[Vanguard] Questions on starting again - class, race, group size, starting areas etc.

[pox67]

I have gone with 4 kojani humans starting in Kojan. I plan on going back and doing the IOD with another group.
So far so good running Warrior, Disciple, Bard and Monk. They are still under level 10 as I have been stopping to adjust macros as I go. The second group shouldn't take as long.


Basically I think I will go with 6 main macros:
1. General Combat Spam 1
2. General Combat Spam 2
3. AOE abilities (only the monk has one so far, I love AOE's so hope the other chars pick some up)
4. Rescue : based on Alge's rescue macro he posted in another thread and also a heal to the char getting beat on from the healer. Only the tank and healer use this key so far.
5. Autoattack toggle, also any start of fight buffs if necessary.
6. Ranged attack.


Other than that there are the Follow, Assist, Hail and load UI macros for every character.
The bard has a few of his own macros as well for changing weapons/instruments depending on the song.


Then a macro per character on the healer for healing in emergencies.


Thanks for the great info Heffner.
I like the human races as well, every other race seems like too much of a compromise for the class I want.


I will see how far I get with this group of 4 before starting again. Now with F2P a 6 char group is a real possibility. I like themed groups so maybe just a group of the animal classes DK, SHM, BRD, DRD, SRC, ??. I can't see a group not including a Bard, they seem just way to versatile and useful. Including a Disciple as backup healer is a good idea and I read that a Druid can do the same.


I am looking forward to coming up against some tougher enemies, so far everything has exploded with one or two group hits

[Alge]

I'm a subscriber x 6 again and having a great time. My team of DRK, SHM, BRD, PSI, NEC, SOR hit 41 last night. The day before that I finished Wardship Armor x 6 on that group. I'm about to start on Greystone (particularly the weapon quest) and Trickster's Haven with some Rakshasa Citadel and Vault of the Hidden thrown in for good measure. There's a heap of great content in the 40s I am looking forward to.

[heffner]

Looks like your off to a great start! My macro collection is pretty lame, lol. I only have a DPS, heal tank, follow and assist macro. At some point I will make another combat spam macro that includes my DoTs etc, but right now I have no need for them. I haven't really spent much time on the rescues either, but I need to read up on all that. Have to look up Alge's macro. An AoE macro is a good idea too. Probably should make a team buff macro too. My current team is only Level 11, so they hardly have any of their abilities yet.

Good to see your renewed interest as well Alge!

BTW, how is the lag for you guys? I am using Keyclone across three computers and get various types of lag. Are you both running ISBoxer on a single computer? When I was running just three on two computers before F2P I had ZERO problems.

The name of my current main is Ansarto if you guys ever want to chat.

[pox67]

Welcome back Alge
I was looking at your screen shot in this thread: http://isboxer.com/forum/viewtopic.p...t=1723&start=0
The quests looked interesting at that level as well. Do they have good stories?

Heffner, that thread above is where I saw Alge's Rescue macro, my warrior doesn't have a rescue yet but the macro is in place and one for the healer as well.

I have posted a screenshot here: https://picasaweb.google.com/1153009...rdSagaOfHeroes
Click the magnifying glass at the top to get full size. I would have attached to the thread but the file is 12mb.
You can see my 4 chars spread across 3 24" monitors. Tank in the centre at Very High settings, Healer on the left at High settings. The 2 DPS characters are stacked full screen under the healer at the lowest possible settings and then using VideoFX (ISBoxer) windows on a DXNothing (ISBoxer) window on the right hand monitor with click through for targeting and quest etc.
Works very well. If I went to 6 chars I would extend the DXNothing window to include the entire right screen and have 4 little windows there.
I am using Sinisna's UI.

Macros are on the top row and are
1 DPS1
2 DPS2
3 AOE but empty for most chars at the moment
4 empty
5 empty
6 Rescue
7 Autoattack
8 Ranged attack

Middle row are abilities specific to the class and third row are utility macros and heals for the healer.

Macros I am using:
Follow
/target ##
/follow

Hail
Use assist key
Broadcast H key from ISBoxer

Assist
/assist ##

UI
/uiload default n secondary chars

/uisave default : on main char

Combat
/assist tank
/reactionautochain
/reactionautocounter
/cast ""
/cast ""
/cast ""

Autoattack
/combatformset "##"
/cast "##"
/autoattacktoggle

Ranged
/cast ""

Heals
/cancelability
/targetgroupmember 1 to 6
/cast "heal"

Bard song
/playsong ""
/wear ""
/combatformset ""

Bard Weapons
/wear "" primaryhand
/wear "" secondaryhand
/combatformset ""

Rescue - Tank macro
/assistoffensive
/reactionautorescue
/cast ""

Rescue - Healer macro
/assist moguli
/asisstoffensive
/cast "heal"

Lag - I get quite a bit of lag as I am playing from Australia, generally in the 300-500ms range. It is playable though. I had some FPS lag before I hit on the above screen setup and that is all good now.
Crashing - often! It seems I crash every hour or so and it isn't just me, I see messages in Chat like "zone crashing". This has gotten better in the last couple of days though.
I do often see some chars run off in to the distance but they generally spring back to where they should be.

I am hoping that I now have my macros sorted that I can start playing for real

[pox67]

I am not too sure about the rescue macros above...they didn't work as expected for me.
After doing some reading it looks like it would work better when my group gets to level 10 and the Warrior picks up Protect I - his rescue.
The way I think it works is the tank targets the mob beating on the group member, then /assistoffensive sets the group member as defensive target and the /reactionautorescue should fire off Protect I.


What would be easier is if the tank could target the groupie getting beat on and then somehow set the offensive target from there.

I had quite a bit of trouble with my first group boss mob. It was at the top of a fort with very tight rooms. The followers kept getting stuck and the mobs seem to stand on top of each other as well, they don't spread out. The healer died a couple of times as the tank only had one taunt and no rescues yet.
Trying to target the actual mob that was attacking the healer was difficult.


I found pulling with the bow helped as it didn't agro nearby mobs.

[Alge]

The macro I use works very well and is the standard way of rescuing in Vanguard (once you have all the proper tanking tools). Your level is the big issue here. Vanguard doesn't have easy-mode snap aggro like other games do. The tank will actually need to build threat and the DPS/heals may need to hold off for while. This is one of the reasons why I prefer a Dread Knight for multiboxing tanking - they have some self heals that allow the healer not to have to heal so early

[pox67]

That explains it well, I have been just wading in with all chars as the last games I boxed were Rift and SWToR. I'll give it a little time from now on, an AOE or two wouldn't go a stray.

As to the Warrior, this is my training team. Crash test dummies if you will, it would have been better to go with a Pal or DK.

I am thinking of changing things up a bit again as I just had a situation on another boss where the Tank was stunned for a couple of minutes. Probably a bug but the team fell apart after that.
So I am thinking of setting up a second set of macros so that with the push of a button another char can drive the team.
Basically my top two hot bars are the ones that can switch banks so all I would need to do is rewrite the macros with another char as the focus of assist, target and follow. Then I can send a keystroke to each game to switch their hotbar banks.
Means rewriting and maintaining a second set of macros...I am writing more macro that gaming!
It is a shame that the macros don't work if you copy in the text from notepad

[heffner]

Thanks for the info and insight Pox. What is the macro you're using Alge? I assume it must be similar to the one Pox posted?

My current problem is my healing macro. I am so used to spamming keys to get what I want, but with /cancelability it doesn't work properly; and my shaman is DPSing so I have to work in the heal by pausing my DPS spam and waiting until GCD is done.

[Alge]

Thanks for the info and insight Pox. What is the macro you're using Alge? I assume it must be similar to the one Pox posted?

/assistoffensive
/reactionrescue 1
/reactionrescue 2
/cast "Seething Hatred III"

is my current rescue macro.

My current problem is my healing macro. I am so used to spamming keys to get what I want, but with /cancelability it doesn't work properly; and my shaman is DPSing so I have to work in the heal by pausing my DPS spam and waiting until GCD is done.

I solve this problem by not having my shaman DPS except for basic melee and her pet.

[heffner]

Thanks Alge. Figured it would look something like that.

I think I might just have to leave my Shaman out of DPSing as well. I've only really needed to do that for "boss" fights when I was running a trio. Right now I rarely even need to heal but my current team is only L13 so I imagine that will change at some point.

One thing I have been debating is whether or not I really need to follow a quest path to level up. I am not a big quest person [although, the ones in Vanguard are usually decent], but would rather dungeon crawl and try to find decent loot from named mobs. You think that's a reasonable option? With the exception of the HL and URT quests I suppose?

My lag improved greatly last week as well =)