Mosg2 manifesto help with DK Macros

[Phanes]

In recent threads I have been seeing this referenced. A search did not turn anything up more recent than 2010. Can someone give me the link to this or explain the idea behind it. A lot of the boxers here seem to swear by it but I am not sure what it is refering too.

I am currently doing this with my Blood Tank DK and was looking to see if it can be better or if I am missing something. Right now in HOTs/Raids I pull about 21k DPS on AOE and about 17k DPS on single target I am Ilevel 388. I basically mash my AOE or Single target and when I see enough rune power I spam my runic dump button. I have Blood Boil on a seperate button for when I get procs and

AOE

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=combat Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Boil,Heart Strike,Death Strike,Death Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike,


Runic Dump/Spam Button

#showtooltip
/cast Rune Strike
/cast Bone Shield
/cast Anti-Magic Shell


Oh Shit

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=60 Vampiric Blood, Raise Dead, Death Pact, Icebound Fortitude,


Single

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=combat Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Heart Strike,Heart Strike,Death Strike,Death Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike,

[Khatovar]

Very {very very very} basically, most if not all classes run on a priority system. This means if all of your spells are available, SpellA is your best choice, followed by SpellB, etc. The higher on the list, the more important it is.

What Mosq2 uses with the manifesto is the concept that

1. The game will not allow more than one action to process no matter how many keys we send at the same time
2. a castsequence will never account for everything when dealing with a priority-based class.

What we do instead is build around our priority system. Simply put, you lay out your spells in your prioritized order in game. For example, my Enhancement shaman's priority would be -

Lay down totems {Searing} > Unleash Elements > Instant Lighting Bolt > Flame Shock if it's not up > Stormstrike > Lava Lash > Earth Shock.

So, on my bars I have, in order, a castsequence for each of my totems {1}, Unleash Elements {2}, a castsequence for Flame Shock 4*Earth Shock {3}, Stormstrike {4}, Lava Lash {5} and /stopcasting /cast Lightning Bolt {6}. Lightning Bolt is at the end so the stopcasting doesn't keep seizing up my white hits, so that's an exception to the rule.

Then, in my broadcasting software, I set up my DPS key to send 1-6 all at once every time I press it. The game receives all those keys at the same time, casts the first thing it can and ignores everything else.


Unlike a step system where each subsequent press sends a different key, a priority system sends a bunch of keys at the same time, just like if you'd mashed several keys at once on your keyboard. The game will only process the first available action and ignore everything else. It won't process anything else until the Global Cooldown ends and another keypress occurs.

So, straight broadcasting would be you press 2, 2 is what is sent to your games.

Steps would be you press 2, the first time it sends 2 to your games. The next time it sends 3. Third press sends 2 again.

Priority would be you press 2 and it sends 1, 2, 3, 4, to your game all at once and the game says "1 is - not ready = ignore, 2 is - ready = cast 2, ignore 3, ignore 4." This way you don't have to build miles-long castsequences that require a physics professor to time out and build.

It's kind of like using a spray and pray technique or a shotgun in a shooter game, doesn't really matter how many bullets miss, it's the one that does hit and kills the other guy that counts, lol.


I'm sure some of the more technical guys would have a better explanation, but like I said, this is the basic concept.

[roddo]

Finding this useful, as I'm getting to the point in my teams progression where I need to do more than just park the team while the booster kills everything. Good stuff.

[Acidburning]

Ualaa's guide is also based on it.

http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/37658-My-4x-Frost-DK-Paladin-Setup-Based-on-DK-Manifesto?highlight=mosg2

[Phanes]

So Khat that is pretty awesome.
So with a DK you want to get your diseases up and keep them up so you could do something like.

1. /castsequence reset=target Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Death Strike x 4 (gets diseases up, makes death runes etc)
2. /castsequence reset=combat Blood Boil, Heart Strike x4 (burns up blood, pestilence for AOE, powerful strike etc)
3. /cast Rune Strike (runic power dump)
4. /cast 30 second cool downs AMS, Blood Rune etc etc

Keep my procs on manual buttons and fire them when quartz master tells me to.

So I have two other questions.
1. Does someone have a blood/dk sequence I can look at or can you critique mine?
2. How often do I push the key just spam it or like once a second?
Thanks

[Khatovar]

My DK is Unholy but her setup is


/assist party1
/castsequence [nochanneling] [@party1target][@target] reset=combat/alt Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence, null
/cast [nochanneling] Dark Transformation
/petattack


/cast [nopet, nomounted, nochanneling] Raise Dead
/castsequence [nochanneling] Horn of Winter, Blood Boil


/assist party1
/cast [nochanneling] [@party1target] [] Death Coil



/castsequence [nochanneling] [@party1target] [] reset=combat/alt Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence, null
/cast [nochanneling] [@party1target] Scourge Strike()



/castsequence [nochanneling] [@party1target] reset=combat/alt Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence, null
/cast [nochanneling] [@party1target][@target] Festering Strike()



The first part is a castsequence that is nulled out on the end. This is repeated across all my macros. If you have the same castsequence across multiple macros, the game will automatically advance them all, no matter what macro they are called from. And the null is an invalid spell, so the sequence will lock up at the end, allowing the macro to advance to whatever is below it. Though I will have to double check that again because I'm not trusting that a macro I made yesterday is still going to work today, lol. <3 major patches.


Anyway, I make use of the nulled sequence to put up and spread my diseases, without having to figure out how long my average fight is and how much crap I have to put in a macro to keep it from spamming Icy Touch and Plague Strike. I used a reset conditional of combat or alt so it won't reset unless I really want it to.

Once diseases are up, it cycles through my regular DPS abilities.

I spam it just like a normal key, maybe 3 presses a second.

[Phanes]

So the reset=combat/alt changes for combat or if you press the Alt key?

[Phanes]

/cast [nopet, nomounted, nochanneling] Raise Dead
/castsequence [nochanneling] Horn of Winter, Blood Boil

Just one question on this and a comment.

First of all this is genius. It lets you fire your Blood Boil every 20 seconds refreshing diseases long before they would drop. So you don't waste two runes reapplying.

Do you have Raise Dead in there so it will raise your pet if it dies in combat?

[jstanthr]

Recently since I started using the "priority" system, i've been putting my macro's into ISBoxer and letting it deal with them, I know it leaves your button blank in game (could make an empty macro for an icon) but it seems to work better than putting them ingame, or maybe it's jst me, lol. It is actually a lot easier than i expected it to be. more than doubled my deepZ

[Khatovar]

So the reset=combat/alt changes for combat or if you press the Alt key?

Yes, I have a key on my Naga set to send the Alt trigger if I need it, like a trash mob dies before I can spread diseases and I need to start the macro from the beginning. Otherwise it resets on its own once I leave combat.




Do you have Raise Dead in there so it will raise your pet if it dies in combat?

Yup. I tend to send my pet off after patrols and sometimes it gets ganked before I can get in range to snatch agro, or it gets eaten in AOE, so I needed to be able to repop him often, since he's a large part of my DPS.


Recently since I started using the "priority" system, i've been putting my macro's into ISBoxer and letting it deal with them, I know it leaves your button blank in game (could make an empty macro for an icon) but it seems to work better than putting them ingame, or maybe it's jst me, lol. It is actually a lot easier than i expected it to be. more than doubled my deepZ

I couldn't speak to that. I use HotKeyNet, so I still need to have the macros in game. But it did definitely improve my DPS and it's so much easier than trying to factor in haste and all the other factors that can dork up castsequences.

[Phanes]

Khatovar I want to say thank you for helping me figure this out. I redid a priority systemon my DK and like you had said in the past I had some 8 mile long cast sequence that I had to sit there for hours and figure out the timing on the runes. Using this system my DPS went from 13.5 on the AOE level 80 dummies to 16.5. On the single target boss mob it went from 4.4 to 6.0. I ran a few hots and sure enough my DPS was way up across the boards. Now I just have to figure out a DPS spec.

[Khatovar]

Nice, glad to hear it. This system is easier to figure out than talents at this point, lol.

[Raist]

This was awesome... I use an old saitek command pad and have a repeater set up to cycle through the action bar buttons 1-6 4 times a second. This series of 5 macros works really well... Thank you so much. I hadn't thought about the null piece and it makes tons of sense...

What talents did you take on your DK?

[lans83]

This was awesome... I use an old saitek command pad and have a repeater set up to cycle through the action bar buttons 1-6 4 times a second. This series of 5 macros works really well... Thank you so much. I hadn't thought about the null piece and it makes tons of sense...

What talents did you take on your DK?

You can not use keypads and or keyboards to automatically press keys for you without interaction. Blizzard frowns on this and it can get you band from the game. The Logitech G series with the macro keys has this function as well, I use the G11 keyboard, but if you use the automation function it can and will get your account/s band. If that is what you are referring to doing, you will have to reread what the Manifesto is about, because this is not it. One keypress sends out multiple commands, much like a single macro which I use for Bartender addon:

/click BT4Button1
/click BT4Button2
/click BT4Button3
/click BT4Button4
/click BT4Button5
/click BT4Button6

If placed on the E/Q keys, or anywhere else, will send a single command to press all 6 of those buttons at the same time and fire off whatever is first in the list, off the Global Cool Down, available, and manage to be cast. By no means a perfect setup, but it is oldschool and still works on some level, lag/# of keypresses effect the outcome.

Again, DO NOT USE AUTOMATION. Other than that, have fun, good luck, and may the DPS Gods smile upon you.

[Toonarmy]

So I have a quick clarification question. Using the system described here how does isboxer know to fire off the first spell in the priority list and then work its way down (accounting for CD)

I understand why we want I set it up that way, I just don't understand how it knows to start at the top and work its way down (knowing what is off cool down and what is currently on cool down). Does that make sense?

Toonarmy

[Khatovar]

So I have a quick clarification question. Using the system described here how does isboxer know to fire off the first spell in the priority list and then work its way down (accounting for CD)



It doesn't. It sends the game the entire list and the game processes the first thing that it is able to successfully cast, with the global cooldown making it block/ignore everything after that.

[Toonarmy]

It doesn't. It sends the game the entire list and the game processes the first thing that it is able to successfully cast, with the global cooldown making it block/ignore everything after that.

My apologies Khat, I wasn't clear. When you say, "the first thing that it is able to cast ..." where does "it" start from? And in what order does it try to successfully cast things? Does it try and cast in the order that the macro calls the spell (starting with the first spell everytime)?

Hopefully that is more clear. If not I'll try again : )

Toonarmy

[Khatovar]

It starts with the game, on Blizzard's servers. From my understanding, the servers will process it just like it would an ingame macro. Say you have a macro like this


/assist party1
/castsequence spell1, spell2, spell3
/cast something else
/say Whooties!!
/click actionbutton#
/swapactionbar 2

Blizzard's servers receives all that information at once when you press the macro and processes it from the top down, taking any action that {according to its coding/rules} it is able to process and neglecting anything else until the next time it is sent. When it is sent again, it starts right back at the top looking for the first thing it can process.

The priority system works on the exact same principal, but rather than sending a macro with a ton of commands, we're sending a list of keys


<Key 1>
<Key 2>
<Key 3>
<Key 4>

Again, Blizzard's servers receives all the keys and just like the macro it goes from the top down, calling the associated macros/abilities in order until it has processed everything it can according to its' rules.


Outside of the order we put the keys in our list, all the "decisions" are made by and on Blizzard's servers, according to their rules.

Think of it like sending Blizzard a box of groceries.

We can pack the box putting the bread on top, a jar of peanut butter underneath that, maybe an assortment of jams under that, perhaps a jar of Nutella and a YooHoo on the bottom. Blizzard gets the whole package at the same time, and will have to unpack it in the same order {bread first, YooHoo last - 'cuz that's the way Mama Bliz taught them to do things}.

Maybe they get excited and Blizzard says "Awesome! Bread!" and starts eating slices of bread, ignoring everything else in the box. Maybe they aren't totally consumed by the bread because it's full of stuff off the GCD and doesn't need two hands to eat, so they use their free hand to keep unpacking the box, and they come across the peanut butter.

Now they need to stop and put the peanut butter on the bread. Or maybe not. Maybe they just had peanut butter so now they're on peanut butter cooldown.

So they set it aside and come across the jams. And one by one they look at the kinds of jams they have, perhaps sampling them in order. Unless they're also on jam cooldown and decide to keep digging through the package.

And they come across the Nutella, and maybe they slap that on some of their bread, unless they have a strict rule about Nutella where they can only eat it for dessert {think Execute or proc conditions ;) } or perhaps they can't resist Nutella and have have it all the time 'cuz Nutella is never on cooldown.

But maybe, just maybe, they don't want any of that stuff and all they're left with is a YooHoo at the bottom of the box. But with all that bread, they sure could use a drink, so they put everything else away and sit down with their Yoohoo and their bread and wait for the next package we send, which they'll still have to unpack bread first, but maybe they're on bread cooldown by then...

I think that makes the general point, lol.




Yeah, I'm just a little hungry. :o

[Toonarmy]

Yup. Awesome. Thanks.

I'll have to give this some thought as to how it best applies to my 84 balance Druids. Unless someone already has it figured out and would like to share.

Toonarmy

[Iru]

​EDIT: turns out that 5 > 1 in more than just math. Swapping the order of the key presses so that Mangle is Ky 5 down through Lacerate as Key 2 fixes this. So far. An only for the druid.

I just switched all my toons to this structure and things are certainly a lot easier but I have a question for the non-DK users of this system. Do you find the client making sub-optimal choices and if so how do you increase the likelihood of getting more critical abilities to fire.

Let me give a concrete example.

I use a druid tank and so have a macro to case Farie Fire & then lock on Key 1, Mangle on Key 2, Thrash on Key 3, Swipe on Key 4, and Lacerate on Key 5. The problem I keep seeing is that I end up with an over abundance of Lacerate and not enough use of Mangle. This is especially problematic as Lacerate, Thrash, & Swipe can all reset Mangle's cool-down so not having it trigger whenever it can is a clear DPS loss. Yes, yes, it's a tank not a DPS class but my toons are sufficiently gear challenged that every little bit helps.

My understanding is that the following macro will lock if the first time is on CD so I can't even macro the more critical abilities in front of the lesser ones


/cast Mangle
/cast Lacerate


I end up with a similar problem on my hunter. Put Steady Shot on it's own button and Chimera Shot gets wasted. Macro a combination or Arcane Shot and a series of steady shots and I end up focus starved.

Anyone else run into this?

[Khatovar]

Tank vs DPS class doesn't matter. I use the same priority system for my tank, healer and DPS.

You have a couple of options -

1. Lacerate has a 3 sec cooldown and only stacks 3 times. Mangle has a 6 second cooldown. You can work out a castsequence to get lacerate up and then prevent it from recasting after that for 15s or so as your top priority


/castsequence reset=target Lacerate, Mangle, Lacerate, Lacerate, Mangle, Mangle, Mangle

then replace that bottom priority Lacerate with another Mangle key to soak up proc'd Mangles {this way Mangle procs get used to advance the castsequence above anything else}

2. Use something else to temporarily lock up your Lacerates


/castsequence reset=target Lacerate, Lacerate, Lacerate, Growl, Growl, Growl

3. If Lacerate refreshes the 15s bleed, then it's going to end up being a waste of GCDs to let it drop and them put all 3 up again. In that case, I'd probably consider doing a nulled castsequence of 3 Lacerates and then adding Lacerate to something else, like


/castsequence Thrash, Thrash, Lacerate


For the hunter, it looks like generated focus should default to Chimera and only be used for Arcane when you need a focus dump. That being the case, I'd opt for random casts (http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/47966-Priority-and-Random-Casting-in-HotKeyNet) or Steps in conjunction with the priority system.

My Paladin Tank is a good example of this with Word of Glory (http://www.wowhead.com/spell=85673). I glyphed her to use WoG as a damaging spell as well as a heal, but even unglyphed, you don't want to spend all your Holy Power spamming the crap out of WoG when you really want it for Shield of the Righteous (http://www.wowhead.com/spell=53600). So, it's all well and good to put WoG on the bottom of the list, but it was still casting too often and eating the Holy Power I wanted for SotR, since WoG can cast with as little as 1 Holy Power, while SotR will only cast with 3.

So instead of just sticking my WoG button on the end of the priority, I added a key that calls a set of toggles/steps


//* TANK TOGGLES
<Hotkey RAlt F9>
<SendLabel w1>
<Key Shift 1>
<Key Shift 2>
<Key Shift 3>
<Key 2>
<Key Shift 4>
<DoRandomToggle Hotkey Oemax 2>

Then I made those toggles/steps refer to "blank" keys 4 times and my WoG key only once.


//* WORD OF GLORY

<Hotkey Oemax 2>
<Toggle>
<SendLabel w1>
<Key Shift 5>
<Toggle>
<SendLabel w1>
<Key Oem4>
<Toggle>
<SendLabel w1>
<Key Oem4>
<Toggle>
<SendLabel w1>
<Key Oem4>


Because HotkeyNet can't have true "blank" toggles, I uses Oem4, which is a keybind on a blank key in game.

This further reduces my chance of spamming WoG every time I get Holy Power because there's only a 1 in 5 chance that HotKeyNet is going to trigger Shift 5.

Don't know details on how you can manage the same thing with ISBoxer, but I'm sure you can use the whole Do Not Advance thingy on your Arcane Shot or add Arcane to a /castrandom macro at the bottom of your priority that calls Find Herbs or some other non-GCD-inducing/no cost/no cooldown ability a couple times or something.

Or you can tie Arcane to something else like I pointed out with the bear macros. A priority system does not exclude the use of castsequences or steps. From what I've been seeing it's best used in conjunction with them.

Really when it comes down to it, there's dozens of ways to make things work, it's just a matter of thinking creatively and experimenting.