Of macros and movement...
Posted 09-08-2009 at 11:35 AM by Poyzon
Someone recently asked me how the 5-pally team was going. It's going fine, but not great. Now I figure this is due to a few things.
Now, I have a limited amount of time each day in which I might play. I've got the wife and kids and other responsibilities, so playing WoW is a great way for me to unwind. On a good day, I might get 3-4 hours in at a time during the evening hours.
That said, I think I've probably wasted a couple of sessions not sitting down and setting up my team the way they deserve to be set up. While I've known that things could be better in my setup, I've convinced myself that I could just work around it.
For example, right now I have a sloppy movement system set up. I not-too-regularly (thankfully) find my team facing the wrong way when I run up and around a mob or adjust my own main's position hoping to set the mob up just right. I'll end up hitting my arrow keys (all of which are still mapped to movement on all characters) to try and fine tune them. This works most of the time, but inevitably I have a toon or two facing some weird direction and I can't get them to line up properly. I flail at the "follow" key and end up wasting precious moments adjusting rather than tearing up a mob. I don't have a perfect solution to this yet, but I'm going to try using the same control scheme that I use with my priest/hunters - map keys to create a "formation" that is more visually appealing and hopefully, more strategically appealing. (Of course I'll have to be careful not to space my toons too far apart or they'll become ineffective.) I also might try mashing the "follow" button a lot as well and see if that keeps my team close.
If you've got tips on keeping your team together, let me know.
On a better note, I'm feeling a lot better about my macro setup. One thing that has always worried me is how to handle abilities that don't really stack very well when used by multiple toons. For pallys, Hammer of Justice (HoJ) comes to mind. This stuns an enemy when used, but if all 5 of your toons use it at one time, it's pretty worthless. You've essentially blown 3-6 seconds of stun time x4. Thanks to a post from EatCarbs, I'm now using a rotation macro for these types of skills.
For example, here's how I have this macro set up for all my toons now.
SandwichA's Macro
SandwichB's Macro
SandwichC's Macro
SandwichD's Macro
SandwichE's Macro
Each of these is mapped to my Num7 key on each toon. Now, I can hit Num7 and my main case HoJ and stun the target for 3 seconds (my current duration). After that, I can hit Num7 again and my 2nd toon will stun the target again for another 3 seconds.
You can repeat this template for any other similar ability where blowing them all at once would be "less than optimal". Holy Wrath, Repentance, etc.
Anyway, in conclusion, even if you have to spend an entire session or two getting your macros/controls figured out, it's 100%+ worth it. You will save yourself grief and will save yourself a lot of wasted time.
- I'm probably lazy.
- Multiboxing 5 melees probably isn't easy (particularly when this is only the 2nd team I've boxed).
- Not taking the time to set up your macros/controls adds a whole lot of drag to your gameplay.
Now, I have a limited amount of time each day in which I might play. I've got the wife and kids and other responsibilities, so playing WoW is a great way for me to unwind. On a good day, I might get 3-4 hours in at a time during the evening hours.
That said, I think I've probably wasted a couple of sessions not sitting down and setting up my team the way they deserve to be set up. While I've known that things could be better in my setup, I've convinced myself that I could just work around it.
For example, right now I have a sloppy movement system set up. I not-too-regularly (thankfully) find my team facing the wrong way when I run up and around a mob or adjust my own main's position hoping to set the mob up just right. I'll end up hitting my arrow keys (all of which are still mapped to movement on all characters) to try and fine tune them. This works most of the time, but inevitably I have a toon or two facing some weird direction and I can't get them to line up properly. I flail at the "follow" key and end up wasting precious moments adjusting rather than tearing up a mob. I don't have a perfect solution to this yet, but I'm going to try using the same control scheme that I use with my priest/hunters - map keys to create a "formation" that is more visually appealing and hopefully, more strategically appealing. (Of course I'll have to be careful not to space my toons too far apart or they'll become ineffective.) I also might try mashing the "follow" button a lot as well and see if that keeps my team close.
If you've got tips on keeping your team together, let me know.
On a better note, I'm feeling a lot better about my macro setup. One thing that has always worried me is how to handle abilities that don't really stack very well when used by multiple toons. For pallys, Hammer of Justice (HoJ) comes to mind. This stuns an enemy when used, but if all 5 of your toons use it at one time, it's pretty worthless. You've essentially blown 3-6 seconds of stun time x4. Thanks to a post from EatCarbs, I'm now using a rotation macro for these types of skills.
For example, here's how I have this macro set up for all my toons now.
SandwichA's Macro
Code:
#showtooltip Hammer of Justice /castsequence reset=60 Hammer of Justice,,,,
Code:
#showtooltip Hammer of Justice /castsequence reset=60 ,Hammer of Justice,,,
Code:
#showtooltip Hammer of Justice /castsequence reset=60 ,,Hammer of Justice,,
Code:
#showtooltip Hammer of Justice /castsequence reset=60 ,,,Hammer of Justice,
Code:
#showtooltip Hammer of Justice /castsequence reset=60 ,,,,Hammer of Justice
You can repeat this template for any other similar ability where blowing them all at once would be "less than optimal". Holy Wrath, Repentance, etc.
Anyway, in conclusion, even if you have to spend an entire session or two getting your macros/controls figured out, it's 100%+ worth it. You will save yourself grief and will save yourself a lot of wasted time.
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