Oooh new assist without focus macro!!

[Simulacra]

OK, I am a bit confused about this, what are the benefits of using target as the holder of your "main" instead of focus ?

seems that:

/follow focus = /follow target

/cast [target=focustarget] = /cast [target=targettarget]

assigning focus to retain a mob for CC = assigning target to retain a mob for CC

Basically target and focus are identical except that target is exposed to the default UI.

so what am I missing?

me too - I use focus for follow and damage spells, target for cc. If I swap them around what's the benefit? Just asking - I know I'm probably missing something fundamental

[Steph]

In a nutshell, you have two targets that you can save per character: the focus variable, and the primary target. It does not matter if you click it, /assist or do whatever else to have the character select the target.

I currently do use /focus and [target=focustarget] for normal targetting and the regular target for CC, but only on the char that does the CC. Example, I want to sheep something. I select the to be sheeped mob as target on the mage's client. Since the mage never /assists or targets anything with focustarget, that mob will stay his target and default target for /cast polymorph whenever I hit the sheep button. Now, there is one drawback to this, and that is that when the main char is MCed, polymorphed or feared, target=focustarget does not work. In fact, sometimes I have to deselect the target on the main, reselect it, and only then my dps chars will fire again.

By doing it as the OP says, both the kill target AND the potential CC target can be saved on the dps characters, as their normal and their focus targets. That means CC on the main char does not interrupt DPS. Besides that, there is no difference to my knowledge.

[Zzyzxx71]

Basically, I'm saving focus for bigger and better things.

Hmm...been toying with this for a few minutes on my shamen and so far it seems to work...haven't tried with one or more of them dead yet(but horde're being quite brave today and ganking in town so I might be able to shortly lol) but so far it's been seamless targeting...the only complaint I have is that when I have no target, it targets myself...not really an issue yet but it could be an annoyance

Don't use the macros for your primary brain toon, just use standard "out of the spellbook" spells, or "/stopcasting /cast spell" macros... but yes, after failover, it will target yourself first, easy enough though, I'm a tab or mouse targetter myself.

[Djarid]

I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade but this is the way many have been doing it already.

Focus has to be explicitly set and it is difficult to accidentally lose it through an errant keystroke (tab, t, y, r etc) which is why focus became the de facto place holder for the targetting character but that doesn't mean it is never used for anything else when CCing you just set your focus to focustarget and once it is no longer needed reassign it back to the primary.

I'm sorry but I still can't see what is so innovative in this. Let me explain how I work.

using 1 macro I can assign any of my characters to the focus on every account and also promote them to party leader, This lets me use
[

target=focustarget, harm][target=party1target][]

for the targetting options on Direct Damage Spells
I also have a macro set to

/assist focus

but I intend to modify it to

/focus [target=focus,help][target=party1]

Thanks to Vyndree for the overloading of party1 with focus for battlegrounds. I have individual macros for each character that will independently set their target to the targetter's, I could just as easily add a macro to set their focus based on the targetter's target

So for my targetter I can use Party1 in normal PVE / PVP if raid leader, Focus if not raid leader in PVP

[Eteocles]

Lemme bold something very very important in response, Djarid: "AHHH guys you're killin me here!! The idea is to NOT use focus. For targetting, following, anything. Zip, zot, nada, ziltch, nein, no focus - save it for something else!!"

This macro enables you to change the lead if your main dies and is a simpler, baby step up to the complex main-focus-switch macro you describe :p And in my practice last night, the targeting seemed ALOT more response via /target [target=main] /assist than it did via Focus; the upsides are that I don't have to target and type /focus every time I log on, and the macro ALSO lets me continue to have non-tab control if my main dies, and it seems to NOT have the delay of waiting for the Focus' target to update; Focus is a static window and it's target seems to take a sec to update, whereas if I targeted someone specifically, their targeting updates much more instantly.

I had to wait awhile before hitting /assist with my old focus macro and now I'm able to acquire new targets much fasterthan before and used it to my advantage in pvp last night when a half dozen 70s showed up at Nesingwary :P WIth my focus macro I'd have lost because of the time taken to update target to alts lol

Also, Party1 is different for each char due to the way party orders work; I avoid it like the plague personally lol but that's just me

[Zzyzxx71]

I'm neither claiming innovation nor credit for this. The no focus, party/raid independant macro "family" per se as far as multiboxing goes hasn't had a central repository for information (at least not one that I can see).

This is not meant to be a slight against those who use focus or those who use any other means of control, just a discussion/information store for those who desire to experiment with/use this form of control. I have (albiet the possibility is very remote) aspirations of using my shammies with my guild in various raids in the (most likely) very distant future, I've imagined some very unique duties I could accomplish that would require focus. If my methods already included focus, I'd be limited in how I accomplish those raid duties.

Again, in no way am I saying it's better, just different.

[Djarid]

Sorry Zzyzxx71,

It wasn't meant as an attack, just frustration on my part because I thought I was missing out on something and couldn't see what it was ;) I am striving to improve my setup so when I see people lauding an alternative system I like to see what I can take from it to better my environment but I was struggling to see how this was an improvement.

There are many ways to skin a cat and yours is as effective as any here.

Dj

[Eteocles]

Indeed and fair enough...I do applaud this find though as it's solved a major issue for me(main dying, alts no longer able to move/turn easily) without being a super-complex, multi-key focus-switch macro when I don't have any hotkeys to spare...I just replaced my old big-button macro and now it works great lol; thanks either way :p Made an improvement for me if nothing else, and there are indeed plenty of other ways to skin said cat, this one's just a deceptively simple but surprisingly helpful way.

[Zzyzxx71]

I'm still working on the manifesto, it's 90% complete (although not quite a manifesto, more a "tiny ass fucking blurb"). There's only 1 issue I still have to whip, and that's a default healing format for healing.

Using the target=targettarget format, it works great while your MAIN brain is up. The main brain heals his target, your slaves heal your MAIN BRAINS target. Easy enough. OK so now your brain dies. Switch to Slave #1, hit F1 to reset your slaves target to the new slave.

The catch is this.... Slave #1 has the target=targettarget macro setup for healing... meaning he targets a group member, heals, and HEALS THE TARGETS TARGET, which is ALWAYS the NEW brain. Ugh. not that big of a deal with chain heal, but with a direct single target heal, the new brain is ALWAYS healing the new brain.

I doubt I'll be able to correct this. I may need more time in instances to see if this is really going to be an issue, typically when the main brain diesIt turns into a DPS race anyways in the hopes of having 1 alive to rez.

Any comments, contributions, insites, ideas on this? Remember, no focus, no "party1" in the macros. The idea is KISS.

[Dorffo]

Any comments, contributions, insites, ideas on this? Remember, no focus, no "party1" in the macros. The idea is KISS.

Have you thought about setting up a "main" action bar alternative on each of your clones that mimics your normal main's actionbars (so no target=targettarget). So for normal everyday stuff, you run around as is but each clone has say actionbar page2 setup so that they can be the main as well.

When brain dies, the switch focus macro would just need to be tweaked to pull up the appropriate action bar page on the new brain (and/or conversely reset the actionbar page on your clones if your main is ressed or whatnot).

edit:: it occurs to me that the actionbar switch would probably need to be separate (or a bunch of conditionals), maybe not so viable.


(if that makes sense)