Macros are Killing Me

[jrkilroy]

Ugh. I can use any help anyone wants to give. I'm about to throw in my multiboxing towel.

I need the moron's guide to ISBoxer WoW macros. I've watched MiRai's video on rotations a dozen times, but figuring out the right mix of steps, /cast, /castsequence seems beyond me. Any suggestions? (I've tried warrior, prot pally, and arcane mage with very little success)

[ebony]

mutiboxing is not for everyone and i know loads that think its as easy as a one button press and everything goes automated off. but its not it takes time to setup. if you can not use that then use gnome addon and get the Marcos form http://wowlazymacros.com/

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I'll second starting with some of the info in wowlazymacros.com.

That said, I'd recommend putting something together, trying it out, and then posting in the "New Multiboxers and Support" forum with questions about why certain things don't work. Also, see the WoD macro thread http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/51592-WoD-6-0-2-Macro-Library and the MoP macro thread http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/47938-The-MoP-Macro-Library and start there. There are posts in those threads that break things down by step and other considerations. If you've already been through those threads and are still stuck, let us know where you are stuck. We can help with "I tried the following <pasted_macro_code_or_isboxer_profile> and it sticks at <step_x>" but we really don't do much of the "I can't understand how to do this macro thingy" for you.

[JohnGabriel]

Some are easier than others, I can help with pali tank, frost mage, ele shaman, bm hunter, dest warlock.

I use WoW's suggestions. Press P to open your spellbook and click on the Core Abilities tab. Then just drag all those down to your command bar with the highest priority spell first. Now you have the basics all done, just change each of those to macros so you can add your trinkets and etc and put everything into isBoxer suite.

[Kayley]

If you plan on world PvP and doing a really good job (or even 5v5 arena) -- try and stay away from one button macros :D
WoW is pretty simple now, we only need like 6 buttons, unlike the old days where we needed 4250238712 keybinded spells.

[Wubsie]

I've actually been a bit surprised as to how little we discuss how we've chosen to setup different classes and specs on the forums.

As stated by others, I've also found that how many and what type macros I need is very much down to the class/spec. Most I've gotten to a satisfactory level, although not quite to a degree where they would match a competent player. Also, while you could try and stuff everything in to a single rotation, it is not really optimal a lot of the time. Breaking the mechanics down to smaller increments can be very impactful on your team's performance. For example, a simple "pull" rotation where you mainly apply/reapply dots/debuffs can work wonders to optimize initiating combat, switching targets as well as your maintained DPS.

For an Arcane Mage, Mercurio's 3 step rotation still works perfectly well. Each step responds to a single macro and no other keypresses are sent with them:

Step #1:


/stopmacro [channeling]
/castsequence reset=5 Arcane Orb, Arcane Blast,Arcane Blast,Arcane Blast,Arcane Blast,Arcane Barrage


Step #2:


#showtooltip
/stopmacro [channeling]
/cast [combat] Supernova


Step #3:


/stopmacro [channeling]
/cast Arcane Missiles


The original version had trinkets and and DPS cooldowns in it as well, but I chose to drop them out and keep control over them myself (since I mainly PVP and don't want to use them unnecessarily). You could additionally throw in Ice Floes and Presence of Mind if you wanted to.

I'd love to see how people have setup their stuff so I can compare for example my Prot Pally, hunters (MM/BM) and my healers.

[jrkilroy]

Thank you for all your replies. I had some experience multiboxing a few year ago, but I was using low level characters with pretty straight forward key broadcasting.

This week my big epiphany was understanding how, with ISBoxer, Steps correspond to the x axis, and /castsequence to the y axis. But effective rotations seem to elude me.

What do you find the best place to test rotations to be? Training dummies? Duel with another party member?

[Wubsie]

I always prefered dummies, as they provide the closest to a "laboratory environment" for testing. No mechanics or movement to consider, just roll through your rotation and see where it's not quite doing what you want it to. Then tweak it, try again.

For PVE I suppose running low enough difficulty dungeons and maybe even LFR could provide additional information as they correspond more to what you're likely to encounter while playing.

[jrkilroy]

One more post and I will move my questions to the "New Boxers" forum. A little time, a little sleep, a little perspective, helps. I believe I found my basic issue: castsequence resets. I didn't realize that once a castsequence fails (proc not ready or whatever) it stays broken. That explains quite a bit of the erratic behavior I was experiencing.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

One more post and I will move my questions to the "New Boxers" forum. A little time, a little sleep, a little perspective, helps. I believe I found my basic issue: castsequence resets. I didn't realize that once a castsequence fails (proc not ready or whatever) it stays broken. That explains quite a bit of the erratic behavior I was experiencing.

Yes, that's a subtle but important consideration. ;) Also, I'll second target dummies as a baseline test bed. You won't be able to correlate that to dungeon or raid DPS due to so many different variables but it will absolutely get you a relative estimate of when things are working well or really not working well. That said, the RNG is a stone bitch; my hunters will fluctuate up to ~25% on the dps meters depending on how my crit strings run. I have to run at least 5 minutes of rotation to get a true meaningful idea of performance between setups. ~1-2 minutes is fine for verifying the rotation works, doesn't stall, and isn't doing half or less of another setup but usefulness is limited. I suppose those of us that have things working well probably ought to go update the macro thread(s). :p

Good luck!

[CDNProdigy]

OP:

I have found that 80% of my multiboxing time is dedicated to ISBoxer setup tweaking and 20% actually playing the game. I cannot count the hours and hours I have spent trying different things to make macros work and/or fail.

Targeting the target dummies for about 3 - 5 minutes of straight DPS is a good suggestion. Then review the damage log and trace back what is and isn't working.

Lastly, if you are struggling with macros and/or the step macros feel free to post your macros so we can take a look to see what may be going wrong for you.

[JohnGabriel]

I've only successfully been able to work on my rotations on the target dummies, once I get into a dungeon DPS doesn't really make much sense. One fight it could be 12k DPS, next fight 35k, after that 15k, then you jump in an iron star and get 125k, the meters just don't tell you much in there.

[Enoah35]

I am not really the one to be giving advices but here is my take so far. I too have seen Mirai's great tutorials and how powerfull ISboxer is using macros. But all in all, so far I have used Mercurio's method and applying to my class and skills on the Macro library's Post mentioned on the first page. Basically you just order them up on what skills to prioritize in a sequence without using complicated castsequence.

I am still in the 70s but my Hunter were doing horrendous DPS using hard coded castsequence macro. I tried out Mercurio's Marksman's Macros and applied to my team and now they do about 4 times more damage. I am sure macros will deal with more micro management and one day would like to see them in action in my teams. But its a start, have a try.

P.S. I am having a little trouble with my Warrior tank since everything is instant cast and a lot of proc going on, some skills will miss opportunities when procced.