My 5xShaman Keybinding Write-Up

[amalgam]

Well, it's been quite some time since I was able to multi-box; I reactivated my old Rogue and Paladin after taking a small break from WoW and have since gotten the urge to box up a team again. I know a lot of this will probably be common knowledge, but I felt that this may help some beginners (including myself) new to the MBing community to understand this a little better. Please, if you have any input at all, please reply. I would love to know what others think about this grossly verbose set-up.

I've been _slowly_ leveling a 5xShaman team (FotM, I know) and it's been rather rough. After perusing Vyndree's site, I saw mention of the fact that she used a Warrior until 40 to tank for her. That got me to thinking about swapping in a Warrior as well. I figure I'll deck the Warrior out using runs with my Rogue/Paladin (haven't decided) to keep him ahead of the gear curve on my Shamans and to make my time in instances easier. I think I'll keep the Warrior Protection to ease things a little (Spec at 40: WoWHead Warrior Talents ) That being said, it seems I have to be slightly higher than the median level for an instance to do it successfully.

At any rate, I've been slowly agonizing over my Shaman team and the virtual brick wall I think I have hit at level 15. I cannot do VC quite yet solo (then again, I don't have the Warrior in the team yet). I think I am going to individually make each toon hit 20 then rejoin them as a team. Shouldn't take more than an afternoon or so for the whole team. Once they hit 20, I'll take them back to VC and see if it's a drastically different story.

After all this, however, there still remains one problem: keybindings. I am a keybindings fanatic; I refuse to click hardly anything with the exception of extremely situational abilities (e.g.: resurrect). I macro what I can to other abilities (my Rogue's Abacus of Violent Odds is macroed to my Blade Flurry since it doesn't consume a GCD and the cooldown is the same 2 minutes as BF is).

Now, my typical set-up is using 1-5, Shift+1-5, Q and E with Shift and CTRL as extra modifiers, then Z, X, C, V, and B. That's plenty of buttons to handle my Rogue and Paladin. However, that's not nearly enough to keybind all the totems and spells the Shamans will have at 70.

So, my keybinds for spells are as follows:

1 - healing macro for toon1
2 - healing macro for toon2
3 - healing macro for toon3
4 - healing macro for toon4
5 - healing macro for toon5
Shift+1 - Lightning Shield
Shift+2 - Water Shield
Shift+3 - Windfury
Shift+4 - Ghost Wolf
Shift+5 - Mount
Q - Lightning Bolt
Shift+Q - Chain Lightning (macroed for trinkets later)
CTRL+Q - Purge
E - Earth Shock /castsequence macro
Shift+E - Frost Shock
CTRL+E - Flame Shock
Z - Elemental Mastery
X - Totemic Call
C - Heroism
V - Ancestral Recall
B - Gift of the Naarru (B is typically my racial spell)

So, just considering abilities, I will bind the spells as follows:

My solution is rather simple. First, let's assume that I will never use Tranquil Air, Windwall, Sentry, or Flametongue Totems. I won't even put them on my bars. Furthermore, since some totems do not stack, it's not worth putting some of them on all 5 toons and just let them be placed by predefined "sets". Totems in this category include Strength of Earth, Mana Spring, Windfury, Frost/Fire/Nature Resistance, Stoneskin, Earthbind, Wrath of Air, and Grace of Air Totems. These will all be "one-of"s included in a set on one Shaman each.

So, that leaves me with the following: 12 totems and 4 keys (one for each type of totem) using stacked modifiers to achieve multiple totems on the same key. Now, I like to be organized, so I will bind them on a sequential set of keys according to element (so Fire totems all on one key, etc.). This leaves me with a few choices. I can unbind more letters on my keyboard and rearrange some functionality of WoW (Honor pane, Rep pane, Skills pane, etc.) or I can use the six through zero keys above my letters. The hyphen and equals key are already used for bag and character panes, respectively since I am using the B and C keys for spells on my toons. I want to refrain from using the NumPad since I occasionally play using my laptop.

So, for the curious, the 12 remaining totems (of 28 total) are:

Earth: Stoneclaw, Tremor, Earth Elemental
Fire: Searing, Fire Nova, Magma, Totem of Wrath, Fire Elemental
Water: Healing Stream, Poison Cleansing, Disease Cleansing
Air: Grounding

Note that none of the Shamans will be Resto, so Mana Tide is not included.

So, 12 totems to 4 keys (6-9) is extremely easy, especially using Shift, CTRL, and ALT to modify casts in a macro. However, we're not done yet.

Since Tremor, Disease Cleansing, and Poison Cleansing Totems only stack when staggered, they require separate /castsequence macros. So that leaves 9 totems for the normal macros. However, as you may have deduced from the list above, Air does not require a macro anymore since it's only one totem. With the removal of Disease and Poison Cleansing Totems from Water, that leaves one totem there as well. So, I only need two macros for the remaining totems.

Earth Totem Macro

/cast [modifier:shift] Earth Elemental Totem
/cast Stoneclaw Totem

Fire Totem Macro

/cast [modifier:ctrl][modifier:shift][modifier:alt] Fire Nova Totem
/cast [modifier:alt] Magma Totem
 /cast [modifier:ctrl] Fire Elemental Totem
/cast [modifier:shift] Searing Totem
 /cast Totem of Wrath

The Fire Totem macro may exceed the character limit. Testing will see.

Grounding and Healing Stream Totems will be keybound normally.

The staggered totems will be written into /castsequence macros on each toon. An example follows for Tremor Totem.

Shaman 1:

/castsequence reset=20,combat Tremor Totem,,,,

Shaman 2:

 /castsequence reset=20,combat ,Tremor Totem,,,

Shaman 3:

 /castsequence reset=20,combat ,,Tremor Totem,,

Shaman 4:

 /castsequence reset=20,combat ,,,Tremor Totem,

Shaman 5:

 /castsequence reset=20,combat ,,,,Tremor Totem

Repeat for Disease and Poison Cleansing, if desired. Personally, I think I will be including them as a Water "one-of" set.




Now to define my Totem Sets.

Totem Set 1 will assume normal combat with no special abilities on the part of the enemy. This is likely to be trash mobs in an instance.

Earth: 1xStrength of Earth, 1xStoneskin, 3x Stoneclaw
Fire: 5xTotem of Wrath (post-50) OR 5xSearing (pre-50)
Water: 4xHealing Stream, 1xMana Spring
Air: 1xGrace of Air, 4xGrounding (replace one Grounding with Windfury if using a Warrior tank; replace a second Grounding with Wrath of Air at 64)


Totem Set 2 will assume that there are several casters to handle. In this set, I replace the Stoneskin and Stoneclaws with staggered Tremor Totems and the Grace of Air with a 5th Grounding. I also include the resistance totems as a failsafe.

Earth: 5x staggered Tremor
Fire: Frost Resistance, 4xSearing
Water: 4xHealing Stream, 1xFire Resistance
Air: 5xGrounding OR 4xGrounding, 1xnature Resistance

These sets will be achieved using /castsequence macros on each toon. These sets will be bound to the G key (Shift, CTRL, ALT + G), allowing up to 5 sets (possibly 7). I have yet to come up with those other sets, however. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to post them here. All input will be considered.



I think that about does it for my write-up here. Comments and the like should be posted and I encourage you to do so. Thanks for the read and I appreciate the efforts of all of you.

EDIT: Decided on X being Totemic Call. Also moved LB and CL around and decided on healing macros. Thanks, Kaynin!

[Kaynin]

double post. :<

[Kaynin]

1 - Lightning Bolt
2- Chain Lightning
3 - Chain Heal
4 - Lesser Healing Wave
5 - Healing Wave
Shift+1 - Lightning Shield
Shift+2 - Water Shield
Shift+3 - Windfury
Shift+4 - Ghost Wolf
Shift+5 - Mount
Q - Purge
Shift+Q - undecided
CTRL+Q - undecided
E - Earth Shock /castsequence macro
Shift+E - Frost Shock
CTRL+E - Flame Shock
Z - Elemental Mastery
X - undecided
C - Heroism
V - Ancestral Recall
B - Gift of the Naarru (B is typically my racial spell)

Personally, I go with
q - Lightning bolt (shift-q trinket 2)
e - chain lightning (shift-e em+ns+cl)
` - ghost wolf
1 - healing macro
2 - drink button
3 - 4x fire elemental
4 - 1x earth elemental round robin

You'll use LB by far the most. Having it on Q might be a lot more convenient. Having CL on e then just seems more logical. Shocks are secundary for you, put them on f/r/t/g wherever. And healing on 12345. In a 5 shaman heal set up, I'd go with on button for each toon, so you directly heal any of your toons without having to retarget at all. (Since threat will shift a lot in a five shaman set up, using targettarget healing macro's will simply not work well. Trust me on that. :P You need to press a button and want the heal to go on the right target. If you have a tank that will keep aggro, you could just easy one button for all your healing. But with five shamans, you'd just pull your hair out at how many times you cast a heal but it goes onto the wrong shaman that just overtook aggro at the moment you started to heal, then the first overaggroes as well and dies. So, yeah, I suggest a 5 button healing system. PErhaps with a modifier to do a targettarget incase you have an earth elemental up.)

ie. Button 1:
no mod, just heals toon 1 with LHW. Mod:alt, heals the tanking person, any tanking person, best used for with earth elementals. Mod:shift, puts chain heal on the shaman of your choosing. (lowest hp one.) and does some aoe healing to others.

/cast [nomod, target=toon1, nodead, help][mod:alt, target=targettarget, nodead, help] Lesser Healing Wave ; [mod:shift, target=toon1, nodead, help] Chain Heal


And so forth for 2, 3, 4 and 5. This way you have on the fly healing for each toon and all within reach. LHW for when that shaman is only damaged. Or chain heal if you also get some aoe damage on the others.



As for your totem set up, have a look here at my three button totem set up: The ultimate 3-button totem quad-box macro set?


Here's some comment on your macro's though.

Earth Totem Macro

/cast [mod:shift] Earth Elemental Totem
/cast [nomod] Stoneclaw Totem

I suppose with your 4x tremor set up this is pretty much it yeah, seems like a good set up, for max compatibility I suggest to write it as above though.

Fire Totem Macro

/cast [mod:ctrl][mod:shift][mod:alt] Fire Nova Totem
/cast [mod:alt] Magma Totem
/cast [mod:ctrl] Fire Elemental Totem
/cast [mod:shift] Searing Totem
/cast Totem of Wrath

This won't work really. Unless you want to -always- use flame elemental first if the cd is up before putting down any other fire totem (apart from totem of wrath.). I would suggest finding an option so you can save your fire elementals for when you most need it. I shortened it a bit as well. But I would suggest putting your elementals on a seperate button. (in fact, should you accidentally press the macro with a modifier twice, you would waste a fire elemental by immidiatly overwriting it with a lesser fire totem.)


The staggered totems will be written into /castsequence macros on each toon. An example follows for Tremor Totem.

Shaman 1:

/castsequence reset=20,combat Tremor Totem,,,,

Shaman 2:

 /castsequence reset=20,combat ,Tremor Totem,,,

Shaman 3:

 /castsequence reset=20,combat ,,Tremor Totem,,

Shaman 4:

 /castsequence reset=20,combat ,,,Tremor Totem,

Shaman 5:

 /castsequence reset=20,combat ,,,,Tremor Totem

Whilest this is a pretty decent way to do it, you really don't need 5 tremors. I would suggest putting down an earthbind with your last shaman.

On your totem set castsequences. They would seem quite fitting indeed. Grace of Air might not even be that needed tho. One more grounding might make more of a difference. The buff in terms of armor from GoA is minimal. Whilest an extra grounding can really make a difference in some fights. Since melee will be the trash you need to kill first, as they pose the most threat, you can use grounding to entirely cc one or two casters easily.


On the whole, it seems like you need to press one some buttons four times and end up pressing buttons like 6-7 times to put up the 4 totems you want. This seems ineffective and it can be done better. Which you can see in my set up as well in the post linked earlier in this post. My set up basicly has a PvP and a PvE oriented standard set up, so you put down four totems, and then with using modifiers you tweak for some specific fights, like cleansing etc, but most fights you're done with just four clicks for all four totems in all conventional fights.

PS: In a few posts down in the thread I linked, I added a slightly more tweaked macro for my 'button 2' totem macro. But remember, they are all very easily adaptable by all shamans really. It's a very simple concept. One button to put down the standard sets you want. In my case either PvE or PvP. Another button for tweaked modifiers or reapplying totems that despawn sooner, like grounding totems for example. And cleansing totems. And a third button for AoE/fire totems. (Next to that I have a fourth button for elemental totems.)

edit: Edited in some mroe ideas. Will leave it like this now and wait for your reply. :P

[Kaynin]

Actually, after some more thinking, this would be the healing macro's you'd want.

/target <maintoonname>target
/cast [nomod, target=toon1, nodead, help][mod:alt, target=target, nodead, help][mod:alt, target=targettarget, nodead, help] Lesser Healing Wave ; [mod:shift, target=toon1, nodead, help] Chain Heal\

If you hold alt then, it first checks if your target is helpful, if so, it will heal that target. If the target is not helpful, ie a monster, it will heal the one that has aggro.

[amalgam]

The GoA is more about the Dodge and crit for the tank than anything else. The armor is helpful, though.

I seem to remember having problems with "[mod:" as opposed to "[modifier:". It gave me some weird behavior in the past that I disliked which is why I spelled it out. Perhaps it was patch related (this was back in 2.2 days). I'll give the mod a shot again.

As far as E being CL, I like E to be my CC or reactionary abilities. Since Shaman lack CC in any way, I use it as an interrupt (Rank 1 ES). I plan on castsequencing it to have 5 possible interrupts and lock a caster out of several schools. That being said, I think I'll put CL on Shift+Q.

I also like your suggested 1-5 healing set-up. The only problem is that I don't fully comprehend what all your revised macro is supposed to accomplish.

For example, the first line:

 /target <maintoonname>target

Let's say the main toon will be a Gnome Warrior named Midget. Would that line then read:

/target Midgettarget

or would there be a space between the two? As far as I know, there is no option to target this way and the macro as written this way will search for a target NAMED Midgettarget, not assist Midget.

I also fail to see what your alt conditional says in the macro. it seems to me that it's just a secondary heal option to heal the main toon again. The first nomod condition handles this. Am I missing something?

I do, however, like the flexibility granted by the targettarget set. However, shouldn't the case be reversed like this?

/cast [nomod, target=toon1, nodead, help][mod:alt, target=targettarget, nodead, help][mod:alt, target=target, nodead, help] Lesser Healing Wave ; [mod:shift, target=toon1, nodead, help] Chain Heal\

What this would let me do is target a Shaman at lower health using my main and have the Shamans heal that toon. Failing that conditional, it would then proceed to heal their target which would be my main toon due to the first line.

I'll post my responses to your totem stomper sets on that thread instead of here in order to avoid confusion.

Thanks for the suggestions and clarifications.

[MrLonghair]

If I'd run multiples like you I would put my mouse to use a bit more. Another easy to reach button is § (left of 1/on top of tab). My mouse in question does mousewheel tilt to the left and the right, and two thumb buttons, both useful and able to be bound to keystrokes or functions. Some people like using the mousewheel for macros or binds too.

[Tdog]

If I'd run multiples like you I would put my mouse to use a bit more. Another easy to reach button is § (left of 1/on top of tab). My mouse in question does mousewheel tilt to the left and the right, and two thumb buttons, both useful and able to be bound to keystrokes or functions. Some people like using the mousewheel for macros or binds too.

[Off -topic] How do you get your mouse buttons to pass between clients assuming you are using keyclone? If you could point me in the direction of a thread of w/e that may already explain it that would help me out too.

[MrLonghair]

If I'd run multiples like you I would put my mouse to use a bit more. Another easy to reach button is § (left of 1/on top of tab). My mouse in question does mousewheel tilt to the left and the right, and two thumb buttons, both useful and able to be bound to keystrokes or functions. Some people like using the mousewheel for macros or binds too.

[Off -topic] How do you get your mouse buttons to pass between clients assuming you are using keyclone? If you could point me in the direction of a thread of w/e that may already explain it that would help me out too.

I just assign them keystrokes, tilts, thumbs and all

[Kaynin]

 /target <maintoonname>target

Let's say the main toon will be a Gnome Warrior named Midget. Would that line then read:

/target Midgettarget

or would there be a space between the two? As far as I know, there is no option to target this way and the macro as written this way will search for a target NAMED Midgettarget, not assist Midget.

Yes, that would read as /target Midgettarget and it works proper It would make sure your healers/dps'ers/everyone basicly, has the same ytarget as your tank. The mob. This is imperative! Having to switch targets will cause client lag to kick in, so do what you can to avoid it and base your macro's around one target that can stay from start till the end of the fight.

I also fail to see what your alt conditional says in the macro. it seems to me that it's just a secondary heal option to heal the main toon again. The first nomod condition handles this. Am I missing something?

/cast [mod:alt, target=target, nodead, help][mod:alt, target=targettarget, nodead, help][nomod, target=toon1, nodead, help] Lesser Healing Wave ; [mod:shift, target=toon1, nodead, help] Chain Heal

If alt is pressed, it would first check if your target is helpful, if not it will check if your targettarget is helpful, if that's not the case it wont do anything. You have no target! Then comes the next part. [nomod, target=toon1, nodead, help], if NO modifier key is held and only if NONE is held, it will do this. if you exclude nomod, this part would also kick in while holding shift. (And therefor blocking the next part.), then comes the chain heal part, and since you made sure shift+button would go through the first three checks without blowing, it will cast chainheal. If you forget to use nomod, the macro will not function properly.

I do, however, like the flexibility granted by the targettarget set. However, shouldn't the case be reversed like this?

/cast [nomod, target=toon1, nodead, help][mod:alt, target=targettarget, nodead, help][mod:alt, target=target, nodead, help] Lesser Healing Wave ; [mod:shift, target=toon1, nodead, help] Chain Heal\

What this would let me do is target a Shaman at lower health using my main and have the Shamans heal that toon. Failing that conditional, it would then proceed to heal their target which would be my main toon due to the first line.

No, the healing macro shouldn't be reversed.

/cast [nomod, target=toon1, nodead, help][mod:alt, target=target, nodead, help][mod:alt, target=targettarget, nodead, help] Lesser Healing Wave ; [mod:shift, target=toon1, nodead, help] Chain Heal

Check 1: if No modifier is held, heal toon1. (directly ehaling your toon1, without changing targets)
Check 2: if alt is held, check if current target is friendly, if so, heal, if not, pass. (direct healing whatever friendly you want while having it targeted.)
Check 3: if alt is held, and thus the target was not friendly (a mob) Then check for the mob's target to see if he is friendly, if so, heal him. (earth elementals/tank)
Check 4: if shift is held, throw a chain heal on toon1.

Adn for your buttons 2-5, it would be this: (Since you can just heal friendly targets and tanks on all four with button 1, you dont need to add them on the other 4 buttons.)

2- /cast [nomod, target=toon2, nodead, help] Lesser Healing Wave ; [mod:shift, target=toon2, nodead, help] Chain Heal
3- /cast [nomod, target=toon3, nodead, help] Lesser Healing Wave ; [mod:shift, target=toon3, nodead, help] Chain Heal
4- /cast [nomod, target=toon4, nodead, help] Lesser Healing Wave ; [mod:shift, target=toon4, nodead, help] Chain Heal
5- /cast [nomod, target=toon5, nodead, help] Lesser Healing Wave ; [mod:shift, target=toon5, nodead, help] Chain Heal

And then the same macro's in 1-5 on all your 5 chars.

Suppose you try to heal someone, but that someone has a friendly target. If you reverse it like you do, you would heal their target instead of the target you want to heal.

If you do [mod:alt, target=target, nodead, help] in front of [mod:alt, target=targettarget, nodead, help] however, it first checks if you have a friendly target, if so it will heal that target, but if you have an enemy targeted it will heal the enemy's target instead. And you can't go wrong. Your aim is to always have the mobs targeted in PvE, to have all your characters targeted on the boss or mob that is being focused for dps. Try to avoid having to target friendlies to heal in all situations.

The whole point of using [target=target] inside a cast, is so you don't actually change targets, it will just cast it on another target while you keep your old target. That's the strength you need to abuse. So you have direct healing without coping with client lag. x)




.. to further add on to the alt option on the heal macro, just to be absolutely sure, the nomod and shift parts all directly heal one of your 5 characters. But you still have no healing button to heal a friendly elsewhere, or to heal your earth elemental totem. What the alt parts on the 1 button do, is very simply adding full control to be able to heal anything without much fuss. In case of earth elemental tanking, you just need to have the mob enemy targeted that is being tanked by the earth elemental. press alt+1 and voila, it heals the earth elemental while you keep having the enemy targeted. Or in case you're in world and a memebr of your own faction need a heal. Click him, press alt+1 and tada, you heal him.

[Kaynin]

Also, the

/target midgettarget for example

In a more advanced method, it would be

/target focustarget - Then have your alts all focus the character you wield as your main. In case your main dies, you should have several buttons set up. (Personally I got them in F1-F5.) to change the focus of your chars, to assign a new main.

For example. F1 makes your toon1 /clearfocus whilest it does a

/clearfocus
/focus toon1

on your other 4 chars.

F2 would be

/clearfocus
/focus toon2

Except on your toon2 char, F2 would only do /clearfocus.

Etc, etc.

That way, if yourmain dies (toon1) you can click F2, go to that screen, And continue while all other remaining live toons now act as if they are alts of toon2, and not alts of toon1

That's yet another step tho. You can start with just using /target <maintoon>target to set things up, and perhaps add a focus system once you're ready for that. x)

... Oh how I love setting up macro systems for my shammies. <3