ISBoxer: Multi-Mode FTL Targeting.

[ZorbaTheGeek]

After a two year break, I’m back and ready to box my way through two expansions. I downloaded Keyclone and started to configure my old “Target-and-Hold, Leaderless, Focusless” system and decided it was a complete pain. I had read about ISBoxer and decided to give it a try, a free 7 day trial from Lax and I’m a convert.


Here’s why:


ISBoxers wizard setup of FTL is quite simply superb, it takes zero effort from the user and just plain works. The only limitations, for me, are limitations of the Targetless, focusless system itself. While FTL is good for levelling, everything dies so fast that building threat is immaterial, it lacks the level of control I enjoy when playing a Tank + 3 (or 4) DPS. I’ve never really got on with Focus based systems as I prefer more automatic slave targeting.


Now I’m sure I am not the only person to implement “Sticky targeting” in ISBoxer but I hope this multimode system adds enough to be of interest to other users.


Creating Assist Keymaps

• Start off by making a copy of the “FTL Assist Me” keymap in “General” and rename it to “FTL Assist”
• Copy your new “FTL Assist” keymap, naming it “T&H Assist”
• And finally, copy “T&H Assist” to “Focus Assist”
• So we don’t forget, go into Step 1 for each of these new keymaps and give them a unique Key combination from the drop down.

Re-Configuring “FTL Assist Me”

• Click into the original “FTL Assist Me” keymap and select Step 1
• Delete the “Assist Me -> all other” action
• Create a new “Key Map Action” -> ”New Do Mapped Key Action” and leaving “Target” empty select key map “General” and Mapped Key “FTL Assist”

Back where we started, but at least if you decide to play everything will still work =P


Configuring Target and Hold

We need part of the FTL functionality for this mode, the easiest way to get it is to /click our FTL macro. To make this possible select the “Assist Me -> all other” action of “FTL Assist” and at the very bottom of the window check the “Name for use with /click” box and type “FTLAssist”.

• Select the “Assist Me -> all other “ action in “T&H Assist”, un-check the “But first” box in the “Targeting helper” pane and type in the following macro.

/stopmacro [harm, nodead, exists]
/click FTLAssist

That’ll work, eventually.


Configuring Focus Assist

I’m not a big user of focus targeting as I use focus for crowd control with a mage group and tend not to think of it. I’ve modified the Focus targeting macro here to have a fall-back into Target and Hold when the focus target does not exist or dies. To set it up:

• Select the “Assist Me -> all other “ action in “Focus Assist”, un-check the “But first” box in the “Targeting helper” pane and type in the following macro.

/target [@focus, exists]
/stopmacro [harm, nodead, exists]
/click FTLAssist

You can always remove the last two lines if you prefer a more straightforward focus assist.


The Mode Switch

Having three assist macros is all very well, but we don’t want three keys for every spell. I’m using ISBoxers “Keymap Virtualization” to remap “FTL Assist Me” in game, and on the fly. To do this we need to create a three step mode keymap.

• In the “Control” Keymaps, create a new mapped key and name it “FTL Mode”
• Give it a Hotkey binding of choice.
• Create three steps.

Step 1

• Create new action: “Key Map Action” à “New Mapped Key Virtualization Action”
• Leave “Target” empty and select “FTL Assist Me” in “General” keymap in the box labelled “When performing this Mapped… etc”
• Click the “Do this mapped key instead” radio button
• Select “T&H Assist” in “General” for this new action.
• Add a second action, a “New Popup Text Action”. Set the target as “Window:Current” and the text “Target and Hold Mode On”

Step 2

As above, but the remapped key is “Focus Assist” in “General” and “Focus Assist mode on” for the popup text


Step 3

See the pattern here? “T&H Assist” in “General” and a suitable message.


Assist Button.

And finally, add a hotkey to the "FTL Assist" keymap as a standard assist button which will work correctly in any mode.


Why? Because I can.

It’s easy to use, cycle through the targeting modes with your hotkey and IS will tell you, on screen, which mode you are in. Best of all, because we are remapping the original FTL assist key, none of ISboxers other keymaps need to be altered for the extended targeting modes to work. But obviously, due to the in game macros which the ISBoxer addon is automatically setting up for us, this will only work in World of Warcraft.

I hope someone finds this interesting if not useful. Go turn some live stuff into dead stuff.