your slave to interact with the target, such as skinning or looting.

With method B, your slaves ability will be targeted at your mains target, but they'll never actually acquire (visibly target) the target.
You could easily script the macro to be /cast [target=focus] Big Spell.
To have [target=focus], obviously you'd need to use either FTL or Party1 as your assist method; not assist focus.




I personally use the Party1 assist method.
The strength of the system... it takes just a tiny bit more time to set up then the Focus system, and any toon can lead as well as any other.
The weakness... the current leader is the party leader; not sure off the top of my head if you can tell who the party leader is, for another party that you're not in.
Each toon needs a promote to leader macro, one for each member of the team.. so this system uses as many macro's over focus as there are team members.