Cross-Class setups: How do you manage it all?

[heffner]

Might consider a Logitech G11/G15 keyboard - the one with the 18 hotkeys on the side. I like mine so far, but I haven't really done anything remotely challenging. I run five different classes so I put CC, healing and totem macros on it.

[Kulzor]

I don't hit a button to cast each spell, I mash a single button on my main PC, which uses a macro on each of the toons to do their actions.

Tank uses castrandom for holy shield, consecrate, hammer of righteousness, and judgement of wisdom
Healer spams lifebloom and rejuv
Shaman uses castrandom for lightning bolt and chain lightning
Arcane mage uses castrandom for arcane blast and arcane barrage
Hunter uses a shot macro for steady shot and kicking off kill command and dust cloud

One button does it all.

[TheBigBB]

I have a 10 box team set up now. I do NOT use one key to do it all, I maintain control over everything possible, and it works. I play with all but 2 classes regularly, and the two I'm missing (warrior and rogue) I actually have sub-ins for in case I need them. I got a rogue set up to replace my second tank on any fight where I don't need two tanks, and a warrior in case I ever need a spell reflect. So, yes, I am playing a very much multi-class team.

Melee classes always go on the main window per screen with their own mouse. I have two screens and two computers. Everything is based off of the tanks or melee. I would only use a max of two melee at one time. The tank in "party1" is the priority tank who gets assist, but the tank in group 2 has his own mouse to tank another mob elsewhere. This requires occasional splitting of attention, but once the mobs are positioned I can tank and heal easily and using one keyboard for everything.

DPS all have a short castsequence on "1" which does their main "cast bar" moves.

DPS all have various instant cast moves set up on 2 3 and 4. 4 is mostly used as an interrupt button. Earth Shock, counterspell, etc. If applicable. This is staggered in case I need multiple interrupts. I have alternates set up when I hit shift, like the warlock will blow soulstone moves when I hit shift with 2,3 or 4.

F1 is used for the DPS' "BEST" spell for when I pop their trinkets, which is set on a remote key, = and -. The tanks also use F1 for hammer or execute when the mob is low on health.

Shaman have totems set up on F3-F7 keys. No one else uses those keys at all.

7 and 8 are AOE moves. I have a lot of targetted AOE, which I can click each window and cast within a few seconds because of how I set up my windows.

The number pad is my main healing section. I have all sorts of healing macros on these, mostly for my tanks. My priest healer uses AOE heals to keep the team up when everyone takes damage, but I also have keys for EACH member of my raid set up on the U-P keys in case any one person alone needs a heal. I have EMERGENCY healing keys on the Home, End, Page Up and Page Down Keys. These will cast Lay on Hand on a tank OR make the elemental shaman do a /stopcasting and chain heal.

As stated earlier, all tanks have direct mouse click control, but they also have keys on Z to / keys along the bottom of the keyboard. So no matter which tank I'm focusing on, I can still hit those keys and effectively tank or DPS with the others.

QWEASD also moves the main tank, but arrow keys can move everyone else.

I remember all of this off the top of my head, so I guess I have a good memory.

[Toned]

If you setup hotstrings and plan your macros / bindings well it isn't any different from a single class setup. I have an xkeys pro sitting on the side of my computer that I've yet to use. I started setting it up and then just lost interest in it I guess. I just use my g-11 keyboard and it works out fine.

[EvilSqueegee]

I've since pushed the shamans and paladin to 34. I haven't finished setting up all their abilities yet (had some alliance friends who were pumped to have a multiboxer for wrath, lol - powering the CRAP out of me) but I've since furthered my goals for how I want the controls set up:

1) I need to be able to maintain as much control as possible over the toons. That is to say, I need the ability to react to situational problems as they arise and without having forseen them. In PVE, I throw myself recklessly around because I *know* it's going to kill me, and I want to survive it. A pull gone bad is where you see someone's true skills in PVE, in my humble opinion. I like to know even when things go bad or otherwise not according to plan, I can recover from them. Thus, I need a high level of control and access to things that otherwise wouldn't see much use. Another reason for this is (not that I see it being very arena valid) I do like PVP and will throw almost anything into the BG's or at someone on the world map, and I hope the paladin-shaman setup makes PVP more interesting for me in that regard.

2) I do not yet have any additional keys over the standard keyboard. A friend of mine is coding a modified, custom keyboard driver for me - so I can plug in a second standard keyboard to one system and use it's numpad & arrow keys as extra keys, much like the X-keys (but a lot cheaper.) Of course, this means I'll have to find a spot for a third keyboard on my desk, but hey...

By this point, I've realised cast-sequence totems are a *MUST HAVE.* I have one macro for a totem setup geared towards PVP (IE, staggered tremors and plenty of grounding totems), and one macro for totem setup geared towards PVE in the same macro (using modifiers to keep two macros on the same button). However, I still will need some of these totems without prior knowledge that will have to be dropped immediately - such as Earthbind, Stoneclaw, or Firenova (handy anti-melee PVP goodness.) So I will dedicate hopefully no more than 5 or so keys to totems, total.

In closing, one of my concerns (and I'm not even sure it it's based on anything other than unfounded paranoia) regarding cast-sequence macros is that if, say, I put LB/LB/CL in a cast sequence macro and then I don't put CL/LB on their own individual keys, I won't have CL exactly when I need it - say, when I see the primary opportunity to CL a group of targets, or what have you, or when I need the lower casting time to hit a target that's running away - and that lack of precision in my choice of what to cast worries me. Does it honestly make that much of a difference in a PVP environment?

[Frosty]

Castsequence is your friend for these groups. I have a main, spammable button for each DPS all tied to the same key.
In addition, I have another button that I use for taking out trash mobs. (No need for DoTs because mobs die too quickly).

If you are using a Paladin as a tank, check out the tanking macros for them in the Wiki, or do a search on Google. I fit the bulk of my tanking spells/abilities into 3 keys/macros.

My shaman (resto) is the only one that has it's own keys set up for individual heals.

I'm also using the FTL setup, so it frees up my focus to do CC with the Mage, Warlock and Priest if needed (rarely).

[Ken]

Some things that I can think of (and are written down above me also):
- Grouping spells: Putting similar spells from different character on the same button. Group everything that can be grouped so you have the least keybinds as possible. This is very important.
- Using modifiers to do alternative casts, like ALT for doing AoE or Shift for DOT(curse, flame shock, poisoned shot). So besides grouping a specific combat action(healing/dps/buff) you can make differentations like single target vs. AoE or single hit vs. DoT, etc.
- Use ESDF instead of WSAD so you have more surrounding keys around your movement keys. This allows you to use more keybinds that are easily available (so you have to move your hand less).
- Avoid clicking, using the keyboard is MUCH faster. Clicking is only okay for very rare occasions like resurrecting/summoning people.
- Use castsequences for specific classes that have a certain rotation for casts. If you have many mana-based DPS'ers, then you have to consider the mana consumption of those sequence casts versus their total mana, because you don't want 1 of them to have deplated his mana while the others are still at 50%.
- Use castrandom for classes that have spells on cooldown: castrandom will ignore all spells that are on cooldown until they are available. E.g. "/castrandom lightning bolt, frost shock, frost shock, frost shock, frost shock, frost shock" will almost always cast a shock whenever it can, but will only use lightning bolts when the frost shock is on cooldown
- Consider your keyboard layout VERY carefully. I have mine over here: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2138/...bb107ab2_o.png (although I use more keys then are marked)
- Weigh the pros and cons of your setup: do you want 1 button(with modifiers?) for healing which allows you a simple setup yet you have to select a target to heal each time you want to (or have your targettarget healed) OR have 5 buttons for healing where each button will heal a specific character.

Most of it is personal preference of course.

[dancook]

I don't play anymore, but I occasionally still read about progress of boxing on WOW.

Here's and old image to explain how I used to do it.

[Schwarz]

TheBigBB are you using 2 hands on the keyboard when you are doing boss fights. I like the idea of using the num pad as your healing stuff but I don't see how you can do everything and still control a mouse.

[Kulzor]

Hmm, I suppose I should amend my above statement and note a few extra keys I have mapped. For the most party, it's a one key deal (spam 5 and everyone does their sequences).

Here are the exceptions for my group:
1. My "main" is my hunter, NOT the tank. This gives me some "oh s--t" control in case someone hits a mob without enough aggro or such. In those cases I hit Numpad-4 to break the dps/healers from following the hunter, and can run her around separately for positioning, traps, intimidate, etc.
2. Alt-E casts Lifebloom on the tank. I use this before the pull only.
3. Alt-T casts Wild Growth on the healer (and thus also on the dps team). Great for those situations where we get bombed, or otherwise AoE'd. Also useful for that rare hit or spell reflect. Though most of those I use the healer's mouse (on his PC), and do a lifebloom.
4. Alt-W drops a freezing trap
5. 2 hits an instant spell on the shammie (Earth Shock), it uses /stopcasting to ensure it goes off, and interrupts spells for those bosses that you need to have it on.
6. 4 is my multi-shot, chain lightning (only if it is available), and spell steal button. Used mostly just for the multishots, but sometimes I'll hold off to ensure I get off the spell steal.
7. Alt-V is for volley. Unfortunately, I haven't worked out a way to get the mouse click matched on both the hunter and the mage (different screen resolutions, but I haven't tried hard either I guess) so both use an AoE.
8. 7 kicks off specials (bestial wrath, arcane power, avenging wings type thing).

I actually use all but the trap fairly often, if not every single fight. However, none are NEEDED, because the main macro can hold down the majority of fights.