/assist vs /cast [target=focustarget] spell

[DIllett7799]

I use this basic macro for my spells (Ill use lighting bolt for simplicity)'

/assist focus
/cast Lighting Bolt

But, What is the difference between that macro, and this one?

/cast [target=focustarget] lightning bolt

Any input is welcome.

[Tdog]

The both do the exact same thing in terms of casting lightning bolt at your mains target. However i personally use

/assist focus
/cast lightning bolt

because the /assist makes your followers target the enemy and since I use Xperl I am easily able to see that all my followers are infact targeting the correct target or that they are even targeting something in the first place.

[ElectronDF]

The main difference is targeting. If you want your alts to target the mob, you use /assist. If you just want to cast a spell, you could use the option method. I like the option method about 90%. For melee or channeling you need to target the mob, so need to use /assist (IE, wanding will go off once if you aren't targeting the mob, drain mana, mind flay, etc all need you to target something). But for heals, that is the perfect time to just option the target since you don't need to target the player very often, and if you do, you still have to target back to the mob. Targeting takes time, so the less you have to do it, the better. Just my opinion.
Hope that helps.

[Darelik]

/assist focus
/cast lightning bolt
as Tdog mentioned, you can see that your slaves are targetted at the correct mob

/cast [target=focustarget] lightning bolt
on the contrary, this one does not show who the slaves are targetting which makes it valuable in pvp :thumbsup:

[falsfire3401]

I might just be smoking something when I was trying to setup my healing macros, but I wanted my priest to be able to heal based on party position.

IE Numpad1 would be /cast [target=player] Heal
Numpad2 would be /cast [target=party1] Heal

etc.

Even the [target=player] didn't work for heals. My heals I had to all explicitly macro as:
/target player
/cast Heal

or

/target {toonname}
/cast Heal

Couldn't even do /cast [target=toonname] Heal

Same thing for buffs, I have to do a separate /target line, the square-bracket targetting doesn't seem to work for friendlies and friendly spells.

[DIllett7799]

What about a macro to say, but Blessing of Might on all 4 pallys of mine?

[Darelik]

falsfire3401:
/cast [target=player] Heal would cast max rank Heal on self
/cast [target=party1] Heal would cast max rank Heal on the next partymember (if you are partied, else won't work)
/cast [target=toonname] Heal would cast max rank Heal on "toonname" if you are partied with "toonname"

check if you're partied with "toonname"


DIllett7799
Try out SmartBuff ('http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/smart-buff.aspx').

[DIllett7799]

Thank You :D

[Darelik]

np. :thumbup: only thing i need from SmartBuff is to allow me to nominate a whisper-target for the reminder or maybe show the party's or raid's missing buffs.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

There is another very important difference between "/assist focus" and /cast [target=focustarget]" type macros. Consider the following two macros:

Macro 1:

/assist focus
/castsequence reset=combat/target/5 insect swarm, moonfire, starfire, starfire, starfire, starfire

Macro2:

/castsequence [target=focustarget] reset=combat/target/5 insect swarm, moonfire, starfire, starfire, starfire, starfire

Pop Quiz: Which of the above two macros actually works as intended?

Answer: Macro 1.

So, if you prefer to have your macros reset to the beginning of a lengthy castsequence when switching targets, the only one that works is the /assist focus type macro. I'm sure some folks will find creative ways to work around this. ;)

[Catamer]

some PVP points to remember....

/assist focus
clears in personal target you have set, so in a pvp situation where you get seperated from your main you can't fire... period.
example, my main dies and the body is looted so it's back at the wintergrasp rez point, the rest of the team is now dead.

this works better for a PVP situation, the [ ] allows my solo player to fire on his local target if the main is gone
/cast [target=focus-target,exists,nodead] [ ] xxxx

you might use this as a backup, it at least lets the PvP player fire on something
/assist focus
/targetenemy [noexists]


====================================
as far as advanced functions go such as having a mage sheep, pally repentence, shaman hex, warlock seduce goes
you need to keep the ability to have personal targets.
if I have a mage on the team and want to sheep something I set the mage to have his own target and have a "sheep" button.
/cast polymorph
while the mage DPS button has
/cast [target=focus-target] yyy

[falsfire3401]

falsfire3401:
/cast [target=player] Heal would cast max rank Heal on self
/cast [target=party1] Heal would cast max rank Heal on the next partymember (if you are partied, else won't work)
/cast [target=toonname] Heal would cast max rank Heal on "toonname" if you are partied with "toonname"

check if you're partied with "toonname"


Even the heal on [target=player] didn't work when I tried it in a macro...so I switched to targeting toons by name to heal them...

[sedory]

The [target=player], [target=party1], etc all do work. I've used them several times in that past. Unless they've removed those target variable names, doubtfull, then they should still work.

As for Ughmahedhurtz's quiz.. both are odd. In the /assist version as it's entering the macro and the focus's target is reset, then it will reset the sequence (which is likely expected behavior.) However, if you wanted to say.. use the toon's local target for casting CC spells (Hex, Polymorph, etc) then the [target=..] is a bit more usefull for all other spells.. keeping your CC target in the toon's local target.

It all depends on what you wanna do.

[Darelik]

falsfire3401:
/cast [target=player] Heal would cast max rank Heal on self
/cast [target=party1] Heal would cast max rank Heal on the next partymember (if you are partied, else won't work)
/cast [target=toonname] Heal would cast max rank Heal on "toonname" if you are partied with "toonname"

check if you're partied with "toonname"
Even the heal on [target=player] didn't work when I tried it in a macro...so I switched to targeting toons by name to heal them...the word player stays AS IS when making the macro. it doesn't mean player as in "the player's name." it means you/yourself (or whoever is using that macro...ie the active toon).
so when u have the [target=player] parameter in a macro, it would always refer to you/yourself/active toon.

party member variables for use in a macro's "[target= ]" parameter:
player = yourself
party1 = leader
party2 = } the rest
party3 = } of the
party4 = } party

note: party5 does not exist (!) as there are only 5 members in a party. hope that helped.

[Maxion]

There is another very important difference between "/assist focus" and /cast [target=focustarget]" type macros. Consider the following two macros:

Macro 1:

/assist focus
/castsequence reset=combat/target/5 insect swarm, moonfire, starfire, starfire, starfire, starfire

Macro2:

/castsequence [target=focustarget] reset=combat/target/5 insect swarm, moonfire, starfire, starfire, starfire, starfire

Pop Quiz: Which of the above two macros actually works as intended?

Answer: Macro 1.

So, if you prefer to have your macros reset to the beginning of a lengthy castsequence when switching targets, the only one that works is the /assist focus type macro. I'm sure some folks will find creative ways to work around this. ;)
To get Macro 2 to work, just replace the "target" in the reset part with "focustarget"

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Macro2:

/castsequence [target=focustarget] reset=combat/target/5 insect swarm, moonfire, starfire, starfire, starfire, starfire
To get Macro 2 to work, just replace the "target" in the reset part with "focustarget"Really? Dang. Hadn't found anything that fixed that problem. I'll have to give this a shot. Thanks for the tip. :)