Next Step

[Tyval]

I've been reading trying to learn as much as I can from the forums and has been a great resource, though at the same time a bit overwhelming.

I've finally got my team to 60, mostly boosted chars via a lvl 80 feral druid to this point. Now that I'm 60 I figure time to start actually playing as a team.


My team:

Prot Pali (65)
Priest (80)
Shaman (60)
Mage(60)
Mage(60)

I could also use my Raf to grant up to 60 and swap a mage for another shaman, (also have a warlock in the back ground).

So any thoughts as to char swaps are welcome (My goal for first set is what works the best/easiest)

Started working on my macros (never really used very many in solo play).
If read/done the macro 1.5 and 2.0 guides, that was a big help.

So now I use the focus target, have follow/assist/attack macros.

Right now for dps with adds I pretty much am just spamming arcane missles and lightenbolt.

My questions:

1) prior to 60 was healing with shaman, and found it hard to directly heal non tank folks. I would just hit f2-f5 to target then heal. But that would mess up everyone elses target. How do most folks cast heals on other party members? Or should I rely on aoe healing for rest of party?

2) what would next step in macro work be? I was going to look into castsequence macros as well as buffing macros. Trying to add/learn a little bit as I go. Kind of overwhelming if I try and add/learn everything at once.

3) Cures/dispells etc. Don't really have these hooked up yet, figure I should be assigning keys etc.

4) addons, have just starting looking into addons helpful for multiboxing.


Plan of attack.

1)Learn tanking on my pali (never really have much ) but will have my 80 healer to soften the learning curve.
2) healing, making sure I can heal/cure party members.
3) Optimize dps.

Thanks for any and all pointers.

T

[Ualaa]

The pally will eventually have a 96969 macro.
You get the last spell for it, at 75th.
Basically one button spam, which is superb single and aoe tanking.

I like the priest as the healer for a team.
I'd spec deep Discipline, with some points in Holy.
Penance is an amazing heal.

For the three DPS, I'd go 2x Shaman and 1x Mage.

Spec the mage, arcane.
With something like:
/stopmacro [channeling]
/castsequence Arcane Blast, AB, AB, Arcane Missiles.
/cast Icy Veins
/cast Presence of Mind
/cast Focus Magic
/use 13
/use 14

Two shammies, should just about cover all of the totem combinations.
Three would be better, but two will work well.



For the heals, if you're not using Repeater Regions (IS Boxer), look into assist macro's.

#show Heal
/assist Paladin
/cast [help] Heal; [help, target=targettarget] Heal

Basically, you can heal a friendly, by having the pally target it.
And if the pally is targeting a hostile, the second condition targets the target of the mob.
Who is generally a friendly.

You'll probably want a few dedicated heal keys, in addition to the assist.
And a keybind for an AoE heal too.



For the dps, look at click castsequences.
It is in the wiki.
There are only a few classes where a click sequence is not ideal.. like arcane mages.
For just about everyone else, click is a dps boost.

Put the click dps on the same keybind as the pally's 96969 macro, so both get spammed.
You might have each of these on two keybinds.
So you can have a priest dps macro on one of the two, but not the other.
So the priest can dps easy stuff, or not dps (heal instead) on harder stuff.



Check out the addon Jamba.
Essential for boxing.

[Tyval]

Thanks for the tips.

I'll swap out a mage for shaman today, he will only be a lvl behind once I gift him 60, so won't be hard to catch up at all. And doing the totem quests at 60 will be pretty speedy as well heh.

Currently I'm using keyclone, not sure if it matters much vs ISBoxer (which I know nothing about).

I'm sure I don't have the ideal setup, but I do something like this..

I use a gamepad and have 9,10,11, and shift-9, shift-10 shift 11 bound to the various heals of my priest but currently they are macro'd for the focus target, so if I understood your macro, if I adjust it, It would still normally heal the pali, but if the pali targets a friendly it will heal them. Will try that today.

Oh , excuse the macro noobishness, but would the macro you gave for healing heal the pali when the pali had nothing targeted?

I'll read up on jamba (have seen it mentioned quite a bit on the forums, no idea what it does hehe)

Also will start reading up on the click macro stuff. If I understand correctly it is stringing together a group of macros...

Great idea on the 2 key binds for dps one sans healer. I did swap him to discipline before I went out. BUt for the most part he could bubble, and if he took dmg usually only the first tic of Penance was needed.

Got some good practice in, Did ramparts and blood furnace. Nice way to ease into things, tank a bit higher level than needed, and healer much higher, Priest bailed me out of a few mistakes, and could keep the group up with holy nova. Normally if I did something stupid or made a mistake it was in keeping the group up, tank was of course fine.

I plan to do each instance on the way up for practice (and a bit of gear) so my skill will hopefully go up as my healing becomes less uber for the instance heh.

Thanks again for your tips and pointers.

T

[Ualaa]

Keyclone vs IS Boxer.

KC = $20 per license, one license per computer, lifetime duration.
ISB = $36 per year, good for up to five computers at once, subscription.



As far as key replication goes, they're both excellent programs.



With KC, any key pressed is broadcast to all other clients.
Except that you can blacklist certain keys to not broadcast to anyone.
And have a pause button.
KC can use Hotstrings, where a key pressed in one window is broadcast as a different key in the other windows.



With ISB, you have both keymaps and repeater.
Repeater, sends everything you type to all clients (unless a keymap conflicts).
Repeater is a lot like the default KC broadcasting.

ISB also has something called Keymaps.
Keymaps are extremely configurable, and are possibly the strongest feature of ISB.
They have a hotkey to activate.
Can be as many steps long as you like (a step is an action which occurs on a press of the hotkey).
With one step, it always does the same thing.
With two steps, it will do one thing first, and another thing on the second sequential press.
You can build a round-robin, by sending a keybind to each wow client, one at a time, on each step.

More then one thing can happen on each Step.
For example, you can have all the slaves/alts assist the active toon.
And then cast a buff.

You can really configure the target of a Keymap.
Choices are a given Slot (basically an account), by team name, by action group (configurable group), by character name, the current window only, other windows without the current window, or all windows.

Keymaps allow you to be extremely flexible on what your keybinds do.

The wizard gets you a bunch of FTL DPS keymaps.
Basically, press 1 through =, and the slaves will do the same.
But they'll assist you first.
Automatic FTL is a very nice feature of IS Boxer.



KC has mouse broadcasting, but its not a strong feature of the program.

IS Boxer has very strong mouse broadcasting.
You can enable it via Repeater.
But you can build it into a Keymap, for example press a key (which hits Hurricane and Blizzard on two toons).
The Keymap turns on "send next click" for toons with ground target AoE spells.
You move the mouse in your current/active window, and it moves on each client too.
Click where you want the AoE, but the click only occurs on the AoE casters screens.
And that turns off broadcasting.





The Pally macro would not default to target the pally.
However, you could add another conditional to it, if you wanted that behavior.
Add:
[target=Pally'sName] as another condition, prior to the Heal spell outside of the last bracket.
Would need a semi-colon after the [2nd Bracket Condition] in that case.





Jamba is extremely nice.

You have "masters" and "slaves".
And can change who is the master on the fly.

The slaves will mimic a lot of the masters behavior.
Such as selecting quests, npc dialogue, choosing to make the inn your home, etc.
They will take the same flightpath as the master, if the window is open on all toons.

You'll want "CTM" click to move, enabled on the slaves.
Your main will target something.
You'll press the key for the slaves to assist the main.
You'll press your keybind for "IWT" interact with target.
The slaves will move to the target if they're too far away.
If they were close (or when they get close), the window will open.
The master will also have the window open, on the IWT key press.

At which point, just about anything the master does with the npc, the slaves will do too.



You can give tags to toons.
My priest has the tag [priest], while my druid has the tag [druid].
When an npc sells a reagent, every toon with the tag [priest] buys the appropriate candle, until they have 80 of them (I choose the reagent type and 80 as the number).
Similarly those with the tag [druid] buy whatever.
The mage buys stuff too.
Just need to open the window of someone who sells the reagent.

Similarly, all my toons auto sell grey quality items, just by opening a vendor window.



Jamba is very nice, doing tons of stuff for us.

[Tyval]

Thanks for the great overview on ISB and jamba. I've been dreading questing due to all the dialog stuff, but sounds like that will solve those issues nicely. Think I'll stick with keyclone now as I have it and seems to do what I need at this point and time.

in regards to the healing macro, So what i'm wanting is exactly what you laid out, with the addition that the heal will go off on the focus target if the other conditions aren't met.
so if I change it to

#show Heal
/assist Paladin
/cast [help] Heal; [help, target=targettarget] [target=Pally'sName]; Heal;

Would this work?

Also if I changed pallysname to focus would it then default to whatever the current focus is?

Note: I promise to read more on macros before I ask more noobish questions, but thanks much for your help.
I need to find a nice description of macros as a programming language (syntax, keywords , then I'm sure it will all make sense as another programming language).

[Ualaa]

If you are using Focus, as your assist, the syntax will be:


#show SpellName
/assist [target=focus]
/cast [help] Spell; [help, target=targettarget] Spell; [target=Focus] Spell

[Tyval]

Thanks!

For now I feel more comfortable using the focus target method,

Only thing I noticed when testing is if the tank had a target and I healed, then he cleared target, and healed it would base off last target if still valid, so I added a /cleartarget at start of macro, and that seemed to do the trick.

not sure if the last case will be that useful but if nothing else it has forced me to learn more on macros (started reading the wiki)

You have been a huge help, I got my second shaman to 60 and the totem quests done, so off to try an instance!

T

[Ualaa]

Pretty much... if you do things really quickly after a target switch or focus switch, it gets the old target.
You need to wait roughly double your latency, for things to update.
More then that, if Wintergrasp is in session on the server.

If you have 300ms of latency, and switch targets.
It is 300ms before the server knows you have switched.
And another 300ms, before it lets the other toon know.
Or thereabouts.

[Tyval]

Update:

Went through Ramparts and Furnace, with my new modified team. Seem to go much smoother, dps of the casters seemed to go up noticeably by changing the cast macros into a cast with target=focus target (before I had another key I would hit to get everyone to assist the tank. (sometimes would miss it on hectic fights).

Heal macro's worked great , though I really don't heal too much yet. I was having some power issues on the pali now and then, I was pondering swapping to 2 hander, but unsure if the extra healing would make up for the lack of mana on a block/parry. I figure it will fix itself though when I move to more level appropriate content so will probably ignore for now, and once I get divine plea I assume will be a non issue. Could also start pulling multiple groups.

Team is almost lvl 62 (tank 66 and priest 80).

I'm on to the underbog next set of instances. Will probably do some quests and get the instance quests and then head in.

Next things to hookup: need macros for removing poison /curse etc. Though maybe totems will do some of that.

Also need to macro the pali sequence, currently I've only got judgement on the spam dps macro and hit the other attacks manually. I guess no reason not to set it up (even if I'm missing the last attack still.)

The most important thing though, I'm having a blast!

T

[Tyval]

Time for more questions:

I ran through slave Pens and Underbog.

Slave pen was easy, though I wasn't prepared for the fellow with the totems , and didn't remove then fast enough so had a very long fight and was mostly out of power at the end.

Underbog though I had some issues keep my mage/shaman alive.

From this came a couple questions.

1) Do folks mostly just keep everyone together for most fights and heal through the dmg? I had some issues trying to move folks out of the way and keep them in range for heals. Right now I could probably heal through stuff pretty easily with an 80 healer but dont' want to develop bad habits.

2) Positioning, it seems I might need some macros for position my dps folks, spreading them out etc.. Do folks do this often with multibosing? I just auto follow, drop totems , strafe to break auto follow and move my tank a bit away.

3) should I get some macros for healing non tank/healer? I could add another condition for if target is friendly for tank, but figure I'm doing something wrong if I have to untarget the mob during a fight with tank. Should I have the shaman set up for aoe healing to take care of dmg to mage/shaman /shaman?

4) detrimentals. Do I need to worry about curing party of these type of things at higher lvls? if so I should probably start learning now.

The two instances didn't net much exp so going to do quests in underbug till 64 I figure then move on to forest.

Thanks as always for tips /pointers/slaps ;)

T

[Ualaa]

It will depend on the fight, for what you want to do.

Sometimes you are better off, moving out of puddles of acid.
Other times, you heal through them and maintain steady DPS.
If you can drop a Fire, Frost or Nature Resist totem, that can help a lot.
Also you can choose a resistance aura for the pally, although it won't stack with totems.

If you take a look at Youtube videos, in a lot of fights you can position your guys and then not move them.
I generally use follow and a movement key to break follow.
Then have some mapped keys, for "movement - Window: All without current", ie independent slave movement, if I need to move them and not the tank.
In another thread, Khatovar suggested two follow macros for melee a) follow tank; and b) follow healer.
Which you can then push to have melee run out of AoE nastiness or back to where the melee is.

I do have a spread out macro.
In my case Shift + Tilde ( ~ ) is the hotkey.
It moves my toons diagonally away from the leader.
Basically Q + Up, Q + Down, E + Up, and E + Down.

For heals, IS Boxer with repeater regions is the best.
Click on the frame, for who needs the heal.
But if you are going with macros, you have two options really.
Toon specific heals, as in this macro heals this toon (one per toon who might need heals).
Or assist heals, where you assist the hot/active toon and heal their target.
You can go with:
<Insert /assist method>
/cast [help] Renew; [help, target=TargetTarget] Renew... type logic in heals

Your paladin will have Decurses for Magic, Poison and Disease.
Your Shammy can drop a Cleansing Totem for Poison and Disease.
Your Mage can decurse for Curses.
Your Priest can do Disease and Magic.
I'd probably do the totem for Poison/Disease, Mages for Curses and then either Cleanse or the Priest for Magic... Priest can also "mass dispel", if you need to hit several toons at once.
It will depend on the situation, on whether it is worth curing something or not.
In the Pally's case, its often better to not cure stuff, if they'll survive, since that is extra mana from spiritual attunement, when the damage is healed.

[Tyval]

Thanks for the advice/info!

I'm starting to think I may have to check out ISBoxer as the repeater region seems handy.

I'll also get a spread out formation macro in place.

I think it is good I'm running instances, forcing me to think about things, ask questions before I get to the harder stuff.

Thanks again.

T

[Ualaa]

There's a 7-day trial of IS Boxer, which costs you nothing.

The wizard will get you started, very quickly.
But you'll want to set a GUI toggle key, which is not set by default.
The initial (wizard) portion of my guide (signature) shows how to do this.
It's pretty basic.

You'll need a set of frames to click on.
I've not used Vuhdo, but it seems to be the most popular.
Healbot is another addon, where the frame and interpreting the click is the same addon.
The other choice is Grid, which I've gone with.

If you go with grid, you'll need Clique or something similar to interpret which click is what heal.
Also with Grid, to get an alphabetical sorting you'll need GridCustomLayouts.
And to use this syntax:

/Grid Config
Click Layout
Click Advanced
Click New

Enter: " order=NAME; " (without the quotes)


Once you are in warcraft, and have set up your Grid Frame (or Vuhdo/Healbot/OpenRDX etc) so it is in as close to the same position as possible on every toon...

Press your IS Boxer GUI Toggle key (set during configuration). I use Alt + Ctrl + /

That brings up a small box in the top left of the screen.
There is a drop down box which determines which slot (account) the mouse is broadcast to.
With a dedicated healer option, you'd pick the slot the healer is in.
With a Tank + 3x Shaman + 1x Warlock set up, I'd do this three times, with one region for each Shammy.
With a 5x Shammy set up, I'd select "all other" as the target, instead of specific slots.

Once you have the target set, click Add.
That creates a box which you can drag and resize.
The outline portion is not a repeater area, but the red area (semi-transparent) is.
So size it, so the entire area covers the portion you want to repeat.
Drag it over your frames.
Then click "sync" in the GUI Frame, which has the box then work from any client.

Then Save... and Auto (default) is what you want to save as.
By saving as auto, it will automatically load when you start IS Boxer in the future.
If you save as anything else, you'll have to manually start it each time.

I use repeater regions for more then heals.
I have one over the Jamba Item box, and set that to display on all toons, not just the master.
I also have one over my hearthstone on a toolbar, so each toon can hearth via a mouse click.
A ton of uses for them.

Here's a video, by Tovya: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Msjyi06xNW0&feature=player_embedded

[Lokked]

BC content isn't talked about much on these forums anymore, but with some careful searching, you can find multiboxer applicable info for dealing with all BC encounters.

The only few that stand out in my mind are:
Underbog - The Black Stalker - DON'T EVEN BOTHER - his proximity AE and floating shit make this encounter a nightmare, even if you park your toons under a mushroom.
Actually, Underbog all in all is not very boxer friendly. The first boss can be dealt with by constantly moving around and using instant casts. The Hunter and his Bear are extremely annoying. Your team get's slept and the bear chargings around like crazy interrupting casts and knocking players back.

Auchenai Crypts - Shirrak the Dead Watcher (First boss) - FORGET ABOUT IT - Melee range bleed AE which WILL kill your alts fast, a long range persistant casting speed slowing component (stronger the closer you are, causing spells to take up to 3x as long to cast). If you think you can park at long range and be all good, note that he will pull your group into him periodically, causing your group to receive the Bleed AE and the full effects of the cast slow. If this isn't enough, he also randomly throws bombs out that AE your alts for massive damage. Nightmare.

If you are just trying to burn through BC by instancing, I recommend:
Ramps, Slave Pens, Mana Tombs and Sethekk Halls (Last Boss - must read guide).

[Ualaa]

Underbog is excellent for boosting in, with a half geared 80th.

Generally move here after the slaves ding 60th in Ramparts.
Or take them for a Blood Furnace run first, if you want to finish that quest.

But boosting and running your team through things, are two different things.

People have successfully cleared every BC 5-man instance, both normal and heroic modes.
You just have to decide if its a goal that you will do, or if they're a means to an end (level 80).

[Tyval]

I ran them through again last night.

Slave pens went very quickly, no issues, with the new macro for my priest to wand the totems made that fight much quicker :).

Underbog, went much faster, no deaths until the final guy, though that one wasn't pretty ,
The guy with the mushrooms went okay would move, cast a round of spells, move cast a round of spells. Not sure if it would have been as easy with an at lvl healer though.

The final guy...
I kept trying to get everyone together wondering why they weren't forming up, by 30% in just the pali and priest were alive and took down the mob. All the little uns corpses were spread all over, one was even outside the room. Guess he just floated out. But I can see that fight just isn't MB friendly.

I wonder if I was quick with dispel magic if I could stop the levitate.

At any rate, I'm glad to hear that others feel that fight isn't MB friendly.

I'm going through them for a change of pace from quests, get some exp and gear and to do each one 1 for achievements. I figure the more boss fights I see , the easier time I will have in wrath zones.

Thanks for the list of other instances that are a bit easier to MB.

T

[Tyval]

Ran through mana tombs several times last night, after the first time through , went really fast. Did the Crypts after just to see, and made it through but only because I had my lvl 80 priest blasting holy nova for healing.

Approaching 65 on the little uns (pali just hit 68 in last runthrough), so I figure time to blast some easy quests out in the forest today.

My other goal is to install and figure out Jamba.

really looking forward to Wrath stuff.

Question on dps'ers.

I find my shamans /mage seem to hover around 500-600 dps right now, is that somewhat reasonable at 65? Mage did take a boost when I got Arcane B(something) at 64. If the fight goes on long enough he seems to be able to out pace the shamans often.

[Tyval]

Thought I would post an update and have a few more questions.

My team is now
Pali 69
shamanx2 mage 67
Priest (still 80 :).

Cleared hmm (the caverns of time , Durnholde?) a couple times.
First time through lost the mage on the dragon due to lame positioning.
Second time all was well.

Next up Sethick halls (spelling) probably grind on this a bit then head off to Nagrand.

Started using Jamba, and while I haven't done any special settings at all, what a big help, forming up, selling, repairing etc. all much easier.

Questions:
1) When running 2x shamans what totems should I be using. I realize for special fights swapping in resistance totems etc. but in general? right now I pretty much try to have one of each of the main totems.

For example do 2 tremor totems break fear faster. what about 2x grounding? Do the healing stream totems stack?
(Figured it is time to develop a couple of sets (general, survivability etc).
Any good links to Shaman boxing stuff?

Thinking ahead to tougher instances when my priest isn't so uber,

2) Currently I'm mostly Disc with a bit of holy, is this what most folks run with? Would a Holy be better for AoE healing?

3) Renew, currently I don't use/need this because I really don't do much healing (with 80 priest) Would it be useful to get a macro set up, to get a renew on everyone. Or do most find it is mostly a MT thing?


Thanks as always for the great advice/help I have received.

T

[Ualaa]

Sethekk, not that the spelling totally matters.


Totems... predominantly a caster team...

Have both shammies drop Totem of Wrath, if you have it glyphed, the spell power boost is quite nice.
Then have only one use ToW in the stomp macro (where you drop 4 totems at once).
If you are not Glyphed ToW, then disregard this part, and go right to the totems.

Fire: Totem of Wrath + Frost Resistance Totem or Searing Totem or Fire Elemental (especially if you glyph it to a 5 minute recast delay).
Water: 1x Healing Stream, 1x Mana Stream (or 2x Healing). Go 2x Cleansing, any time there are Disease/Poison mobs.
Air: 1x Wrath of Air, 1x Grounding.
Earth: I'd probably just stagger Tremors, drop one then the other about 1.5 seconds later.

You can stagger totems by putting "Call of the Ancestors" or whichever 4x totems at once option you use into a castsequence.

Shm A) /castsequence reset=8 Call of the Ancestors,,,,,,Null
Shm B) /castsequence reset=8 ,,,,,,Call of the Ancestors,Null

Adjust commas, for 1.5 second delay between the two, when you spam it.


Healing Stream will stack.
Cleanse will remove 2x the debuffs.
Mana Spring will not stack.

Tremor staggered, breaks fear/sleep/charm quicker.

Multiple groundings absorbs more spells.




I'd definitely stay Disc over Holy.
Not that Holy is a bad route, but I prefer Disc.

Penance is an instant cast, which gives you an amazing "twitch" heal.
It should pulse at 0 seconds (when you press the key), 1 second and 2 seconds.
Even if a mob is pounding on you, and you lose the last pulse, it's more mana efficient then Greater Heal.
Every other direct heal has a cast time, this is instant.

Flash Heal, from a Disc Healer is a very strong heal.
I use /castsequence reset=7 Penance, Flash Heal, Flash Heal, Flash Heal.

Renew is strong and PW: Shield is strong.
You get massive haste after a PW: Shield, and it absorbs a lot.
And your party/raid has damage reduction after you Shield anyone.

Pain Suppression is amazing.
You can Power Infusion yourself, or your top DPS caster.
Other toys like Divine Aegis are fun.

Holy Nova spam, and/or /castsequence Inner Focus, Prayer of Healing, will be good for AoE heals.
Holy gets one extra AoE heal, but these two are plenty.
Especially with 2x Healing Stream Totems, if you need the supplemental heals.



Renew is basically a.... this toon is down a bit, but not taking any direct damage now.
This will top him/her up.
It is the same as the Healing Stream Totems.

Instance casts are strong as a Disc, and you have amazing mana efficiency.
It doesn't hurt to use it, and you can use it while mobile.

If you want a target party, go with:
/targetparty
/cast Renew
(This will never Renew the Priest unfortunately, but will cycle through the other toons).

[BobGnarly]

If you are using Focus, as your assist, the syntax will be:


#show SpellName
/assist [target=focus]
/cast [help] Spell; [help, target=targettarget] Spell; [target=Focus] Spell

Just wanted to point out there's a much shorter way to do this. Namely:


/cast [target=focustarget,help] [target=focus] HealAssuming your tank (paladin for you) is your focus, as I believe you said it was, this macro will heal your tank's target if it's friendly (meaning you are targeting one of your other toons), otherwise, it will heal the tank.

Probably not a big deal for this macro, but I wanted to point out the shortcuts because later you will probably have macros that are running up on the 255 char limit so it's important to cut some corners.

[Tyval]

Great help and info as always Ualaa, and thanks for the macro tip bobgnarly.

Still coming up to speed on macros , trying to learn a bit as I go along.

The totem pointers are a huge help, i never thought about the delay/stagger to get more/better Tremor totem usefulness.

I wasn't clear on the Totem of wrath tip. I have both drop the ToW as an individual drop, then drop the totem sets with only one shaman using one?

Will incorporate these tips tonight. (I need to go get glyphs so will do that tonight as well (keep forgetting), and I do have a caster team (2 shaman , mage).

I think it is good I"m running the instances on way up, get practice, and often confronted with a fight that forces me to learn something new, or add something to my repertoire. Plus have never played shaman or mage really so still learning those classes.

Really looking forward to finally getting to Wrath, if nothing else so I can use the dungeon finder with my team to get ported to instances (lvl 80 priest messing it up now).

T

[Ualaa]

/assist [target=Focus]
/cast Whatever

VS.

/cast [target=FocusTarget]
/cast Whatever

The difference between these, is if you want your toon to actually target whatever your Focus is targeting, or if just casting at that target (without actually changing targets) is enough.

The full syntax would be:
/cast [target=FocusTarget,Help][target=FocusTargetTarget,Help][Target=Focus] Heal

a) A friendly targeted by your Focus.
b) A friendly who it targeted by the target of your Focus.
c) The Focus.

But your example got the point across.

[Ualaa]

If you were to glyph Totem of Wrath, with both Shaman.
When a Shaman drops their ToW, they receive a personal 5 minute buff, which is 30% of the spell power granted by the totem.

So if both Shaman had ToW glyphed, you would want both to drop their own ToW.
So they each get the 5 minute buff.

Once they have the buff, since ToW does not stack, you only need one between both Shammies.
So if there's another Fire Totem which could be of use to the team, you'd want ToW + another Fire Totem.

[Tyval]

Finally made it to Northrend.

Did some questing, and made it into UK. Went fine but with a couple of hiccups.

Group was
71 pali, mage , shaman x2 70 priest 80. Pali was in some old blues from BC and some new greens from WotLK.

the add boss was fine, though I don't think I was very skilled in the fight, mostly just spammed aoes for adds and iced chars. I may need to get some macros for heroic mode.

Second pair of named. pali seemed to take some big dmg , part way through fight caught me off guard, paid more attention next time. I did mess up though and accidentally killed the melee first, he then went around killing folks while I finished off the mage. Oopsies :).

Last named was actually much easier for me than the pair.

All in all it showed I need to keep doing instances and practice, I think without the 80 healer things would have been much harder...

Tomorrow on to Nexus, got the quests all done in that area so 4 quests in there to do.

T

[Tyval]

Did Nexus tonight, was pretty easy till final boss/dragon. wiped several times until I took a break and read a bit on this forum heh. Saw that Grounding totems are really helpful.

Using that strategy things went much better, then I started dying when enraged, wasn't ready for it.

The next time I was ready for it, but some bad timing and died again :(.

One thing I saw when looking at the log, I got hit for 9.5k critical... So it explains how I went down so fast. I think I have 12k hps buffed.

So the critical came as a surprise, I thought only heroics did that..

Though I guess the dragon is 73, my pali is 71, I had 413 defense.

So crits are something to worry about even in the normal dungeons?

Anyhoo, next time I really made sure to keep my renew ticking and healed up, and took her down.

Now on to questing till 73 :).

T

[Tyval]

Question for folks on AoE dmg.


Getting reading to head into Azjol-Nerub and Old kingom as my tank hits 73 , and dps 72.

Was thinking about AoE dmg.

Given my dps 2 elemental shaman and a mage, what would folks think would be the best way to max AoE dmg on fights that require this.

So far I haven't done much, arcane explosion, chain lightning, and seems elemental shamans have many other tools to use as well.

Thanks for all tips/pointers etc.

T

[Ualaa]

Shammies have Fire Nova or Flame Nova.
Whatever it is called, it used to be the Fire Nova spell.
The name is similar.
It is a PBAoE effect, centered on any Fire Totem you have out.
Magma Totem is AoE damage, but glyphed Fire Elementals are every 5 mins, so I use at least two on every boss (usually keep one Totem of Wrath out, for the team).

On my Pally, Shammy x3, Warlock team.
I have Consecrate, Flame Nova and Shadowfury on the same key.

On my mixed team (Druid, Priest, Mage, Shammy x2)...
I have Flame Nova on the same key as Priest Holy Nova (Priest has Holy Nova on its own key too).
The mage has a [nochanneling] Blizzard macro, so I can spam the key and not interrupt her casting.
The druid has [stance:1] Swipe; [stance:5,nochanneling] Hurricane (pretty sure 5 = boomkin).
The druid runs as both boomkin (spec 1) and feral (spec 2).

If you don't want to broadcast mouse clicks..
The mage could Arcane Explosion for decent damage.

[Tyval]

Thanks for the AoE tips.

AN and Old kingdom went okay, had a friend playing so swapped him for my mage (he was DK), came in handy on the last fight in Old Kingdom, That fight isn't very MB friendly hehe.


Raised some questions /issues with my group though.

THe big question...

Is there an easy way to have my dps folks face the mob they are attacking? This caused me quite a few problems on several fights. Like the Lady X before the final boss in old kingdom, adds can spawn from all around, I solved it eventually with placement but still was iffy. I know EQ2 has a turn to face option, I'll check the WoW interface again but didn't see it.

What do others do to make sure casters etc can cast on a mob they aren't facing?

Thanks

T

[Ualaa]

If you have click to move enabled...
Interface Options - Mouse Options, check the box.
Or "/console AutoInteract 1".

And you have a keybind for Interact With Target.
And another for movement to all toons.

Hit your IWT keybind.
Which will have all of your toons turn to the target.
And begin running at it (to melee it to death).
(Range on this is about 3x as far as /follow, which is excellent for recover from a fear bomb).

Then you press your movement key (down arrow, for example).
To break the follow.
You now have all of your toons facing towards your target.