Maat's unorthodox 4 pala setup

Since quite a lot of people were asking for my 1 prot 3 ret pala setup, here it goes:

I have to warn you that some stuff I do/use are on the fine edge of what is allowed and what is not. We could argue over it, but the fact is I've been multiboxing in cata like this for quite a while and have never received any warning or bann or anything. So I personally think this is still on the legal part of things.

The problems:

Retribution paladins are heavily based on procs and only using abilities when you have 3 holy power (HP from this on). For example casting exorcism (as in really casting it with a cast time) is a big no no. Casting Templar's Verdict before you have at least 2 but preferably 3 HP is also a big no no, not to mention casting Inquisition with only just 1 HP or letting it run out, or renewing it too early. So yeah there are quite a few "complicated" mechanic to watch out for.
A smaller problem is that crusader strike cooldown is affected by your haste, so having a /castsequence reset =8 judgement, crusader strike, crusader strike macro is not the most efficient because as your gear improves you'll be sitting there sometimes not casting anything for about 1 sec. As it is now casting something even if it might not be the best at that point is still better than waiting for something to come off cooldown just to cast that because of the "rotation" or "priority system".

The Solution:

One part is to just have one button act as multiple key presses. Since I'm using HotkeyNet this is achieved quit easy. In HotkeyNet key presses are sent sequentially, so something higher on the list gets sent first, this way building a priority list is quite easy.

Now again it is debatable if its allowed to send multiple key presses from just one button press. This has been discussed in multiple threads multiple times, I'd appreciate if we didn't do it here. I do it, you can choose to do it or not, it's up to YOU!
The bigger part is handling the procs and buffs. In a short version: I'm using an addon that creates an overlay in game over certain abilities on the action bar preventing mouse clicks to trigger that ability till the relevant proc occures. Then I use HotkeyNet's ClickMouse function bound to a key to move the mouse and click those certain action buttons rather than using the key as a key press. I'll go into details regarding this later.

But first I have to remind you that this is probably something you are not intended to do, it is probably very close to what you'd call botting. What gave me the idea to handle procs like this was an addon that I wrote while my guild was progressing through cataclysm. This addon is called AtramedesSheildClicker. If you are not familiar with the Atramedes encounter in the Black Wing Descent raid zone then here is a small background for you: You are fighting a blind dragon that casts a raid wide aoe periodically, you must interrupt him by clicking dwarven shields placed around his room in order to stun him therefore interrupt his cast. The problem is preor to 4.1 the tick speed of this aoe ability was so fast you had to focus really really hard to interrupt the cast after only 1 tick. Since there are limited amount of shields you couldn't just use them prematurely and move onto another shield in case you clicked early, but you couldn't wait with clicking it too long after he started casting the aoe either, because if you got more than 2 ticks from the aoe you were bound to wipe. So I have created this addon that placed an overlay in middle of your screen that prevented any mouse clicks getting through, so you could just spam your mouse over a dwarven shield and not be afraid of clicking early or too late, because as soon as he started to cast his aoe, the overlay disappeared and you could click the shields. If you spammed your mouse hard enough, you could get away with just 1 tick from the aoe. The addon become quite popular, and I'd not be surprised if the changes to Atramedes in 4.1 were related to this addon :P (in 4.1 they increase the tick speed of the aoe, so you no longer have to focus so hard on clicking the shields). That is probably more than enough background story. :D

The clicker method:

Here you'll find the addon in question and the consequently related HotkeyNet script.
Since the addon was written for myself, the code has barely an comments or documentation. If there is high enough interest for this approach of handling procs I might make the addon more generic and more configurable, but for now you can just tinker around with it if you want to suit your own needs.

Here is the lua file of the addon.

This is the relevant part from my HotkeyNet script:

Code:

//Palas <Hotkey 2> <SendLabel w2, w3, w4> <Key 6> // Zealotry <ClickMouse LButton Both Window 434 8> // Exorcism <ClickMouse LButton Both Window 451 8> // Inquisition <ClickMouse LButton Both Window 468 8> // Templar's Verdict <Key 5> // Hammer of Wrath <Key 2> // Crusader Strike <Key 1> // Judgement <SendLabel w1> <Key 2> // Shield of the Righteous <Key 5> // Hammer of Wrath <Key 3> // Judgement <Key 4> // Crusader Strike <Key LCtrl Comma> // Avenger's Shield <Hotkey 3> <SendLabel w2, w3, w4> <Key 6> // Zealotry <ClickMouse LButton Both Window 434 8> // Exorcism <ClickMouse LButton Both Window 451 8> // Inquisition <ClickMouse LButton Both Window 468 8> // Templar's Verdict <Key 5> // Hammer of Wrath <Key 2> // Crusader Strike <Key 1> // Judgement <SendLabel w1> <Key 3> // Judgement <Key 4> // Crusader Strike <Key 5> // Hammer of Wrath <Key LCtrl Comma> // Avenger's Shield <Hotkey R> <SendLabel w2, w3, w4> <Key 6> // Zealotry <Key R> // Divine Storm <Key 1> // Judgement <ClickMouse LButton Both Window 434 8> // Exorcism <ClickMouse LButton Both Window 451 8> // Inquisition <ClickMouse LButton Both Window 468 8> // Templar's Verdict <Key 5> // Hammer of Wrath <SendLabel w1> <Key R> // Hammer of the Righteous <Key LCtrl Comma> // Avenger's Shield <Key 5> // Hammer of Wrath <Key 3> // Judgement

Here is what is happening in case you are not familiar with HotkeyNet or lua:
There are 3 action buttions at the top of the screen and three overlays above them that prevents mouseclicking them.

For example when I press 3 (my single target dps button) the following things happen:

All the ret palas try to use Zealotry. Because this requires 3 HP to be activate this must always be the first.

Then they try to cast Exorcism, now this is done with the addon blocking the action button till an Art of War proc occurs, at that point the overlay gets hidden, and now mouse clicks are accepted over the action button, so exorcism is only used when it's instant.

Next Up is Inquisition. The trick with Inquisition is that you should always try to have it on you, never let it run out, but to be effective you shouldn't cast it till you have 3 HP else you'll end up having to renew it too frequently. If you look at the addons code linked above, you can see that the overlay over the Inquisition action button gets hidden only if the pala has 3 HP and if the pala doesn't have the buff on or if there is less than 3 seconds remaining on the buff (This is to ensure a high buff uptime, rather renew it early than have it fall off).

Lastly we have Templar's Verdict. The deal here is similar with what we had with Inquisition, you are not supposed to use this ability till you have 2-3 HP. I have set the addon to 3 HP since that seems to be returning better DPS results.

Sadly our life is not so simple to just say, pfew we are done. We also have to handle Divine Purpose. This is achieved by watching for this buff appear on us and when it does hide the Templar's Verdict action button overlay along with with the the Inquisition one, but that one only if the remaining time on Inquisition is less than 3 seconds. This way we make sure to always try to consume our free 3 HP whenever possible before casting anything that'd grant a HP.

Up to this point they key press 3 has completed all the mouse movement used for handling procs so it can continue down the priority road and try to cast Hammer of Wrath first, then Crusader Strike then lastly Judgement but these are now all done with key presses.

This concludes my single target dps button.

My aoe dps button is built in a similar fashion, except there the ret palas first cast Divine Storm. This is because when I want to aoe, I really want to aoe, and only worry about procs after I aoe :D

On the prot pala I just simply use the aoe threat abilities before anything else.

As you can see in the code snippet I have button 2 separated, which is used as single target dps button for the ret palas, but for the prot pala it is used for Shield of the Righteous. Now I could have used mouse clicks for this too, since this ability is preferred to be only used when you have 3 HP. However, I personally like to manually manage HP for the prot pala. This allows me to cast Inquisition in heavy aoe situations and save up HP in case of a loose add that I'd taunt then use 3 HP Shield of the Righteous on, assuring that mob will no longer wander around.

I hope this gives a general picture of my setup, maybe even motivate some people to try out something similar.

ps: The addon has some code in for the druids too, but I'll leave that for another post once my druid team really kicks in.

pps: I think that should be all. If I missed anything that comes to mind later, I'll add it later while trying to indicate that it was added later.

That is simply genius.

Quite interesting, Maat. It is very apparent that you have put a lot of thought and work into your Pally setup.

With the patches in WotLK, I had to create the 2-step macro for some of my DPS, then it ended up being so useful I started using it for all the classes I run. I don't think I would have been able to solo some of ICC when it was current content and before they started the buffs without the simple 2-step.

However, Blizzard continues to put a lot of effort into making DPS more complicated for the single player and as boxers we have to adapt to be competitive. While the 2-step is an extremely simple philosophy that I can't see Blizzard having any problem with, what you have done is much more involved (and creates much more optimal DPS as a result). It will be interesting to see how far we can go with the tools available to us and fascinating to see where along this spectrum Blizzard may say we have gone too far.

Thanks for adding to the community here. That's what makes d-b.com such a fun place to be involved in.

This is the single most elegant solution for DPS that I have ever seen. Absolutely brilliant.

Now to incorporate it with using ISBoxer.

I'd be willing to pay $ for a customizable addon like that, or information on how to get it to read things like what runes are available for dks etc.

I'm willing to throw the developer like a 25$ donation and i'm sure others would if other classes were supported in such a way as to take variables and only display things based on those variables.

Got a question on this.

I can see an addon blocking a click.
That's pretty much the same as "Do Not Advance For At Least"...

When the click is blocked, it is not generating a click or anything.
And when a click goes through, it is user input that causes it.

So, are you spamming mouse clicks in conjunction with keystrokes?
Or when you push the "3" key for DPS spam, does that generate a mouse click at a predetermined area of the screen...
Which the addon then passes or does not pass based on whatever conditions you have set?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maat

Now again it is debatable if its allowed to send multiple key presses from just one button press. This has been discussed in multiple threads multiple times, I'd appreciate if we didn't do it here. I do it, you can choose to do it or not, it's up to YOU!

Really, no, it's not debatable. 1 hardware event = 1 action. What you are doing is 1 event = a sequential list of half a dozen actions. This isn't the same as the penny across the keys thing, since it's not 1 + 2 + 3, being sent at the same time, it is 1, then 2, then 3. It's a mini bot. It may be a crappy and not particularly effective bot because it happens so quickly, but it is still automated actions in that one action initiated a string of commands that proceed until all the commands are processed.

You also use predetermined mouse coordinates, which is something that has been called out before.

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthrea...se+coordinates

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthrea...se+coordinates

And because the old forums aren't there anymore, we have a screenshot of the relevant blue post thanks to Jafula

http://www.jafula.com/wp-content/upl...ng-post-17.png

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maat

We could argue over it, but the fact is I've been multiboxing in cata like this for quite a while and have never received any warning or bann or anything. So I personally think this is still on the legal part of things.

Not being banned isn't a sign from the Blizz gods that it's ok, especially when they've already spelled it out before. I'd suggest using a toggle to at least make each command require valid input to proceed down the list and building a mouseover region to deal with the "click" actions based on actual mouse position instead of predetermined coordinates.

I'm sure your addon would be very useful, but your script is not.