The Multi-boxing Macro Spreadsheet

[razorbax]

NB: This may have been obvious to others, but it was new to me

;)

When I was Tri-boxing, I would usually use three DPS's or have a Tank and two DPS's. I briefly tried one of each, Tank, DPS and Healer. Effectively you have to be able to do three things at once. It was very confusing.....Until now!

This is how I used to do it. I used my main keyboard to control the Tank. This was basically QWEASD and the numbers 1-5. I controlled the DPS's using the main Keypad on my X-Keys Pro (8 Keys). Then used the 10 keys on the right of the X-Keys Pro for my healing, 2 for each member of the party. Each key was bound to a single spell.

To run an instance, I would have my left hand on the keyboard controlling the tank, and then my right hand would be tapping on the X-Keys doing DPS and clicking the occasional Heal. This was really hard work and if the Tank took some spike damage, I would often slow down on DPS, and even tanking, in order to concentrate on healing.

This got me thinking. Is it really necessary to separate the Tank and the DPS? I started thinking about comparing abilities and matching Tank and DPS abilities up but the various cast times always made it too complicated. What I wanted was a One Button solution.

I remembered that the /castsequence macro allowed you to enter blanks. If I combined these blanks with a timeline based on half second intervals, I could actually macro any spell combination so that you would just need to press a button twice a second. I also used excel to make the macro for me.

http://sites.google.com/site/threedruidnoob/Home/Macro.xls


To download the spreadsheet. I had to use Excel 2007 for this because of the length of the cast sequence macro. I have included an example with a Balance Druid Rotation. My timings are probably off, since I don't have access to WoW but it should give you an understanding of how it's meant to work.

In Practice, you would probably manually pull with the tank, build a small amount of threat and then kick of the macro. Alternatively you could make two macro's for the tank. The First would be the "Get Threat" macro and this key would only be bound on the Tank. Then you have the Full Rotation bound on both Tank and DPS's. As long as there is a static rotation for a class, this system should be able to handle it. And since you just have to click a key twice a second, you can concentrate on healing your group with little else to distract you.

If you happen to feel like trying this out, I would love some feedback. Feel free to send in any Rotations and I will add them in the spreadsheet for anyone to use. Just email your spreadsheets to razorbax@threedruidnoob.com. ('mailto:razorbax@threedruidnoob.com.')


NB: This assumes you would use your target/assit before this macro.

EDIT: Here is a screenshot.

http://sites.google.com/site/threedruidnoob/Home/macro.jpg ('http://sites.google.com/site/threedruidnoob/Home/macro.jpg')



EDIT. Updated Spreadsheet.

Added Macro Length.

Added Examples Tab.

Added More time on the Timeline



EDIT: Updated Spreadsheet. Converted from .xlsx to .xls

Added Timeline Duration

EDIT: Updated Spreadsheet

Added Target Conditions

EDIT: Updated Spreadsheet

Added more premade examples.

[Gurblash]

holy shit genius idea and perfect layout.

+1

[Ogloo]

dude you went to work! great idea.. people need to know this if they are turning away from multi-class setups due to the issue of confusing!

[KvdM]

Just the idea I was looking for to get my dps chars better in sync. Personally I would increase the key press frequence, because having a 0.5s interval means that you will lose 25% dps (depending on the cast time of your spells).

[lazygirl]

very cool. I use a spreadsheet to track which abilities are mapped to which keys across my various toons as well.

I've stayed away from the blank entries in cast sequence approach, because I think I'd have trouble hitting the button with steady timing. But this is a nice idea for those who use the method.

A recommendation though. You may want to revert the file to .xls format. Not everyone has office 2007 yet, and some people may be using open office.

[Enndo]

Very nice! Thanks!

[Coltimar]

Um, that is friggin' weird. I use a spreadsheet for this too and I use the EXACT same colors for spell cast and cool downs, lol. Glad you thought to share it, as I had not.

[razorbax]

Thanks heaps for the feedback.

@ Lazygirl I made some changes so the sheet is now in .xls format.

@ Kvdm I added an input for changing the time intervals.



I added some more examples, please feel free to correct me, I have just picked them up from varios threads here.

[Vicker]

Why do you have all those blank entries in your cast sequence? Instead of

moonfire,,,insect swarm,,,wrath,,,wrath

you could have

moonfire,insect swarm,wrath,wrath

You can spam your macro as many times per second as you want. It won't move past a spell until you successfully complete its cast.

[razorbax]

Why do you have all those blank entries in your cast sequence? Instead of

moonfire,,,insect swarm,,,wrath,,,wrath

you could have

moonfire,insect swarm,wrath,wrath

You can spam your macro as many times per second as you want. It won't move past a spell until you successfully complete its cast.

The idea is to be able to have these macro's running accross all the toons. In cases where channeling spells are cast, I am using the , , , to time the channel as much as anything else. I know you can use channel conditions but that just adds complexity to the macro's and I really want to keep it simple.



Once you have the Macro, there is nothing stopping you from deleteing the , , , if they are not required.