Games within Games

There are quite a few games you can run in Warcraft as Mod's. The ones I have seen are usually limited to either solo play or One vs. One. Where are the group games? Well, after reading a post from a little Gnome, I had a great Idea.... AFL, the Mod!

How would it work?

This could get a little complex, but here we go. We will use a Raid Group to get the configuration right. Firstly, you would need a playing field. This would need to either be based on a Set Location, using co-ordinates to workout everyone’s positions, or you would need ten volunteers to actually stand around the field to define it. Alternatively you could simply use six people and not worry about boundaries. Let’s go with the six people to make things easier. Place three people each into groups three and four. One person represents the Goal and the Other two people represent the Points. So the Points stand on either side of their Goal. We then have a 7th player, the Umpire (aka Raid Leader) sitting in group five.

The Teams.

The teams would consist of five players each, divided into Group One and Group Two in the Raid. We will use a simplified version of the Positions. The Three Positions will be Centre, Forward (two players) and Back (two players). The Centre's will be the Team Captains, and they would need Raid Assist. They will define which player holds which position using the Mod to do so. This is how it would look.

Roles?

The Centre's and Forward's are going for the Goal, while the Back's are Defending the Goal. The two goals should be a good distance away from each other to make for better games. The Mod would come with its own "Vehicle Bar" with various abilities based on if you have the ball and your position. This would be things like, Handball, Kick to Player, Kick for Goal, Mark and Tackle. You could also add something like Punch, with the Ref having a % chance of catching you and giving the other team a free kick.

The Mod

The Mod would work out what happens when you do a particular action. For example if you kick the ball to another player, who is being defended, there would be a % chance of the ball going to the other player. Go for a Goal and you have a % chance to score a goal based on the Distance and if there are defenders in the way. There would also be a % chance for it to miss the Goal and score a point or even for the defender to "touch it" and it goes through for a point. To start the game, the Umpire would "Bounce" the ball and it would go to a random team based on the timing that they use the "Mark" ability.

The Ball?

You could even use a actual football. The Mod would control who gets the ball thrown to them. Now I am sure to any non-Australians reading this, you are either very confused or asleep, but I am sure this Mod could be developed to suit Hockey, Soccer (aka football) or Rugby.

Class abilities?

To make things interesting you could use certain class abilities, Dash, Sprint, Intercept, Bubble etc to make things even more interesting and add the element of Team Composition to the whole equation.

Thoughts?

Even though I am not into AFL all that much, I think this would make a pretty cool Mod. So if you know any Developers out there, why not give them a nudge;)

Razorbax
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Action Bars Part Three

In Part One and Part Two, I spoke about using Macro's to add a Shift or CTRL Modifier onto the action bars to fit more functionality into the your Action Bars. Now I am going to look at Custom Paging and how we can use Bartender4's Custom State Headers.

What is a Custom State Header?

I'm glad you asked...

The Custom State Header in Bartender4 allows you to control the paging and the visibility of bars by using any macro conditions supported by WoW.

Basically what it allows you to do is control the paging and visibility of your Action Bars with simple conditions. It's just like writing a /cast macro but instead of using the Spell name, you use the Action Bar number.

The Code?

At first glance, this can look pretty complex, but here it is.

[Nostance]1;[Nostance,Mod:Shift]2;[Nostance,Mod:CTRL]3;[Stance:1]4;[Stance:1,Mod:Shift]5;[Stance:3]6;[Stance:3,Mod:Shift]7;[Stance:3,stealth]8;0

Let's start by breaking down each condition and explain what it's doing.

[Nostance]1;
This line isn’t really required but basically if you have no Stance, Caster Form, it will page to Bar 1.

[Nostance,Mod:Shift]2;
If you are in Caster Form with the Shift key down, page to Bar 2.

[Nostance,Mod:CTRL]3;
If you are in Caster Form with the CTRL key down, page to Bar 3.

[Stance:1]4;
If you are in Bear Form, page to Bar 4.

[Stance:1,Mod:Shift]5;
If you are in Bear Form with the Shift key down, page to Bar 5.

[Stance:3]6;
If you are in Cat Form, page to Bar 6.

[Stance:3,Mod:Shift]7;
If you are in Cat Form with the Shift key down, page to Bar 7.

[Stance:3,Stealth]8;
If you are in Cat Form and Prowling, page to Bar 8.

0
If no other condition has been met, do not page the Action Bar.

Please Sir, I want some more!

There are a lot of options available when it comes to Custom State Headers. You can have your action bar change based on your Target being Hostile or Friendly, In a Party or Raid, In Combat, and even based on your current Spec(Dual Specs). Here is some more information on Custom State Headers, Macro Conditions and Stances.

Conclusion?

There are a few factors that will assist in choosing if you should use Conditional Macro's or Custom State Headers. Custom State Headers require more Action Bars. As you can see from my example, I am using the first eight Action Bars, only leaving me with 2 more bars for the rest of my UI. If I also wanted to introduce Action Bars based on my Dual Spec, I would use every Action Bar on just 10 buttons. The issue with Conditional Macro's is the can be somewhat limited. For example it can be difficult to get Autoattack and a Spell cast in the same macro when using Modifiers. You also need to initially write the Macro and then change it whenever you make a change.

I will leave the decision to you.

EDIT: Looks like a few things didn't work. Here is the new code and I will explain the differences.

[Stance:0,nomodifier]1;[Stance:0,Modifier:Shift]2;[Stance:0,Modifier:CTRL]3;[Stance:1,nomodifier]4;[Stance:1,Modifier:Shift]5;[Stance:3,nomodifier]6;[Stance:3,Modifier:Shift]7;[Stance:3,stealth]8;0

1. Mod didn't work, use Modifier.
2. Nostance didn’t work, used stance:0
3. The conditions are read from left to right and stop when a condition is met, therefore had to use "nomodifier".
4. If "Nomodifier" doesn't work, I will reverse the order and put the Shift/CTRL arguments first.
5. Fingers Crossed.

EDIT2: Looks like a few things still do not work. Here is the new code and I will explain the differences. Hopefully it will all work now.

[Bonusbar:3,Nomodifier]4;[Bonusbar:3,Modifier:Shift]5;[Bonusbar:1,Nomodifier]6;[Bonusbar:1,Modifier:Shift]7;[Bonusbar:1,Stealth]8;[Nomodifier]1;[Modifier:Shift]2;[Modifier:CTRL]3;1

1. Stance:1 (Bear) did not work, replace with Bonusbar:3.
2. Stance:3 (Cat) did not work, replace with Bonusbar:1.
3. Stance:0 (Caster) did not work, moved to the end with no stance argument, just Nomodifier or Modifier.

Razorbax
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Game Commander Pro

Game Commander Pro is a new application on the Multi-Boxing scene. It has some great features like GUI Macro Creation. Check it out.
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Action Bars Part Two

In Part 1 we looked at planning and initial setup of the Action Bars. We have covered the Caster form. Now it's time to look at the feral forms.

Bear Form.

My goal here is to fit all my Bear Form abilities into 10 action buttons. Bear Form is probably the easiest one to do as it has the least amount of abilities. Let’s go through them one at a time.

Q. Taunts

/cast [mod:shift] Challenging Roar; Growl

Cast Growl or Challenging Roar with Shift.

E. Berserk/Survival Instincts

/cast [mod:shift] Survival Insticts; Berserk

Cast Berserk or Survival Instincts with Shift.

MM. Bash
Cast Bash.

M3. Faerie Fire (Feral)
Cast Faerie Fire (Feral).

1. Feral Charge - Bear
Cast Feral Charge - Bear.

2. Swipe
Cast Swipe.

3. Mangle/Maul

/cast [mod:shift] Maul; mangle (bear) ()

Cast Mangle or Maul with Shift.

4. Lacerate
Cast Lacerate.

5. Enrage/Frenzied Regeneration

/cast [mod:shift] Frenzied Regeneration; Enrage

Cast Enrage or Frenzied Regeneration with Shift.

6. Bark Skin
Cast Bark Skin.

Cat Form.

While Cat Form has a few more abilities to fit on the Action Bar, there is still plenty of room. I decided to use the primary bar for normal(Combo Point) attacks and the Shift Mod for Finishing Movies. Where possible I have tried to match abilities, for instance, Rip and Rake are together. So let’s get to right into it.

Q. Cower/Dash

/cast [mod:shift] Dash; Cower

Cast Cower or Dash with Shift.

E. Berserk/Survival Insticts

/cast [mod:shift] Survival Instincts; Berserk

Cast Berserk or Survival Instincts with Shift.

MM. Prowl

/cast [combat] Shadowmeld; [noform:3] !Cat Form; [form, nocombat] !Prowl

If you are in combat, Shadowmeld and then Cat Form, then if you are in Cat Form, Prowl.

M3. Faerie Fire (Feral)
Cast Faerie Fire (Feral).

1. Feral Charge - Cat/Savage Roar

/cast [mod:shift] Savage Roar; Feral Charge - Cat

Cast Feral Charge - Cat or Savage Roar with Shift.

2. Swipe (Cat)/Ferocious Bite
/cast [mod:shift] Ferocious Bite; Swipe (Cat)
Cast Swipe (Cat) or Ferocious Bite with Shift.

3. Mangle/Shred

/cast [mod:shift] Shred; Mangle (Cat) ()

Cast Mangle or Shred with Shift.

4. Rip/Rake

/cast [mod:shift] Rake; Rip

Cast Rip or Rake with Shift.

5. Tiger's Fury/Maim

/cast [mod:shift] Maim; Tiger's Fury

Cast Tiger's Fury or Maim with Shift.

6. Bark Skin
Cast Bark Skin.

Cat Form Prowling.

The final page bar to configure is for when I am Prowling. For this one I don’t need any Macro's at all. So here we go.

Q. Dash
Cast Dash.

E. Berserk
Cast Berserk.

MM. Un-Prowl
Removes Prowl.

M3. Faerie Fire (Feral)
Cast Faerie Fire (Feral).

1. Feral Charge - Cat
Cast Feral Charge - Cat.

2. Pounce
Cast Pounce.

3. Shred
Cast Shred.

4. Ravage
Cast Ravage.

5. Tiger's Fury
Cast Tiger's Fury

6. Bark Skin
Cast Bark Skin.

Functional Keys.

I don't mean Function Keys like F1, what I mean is keys that have a similar function. You will notice for instance the 4 key. In all my feral forms it is used for a DoT. My Middle Mouse is used as a form of escape, wither Prowling, getting out of Combat or Stunning. The one thing I try to do is match up abilities as closely as I can. This way I really only need to remember the function of 10 to 15 keys instead of 60 to 80 keys that I have set up.

Disclaimer.

It is important to remember that I am not actually in game at the moment. All this is based on my memory of BC and browsing through WowHead. I may have missed out on some abilities and I may have included useless ones as well.

As always your feedback and comments are greatly appreciated.

Razorbax
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Action Bars Part One

The next part of my setup planning is focused on the Action Bars. Since I will probably be using Taeo's UI my Action Bars will be using Bartender 4.

Planning.

I talked about planning your action bars in this article. Since I am not Multi-Boxing, I will be using my Merc Stealth Keyboard. I have chosen to compress as many abilities as I can into as few keys as possible. I will use four action bar pages(Caster, Bear, Cat and Stealth) as my Primary action bar and use a half of another action bar for my forms. I have chosen to use an action bar for Forms since I plan to Macro some Forms.

Key Bindings.

My Primary action bar will have the keys from 1 to 6 as well as Q, E, Mouse3 and Middle Mouse. My shifting bar will use the keys 7 through to 11(there is an 11 key on the Merc Stealth).

Caster Form.

In Caster Form I like to have my Balance Spells at the ready, and my Healing Spells available while still having access to Buffs. Now thats a lot of keys to bind. Instead I will use Macro's with Modifiers to simplify this. Balance Spells will be un modified, Healing Spells will use Shift and Buffs will use CTRL. Here is a listing of each Key and the Ability/Macro I plan to use. Each Macro will have a first line of #show tooltip.

Q. Natures Grasp/Cyclone

/cast [mod:shift] Cyclone; Nature's Grasp

Cast Natures Grasp or Cyclone with Shift.

E. Abolish Poison/Remove Curse

/cast [mod:shift] Remove Curse; Abolish Poison

Cast Abolish Poison or Remove Curse with Shift.

MM. Shadowmeld
Cast Shadowmeld.

M3. Faerie Fire
Cast Faerie Fire

1. Attack/Lifebloom/Thorns.

/cast [mod:shift] Lifebloom;[mod:crtl] thorns
/startattack

Cast Autoattack, Lifebloom with Shift or Thorns with CTRL.

2. Wrath/Rejuv/MotW

/cast [mod:shift] Rejuvenation ;[mod:crtl] mark of the wild; wrath

Cast Wrath, Rejuv with Shift or MotW with CTRL.

3. MF/Nourish/GitW

/cast [mod:shift] Nourish;[mod:crtl] gift of the wild; moon fire

Cast MF, Nourish with Shift or GotW with CRTL.

4. SF/Regrowth/Hibernate

/cast [mod:shift] Regrowth;[mod:crtl] hibernate; star fire

Cast Star Fire, Regrowth with Shift or Hibernate with CTRL.

5. Roots/Wild Growth

/cast [mod:shift] Wild Growth; Entangling Roots

Cast Entangling Roots or Wild Growth with Shift.

6. Hurricane/Tranquility

/stopcasting
/cast Barkskin
/cast [mod:shift] Tranquility; Hurricane

Cast Barkskin with Hurricane or Tranquility with Shift.

7. Flight/Travel

/stopcasting
/cast [swimming] Aquatic Form;
/cast [indoors] Cat Form;
/cast [flyable,nocombat] Swift Flight Form;
/cast [combat,outdoors] Travel Form;
/use [nocombat,outdoors,noswimming,noflyable] MOUNTNAME;
/dismount [mounted]

Aquatic if swimming, Cat if indoors, Flight Form if Out of Combat/Outside, Travel if Combat/Outside, Mount if no flying and dismount if nothing else.

8. Bear Form

9. Cat Form

10. Travel Form

11. Caster Form

/cancelform

Cancels any form.

Unbound. Ressurect

/cast [combat] Rebirth ; Revive

Ressurect your Target, in-combat or not.

Next we will look at my Feral Forms, but that can await another day.

Razorbax
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The Multi-boxing Macro

When I was Tri-boxing, I would usually use three DPS's or have a Tank and two DPS's. I briefly tried one of each, Tank, DPS and Healer. Effectively you have to be able to do three things at once. It was very confusing.....Until now!

Three Roles at Once.

This is how I used to do it. I used my main keyboard to control the Tank. This was basically QWEASD and the number 1-5. I controlled the DPS's using the main Keypad on my X-Keys Pro (8 Keys). Then used the 10 keys on the right of the X-Keys Pro for my healing, 2 for each member of the party.

WTB Third Arm!

To run an instance, I would have my left hand on the keyboard controlling the tank, and then my right hand would be tapping on the X-Keys doing DPS and clicking the occasional Heal. This was really hard work and if the Tank took some spike damage, I would often slow down on DPS, and even tanking, in order to concentrate on healing.

There has to be a Better Way?

This got me thinking. Is it really necessary to separate the Tank and the DPS? I started thinking about comparing abilities and matching Tank and DPS abilities up but the various cast times always made it too complicated. What I wanted was a One Button solution.

I Love Excel.

I remembered that the /castsequence macro allowed you to enter blanks. If I combined these blanks with a timeline based on half second intervals, I could actually macro any spell combination so that you would just need to press a button twice a second. I also used excel to make the macro for me.

The Finished Product!

Click Here to download the spreadsheet. I have included an example with a Balance Druid Rotation. My timings are probably off, since I don't have access to WoW but it should give you an understanding of how it's meant to work.

 

Practice vs Theory?

In Practice, you would probably manually pull with the tank, build a small amount of threat and then kick of the macro. Alternatively you could make two macro's for the tank. The first would be the "Get Threat" macro and this key would only be bound on the Tank. Then you have the full rotation bound on both Tank and DPS's. As long as there is a static rotation for a class, this system should be able to handle it. Since you just have to click a key twice a second, you can concentrate on healing your group with little else to distract you.

Feedback.

If you happen to feel like trying this out, I would love some feedback. Feel free to send in any Rotations and I will add them in the spreadsheet for anyone to use. Just email your spreadsheets to razorbax@threedruidnoob.com.

Razorbax
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The Return

I am getting closer to my planned WoW comeback, it should be less than a month away now. It's about time for me to start planning for that immanent eventuality. With that in mind, I thought it might be worth looking at the Mod’s I am planning to start up with.

Too Many Mod’s!

Back in the day, yeah I know I always say that, I was well known for the huge collection of Mod’s I used, At one stage I was sitting in the low 200's. The biggest drawback to this is Patch Day. Our entire guild would be unable to raid for anywhere between two days and a week as everyone desperately search out working versions.

K.I.S.S.

Keep It Simple Stupid is my new goal. I want to be quite minimalistic while still having the added functionality I enjoy. I am planning on being very casual. I will probably only spend four hours a week in game. With that in mind, here is a list of each Mod I am planning on using at this point in time.

Combat

Feralbynight
Initially FBN will be useful for getting back up and running with my Feral Druid working knowledge. I will then keep it around to track my active DoT's.
DHUD
I have never really been into Hud's, but after seeing some screenshots from NoStockUI, I want to at least give it a go.
Quartz
I have always been a fan of Quartz for tracking Global Cool-downs and Casting.
Elkano's Buff Bars
I am not a fan of the Blizz Buff Bars so I thought I would give this a go.

Spec and Gear

Cross Dresser and EquipSetUpdater
Two nice little Mod’s that make managing your gear and spec a bit easier.
Pawn and Pawn Scales
Great way to quickly and easily compare gear when presented with Upgrades.

Trade Skills

Panda
This used to be a very useful Trade Skill interface. Hopefully it is still good.

Chat and Map

Squeenix
I like my Mini-map to be centered in the bottom of the screen. This does that!
Prat
This is a nifty little Chat Addon that should handle all my Chat Configuration requirements. Class Colors, Levels, Time Stamps, etc.

Trading and Gold

Junk Seller
Sell's all your Vendor Trash.
Vendor Bait
Tells you the sell price of Vendor Trash.
Ark Inventory
Great Bag Mod that I could not do without.
Auctioneer
Speaks for itself...

Quest Helpers

Lightheaded
Guest Helper DB. Helps when you can't find those mobs or locations.
TomTom
Arrow Pointer to work with Light Headed. Like a Quest GPS.

Frames and Action Bars

Macaroon and Macaroon Extra's
Action Bar Mod with lots of Macro capabilities. It’s basically the New Version of Trinity Bars.
X-Perl
Nice and Easy unit frames.
Autobar
Great Shortcut bar for handy abilities.

Useful Sites?

I mostly used NoStockUI, Curse and Wow Interface when looking for and deciding on these Mod's.

EDIT

Fubar Mod
FuBar is a neat little mod I nearly forgot about. Gives you an overview of many things. I will use the following plugins.
MoneyFu, Top ScoreFu, ReagentFu, PerformanceFu, ExperianceFu, ClockFu and Money DetailFu

What’s Missing?

I used to use a great little mod that organized your mini-map buttons. I can't for the life of me remember what it's called though. If you know of one or have any other suggestions, please leave me a comment.

Razorbax
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Feralbynight

I have been playing a Resto Druid for a few months now and ever since there was the smallest mention of dual specs I have been collecting Kitty gear with the idea of using that as my second spec.  Actually when Ulduar was released and we needed our highest level gear for Flame Leviathan I was embarrassed to find out just how many pieces were better than my “main gear” hahaha. I did all my homework, read too many forums and blogs and when the time came I paid my gold and tah-dah I was a resto/kitty druid in one easy hit.  I then went out and changed my whole UI to make it easier to fight up close and in your face (actually, in your face isn’t too accurate because we fight from behind and the view is even worse).  And then the big day came ……………….

 

I pressed the buttons and changed my spec, I pressed another button and my gear changed to suit my spec, I pressed another button and flew to Storm Peaks where I could practice on some unsuspecting mobs.  Geez, I sure pushed a lot of buttons.  I picked my target, I pounced with a mighty roar and then pressed a button to get the message “you must be behind your target”, “you must be behind your target”, “you must be behind your target”, over and over and over and then I realised I had been playing resto so long I had absolutely no idea how to play Kitty.  But not to worry, I had hours before my DPS was needed for the hard modes of Heroic Ulduar (my Guild has asked for some healers to change to dps for some hard modes, specific bosses etc).

 

So there was my dilemma.  I had the gear, I had the spec but I had to get up to speed to be able to provide adequate DPS in a semi serious raid guild within hours. I was especially worried after reading so many posts about how hard it was to play Kitty, and how there are no set rotations etc.  When I discussed this with Razor and after he had finished laughing at me for an hour or so, he suggested I look at the  Feralbynight addon which is designed to suggest your next move/attack as a Kitty.  He suggested another addon too but I really wasn’t paying attention as he can be pretty annoying most of the time.  Mmm actually, that is all the time but that is whole different story.

 

I downloaded the Mod, and went straight to the training dummies in Ironforge and commenced to play “whack-a-mole” for kitties.  It really was that simple – in the middle of the addon it shows which talent you should use next, and to the right it shows the talent that is coming up after that one.  I personally play using the keypad for offensive spells/talents on all classes so it was simply a matter of changing the buttons to match the talents that Feralbynight was suggesting.  I think healing is really whack-a-mole on a grid raid screen, so using Feralbynight really was the same sort of thing for me.  I found within minutes that I was cranking out VERY reasonable DPS and even without raid buffs was already above some of our DPS’ers that I checked out on WWS reports.

 

And so the big night came and the request was made for me to stop healing for the next fight, change specs and show my DPS talents.  O! M! F! G! it was soooooooooooooooo hard.  I now look at kitty druids in a whole new light and truly hold them in reverence.  Doing DPS on a training dummy is absolutely nothing compared to the real thing with everything moving, you, the boss, the tank, adds, flamestrikes, spell effects, aggro to worry about, living to worry about, changing targets to worry about.  Did I Say OMFG?  I need a bigger font!  Holy Geez it was hard.

 

Since that raid I have spent more and more time in Kitty form so that I can learn to play it properly.  I still use Feralbynight but I don’t rely on it any more and am genuinely learning the talents and what I should be watching for.  I firmly believe that the addon is an absolutely fantastic tool to begin to learn how to play kitty.  However, I do think it would take the fun out of playing the class before very long and even more importantly I would think that a pro player HAS TO be better than an automated mod at the end of the day.

 

Either way .. Kitty is fun!   Roooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaar  (or “meow” as the case may be)

 

And now for a picture because Razor said the new forums need pictures in posts.  I was going to post some screenies but I am at work so I have stolen this one off the net …

 

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The Perfect Mod!

I have been thinking of what I am missing as far as addon's for Multi-Boxing. I have something in mind but not sure if its allowed. The big problem Boxers have, that do not 5-Box, is Group Healing. You see the party is ordered in reverse order by Character Creation Date. What this means is what you see on your Masters Screen does not correspond to what you see on your Slave Healers. The five character slots are defined as "Player", "Party1", "Party2", "Party3", "Party4". Player will always be the Master, If the Master is the Group Leader, then on the slave he/she will be "Party1". Party One is always the Group leader, with the exception of when you are the actual leader.

More Information.

This can be really hard to picture so lets go with an example. I will use three boxer Toons, the Tank, the DPS and the Healer. Other Members will be random. If the Tank was created on Day 7, the healer on Day 9 and the DPS on Day 3, Here is what it would look like for the Tank:

Player	Tank
Party1	Healer
Party2	DPS

To the Healer it will look like:

Player	Healer
Party1	Tank
Party2	DPS

Now here is where it gets confusing. Lets Add PugDPS and PugCC. PugDPS was created on Day 1 and PugCC was created on Day 4. Now we see:

View:	Tank	Healer
Player	Tank	Healer
Party1	Healer	Tank
Party2	PugCC	PugCC
Party3	DPS	DPS
Party4	PugDPS	PugDPS

Now this seems OK, right? Well lets change the group Make-up. Leats replace our PugDPS and PugCC with GuildDPS and GuildCC. GuildDPS was created on day 8 and GuildCC on day 10.

View:	Tank	Healer
Player	Tank	Healer
Party1	GuildCC	Tank
Party2	Healer	GuildCC
Party3	GuildDPS	GuildDPS
Party4	DPS	DPS

Can you see the problem, basically what you need to be able to do is consistently know that if you want to heal player1 from the Masters view-point, you have to redo your Macro's every time the group changes.

The Solution?

There is a mod called Multiboxer that communicates things like who is following who and the XP of the slaves, among other things. Now wouldn't it be good if you could pass variables across from the main to the slave that can be used in Macro's?

What do you Mean?

Lets say that the Mod on your Master stores the party members as P1, P2, P3, P4 and P5. It then passes this information to the Slave. You can now use Macro's like:

/cast [target=P1] Heal

We are no longer reliant on the order of the party, it doesn't even matter about the order the Slave Healer see's the party, it can all be handled using these variables.

So What's the Problem?

The problem is I don't know if you can do this as a Mod. If anyone knows if this is even possible, please leave a comment. This would be a dream come true for a lot of Multi-Boxers.

Razorbax

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Boosting and Looting

/e Beld stands up, wipes away a tear and loudly pronounces to the gathered audience "My name is Beld and I am an Auction House addict"

From that, you can understand why I was so horrified on beginning our current boosting endeavour to hear Razor say that when boosting he rarely bothered with looting as it was just too time consuming and hardly worth the effort.  Now in hindsight I am not absolutely sure whether he was serious or it was a cunning (and successful) ploy to get me to look after the looting.

But first let me explain my addiction. 
I have played the AH seriously in the past and know what you can do and still remember a "race" I had with a friend in the pre-BC days of the first to 10,000g with a starting purse of only 50g (I won by a few hours in just over 4 weeks and then gave it all away to level 5 toons haha).  /sigh  Remember when 10,000g was a lot of gold?

I am definitely not the most successful AH player in WoW and in all honesty, most serious AH users would be horrified at what I now do.  For some years now I have run the mod Auctioneer and kept it up to date with daily scans and this helps me to sell all my items.  I actually sell everything BELOW what it should be so that I can get the quick sales.  I guess you can best describe me as lazy rather than greedy hehe.

I just hate the idea of throwing easy gold away.

And so our boosting began in Deadmines, onto Stockades, SM and now we have just begun BRD.  Razor has been doing the killing on his undergeared 70 mage while I have been dividing my time between laughing at him dieing (closely followed by trying to run for my life) and looting.  With the information from Auctioneer I discard/delete items of almost zero value and then sort the other items as we go.  As the bags fill up, I trade all the vendor trash to Razor's baby Paladin and at the end of the runs I mail everything left over to my AH toon.  I then continue to scan each day and on Thursday of each week I put everything up for 48 hours at a little below average sell prices and generally try to be the cheapest there.  Yeh, yeh, I know, I am driving the market down but remember I am lazy not greedy.  I sell on these days because that is when prices are highest and it gives me a chance to try again with anything not sold by the Saturday.  I avoid selling on Monday to Thursday at all costs as a lot of things can be as little as half their usual prices.  Anything not sold after two attempts gets DE'd and I sell the shards/dust and yep you guessed it, below cost.

We are currently level 45 and I have looted on about 2/3rds of the runs as Razor is still too lazy to do it himself.  We have bought all the training we can, bought one mount at level 30 and currently have about 1000g in the bank.  So I think it is well and truly worth the effort, and could even be more lucrative if I really tried. 

Besides, it gives me something to do when Razor isn't entertaining me with his deaths. 


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Learn2Play

I had some spare badges the other day and I decided to sell an epic gem. So I mention it in Trade Chat. I get a really low offer, which I reject. However we start chatting. He was saying how he just buys cheap, gets the Gem's cut and sells for profit. As the conversation keeps going, we stumble upon the topic "Multi-Boxing". This trader is dead against Boxing and claims it's outright cheating. "One person with the power of five characters is unfair". I countered with "It just takes different tactics" and "I have seen two well played Toons drop a 5-boxer". Of course none of this makes a difference, I didn't really expect it to either. One amusing thing that he did say was "I spoke to a GM about this the other day and he said Boxers are getting banned within the month". Since we all know how blizzard likes to discus future information.... not, I could only laugh to myself. Anyway, I am going off topic here.

There's a Topic?

One of the comments PVP's make is that Five Individual Players can not react as fast as One Player. This is both true and false. For a start, any target that the "Master" acquires, takes time to reach the slave. For Example, if I have a 250 ms latency, then it will take 250 ms to reach the server and then another 250 ms to get back to my slaves. Half a second may not seem like much, but if you ask anyone playing outside the US "What difference does a couple of hundred ms make?" you will quickly find out. Another thing that limits Boxer's is the fact that they only have one target. Because of this there is an obvious play pattern that is very easy to discern. When you know what your opponent is is going to do, it is a lot easier to counter.

Pseudo-Boxing.

I just made up that title but it's as good a description as any. You want to see what it is like to Multi-Box? Well get some friends together and you can. If you set up the Focus and Casting Macro's I mentioned before and select one person from your group to be the master. Now all there is to do is get everyone on /follow and then spam the Macro button when its time to attack. This is a very easy, if simplistic, way of seeing what the grass is like on the other side of the fence.

Raiding Lazy.

There is also nothing stopping you from applying these theories to your raiding. Feel like a lazy night? Set up your spell macro's and choose a person to make your master. I would use someone who will spend all their time DPS'ing and someone who is good at kill orders, etc. Now you can just watch TV and spam those attack macro's. You could even put a caster on follow.

Extrapolating.

Boxing is a great way to learn about Macro's. It's easy to set up wow and get multiple accounts. The time investment comes with setting up your Macro's to suit your style and setting up your UI.

Good Luck.

Razorbax

PS. If you read yesterdays article, it failed miserably. No boosting shortcuts....:(

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Multi-Boxing Macro's 102

Macro's is 4 Haelz! Ok that was a shameless plug but I think its a good intro;)

Healing Macro's can be extremely varied depending on the Class Combinations you are using. Do you have Three DPS classes that can heal? Is there one dedicated healer? Obviously I can't answer these questions for you so I will deal less with the whole group and more with the Slave Healer. As per my last macro post I will use the focus method as I find it far more suitable when it comes to healing. I will also mention that although these Macro's can be used for PVP, they are far more suitable for PVE.

The Basics.

To start this of I am going to stick with a simple Macro for healing a specific Party Member.

Create a Macro called Regrowth 1. Give it the ? Icon.

#showtooltip
/cast [target=Master] regrowth

OK that’s all well and good but very limiting if you are going to group with other people as well.

Healing the Party.

Create a Macro called Regrowth 1. Give it the ? Icon.

#showtooltip
/cast [target=XXX] regrowth

OK here is the tricky part. If you have multiple healers, you will have to play with the order. Anyway, XXX will be equal to one of the following.
Player    This is you.
Party1    This is the Party Leader.
Party2    2nd member of Party.
etc up to Party4

I personally like making the MT the Party Leader so that I always know the most important person to heal;). Obviously to heal your entire party with this method requires 5 key bindings.

Single Button Healing.

This method of healing is very good for standard encounters that have little AOE. Ill start with the Macro and explain as I go.
Create a Macro called Regrowth. Give it the ? Icon.

#showtooltip
/cast [target=focustarget,help] regrowth

Here is the first step. If the Target of the Master is a Friendly healer, you will heal them.

#showtooltip
/cast [target=focustarget,help] regrowth;[target=focustargettarget,help] regrowth

In this example, The Focus is Master. His target is the Mob. So whoever the Mob is attacking will get healed.

#showtooltip
/cast [target=focustarget,help] regrowth;[target=focustargettarget,help] regrowth

Off Healing?

OK, time to mix it up. My healing Druid is usually specced Dreamstate. I can heal and do DPS. I am going to use Modifier keys. I will assume I will attack more than heal, for this reason I will make it that the modifiers are for Healing Spells. I will also use the Shift Modifier just out of my preference. Feel free to use CTRL or ALT.

#showtooltip Wrath
/cast [target=focustarget,help,modifier:shift] regrowth;[target=focustargettarget,help,modifier:shift] regrowth;[target=focustarget,harm] Wrath

Lets Step through the final result. You will notice I put in a spell name after the #showtooltip command. This is so the icon doesn’t change based on the shift key being held down. Here are the three broken down parts of the Macro with their descriptions.

[target=focustarget,help,modifier:shift] regrowth
    If Shift key is held down, Heal the Target of the Master.
[target=focustargettarget,help,modifier:shift] regrowth
   If Shift key is held down, Heal the target of the creature that is targeted by the master.
[target=focustarget,harm] Wrath
   Cast Wrath at the Target of the Master.

I think these two guides should give everyone a good start into Multi-Boxing. Everyone tends to develop their own style of play and no doubt your Macro's Evolution will follow that style as you go.

Please feel free to ask any questions or comment on this post or just Macro's in General. My next post on this topic will be titled L2Play. How will that relate to Macro's?

Good Luck.

Razorbax

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Multi-Boxing Macro's 101

There are two hurdles to get past when you decide to take up Multi-Boxing. The first being the Software or Hardware that you use to control all your accounts. This is fairly straight forward and there is plenty of information here. The second hurdle is the Macro's. This is what I will cover today.

Following.

This is an easy one. You will need two keybinds for this. For simplicity I will use F1 and F2.

F1 : Follow.
You will only need this Macro on the Slaves.
Create a Macro and call it "follow"

/target Master
/follow
/cleartarget

F2 : Break Follow (Formation)
For this one you just go into your Keybindings and Bind the F2 key to a Direction. If you want to make a formation, You can use the following example.
Master : Bind F2 to Move Back.
Slave 1: Bind F2 to Strafe Left.
Slave 2: Bind F2 to Strafe Right.

This way if you press the F2 key, you characters will separate and form a triangle.

Assist or Focus.

The two popular methods of controlling your characters are by using either Assists or Focus's.

/Assist

Assists are a bit more straight forward and allow you to keep the Focus functions aside for Crowd Control. There is however a flaw. It generally relies on one character(Master). If, for example, you PVP and your Master dies, it severely hampers your control of your slaves. There is a way around this issue but it gets a little complex. Let's start with the basics. For the below examples I will use Druids. I will assume Tri-Boxing and the characters will be referred to as "Master", "Slave1" and "Slave2".

Wrath

Firstly we want to be able to cast a Wrath spell at the Target of the Master. We will use F3 for this. For the Master this is simple. Simply bind an Action Bar Button as F3 and drag the "Wrath" spell onto it. For the Slaves, there are two methods as follows.
Method 1.
Create a Macro called Wrath. Give it the ? Icon.

#showtooltip
/assist Master
/cast wrath

Method 2.
Create a Macro called Wrath. Give it the ? Icon.

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mastertarget] Wrath

There is no real difference between these two Macro's. I personally prefer Method 2 simply because it is similar to the /focus method which tends to be the progression most people make.

/Focus.

Lets continue to use the Wrath Spell for this example. When using /focus, you use it on All your characters, Master and Slaves. Firstly lets create a focus macro for everyone.

/target Master
/focus
/clear Target

Lets now place this Macro on an action bar and bind it to F10. This Macro will be the same for the Master and the two Slaves.

You can now optionally create back up focus Macro's for if your Main Dies. Simply duplicate the focus Macro and insert Slave1 and Slave2 in place of master. Place the Slave1 Focus Macro on an action Bar and bind it to F11. Do the same for Slave2 with F12.

You only ever have to use F10-F12 when you need to Change which character your Focus is or when you first Party up.

Wrath with Focus.

Now that you have your Focus set up, lets get to the Spell Casting. This Macro will be identical on the Master and Slaves.

#showtooltip
/cast [target=focustarget] wrath

In English Please?

All this Macro does is casts the Wrath Spell at the target of the Focus Character. So lets have an example. We form out party of three, and hit F10. This sets the focus as Master. Press F1 to start the slaves on follow. You engage in combat. With the Master, target the poor sod you are about to decimate. Start pressing the F3 button. Your Slaves may experience a delay here as it takes twice your latency for your Slaves to get the target of the Master.

Oh No! The Master is Dead! No Problem. Press F11 and Slave1 is now the Focus. His target is now the kill target. Keep pressing F3 and finish em off. Once you are done, resurrect the Master and Press F10 to go back to having the Master as the Focus.

/focus and Follow.

When using /focus, you can alter your follow macro so that it follows who ever is the focus. Just change it as follows.

/target focus
/follow
/cleartarget

I hope I have made this little guide easy to understand. I am always happy to help out budding Multi-Boxers so if you have any questions, please shoot me an email.

Razorbax

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One Person 10-Boxing Karazhan

 

I read an interesting post over on the Dual Boxing forums. Check it out here.

Basically one person has 10 Manned most of Kara. His group consisted of:

Protection Paladin x 2
Fire Lock x 2
Elemental Shaman x 4
Fire Mage
Holy Priest

The Two Machines.

He runs his team on two PC's with the following Specs.
q6600 2.4 ghz
8800 GT Video Card
7200 RPM Hard drive
8 gig DDR800 Ram

The Result.

Over the course of several runs so far, he has downed, Attuman, Moroes, Maiden, Opera (R&J and BBB), Curator, Shade, Chess, Prince and Illhoof.

Amazing Results. Let's hope he gets his hands on some Video Software;).

Wondering how the new Server is going?

I have my two Druids over there now. We are setting up the foundations for our Raiding Guild. I mentioned this earlier but we are aiming for 10 Man content. We will just be running Kara and ZA until the expansion to get used to everyone playstyle and ensure we are set.

New UI.

I ended up going with Bongos3. I really love this Action Bar addon but I am really hoping it continues to get supported with upcoming patches. I completed my Feral UI and have replicated it for my Healer. I also set up the same UI on the other PC. I can now play my alt either by himself or Dual Boxed. I plan to Dual Box the SSO Dailies as a bit of a cash run.

When do we Raid!

We are waiting for a couple more Transfers but we are hoping to have a full team by Wednesday.

Ill keep you updates. In the mean time I was silly enough to put my hand up for running the DKP......

Razorbax

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New Monitor

After Work on Friday I picked up my new Samsung 22" Monitor. It's one of the better(cheap) 22" monitors with the ability to Pivot vertically. I have connected this to my Slave PC and now have the two wow clients running in 1050*840, one above the other. This is a massive improvement for visibility and I am very happy with it. I also started to convert another Razorbax's UI to suite Multi Boxing. When I am done I should be able to play any combo of characters, either solo or in a group. This will be more important once I hit 70.

Beld is Slack.

I must admit I am rather un-impressed with Beld and his Multi Boxing Progression. He has not even managed to get his three Gnomes to level 10 yet. Hopefully this post may motivate him....;)

Zej isn't Slack.

Zej on the other hand is making great Progress. His Pally has hit 58 and is progressing well. Xerro is also doing well on his Tank/Healer combo, sitting on around level 65.

Razorbax

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Levelling to 80

Firstly let me apologise for my lack of posting recently. My playtime over the last week has been fairly limited. Sometimes you just need a little break to keep on going again.

Class Combo's.

I have been thinking about how I will go about levelling once WotLK is released. As I mentioned previously I will be retiring one Druid, which will leave me with two Druids, two Shamans and a Mage. Since I want to level my Shammies together, my starting combo will be my two druids with the Mage. I will also roll a Death Knight on my Mage's account so I will be able to level her with my two Shammies. Also the Shammies should help boost the Death Knight rather well initially.

Pro's.

I think the main bonus here is I should be able to get all six characters to 80 before most people get three there. With the amount of people doing instances, I will be able to fill up any group. I will have a Feral Tank, Resto Druid, two Elemental Shammies, Frost Mage and a DPS (we will see) Death Knight. Now if only I wanted to 5-Box, I would have a great team for it.

Con's.

The thing that will be really annoying is gearing 6 characters. I know my Primary focus will go on my Feral Druid, so the rest of the time I will be slowly working on 5 characters.

Current Plan's.

My team is sitting on Level 67 with full rested XP. It shouldn't take me more than a week to finish them off. I plan on running Dailies on at least 5 Toons per day to help grind away for mounts and Matt's for my Craftable Epics.

UI Stuff.

I am about to pick up a 2nd 22" Wide Screen Monitor. I plan to pivot it Vertically so I can have my 2 Alt's in slightly largest windows. As a result I will have to re-arrange my UI's but I will also take the time to ensure all my Slaves are set up to run as both Slaves and Solo Toon's.

Razorbax

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BANNER!

Let's start of with the Important stuff. Shinho has been kind enough to design a Banner for TDN. I have to say I think it looks fantastic. Now in my defense, I didn't hassle him that much, I think it was only two emails.... Shinho, aside from being very good with banners, is an Officer in the Red Dragons. He started out in WOW with Parabola the Rogue. Eventually he added Shinho to the roster when we were short on Priests and ended up playing him through BC. He also has a 70 Druid and 70 Warlock. Currently he spends most of his game time PVPing in his 2v2 team. I enjoy listening in TS when he shares his strategies and downfalls against various teams.

Collection Quests.

These are the bane of any multi-boxer. We usually shun them completely. Since I want to reach level 62 before leaving for Zangermarsh, I am doing every quest, even these annoying collection quests. Now the opposite can be said for kill quests. I slice through these quests like a hot knife through butter.

The Team.

I am currently sitting at about 61.5. hopefully tonight I will finish this off. I also need to go and do my Dragonscale Leatherworking quest as I neglected it earlier. One issue though is I am way behind on LW with Razorshocks. Should I spend some of my gold to power him up? Should I save it for mount costs. I figure since I am still so low I still have plenty of time to cash up for my mounts, though I need close to 5k gold to get my 3 toons on flying mounts.

What to Expect Soon...

I am planning on an in depth UI guide for Multi Boxing focusing around Trinity Bars. I am not sure when I will have this out but I would really like to share when I have come up with.
Razorbax

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BOOM!

First off I have some great news. Our friendly neighbourhood Boomkin is back. Check him out over at Laser Chicken. He even found himself a little wow girl to play with;).

BOOM! Mk 2.

Last night I completed the Team Migration to Trinity and re-speced them. I have to say, WOW. My burst damage now is just insane. Already I feel like my Lightning Bolts are doing more than my Boomkins Wraths @ 70. When I actually get to 70 and have the full tree to play with it's going to be a blast.

To Do!

I still haven't fixed up my Totems Yet. I know I have too and will defiantly do it, but when you have the choice between writing Macro's or playing.... well you see my dilemma.

Karma?

I was in Hellfire last night and headed over to do that summoning quest where you get a Huge Colossus. I cleared my path over to the quest area and a few hordies arrived their first. Two were even flagged PVP. I think there were three of them there but at least 2 of them were 70's. So they start the event, being the nice guy that I am I help burn down the Colossus. As soon as it dies, two of them ride of, no emote, no nothing. The 3rd one hangs about and I think he may have helped a little. I ended up dieing on all 3 toons but did get the quest compete. So I Ahnk'ed up and was on my way.

Cross Faction.

I have nothing against most Horde players. I frequently help out anyone I see in need. Most Hordies I run into are just like the rest of us. Playing wow for some fun. Some are just Arsehats. Now these hordies I just mentioned aren't Arsehats. They were just doing their own thing. Arsehats are like the Horde Druid I ran into a while back doing the Skettis Escort.

Revenge.

So I am flying around and I find the escort guy. There is no one around, so I take the quest. A Horde Druid flys past and lands down the bottom of the ramp. He starts pulling lots of mobs to himself. The escort guy, of course..., runs over to help and starts pulling agro. Thats right, this Druid is tring to Grief me. I notice he has alot of mana, so he is either resto or balance. He is getting hit by mobs still but he can heal through it. All he is achieving is slowing me down and a posibility of my escort guy dieing. Fine, I can sort him out. I drop to kitty and sprint around the area, dragging about twenty mobs back with me. Im in my Tank gear so I can take a bit of a hit. Funny thing about healing yourself though, it causes THREAT. Suddenly this griefer has twenty-five plus mobs beating on him. He quickly goes down and I finish them off. Quest Complete. /Dance on his corpse.

Razorbax

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UI V2.0a

With the extended maintenance last night I only had an hour or so to play. I decided to give Trinity Bars 2 a go on Razorslax. Firstly, I have to say that this is a very easy mod to learn. There are a lot of options to play with but it is very intuitive. One of my favourite functions is storing Macro's in buttons. You can also copy any existing button Macro's into a new one. This makes setting up Multi-boxing Macro's a lot easier. I hope to take advantage of the template feature to easily transfer my work to my Slave PC and my other accounts.

Spec Choices.

I have decided to go with a 40/0/21 Spec for my Shammies. I know I am losing Totem of Wrath but I think I make up for it with Natures Swiftness in sharing PVP and PVE viability. As for my Mage, I am strongly leaning towards a 41/0/20 spec. I think there will be a great deal of synergy between the classes which should offset the loss in DPS.

UI V2.0b

Now that I have pretty much migrated from Bongos to Trinity and built a nice synergy between my Mage and Shammies, I want to look at other ways of improving my team. Currently I have 12 buttons on my X-Keys Pro set aside for individual totems. Basically I have 3 rows of 4 buttons that will cover various situations. My next step is to use a single button combined with a /castsequence Macro to customize my Totem requirements.

Plans for Tonight?

I will be on a little later than usual so I will probably miss the MM Raid (Sorry MM's), so when I do get on I think I will respec my team and migrate my two slaves across to trinity. I will also spend a bit of time on my Totem Macro's then I will try and polish of another level. I would like to hit 62 while in Hellfire so that I can get most of the quests in Zangermarsh.
Razorbax

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I Hate Good Mods

Last week I spent a lot of time setting up and configuring Bongos3 and even longer on Macro's. Then I came across this.

Trinity Bars 2.

You can find this Mod here. It just has so many features in it that it pretty much forces me to change my Action Bar mod. Here is a short list of things that I will personally find useful.

• "Macro": buttons that utilities the secure template macro system that allows for an unlimited number of macros up to a length of 1023 characters.
• Set a target for a bar. This bar will hide/show itself based on the target's existence.
• Set the target for any single button.
• Buff/Debuff highlighting - Track buffs on yourself or current target. The buttons that have spells that are current buffs/debuffs will highlight themselves.
• Text timers for cooldowns and the above buff/debuff highlighting feature.

Now these are just a few features from the huge list of things you can do with this Mod. I guess I will have a Play and see what happens.

Kara Run

Last night was another MM Kara run. After the run I had over 30 Badges. So I decided to get two Nether Vortex's. I was planning of upgrading my belt from this to this. After I had made my purchase I actually had a good look at the items. Honestly I do not really think it is enough of an upgrade to be worth the expense. I gain a couple of Stam, lose a couple of Agi and get an extra hundredish Armour. Worst of all, I lose some Hit. I really don't think its worth it. I welcome your thoughts on this.

Tonight?

Well I havn't decided on what I will do tonight yet. I will either try for level 62 with my team or give Trinity a go.
Razorbax

PS. Stay tuned, another post is on its way......

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