Focus command

[khundawg]

Guys, can someone help me better understand how to effectively use the focus commands? I have been trying to integrate their use into my macros but I can never seem to get them to work. Maybe some examples or something like a simple follow macro or an assist/cast macro would help. Thanks!

[thinus]

When you start up have all your clones do:



/focus <your main's name goes here>


Macro all of your abilities on your clones like this:



/cast [target=focustarget] fireball


Replace "fireball" with whichever ability. Once you understand how this work then you can start moving to more advanced features like defaulting to your current target if a focus is not assigned or switching your focus when your main dies etc.

[khundawg]

ok, so you never issue a real /assist command like


/assist focus
or

/target focus
/assist


This was what I was trying and having no luck. So how would you do a switch of your focus between live characters or to a specific character on the fly?

[thinus]

ok, so you never issue a real /assist command like


/assist focus
or

/target focus
/assist


This was what I was trying and having no luck. So how would you do a switch of your focus between live characters or to a specific character on the fly?

It really depends on what works for you and this can depend on the key broadcasting method you are using to a certain extent, software, hardware, keyclone, AHK, Octupus, etc.

How and when do you plan to assist? In PvE you can still get away with pushing an assist button and then pushing your dps buttons. It is not really feasible for most of us as you have enough micro-management going on and adding the additional burden of assisting is something we try and avoid.

Targeting is a major discussion point on the forums and if you search for anything to do with "switching main" or "focus targeting" you should get more than enough information.

The disadvantage of using "/assist" is that it doesn't work if you have yourself focused and if you do assist then you lose your current target which you could have been using for CC for instance.

Lets say you have 5 buttons to switch focus.
Btn1: everyone /focus char1
Btn2: everyone /focus char2
Btn3: everyone /focus char3
Btn4: everyone /focus char4
Btn5: everyone /focus char5

Now you can easily switch between which character you want to be your "targeting" controller. Even if you focus yourself then [target=focustarget] will still work in your macros as it will resolve to whatever you have targeted.

Now lets say you want to assign targets for CC, for this you can make /assist macros:
SetCC1: char with CC1 - /assist focus
SetCC2: char with CC2 - /assist focus

So to assign a CC target you hit the SetCC1 button and that character only targets your current target and remembers it. Because all your normal abilities are macrod to work on [target=focustarget] your clones will never lose their targets.

Your CC macro will act on your assigned target and not on your focustarget, ie


/cast polymorph


Add all the modifiers like [exists, nodead, harm] etc to your taste.



So in short:
DPS: [target=focustarget]
Heal: [target=focus] OR [target=focustargettarget] OR you can hardcode healing by name [target=char1]
CC: On your assigned target
Buff: [target=focustarget] if you want to make it easy to buff other ppl too
Switch main: everyone /focus the new main

[Molt]

I've ended up replacing my 5-button '/focus' macros with a single one which works okay.. maybe not quite as nice but it saved me valuable macro space. Basically I have a main, Astrate, who targets the person to become leader and then everyone hits a:

/assist Astrate
/focus [target=target]
/promote [target=focus]
/assist [target=focustarget]
macro button to confirm them. This works even if Astrate is dead as long as they focus on the new leader the macro works fine.

[thinus]

I've ended up replacing my 5-button '/focus' macros with a single one which works okay.. maybe not quite as nice but it saved me valuable macro space. Basically I have a main, Astrate, who targets the person to become leader and then everyone hits a:

/assist Astrate
/focus [target=target]
/promote [target=focus]
/assist [target=focustarget]
macro button to confirm them. This works even if Astrate is dead as long as they focus on the new leader the macro works fine.

It won't work when your main is Mind Controled.

[Djarid]

I use this http://www.dual-boxing.com/wiki/index.php/Macro:Focus_with_modifiers it allows me to chose which character is focus (and changes them to the party leader).

[khundawg]

Thanks guys. I guess to help a little I should share what I am doing. I am using keyclone to run a 4 Shaman team. Right now, I am trying to figure out a way to do a /follow script that is portable between characters. For example, I dont want to have to go into the script to change a main's name to update the script. I switch between boosting with a 70 mage when leveling and simply running one shammy as a main when playing around. Right now, I have to edit all my macros to be either my mages name or my main shammy's name and I want to eliminate that need.

I am doing this group primarily to play around doing some PVP and I can see the need to start working on portability of all my macros. Should my main shammy be killed, I want to be able to pick up another and take off. Right now I cant do that since I am assisting off my main shaman. I will do as you suggest and start searching around but I wanted to give a little clearer idea of what I was going for to help anyone else posting to understand where I am coming from. Thanks again!!!