Using EMA's master keybinds for efficient HW sync with programmable keys

[Wootenblatz]

Over the last few days I've been working on a way to avoid having to create a bunch of follow/assist and slot healing macros for use with HW usb sync. I imagine what I'm going to cover is pretty straight forward for folks who have been using EMA a long time. However, I had not made much use of EMA's key bind options in the past. The addon has had the option to define a key to set the current character to master for awhile now. This turns out to be quite useful when setting things up for HW sync and let me avoid a lot of macros I was creating before. The "Follow Me" bind is quite obviously helpful when you can issue it from a device that is not sync'd to all clients, in my case my mouse.

In addition to that, Ebony recently added key binds to set the master to focus, target and assist. While all characters need to press these key binds, it is exactly what I needed. I'm going to try to describe how to use programmable gamer keys on your KB/mouse to enable assisting the toon on the active PC you're controlling on your KM sync. This can also be used for dedicated healing of your active character as well.

As I mentioned in my post about the ShuOne, I've suggested creating a keyboard macro to switch to each PC on your USB sync. Adding some additional commands to these keys is what I did first. To start with, here are my EMA key binds on all 5 toons:


With my keyboard I had G2 set to activate the PC on port 1 with a macro that presses WINKEY + 1. G6 activates PC 2, and so on for all 5 ports on the device. With my 4 port AIMOS (for mouse swapping) these would look like NUM*+NUM1, NUM*+NUM2 etc... The minor change is that each of these macros will now send ALT+CTRL+SHIFT+M right after the swap. The effect here is that each time I switch to control a different PC, that character becomes the team's master.

Here is a stitched together image for what the Slot 5 macro looks like on my mouse:


Doesn't this violate one key press one action?
It does not because the port swap part of the macro (WINKEY+5 or NUM*+NUM5) is sent to the KM Sync and is intercepted by that device and not sent into the game. Each one of these is basically a macro to tell EMA to make a character the team master.

My personal HW sync control preference is to enter combat with keyboard sync on at all times and only sync the mouse to the PC I am controlling. As I swap to a different PC all I need to do is hit ALT-A to get everyone to target the enemy that character is going to attack. This is basically dynamic assist based on who you're controlling. This allowed me to remove any /assist [@playername] entries in my GSE macros.

I'm not entirely sure what the best practice is for interpreting the one key press one action guideline we're operating with. Is "assisting" another player considered an action? If so, you probably do not want to chain assist master and IWT together. If assist is not an action, you could chain these together I suppose.

So this is all great for efficiency and less flailing on your keyboard, but my real goal was to do away with slot healing macros. Not only is creating slot healing macros time consuming (i.e. the same GSE sequence with a different [@playername] in the /cast line), they take up a lot of action bar space. If you want to move your healer to a new team comp, you get to rewrite them all (or at least modify them). Boo.

However we can use the dynamic master assignment and the set focus to master key bind to do away with all of that. In my key binds this is CTRL+F. If setting focus is an action as per the EULA, you'll need to just press CTRL+F or program a G key to do it in one key press. If setting focus is not considered an action, you can create a G key that presses CTRL+F and also sends the key you've bound a @focus healing GSE macro to. Here is an example:


In either case you'll want your DPS and TANK to have their rotation on the action bar button your healer is using for that GSE macro. This way as you press heal focus key, everyone else keeps attacking.

I have only tested this superficially (i.e. not a dungeon), but it worked very well. With keyboard sync on and mouse sync off, I can use one of the mouse buttons dedicated to controlling a different PC and when I hit A the healer would automatically heal that character.

[Wootenblatz]

It just dawned on me that I've focused too narrowly on pressing keys for my EMA key binds. This specifically relates to the assist and focus portion of the above. After writing this I recalled recently seeing a mention of slash commands that allow one to trigger the focus/assist/target key binds. I clicked around in the EMA addon and finally found them!



This very handily obviates the concern regarding whether or not assist or focus are considered actions. Your DPS macro can use /EMAAssistMaster and the healer's heal macro can use /EMAFocusMaster and you can skip including those key presses in a hardware macro.

Yet again I find myself being rather thankful for the work Ebony has done on EMA!