having a tough time lately, any pointers?

Hi all. I'm not exactly new at this anymore. but i still struggle sometimes and i wondered if anyone has any tips for me?
First, I use keyclone. I usually run DK/Mage/Priest or Hunter/Mage/Priest or even warr/mage/priest depending on the mood im in. I also have a tripod of shamans. Yes only 3. I could probably go to 5 but i have issues when running that many clients for some odd reason. and maximizers been behaving... somewhat squirrelly lately. Anyway.

Heres how i play. I have been using macaroon buttons (configurable buttons/bars with macros in place of action buttons) thus allowing me to put just about anything into any button i choose. and these i have configured to banks of 12. numpad 0 to - , ctrl numpad 0 to -, alt, and alt+ctrl, Ive been pretty much "hardcoding" my heals to individual names and placing them in the banks so that i can then say - just as an example ctrl+numpad2 heals my dk or whatever. using /target playername followed by /cast healspell. I keep these blocks of buttons floating free on the right side of my screen even if they have nothing in them to remind me where everything is. on the main toon some buttons are blank but have text tooltip to note what they are on the other two screens. oh and i have 2 monitors side by side with the 2nd and 3rd toons on the 2nd monitor split vertically. makes it easy to reach into either screen and manipulate things or hit up a quest giver to hand in etc. and i use the big follow button, with one for each toon in the event i need to swap screens. oh and i have a Razor naga mouse with the 12 buttons on the side. set to numpad.

This normally works. lately ive had a few occasions where this just plain does not work. Ive also tried (on my shamans) to use /target party0 party1 party2 etc and those work. Sometimes. but not always and not reliably if the group composition changes. in a bind i can just slap an Fkey and then throw out heals (from all 3 at once) but its wasteful and more of a last ditch effort than anything. because then all 3 are throwing the same heal but not always the same target.

another difficulty ive run into is well.. How do any of you handle your standard fight casting on a caster while tanking? i cant seem to wrap my head around it unless i setup keys 1-= to not broadcast. tanking with my dk is well.. somewhat spammy. hell even on my warr its spammy. so unless i dont let the main bar transmit im casting random nonsense on my mage. i dont like to blank her main bar out because if i do then if i have to switch to her in a pinch its unpleasant.

I have been using a cast sequence on one of my numpad buttons, and then spamming that but it makes it more difficult to spam mainbar buttons on whatever toon im tanking with. i cant always pay enough attention to the other toon to make sure its casting. should i streamline the castsequence? just fireball or frostbolts? been running these questions around in my head and have tried numerous things to come to some kind of a solution and i cant seem to find it. i can tank regular instances and dps / heal with the 2 followers with minimal failure. but theres no chance in the fiery abyss that i can do heroics this way. I tend to have 2 friends that come along or have me run them thru stuff so that fills the last two slots. but on the shamans sometimes i random for the heck of it. this makes healing tough as i cant exactly /target them all the time with the servername included. unless i use /target party#.

any suggestions and or tips or even just a "this is how i do it" would be greatly appreciated.

Spleeneater, Hunnybee, Rotty - DK/Mage/Priest - Stormrage
Splëen, Spleën, Splëën - Tripod shamans - Stormrage

For heals -

I'd avoid using /target. Set up your heal macros like this

/cast [@party1] heal spell

Changing targets can sometimes be delayed due to latency causing the heal to start casting on the previous target.

For DPSing, you should have cast sequences for everyone. Create a standard tanking rotation and a standard DPS rotation and put them on the same button for all accounts. It sounds like you're trying to make everyone cast individual spells all on their own keys and that's not terribly efficient unless you're running all the same class doing the same thing at the same time. Look at the stickies in the Macros forum.

For Healing:

Seriously consider Repeater Region based healing.
You can do that with Hot Key Net (which is free), while retaining Keyclone for your other boxing needs.

See this thread: http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=32741
In particular, Post #1 and #11.

If you go with Repeater Regions, you'll need a unit frame addon.
Something which you can get an alphabetical sort.
The top choices are:
a) Grid + Grid Custom Layouts + Clique
b) Healbot
c) Vuhdo

It comes down to a preference call, as far as appearance goes.
But they essentially do the same thing, as far as healing goes.
A given type of click, sends the desired heal to the target.



For DPS:

I like to have castsequences, for most of my toons.
If you are manually controlling the tank, consider placing key abilities on say 1-5.
And putting the same castsequence macro for all of your DPS on each of those keys.

If possible, I like to have one key where everyone will DPS.
And another where my healer is not DPS'ing, in case I need them free to heal.

Then have certain key abilities, maybe 0-4 per class, on their own keys.
Things like Heroism, Drop Totems, Battle Rez, etc.
But aside from these big guns, the more stuff you can automate by spamming fewer keys, the better.

Personally, I use Pitbull4 with mouseover healing instead of click healing and do the configuring in HKN. I use a lot of mouseover in my setup.

2 or 3 + Mouse over the portrait frame = Greater Healing Wave.
2 or 3 + Mouse over the bars = Healing Wave.
2 or 3 + Mouse over the debuffs section {right side of the bar} = Healing Surge.

Ctrl + Insert {one of the keys on my Naga} + mouse over bars for rez + Riptide out of combat or Chain Heal in combat.

I also have "hardcoded" cleansing set up to somewhat mimic Decursive and additional mouseovers for interrupts, purges, long cooldowns and short cooldowns as well as procs and emergency buttons.

thx for the replies all. i got caught up in getting my stuff right and forgot to come back and check em out.
i have tried the castsequence thing multiple times but it always sucks when i need to swap to that toon cuz they cast inappropriate stuff if i jump to them midsequence.
what ive been trying to do is i set one key (something i wont mistakenly press) to the castseq and then all their normal keys (1-=) to whatever i would normally have. and block those keys from transmitting.

I will have to give the @party a try. i had not thought of that before. one of my biggest issues has been changing targets to heal then getting them back on the mains target to dps. This would definately alleviate that. the hardest part really is determing who is which party# up front. specifically when randoming. so that i can heal whoevers getting owned in the face when it isnt one of my tribox.

also i do use Healbot and in a pinch i can always reach into that screen and use it but i dislike having to switch my focus from the main , especially if im tanking.
I am definately open to ideas. i thinki just need to unlearn how i play first and go from there. But its all going to rely on whether or not i can get the healing situation resolved. i can almost always handle healing my 3, its just the other two and the ocasional times where i drop my brain and cant figure out which button to hit. but thats probably because i completely revamped my UI.

anyway any further suggestions from mage +other boxers , hunter+ others boxers or shaman group owners would be greatly appreciated.

lastly anyone here use a DK tank for their boxing fun? lemme know please. i promise to check this sooner this time around.