/assist vs /cast [target=focustarget] spell

[DIllett7799]

I use this basic macro for my spells (Ill use lighting bolt for simplicity)'

/assist focus
/cast Lighting Bolt

But, What is the difference between that macro, and this one?

/cast [target=focustarget] lightning bolt

Any input is welcome.

[Tdog]

The both do the exact same thing in terms of casting lightning bolt at your mains target. However i personally use

/assist focus
/cast lightning bolt

because the /assist makes your followers target the enemy and since I use Xperl I am easily able to see that all my followers are infact targeting the correct target or that they are even targeting something in the first place.

[ElectronDF]

The main difference is targeting. If you want your alts to target the mob, you use /assist. If you just want to cast a spell, you could use the option method. I like the option method about 90%. For melee or channeling you need to target the mob, so need to use /assist (IE, wanding will go off once if you aren't targeting the mob, drain mana, mind flay, etc all need you to target something). But for heals, that is the perfect time to just option the target since you don't need to target the player very often, and if you do, you still have to target back to the mob. Targeting takes time, so the less you have to do it, the better. Just my opinion.
Hope that helps.

[Darelik]

/assist focus
/cast lightning bolt
as Tdog mentioned, you can see that your slaves are targetted at the correct mob

/cast [target=focustarget] lightning bolt
on the contrary, this one does not show who the slaves are targetting which makes it valuable in pvp :thumbsup:

[falsfire3401]

I might just be smoking something when I was trying to setup my healing macros, but I wanted my priest to be able to heal based on party position.

IE Numpad1 would be /cast [target=player] Heal
Numpad2 would be /cast [target=party1] Heal

etc.

Even the [target=player] didn't work for heals. My heals I had to all explicitly macro as:
/target player
/cast Heal

or

/target {toonname}
/cast Heal

Couldn't even do /cast [target=toonname] Heal

Same thing for buffs, I have to do a separate /target line, the square-bracket targetting doesn't seem to work for friendlies and friendly spells.

[DIllett7799]

What about a macro to say, but Blessing of Might on all 4 pallys of mine?

[Darelik]

falsfire3401:
/cast [target=player] Heal would cast max rank Heal on self
/cast [target=party1] Heal would cast max rank Heal on the next partymember (if you are partied, else won't work)
/cast [target=toonname] Heal would cast max rank Heal on "toonname" if you are partied with "toonname"

check if you're partied with "toonname"


DIllett7799
Try out SmartBuff.

[DIllett7799]

Thank You

[Darelik]

np. :thumbup: only thing i need from SmartBuff is to allow me to nominate a whisper-target for the reminder or maybe show the party's or raid's missing buffs.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

There is another very important difference between "/assist focus" and /cast [target=focustarget]" type macros. Consider the following two macros:

Macro 1:

/assist focus
/castsequence reset=combat/target/5 insect swarm, moonfire, starfire, starfire, starfire, starfire

Macro2:

/castsequence [target=focustarget] reset=combat/target/5 insect swarm, moonfire, starfire, starfire, starfire, starfire

Pop Quiz: Which of the above two macros actually works as intended?

Answer: Macro 1.

So, if you prefer to have your macros reset to the beginning of a lengthy castsequence when switching targets, the only one that works is the /assist focus type macro. I'm sure some folks will find creative ways to work around this.