is there a reason why loads of people are gimping themselves by using focustarget instead of targettarget?

[Simulacra]

thanks for that very interesting - I like your use of targetexact. I was thinking about your point earlier of losing the targetnearestenemy ability and realised later that's what targetlasttarget is for - I use that in my chain heal macro so could easily use it to incorporate your use of targetexact without changing the targettarget approach.

You mention earlier that a focus based approach front loads strategic targeting so you can just mash the dps key without having to conentrate on whether you have the right target and it Just Works(tm) and that targettarget backloads it and so it has to be constantly monitored, not so. Whether it's backloaded or frontloaded the effect is the same and the playstyle is the same, I just mash my dps key and don't think about what my team is targeting because I know they're targeting my target. Once a leader is set to target it stays targeted

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Disregard that healing macro. It's one I've been playing with lately and I guess I've just not hit the failing case until last night. It basically never resets when it gets to "null" which surprised me. Ah well, back to Ye Olde Drawring Boarde. :P You get the idea I'm going for, though.

With regards to the targeting stuff, if you're targeting your main with a separate keypress and then relying on that target being static throughout the fight, you might be surprised when you hit those cases where you lose target (like MC's, certain stuns, the fights where you fight your teammates, etc.). I suppose it's trivial to press the "retarget my main" key but it is one less thing to have to concentrate on when the Fit hits the Shan.

Cheers,
Ugh

[Simulacra]

Disregard that healing macro. It's one I've been playing with lately and I guess I've just not hit the failing case until last night. It basically never resets when it gets to "null" which surprised me. Ah well, back to Ye Olde Drawring Boarde. :P You get the idea I'm going for, though.

With regards to the targeting stuff, if you're targeting your main with a separate keypress and then relying on that target being static throughout the fight, you might be surprised when you hit those cases where you lose target (like MC's, certain stuns, the fights where you fight your teammates, etc.). I suppose it's trivial to press the "retarget my main" key but it is one less thing to have to concentrate on when the Fit hits the Shan.

Cheers,
Ugh

ahhh but! if my main toon get's mc'd I just hit my Switch Brain (tm) key and everyone targets the new brain/the pip is swapped and the Fight Goes On(tm) and it's super quick.

also checked my melee macro on the target dummy in orgrimmar - it works

I'm at work so can't post the macro but this will give a general idea, I use /click with castsequences a fair bit and noticed that on the new brain that it didn't cast any spells whereas the others would (my main dying first is a rare event - it's usually the shammies >.<), the castsequence looks a bit like this:

/castsequence [target=targettarget] reset=combat flame shock, lava burst,,,,,,,,,,,

I've changed it to:

/castsequence [target=targettarget] [target=target] reset=combat flame shock, lava burst,,,,,,,,,,,

and it now fires when something is targeted by this toon and when targeting another toon's target

[Zzyzxx71]

*sigh*

I wrote the Manifesto.

The primary goal of No Focus for me was to free up focus for use elsewhere. It was due to the power of focus that I wanted to NOT use it unless absolutely necessary. I wanted to leave it available.

As far as the complexity, I've ran both focus and no focus, and once you get the basic sets of macros put together, there's really no difference. I've never noticed an increased complexity of one compared to the other.

As far as "making sure you have the right target targetted" - That was never an issue, I'm actually curious why anyone would think actually having something targetted would be an issue.

[Simulacra]

*sigh*

I wrote the Manifesto.

The primary goal of No Focus for me was to free up focus for use elsewhere. It was due to the power of focus that I wanted to NOT use it unless absolutely necessary. I wanted to leave it available.

As far as the complexity, I've ran both focus and no focus, and once you get the basic sets of macros put together, there's really no difference. I've never noticed an increased complexity of one compared to the other.

As far as "making sure you have the right target targetted" - That was never an issue, I'm actually curious why anyone would think actually having something targetted would be an issue.

/agree and thank you for writing it

it's the same, all we're doing is switching focus for target and focustarget for targettarget, in fact you could probably grab all your macros and perform a mass replace in notepad and carry on as normal - there is no extra level of complexity. Also I think ppl have got the wrong idea, this approach isn't saying don't use focus at all, it's saying lets leave focus for something else as the target approach does not preclude the use of focus. I think ppl got their knickers in a twist due to my flame inspiring thread title which was the purpose btw , nothing better than a lively discussion lol.

A point made earlier in this thread was that this approach would be no good for melee, please could someone explain this as in my limited testing I've found no issues with melee, however this was only last night on the training dummies and not on real mobs.

[davedontmind]

Just a little input on some macros:

here's a heal self macro:

/stopcasting
/cast [target=player] Lesser Healing Wave
/targetlasttarget

The /cast [target=...] line won't change your target, so the /targetlasttarget line is unnecessary, and (worst case) will have you targetting the wrong mob after the heal. I suspect that, in practice, your last target is already dead, so you've not noticed, but I believe it's wrong nonetheless.

here's a heal the named macro - this one was for thrall in some quest in CoT I think - not sure

/stopcasting
/target [target=Thrall]
/cast  lesser healing wave
/targetlasttarget

Why not just "/target Thrall", instead of "/target [target=Thrall]" ?
Even simpler:

/stopcasting
/cast [target=Thrall] Lesser Healing Wave

/follow target
/assist [target=target, exists]
/startattack

"/assist [exists]" should do the same, as "/assist [target=target,exists]" but with less characters.

[Simulacra]

thanks ddm - you are quite correct, the target=self does not overwrite target and I'll remove that but I think you're not getting targettarget - my target is my main so I'm hoping he won't be dead lol, my target will definitely NOT be some dead mob because the targettarget approach never targets anything except a friendly, the worst case is the target is another member of the group if I happened to have pip swapped at some point. The rest are just force of habit. Thx for the tips

[unseen]

I think you guys are also overlooking that using focus can be used for unconventional teams as well.

For example, when I ran 4 warlocks + 1 priest through instances I would have each felguard tanking a different target. Before I pulled I would simply select a target for felguard 1 to tank and have him set his focus to it. Repeat for felguard 2 and 3. I would then hit "/petattack" and they would all charge in at once, tanking their respective targets.

This setup is simply not possible using the typical focus-based grouping. I've been using the target-target ever since I started and have had no problems with it. It gives me all the same features of the focus-based approach, except I can use focus for things if I need to.

[ElectronDF]

My hunters and locks would disagree that you can't split up mobs to off tank. I select the mob on my alt (yeah, select on my main and push a key for the alt to target the mob) and then send in pets with just a /petattack command. Guess what, every pet goes to a different target, no matter who/what I have focused. They only switch if I use a /assist. Again, no matter what I have focused, you can send pets (or chars) at different mobs. Just don't /assist and they stay on that mob. And if you want you can still attack your main's target while you are targeting a different mob with clever use of [options].

[unseen]

My hunters and locks would disagree that you can't split up mobs to off tank. I select the mob on my alt (yeah, select on my main and push a key for the alt to target the mob) and then send in pets with just a /petattack command. Guess what, every pet goes to a different target, no matter who/what I have focused. They only switch if I use a /assist. Again, no matter what I have focused, you can send pets (or chars) at different mobs. Just don't /assist and they stay on that mob. And if you want you can still attack your main's target while you are targeting a different mob with clever use of [options].

I've brought this up twice prior in threads like this and no one ever responded, so this is the first time I've seen someone actually answer how they do it under that system. My system still has the flexibility of selecting a new target on the fly in the case of adds or whatever (without having to go to another window/computer). Your way of doing things still works, though, and I appreciate the clarification on how you do it!