Leaderless/Targetless - Focus Based Hydra

[zanthor]

I figured I would share my 5 boxing configuration with the community, it's grown a lot since I started Team Doublemint and things have finally reached the point that I feel it's ready for the world to see! After all, I've now leveled 5 to 70, 5 to 68, 5 to 40... and a coworkers done a 2box team to 60 and his second team to the mid 20's using this system...

My system is based on using focus for targeting based off a leader character. The idea was to be able to change the head of the hydra that leads quickly and easily. I wanted a way to handle collection quests without looting in small windows, and a way to be able to quickly recover in the dead-leader situations. I also wanted it to scale nicely, the addition of another character or removal of a character shouldn't matter.

I use KeyClone all running on a single PC with a suite of Addons that has evolved as time moves on.

Addons Utilized:
Macaroon
Jamba

Macaroon Setup (Click link, 10,000 character limits suck!)

[s][/s]Assist Setup
I have an assist setup for situations where you want the target of all players to propagate. I setup a single hotkey as an "assist" macro. I personally bound this to F since I'm on WASD all the time anyhow...

/target focustarget

There ya have it, mash that each time you change targets and you are good to go.

Jamba Setup
I utilize Jamba for whisper relays, following, forming the group, auto set to FFA loot, and probably a few others that I haven't recalled yet...

Jamba Config is reached by typing /jamba in game. It is broken down in categories, Jamba, Jamba-Follow, Jamba-Group, etc...

Jamba - I believe I have this all set as default. No leader changing, target changing, focus changing. Since the focus management doesn't work in combat I didn't see it as useful for this configuration.

Jamba-Follow - I warn if I stop following, I don't auto follow after combat, I set the strobe interval at 1 second.

Jamba-Group - Auto Accept Members, Auto Accept Friends, AutoSetLoot to FFA, Auto Promote Master To Leader (I find this handy for instance resets, etc)

Jamba-Me - This is mostly defaults, I think I raised the low health warning...

Jamba-Merchant - I setup buying all consumables, water, anks, etc... very handy feature! I alos autosell grays.

Jamba-No - I don't duel, it's pointless. Jamba saves me time.

Jamba-Quest - I have all but "slave auto accept any quests", "Slave auto complete quest (No reward choice)" and "Quest Silently" checked...

Jamba-Talk - I use this to forward my messages so I don't miss tells. I have had ONE message not get forwarded right, it was early when I was setting up, could have been a timing issue or a user issue...

Jamba-Taxi - This is a godsend for traveling, hit the bird, open the taxi interface for all toons, and fly away... don't have to pick the destination for everyone!

Macro's Utilized:
I wanted minimal macro's, when I first made team doublemint, I spent hours and hours working on macro's... each time I leveled I'd make new ones for new spells, it was very cumbersom. Utilizing the methods detailed here I was able to create a system that didn't require macro's for most of my abilities.

That said... the macro's used...

The Big Button
/script AcceptQuest(); AcceptTrade(); RetrieveCorpse(); RepopMe(); ConfirmAcceptQuest(); StaticPopup_Hide("PARTY_INVITE"); StaticPopup_Hide("QUEST_ACCEPT");
/jamba-group invite

For the most part this button is only used for forming the group and accepting trades... Jamba handles everything else, but it's good to have around for those one off situations where you need it.

Leadership Management
I have 5 hotkeys setup for PIP swap in keyclone, each hotkey is also a macro on all 5 toons, the macro's are designed to make the "big window" the leader, but if you move to a little window and press it, they become leader in that window, which can be useful for fast pvp switches...

The "Make me leader" button...
/focus Samam
/jamba setmeasmaster all
/jamba-follow strobeonme all
/script SetView(5);SetView(5);


The "Make someone else a leader" button...
/focus Samarn
/script SetView(5);SetView(5);

When one of the toons becomes leader, Jamba broadcasts this to the others, they all follow that new leader, strobing follow every 1 second in or out of combat. This stops me from ever having to press a follow macro except in two situations.... drinking and eating...

Fine Dining
Since /follow breaks you out of eating and drinking, I have two macros to stop and start follow... I have my x-keys setup to send my formation spread and stop follow strobe on the same keypress (Spanned keycap), works out well, everyone spreads out a touch, then you hit your chow button and everythings golden.

Start...
/jamba-follow strobeonlast all

Stop...
/jamba-follow strobeoff all

The more I think about it, the more I think I can probably drop teh All, since each toon has that command on a hotkey, the all is just creating some cross client traffic thats not needed... but it's definitely not hurting anything either.

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Anyhow, thats it. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

[Yagamoth]

That looks much simpler than my setup... I guess I'll take a look onto that jamba, since I've got some heavy problems in switching enemy targets fast. I think that comes from the "/click ActionButton1" in which the modifiers are written down that define the leaders oô...

Thank you for sharing

[zanthor]

NP, I'll be analyzing how I can insert a pally into the mix here for Lich King, I'm not decided yet if I want to keep 5x shaman or go tank + 4... I have a 70 geared pally I can swap in...

[elsegundo]

thank you for sharing.

this looks to be awesome. i've never known about this before and glad that button replacement addons do this. now... i wonder if i can figure out how to use Trinity Bars to get this accomplished. im still pretty new to the options available to me in trinity.

[wizofid]

This is similar to what I have been doing in macros, but it does look like it has some additional advantages.



Question though. You said you wanted a good way to handle colelction quests without having to loot in the little windows... I ma not sure how you are doing that here? It has been one of the issues I am runnig into, even at low levels "kill quests" is only like 20 percent of the quests and sometimes they are in the way of a chain getting done.

[Harem]

THANK YOU! I was in the middle of trying to do the FTL setup with all that entry! You saved me tons of time!

Question though. You said you wanted a good way to handle colelction quests without having to loot in the little windows... I ma not sure how you are doing that here?

I think its because it's so easy to run with any of your characters as lead. Finish the collection with one character and simply switch to a new lead and continue. Much easier than trying to lead with one and loot with another - all the switching back and forth and trying to stand in the right place as lead so an alt can loot the body - yuck.

[zoneblitz61]

thank you for sharing.

this looks to be awesome. i've never known about this before and glad that button replacement addons do this. now... i wonder if i can figure out how to use Trinity Bars to get this accomplished. im still pretty new to the options available to me in trinity.

I also would like to know how to setup the bars like bartender with trinity bars. Anyone know?

[zanthor]

I'll be updating this setup in the next 30 days to support Bartender4, however if BT4 doesn't work out I'll be setting up Macaroon most likely (Trinity's continued version.)

[Jheusse]

excellent. I'll be looking forward to it (and angling to beg sample files probably) because I'm right at that stage where my 4 baby shammies are getting enough variety in spells and talents that they may want to use in any given situation that I will finally be branching away from the very basic system I'm running right now. I downloaded BT4 last night to all copies and then ended up swearing and disabling it for the night because of config hassles.

Modality intrigues me, though I'm not sure I fully grasp what it brings to the table, it's a little voodoo to me so far.

[zanthor]

excellent. I'll be looking forward to it (and angling to beg sample files probably) because I'm right at that stage where my 4 baby shammies are getting enough variety in spells and talents that they may want to use in any given situation that I will finally be branching away from the very basic system I'm running right now. I downloaded BT4 last night to all copies and then ended up swearing and disabling it for the night because of config hassles.

Modality intrigues me, though I'm not sure I fully grasp what it brings to the table, it's a little voodoo to me so far.

Modality brings the ability to handle macro logic for the bar instead of for each individual button.

basically
if [focustarget,exists] then [target=focustarget] else [target=target]

This lets you just drag and drop buttons onto the bar, and they work like you made a macro for each one...
/cast [target=focustarget,exists]Spell;[target=playertarget,exists]Spell; (I think this is eqivilant, but it's dry code and I'm coffee free)

Basically it saves a BOATLOAD of time and makes changing hotkeys trivial.