Macro Question Concerning Focus

[sigtau66]

I've started dual boxing warlocks. I'm trying to wrap my head around macros and in particular how to use focus. I think I have it correct currently, but I want to make sure there isn't another/easier way of doing it.

Basically what I want to happen is that I target a mob with my main and my other lock will nuke that mob continuously leaving my main the ability to switch mobs and nuke that one. In affect, I can be nuking 2 mobs at one time. This would be beneficial with fear and death coil when I get to that stage.

Anyway, what I currently have setup is I target a mob with my main. I hit a key that does an /assist main macro. Then, all my nuke macros are "/focus /cast [target=focus] spell"

Can I do that all in one macro or is the problem, which I ran in to, that I have /focus in each of my macros? I really don't like having to hit 2 keys to select a mob and then nuke.

Any assistance would be really appreciated.

[bryanc]

Calling "/focus" with nothing after it sets your focus to your current target, so doing "/focus /cast [target=focus] spell", is functionally equivalent to just doing "/cast spell" (with the side-effect of having changed your focus).

But unless I misunderstand what you're trying to do, you don't really need to use focus. Once your second lock has done /assist, your main can switch targets and the secondary lock won't switch unless you hit assist again.

[sigtau66]

Hmm, that is true. I didn't think about it that way.

I guess what I'm looking for is a one button solution/macro for my second lock to target/cast which then frees up my main to target other mobs. I prefer not to have 2 buttons to accomplish that.

[Diamndzngunz]

I got you covered. This is how I have my macros set up, and let me tell you I dont have to worry about nothing, no more /assist.

Toon1 (Main)
F1 /focus Toon1
F2 /focus Toon2
F3 /focus Toon3
F4 /focus Toon4

F5 /follow Toon1
F6 /follow Toon2
F7 /follow Toon3
F8 /follow Toon4

Toon2
F1 /focus Toon1
F2 /focus Toon2
F3 /focus Toon3
F4 /focus toon4

F5 /follow Toon1
F6 /follow Toon2
F7 /follow Toon3
F8 /follow Toon4

Toon3
F1 /focus Toon1
F2 /focus Toon2
F3 /focus Toon3
F4 /focus toon4

F5 /follow Toon1
F6 /follow Toon2
F7 /follow Toon3
F8 /follow Toon4

Toon4

F1 /focus Toon1
F2 /focus Toon2
F3 /focus Toon3
F4 /focus toon4

F5 /follow Toon1
F6 /follow Toon2
F7 /follow Toon3
F8 /follow Toon4


So When I'm on my main I hit F1 to /focus my self my alts will then focus me.

I run around and hit keys to cast spells. Now when I hit a key when I have a mob targeted my alt will also cast that spell without having to target the mob

Some macros I use

/cast [target=focustarget] Chain Lightning
/cast [target=focustarget] Earth Shock
/cast [target=focustarget] Frost Shock
/cast [target=focustarget] Lightning Bolt


You bind these to keys on all your characters you will have no problem with playing. This made the game so much easy.

I hope this helps you.

[sigtau66]

Ok, that gets rid of assist which is a BIG plus, but if my main changes targets won't the macros on my other characters change targets too? Since all my spells will be a macro consisting of "/cast [target=focustarget] spell" So if my main changes to mob #2 and I hit the shadowbolt hotkey which would normally cause both characters to cast now my second lock is casting on mob #2. Is that right?

I'm looking down the road for when I get fear. I don't want to single target fear a mob with both locks.

*edit: Disregard my question. I'm thinking too hard and making this more complicated than it has to be. Your macros are what I need. Thanks!

[opt]

I got you covered. This is how I have my macros set up, and let me tell you I dont have to worry about nothing, no more /assist.

Toon1 (Main)
F1 /focus Toon1
F2 /focus Toon2
F3 /focus Toon3
F4 /focus Toon4

F5 /follow Toon1
F6 /follow Toon2
F7 /follow Toon3
F8 /follow Toon4

Toon2
F1 /focus Toon1
F2 /focus Toon2
F3 /focus Toon3
F4 /focus toon4

F5 /follow Toon1
F6 /follow Toon2
F7 /follow Toon3
F8 /follow Toon4

Toon3
F1 /focus Toon1
F2 /focus Toon2
F3 /focus Toon3
F4 /focus toon4

F5 /follow Toon1
F6 /follow Toon2
F7 /follow Toon3
F8 /follow Toon4

Toon4

F1 /focus Toon1
F2 /focus Toon2
F3 /focus Toon3
F4 /focus toon4

F5 /follow Toon1
F6 /follow Toon2
F7 /follow Toon3
F8 /follow Toon4
Why do you need to follow anyone except your focus? The reason I ask is because i have keybound "t" to /follow focus, if my main dies i hit f2/t and everyone else follows the focus, this frees up f5 to f8 aswell as making it a little simpler.

[Tasty]

Hey Opty! You're on my realm yay :D (bit off topic I know)

[opt]

Hey Opty! You're on my realm yay :D (bit off topic I know)hey there alliance/horde? names pls
edit: ohh u must be tastydps/heals

[Tasty]

Lol You've heard of me! I feel so proud :D but yeah alliance

edit: You have an @post on the forums and I don't :(

also saw this reply to a Multiboxers are losers type pvp thread which I thought was worth mentioning "Who's the loser, the person with enough disposable income to throw away at a hobby like this or the poor soul he affects so deeply that he has to cry about it on a public forum?"

[Diamndzngunz]

I got you covered. This is how I have my macros set up, and let me tell you I dont have to worry about nothing, no more /assist.

Toon1 (Main)
F1 /focus Toon1
F2 /focus Toon2
F3 /focus Toon3
F4 /focus Toon4

F5 /follow Toon1
F6 /follow Toon2
F7 /follow Toon3
F8 /follow Toon4

Toon2
F1 /focus Toon1
F2 /focus Toon2
F3 /focus Toon3
F4 /focus toon4

F5 /follow Toon1
F6 /follow Toon2
F7 /follow Toon3
F8 /follow Toon4

Toon3
F1 /focus Toon1
F2 /focus Toon2
F3 /focus Toon3
F4 /focus toon4

F5 /follow Toon1
F6 /follow Toon2
F7 /follow Toon3
F8 /follow Toon4

Toon4

F1 /focus Toon1
F2 /focus Toon2
F3 /focus Toon3
F4 /focus toon4

F5 /follow Toon1
F6 /follow Toon2
F7 /follow Toon3
F8 /follow Toon4
Why do you need to follow anyone except your focus? The reason I ask is because i have keybound "t" to /follow focus, if my main dies i hit f2/t and everyone else follows the focus, this frees up f5 to f8 aswell as making it a little simpler.Wow man I did not know that. Thanks I would love to free up more macrospace.

[opt]

Wow man I did not know that. Thanks I would love to free up more macrospace.One other thing is that if i get feared i run around spamming t and often will pick up my shamans that way

[sigtau66]

So I set this up last night, but I noticed something odd. Sometimes my 2nd lock would lose focus. I'd have to re-focus her so that she could cast. Any ideas on why focus is being lost?

[Diamndzngunz]

That should not be happening. What key do you have set up for the focus? and how do you have the command written?

is it /focus

or

/focus toon

[sigtau66]

F1 is set on my main to /focus main. I then broadcast F1 to my second PC which is a macro that does /focus main.

Then each spell on my second lock is a macro of:

/cast [target=focustarget] spell


It works the majority of the time, but I was noticing that I do occasionally have to re-focus and I hit F1 to send the F1 keystroke to my 2nd alt.

[Atorifan]

I was thinking of a similar thing with the f1-5 keys, but for healing. f1 bongo bound all heal aggorar, f2 all heal agg.. and so forth. Until chain heal. I don't understand the healing macro, and I'm not asking for explanation. I just found a way to overcome the problem with an oh crap need to heal. Previously F1 etc, would target not the same guy for each toon. so ya...probly clear before, and I over worded it

[Djarid]

my 2 penne'th ;)

I avoid target=focustarget in DPS macros like the plague as I feel I lose a lot of flexibility with it. Let me explain, no there is too much, let me sum up.

I have my G1 - 5 keys bound to focus Party 1 -5 (by name)
I have my G 7-11 keys bound to target focustarget (1 per client client) this allows me to uniquely assign targets for my clones
I bind ` (the key next to 1) to assist focus on all clients

This gives me the focus fire option with a button that is close to hand for emergencies but also a simple means of pre-planning encounters

I also have my numpad keys bound to heals (on my 3 box shaman) so that any character can heal any other with a quick keypress.

1 = Char 1 heals char 1
2 = char 1 heals char 2
3 = char 1 heals char 3
4 = char 2 heals char 1
5 = char 2 heals char 2
6 = char 2 heals char 3
7 = char 3 heals char 1
8 = char 3 heals char 2
9 = char 3 heals char 3

0 = all heal focustargetfocus


but with 5 characters now, I am going to have to really rethink that ;) any suggestions?

Yeah I know I will have to get an X-keys! ;)

[aetherg]

These are the macros I use for targeting:

1. Set focus to the first non-nead, non-mind-controlled character
/focus [target=aeara,help,nodead]; [target=aebra,help,nodead]; [target=aecra,help,nodead]; [target=aedra,help,nodead]; [target=aeera,help,nodead]

2. Attack either the minion's target or the main's target (same for all damage spells)
/cast [harm,nodead] Lightning Bolt; [target=focustarget] Lightning Bolt

3. Heal either the minion's target, the main's target, or the main (same for all healing spells)
/cast [help,nodead] Lesser Healing Wave(Rank 4); [target=focustarget,help,nodead] Lesser Healing Wave(Rank 4); [target=focus] Lesser Healing Wave(Rank 4)

4. Target the main's target: /target focustarget

5. A set of 4 macros for /target aebra, aecra, aedra, aeera

6. A macro to /cleartarget

Explanation: because of how the game shuffles information between the client and the server, using focustarget rather than an /assist macro is faster and more reliable, especially if you're playing on the opposite coast from the server, at 300-400 ms lag. Most of the time, my minions have no targets, and will attack whoever the main is attacking, and heal the main, via focustarget.

For more complex fights, I can hand out a target for them to burn down in advance, via the target-main's-target macro. Since they now have a target, they will burn this down first, then return to attacking the main's target unless I assign them a new one. I don't end up needing this option much, but it is handy.

When a specific minion pulls aggro or gets hit by some attack, I hit one of my four specific-target macros, and then cast a heal. Because the minions have targets now, the heal will go to that target rather than the main. Once I'm done, I hit the cleartarget macro to reset them to healing the main. If I need to heal a target that I don't have a minion /target macro for, I can target it with my main and either use my target-main's-target macro (for more long-term healing) or just throw out a quick heal thanks to the [target=focustarget,help,nodead] condition in the healing macros.

The important thing here is that 'target' is being used like a 'focus' for the minions. So it's important that the minions' targets be cleared most of the time, which takes a little bit of getting used to. Once you do, it works very smoothly.

[sigtau66]

Ok, I'm back. Apparently what I'm doing isn't working and for some odd reason completely stopped working last night. The first thing I do after grouping my 2 warlocks is have my second warlock do this macro (my main Warlock's name is Kelseer):


/focus Kelseer

Once focus has been established, ALL my spell macros are the same:


#showtooltip
/cast [target=focustarget] Curse of Agony



#showtooltip
/cast [target=focustarget] Corruption


So, last night for some reason ALL spells stopped working except for Curse of Agony and Drain Soul. Shadowbolt, Corruption and Immolate wouldn't cast. Kept saying I had no target. Even after hitting F1 (my focus hotkey) and SHOWING that my main warlock was the focus I still couldn't cast spells. At this point, I don't know what's best to do. I thought about putting a:
/focus Kelseer command in each of my spell macros, but I'm not sure if that will interfere with anything.

Any suggestions?

*edit: Oh, one other thing I forgot to mention. My 2nd warlock continually loses her focus. What causes a character to lose their focus?

[aetherg]

Make sure you don't have 'focus' on the minions bound to any key you're hitting on the main; it's probably best to un-bind focus completely on the minions.

[sigtau66]

My focus macro is F1. On both characters, that corresponds to
/focus Kelseer

I have no reason to F1 for any thing other than to focus.

[aetherg]

I don't mean your focus macro, but WoW's built-in focus keybinding. Check the keybindings on each of your minions to see if anything is bound to the 'focus target' action and un-bind it.

[sigtau66]

I unbound all targeting functions on my minion and still nothing.

*edit: More troubleshooting. If I make my macro:
#showtooltip
/focus Kelseer
/cast [target=focustarget] Corruption it STILL won't work. Focus is set as evidence by the 4 spells that do work through macros. Also, if I go to my minions screen and type out the exact same command, it works. And if it makes any difference, I'm using HotkeyNet to broadcast my keystrokes. I'm at a complete loss here.