Using Focus in Macros

[Tehtsuo]

I noticed a lot of people using focus in their macros, and I was wondering what benefit it provides. I'm sure there's a reason. I'm still new to multiboxing, so I haven't fully set up my characters. Here's the type of macros I'm using so far.

Follow macro:
/follow Tehtsara

Nuke macro:
/assist Tehtsara
/cast Lightning Bolt

They work pretty well for me, although I know my macros will get much more complicated as I go along. I'm definitely planning to use castsequence macros for my totems for example. Any input on reasons I should look into using /focus?

[Psychomuppet]

Well, I am also just getting started multi-boxing (Atleast in the real sense, been using multiple accounts for awhile but never used key press mimic software before). A few macros ive come up with using focus for my lil priest squadron are as follows.

F5-F8 are bound to the macros that set the /focus of all my characters to a particular one, e.g F5 sets all their focus to my main, F6 to the 2nd one etc. Then I use a macro for every offensive spell as such.

/cast [target=focustarget] Smite; Smite

This allows me to not bother with the /assist command at all since they will always fire at what ever target my main one is targeted on, this also allows me to switch mains (in the unlikely event I run into something that doestn die before getting to me and it manages to kill my main) and press a different focus button to have them all fire on the 2nd ones target instead.

[Diamndzngunz]

Ellay said something that made the world of sense to me when I could not figure out how it worked.

It's really not that difficult, in the macro you just said you can also drop the /target piece /assist does it for you.

Basically start off when you log in with /focus "main char name"

then on your other characters when you want to do an action it would look like this /cast [target=focustarget] and just add something to the end of it such at Lightning Bolt. So it would now look like this:
/cast [target=focustarget] Lightning Bolt

Now say the main character dies, you push your macro button to /focus "second char name", now you can use all the same buttons and the are assisting the new main leader instead of having to have dozens of pages full of /assist macro's for each in case the main dies

So in all. You don't need to do a /assist anymore. 10x better if you ask me.

[Tehtsuo]

Couldn't you just use

/assist focus

to do the same thing?

[Psychomuppet]

Couldn't you just use

/assist focus

to do the same thing?

As far as what purpose?
If you mean to cast a spell on your focus's target, what would be the point. If your already using a macro for your spell cast putting [target=focustarget] in it is more reliable then /assist, because from my experience the /assist command does not always work in mid cast, so if you pressed it just as the last spell was ending to try and pre-emnt the server queueing up your next spell. It may fire at a different target then the one your intending to fire at.

[Tehtsuo]

Couldn't you just use

/assist focus

to do the same thing?

As far as what purpose?
If you mean to cast a spell on your focus's target, what would be the point. If your already using a macro for your spell cast putting [target=focustarget] in it is more reliable then /assist, because from my experience the /assist command does not always work in mid cast, so if you pressed it just as the last spell was ending to try and pre-emnt the server queueing up your next spell. It may fire at a different target then the one your intending to fire at.

Ah, that's what I'm looking for. I had noticed that my nukers seem to kinda "stick" to a target sometimes, I'm going to change my macros and see if that's why.

[Psychomuppet]

The only downside I can come up with using your focustarget as the designated target for casts is that you woulndt have your /focus free to help with cc, I never really worried about that much though since I use spriests and eventually when they get higher lvl will be using my pally to tank for them so meh on cc.

[Nixi]

I second Psychomuppet's concerns.

I'm running a Warrior, Pally, Shaman, Lock and Mage, and I'm trying to think of a good way to control my spells while keeping focus for crowd control.

My idea so far revolves around using a "main assist" from within my party. Probably the shaman since he doesn't have crowd control.

What i'll do is hit my target key with my warrior main (i even mark the enemy with a skull so i can easily see whether my other toons are targeting the correct target) and that sets my shaman to focus on the kill target. My support characters will have a macro set up to

/cast [target=partyXtarget,exists,harm,nodead] InsertSpellName [the X is the party spot of my main assist]

When I'm ready to change kill targets, I re-hit my target key. A problem here with using partyX is when a newcomer comes into my party and screws up my party order. You can't use [target=Toonnametarget], at least it hasn't worked for me.

For emergency spells where I need my toons to interupt or stun what my main is on I use the same macro except replace the X with the correct number for my main.

This will ensure that all my clones are focusing on my mainassist and only killing designated kill targets. My emergency spells will only hit what my main is targeting, and this also free's up my focus for crowd control on the characters that are able to CC.

I know this setup has problems changing things around when my main dies, but I can't think of a better way to let my toons CC other than focus.

[Boylston]

If you don't use focus as your assist, and want to reserve it for CC purposes, you've got two main choices:

1.) Use the [target=party1target] functionality and always assist the party leader. You can change the party leader if someone dies, but it's not as graceful as the /focus route.
2.) Hard code in a [target=YourCharacterName-target] functionality. Disadvantage is you're screwed if that person dies.

If you think there's another option, let everyone know, because we'd ALL be interested!

[Tehtsuo]

Well, I've done a few runs through RFC and my setup is working pretty well. I'm still pretty low, so my methods probably won't apply in a few weeks as I expect them to evolve. However, here's a summary of how I work. I'm still using

/assist Tehtsara
/cast Nuke

I think this may work better for me because of my party makeup. I don't have any CC, so I could probably give up focus, but why change what works. I'm not sure why people are talking about having problems with the main dying. I can still target things while I'm dead and command my minions to cast on them. In fact, I rarely wipe any more, because even if my paladin dies, she's taken enough of the heat that the pull's pretty much over. Just spam nukes and rez afterwards.

I haven't gotten around to experimenting with /focus as a performance enhancer yet, but I don't see how it would be an improvement. Either way, I have to target something with my main, then wait for my target information to populate to the server and back down to my minions. I'm starting to think of just assigning /focus to a target for an Earth Shock rotation to keep casters locked down while still nuking the primary target assigned by my Paladin.