Use of Focus

[Kissell13]

To start things off, macros confuse me, they always have and probably always will. That being said I know as a multiboxer that they are necessary so I was hoping for some help.

What is the benefit of using /focus over /assist

Im confused on what can be done with /focus that cant be done with /assist
I have read the stickies and macro guides, and im just plain confused ?(

Thanks in advance

-Kissell13

[Zuco]

Ok, im not sure totally, this is my first few hours on this website, and i just bought this, so i am trying to learn as much as i can.

From what i have read, you can select a person as your focus (for instance, the group leader), and when you /target focus, you are targeting the person that you selected as your focus. You can make this easier by going into the key binding and setting the "Focus Target" to a key. . .

That is what i have read, but i am still learning myself

[Rakadazan]

Ok I will try to expalin this with an example and maybe the best example there currently is. Say you have a mage and you want to sheep target X and kill target Y. If you make a focus macro for sheep, it would work something like this....

Target X and set focus and sheep, now target Y and blast away, wait X broke sheep, no problem just hit sheep without ever switching from Y.

Its basically telling the macro to remember X and when you sheep X, it will sheep X without having to be the current target. There is an immense guide on macro creation made by a guy named Cogwheel on the wowwiki or WoW forums. Maybe I am not the best to explain but its the general idea.

[Groovy]

This should help

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html;jsessionid=8107CA09FB92FEF509DB5C76D0F F31F4.app01_05?topicId=3881820910&sid=1

[Rakadazan]

Here is all the info that I could find on Focus, its not mine so I take no credit for it.

Saving a target for later action

The /focus command allows you to save a target to come back to later. For example, say your raid leader assigns you a target to sheep. First, select that mob, and type /focus. Now you can use a macro like the following to cast sheep on your focus.
/target focus
/cast Polymorph
/targetlasttarget
Using Focus

Focus is a unit ID like target, player, or raidpet1target (See http://www.wowwiki.com/UnitId). It allows you to reference a mob, player, or NPC you specify. The simplest usage of focus is with key bindings. There are two focus-related functions in the bindings menu: Focus Target, and Target Focus. Focus Target sets your focus to whatever you are currently targeting (it will clear your focus if you have nothing targeted). Once you have a focus set, you can use it as a unit ID for any other command. Target Focus will, as you might guess, target the entity you have focused. However, these bindings don't really take full advantage of focus. In order to get the most bang for your buck, you will need to use macros with macro options.

One of the most common uses is to set a crowd control target. A mage can select a mob to sheep and set it as their focus. Now they can change targets for DPS and use the following macro whenever they need to re-sheep.
/cast [target=focus] PolymorphOr maybe a healer could set their focus to the main tank. With an addon like FocusFrame (http://wow.curse.com/downloads/details/5681/), they would then have a frame devoted to their main tank that they could easily use for healing.

In addition to the key bindings, there are also the /focus and /clearfocus slash commands. Without any parameters, /focus works exactly like the key binding, setting your current target as your focus. You can also specify any valid unit ID (see Targeting above) or name as a parameter to /focus:
/focus party3targetHere is an example of more advanced focusing:
/focus [target=focus, noharm] [target=focus, dead] [modifier]
/stopmacro [target=focus, noexists]
/cast [target=focus] PolymorphThe first line sets your focus to your current target (or clears your focus if you don't have a target) in one of the following situations:
You don't have a harmful focus (either it's friendly or doesn't exist)
Your current focus is dead
You are holding down a modifier key (in case you want to change your focus after you already have a valid one)
The second line keeps the macro from proceeding if you don't have a focus. Finally, it casts Polymorph on your focus. This gives you a one-button solution for your crowd control with focus. You may notice that we could have used an exists condition in the /cast command instead of a separate /stopmacro command. However, /stopmacro affords us a bit more flexibility by stoping any other commands we may add to the macro later (like a warning in /p).

It's possible to swap your target and your focus, giving you in effect two targets you can toggle between:
/cleartarget [target=target, dead]
/clearfocus [target=focus, dead]
/target focus
/cleartarget [target=focus, noexists]
/targetlasttarget
/focus target
/targetlasttargetThe first two lines clear the target and/or focus if they are dead (if you really want to keep track of multiple dead targets, e.g. to resurrect or loot them, then delete those lines). The fourth is needed because /target focus doesn't clear your target if you have no current focus (without it, the fifth line would then retrieve your previous target).

[Knytestorme]

Honestly, it's seems to be better to use focus for your main assit character and leave target for things you need to sheep/heal/etc outside of your main target.

Take two examples.

1. Main assist char is set as focus for group and a mage is set to poly a mob while priest is set to heal npc involved in fight (think an escort quest)

* We set the npc as priests target and mage has a sheepable mob set as target
* During fight all group members use a macro of /cast [target=focustarget] spellname and this never changes from fight to fight (also means we can keep going if main dies by using the focus change macro posted around the place)
* If mob needs to be sheeped or healed, mage or priest can just press the appropriate spell icon and not have to use a macro for it.

2. We change it so main assist is set as target for group and priest and mage use focus for off targets

* During fight all group members use a macro such as /cast [target=targettarget] spellname OR /assist party1; /cast spellname (here we need to change macro any time we change main assist)
* If mob needs to be sheeped or healed then mage/priest need to use a macro such as /cast [target=focus] spellname

Both of these are about equal in useage but using main assist as focus will reduce the number of macros you need and is easier to sort out imho.

[razorbax]

The main reason for using focus over assist is if your main dies, it is less complex to change the focus of all your characters, then changing your assists.

[Rakadazan]

Well that is the best explanation I have visually seen!

[Djarid]

I can make it really easy for you.

Focus and target are the same thing EXCEPT
Target has default bindings to assign a mob/npc/player as target Target is the default recipient for all targeted actionsFocus can be used to replicate all the actions of target with macros :)

so using targettarget in macros is the same as using focustarget

Pros of using focus:
It can't be accidentally changed through an accidental keypress It frees up target to allow individual clones to retain specific targets (CC or DD etc)

[Krohnos]

Hi, im new here and just got a tought about targetting. Btw yesterday i started to lvl up 2 locks, then a pala, mage, priest for later 5 boxing :). Ok, the thing, is it possible to use marks in macros? Like i mentioned ill have 2 locks and a mage in my grp (my gf will take care of healing with priest so less stress :)) and for example i set MOON for sheep, DIAMOND for seduction. I make a macro for the mage like this:

/target moon
/cast polymorph
/target lasttarget
/cast omgball

and same for seduce. This means i only have to care with marking and everything is perfect, well sort of :). So is it possible?

[Maz]

No it's not. I asked for this on the European suggestions forum.

I doubt we'll get it as it would be imba! Particularly for multiboxers :)

[Havelcek]

Djarid called out the best reason for using focus (in my opinion). You can't "accidentally" lose the target when you use focus to target something.

Bottom line is that you want your clones to always be able to shoot the target of your main. Focus is the best way to do that.