Using target as a "focus" instead of focus

[Hachoo]

So I have a team of 5 shamans, and now I have a priest/4lock team. I am using focus on my main for both teams, and focustarget for standard spells. This works fine on the shamans, and also works ok on the priest/lock, however now that I have things like a succubus and soon a felhunter, plus fear etc, I would like to adapt my macros and targetting system a bit.

I'm really not interested (at this point) in setting up a focusless/targetless/leaderless setup, I want to keep focusing my main since allllll my macros use that.

What I'm thinking, is using /target as focus, since I'm not using /target for anything right now except my laugh and dance macro (just /assist, not /target).

So, what I was thinking is having 4 keys, one for each clone, to /assist main. Then I could target something with my main, hit the target key for first clone, target something else with main, target something with second alt, etc etc until I have something targetted on each of my locks. I could then set all my macros for spell lock, seduce, fear, etc, to cast on my target if it exists first, and if it doesn't exist, cast on my focus target.

Is there any real downside to doing things this way instead of using targettarget for normal spells and setting focus for things like fear, seduce, etc?

If theres not a real upside to doing it one way or the other then I'd just assume do it the way I'm talking about since then I don't have to rewrite my targetting system or my current macros.

Please advise, thanks!

[Talos]

i use this method you just described
and will use it for my shamans too when they get hex

it works quite nice, /focus main never fails, it is always correct
/target when used with the right [notes] works like a charm

my spells would be
/cast [target=target,harm,nodead][target=focustarget,harm,nodead]spell


ONLY WARNING ABOUT THIS !!!
this does not work nice with hunters
i used this system to mark different targets for different pets
ie. F1 does
/assist focus
/cast huntersmark
etc etc

when pressing my attack pet macro before combat it works:
/cast [target=target,harm,nodead][target=focustarget] petattack

but the problem with hunters as SOOON as they fire they're first shot with my cast macro
/cast [target=focustarget] !Autoshoot
the hunters would change theyre target to the one they are casting
and any subsequent use of the /target system fails


as far as i know this only applies to hunters, and not to normal casters
since a normal caster does not change its target while using the /cast [target=focustarget] system

[Hachoo]

I see, thanks then! Looks like it will work nicely for me as I only plan on having my caster groups (with a pally tank occasionally), no plans at this point to MB hunters.

Thats basically what I was planning on doing - not sure what keys yet maybe ctrl+f1-4 but yeah basically target something, have my first clone assist, and so on down the line. For PvE at the very least this will work great. For PvP it should still work decently as before I get hardcore jumped in the arenas I should be able to at least target a couple of them long enough to seduce them.

I'm wondering if it would ever be possible to chain seduce 4 people in the arena long enough to own the 5th one. Not only chain seduce but you could follow it up with chain fears which are on diff diminishing returns right? Seems like that would be almost impossible to counter in the arena. 5 aoe fears + 4 seduces = whoa.

[Fef]

I also do exactly that with my 5 mages team.

/focus is on the leader, and each mage has a different target for sheep, assigned through the leader. They can cast normal spells aimed at /focustarget without changing target. However, they change target if I use the wand aimed at /focustarget. Pretty much like hunters do with autoshot. So it is sheep or wand. I use wand fairly often to finish off an almost dead mob.

[shaeman]

I had a focus setup on my shamans - it works a treat.

I've got a focus setup on my mages, and in a recent instance realised that resheeping was beyond me, so I will be rejigging my macros to use the

/target [nodead etc] Player1

with fail over to the other players when dead, and will assign focus for sheeping from the main.

I haven't thought about wotlk and the hex ability - so may have to consider swapping my macros on that as well.

[Kaynin]

The focus macro to set up the focused targets for your alts:

/target focustarget (or /assist focustarget)

The spells you want to send to your focused targets (without using focus)

/cast [target=target] Spell (ie. /cast Spell, just added target=target for clarification.)

All your dps macro's that don't go on the focus target (But on the main char's targer):

/cast [target=focustarget] Spell

That should work fine I think.