Quote Originally Posted by 'shdwdrgn',index.php?page=Thread&postID=216598#pos t216598
Asgradth, What do your 3 keys that you cycle over and over do? I'm curious to know cause it seems almost too simple.

And keeping in mind that the setup is fluid is definitely important. I have changed mine around a few times already and only been doing this a month with 6 characters!
You will never stop changing your setup... I know this because three times now I 'thought' I had the perfect setup, only to scrap it and start over again :huh:. I have resigned that my setup will never be perfect, only good enough to get the job done. Not fighting the interface makes the game much more fun.

My Three Keys:
Key 1: Any dmg ability with recast timers >= 35s
Key 2: Any dmg ability with recast timers between 10s & 34s
Key 3: Any dmg ability with recast timers < 10s

The times fluctuate depending on how many spells are in the macro. I try to limit it to 10 spells/abilities, but it changes. I also didn't strictly adhere to the times above, instead allowing the spells to flow and ebb between the buttons until they seemed 'happy'. I'm still tweaking it, but this is my general guideline. If you 'edit' your macro, leave the edit window opened and start a fight and start slamming that macro key, you can watch the order of how the spells are cast and tweak it to your style.

I then configured 10 more keys, each using special abilities, some of which I have setup on round robbin, like Stuns, Mezzes, Deaggro and Special_one_off_abilities. I round robbin'd them because... while the stuns and mezzes stack, their times do not add up, they overlap... So if 3 toons cast a 5s stun at the same time, the mob is stunned for 5s only. Some of these special abilities are part of the 3 main keys above.

Using the above method, I find single-target fights are a breeze. Drop some heavy long-recast or dot spells , in-between firing off a stun or two, then finish off the mob with fast casting single target dps.

AOE Fights are similar. I have two buttons setup on each toon. One for AOE Encounter spells and one for AOE All spells.

Before, I was using around 60 macro keys and playing the keyboard like a piano. Now I have ~ 20 macro keys and can do it all with one hand. The sad thing is, I think i can reduce it down to ~ 14 macro keys, but I'm still fleshing out the idea ^^.

I have a whole new idea i'm working on at work... Voice Activation. If I say "Tank", then all the healers heal the tank. If I say 'Pre", they all the healers pre-ward/rective the tank, if I say 'Go', then they start fighting... etc... This setup works great as long as the game isn't running... For whatever reason, once I fire up EQ2, there's like a 4-7s lag between me talking and the actual action taking place. 4s lag in eq2 in a tso dungeon is death... so, i'm still working on it. My goal is to voice activate all healing and special abilities so I can switch from keyboard/mouse to a logitech gamepad. It's a pipe dream, but I gotta have something to keep busy!

g'luck