Basic Shaman macro set-up and help.

[Valaroth]

Alrighty, first off, new here (go figure), and I'm gonna try to 4 box, 4 shamans. Seems popular and I've seen video on it and it looks really fun.

I'll be 4 boxing on one computer, KeyClone, 2 monitors.

I've read over every sticky here and tried to understand most of these macros but I'm not quite understanding. I understand the Accept macro, and the BigButton macro, as it was put. What I do not understand, is how to actually get all of these things working together to form a smooth flow of moving, targetting and attacking with 4 characters.

Basically, I would love a pro here to give me a rundown of a macro set-up for 4 shamans, obviously 3 alts and the main.

Say, from buttons 1 to =, in each slot give me an example of macros I would put there for the alts. Would the main have to have macros as well? Or just his basic attacks and abilities?

As I stated above, I know how to get the very basic and needed macros set-up, but beyond that, I wouldn't really understand how to move my shamans into an attack where all 4 were preforming the same thing with only one keystroke.

Thanks greatly for any help.

[Boylston]

I hesitate to post this, because you should be a.) reading the stickies, b.) working with what you're "used to" for controlling 1 character, and c.) learning macro/focus/follow basics so that you can create your own best setup. All that said, here's a stripped down macro file that I used a few weeks ago.

MACRO 9 "Invite" Ability_Ambush
/invite Boylbee
/invite Boylcee
/invite Boyldee
/invite Boylston
/invite Altela
END
MACRO 3 "Accept" Ability_Ambush
/script AcceptGroup();
/script AcceptQuest();
/script AcceptTrade();
/script RetrieveCorpse();
END
MACRO 1 "Focus" Ability_Ambush
/focus Boylston
/stopmacro [target=focus, exists, nodead]
/focus Boylbee
/stopmacro [target=focus, exists, nodead]
/focus Boylcee
/stopmacro [target=focus, exists, nodead]
/focus Boyldee
END
MACRO 2 "Follow Focus" Spell_Magic_LesserInvisibilty
/follow focus
END

These three are your basic set focus, follow focus, and invite type keys. Obviously my characters are named Boylston, Boylbee, Boylcee, Boyldee... If you're by yourself, you may want a macro that does "/focus player" so that your attack/heal macros behave in a way that you might want (instead of generating "no target" errors.

Below are some attack and healing macros. The healing ones will heal whoever you are controlling is targeting, unless shift is pressed down as well, in which case it starts every shammy healing themselves. You will need to un-bind Shift-xx from something else to make this work.

MACRO 4 "LB" Spell_Nature_Lightning
/cast [target=focustarget] Lightning Bolt
/target [target=focustarget]
END
MACRO 7 "FS" Spell_Fire_FlameShock
/cast [target=focustarget] Flame Shock
/target [target=focustarget]
END
MACRO 12 "HW-F" Spell_Nature_HealingWaveGreater
/cast [target=player,modifier:shift] Healing Wave;
/cast [target=focus] Healing Wave
END
MACRO 10 "LHW-F" Spell_Nature_HealingWaveGreater
/cast [target=player,modifier:shift] Lesser Healing Wave;
/cast [target=focus] Lesser Healing Wave
END

If you are using the in-game macro editor, simply cut and paste the bolded/middle portions of each of the above. Shammies are a little easier/simpler than other classes, since you can pretty much use the Focus is the Main Character type of macro philosophy represented above. Other classes may want to reserve focus for CC abilities (warlocks, mages, etc), so they have a slightly more complex set of choices with macros.

Hope that helps, but I strongly advise you learn basic macroing and keybinding in addition to the software/hardware methods you are using to broadcast keystrokes-- there's no point going the multibox route if you aren't going to learn what works (and what works for you).

Good luck!

Boylston

[Boylston]

Note, the above macro set will work on ALL your characters. You can literally swap between mains at will if you use a different set of focus macros. (The one I have listed below is an "oh crud my main died, let's pick a new one" type emergency macro.

I recommend a separate set of hotkeys for all your characters that assigns a focus to each of your team. It's a useful thing to have at your disposal. For example, I set loot to FFA and simply rotate through mains when doing the few collection quests that I want/need to do.