The Focus Mechanic

When I posted my macros yesterday, Tigerfeet let me know that she is curious to learn more about what a focus target is and what it is useful for… so here I go! 🙂

I learned about focus when I was setting up a new unit frames addon.  There was a section for configuring the display of my focus, and I had no idea what that meant!  So I WoWwiki’d it, and I was amazed that I hadn’t already known about this handy little feature.

A focus target is basically a secondary target, one that you can sort of keep an eye on while you deal with your real target.  Your focus can be friendly or hostile, and both have their uses as a focus.

To set your focus, just use /focus.  It will set your focus as your current target.  If you want to get fancy like me, you can set up a macro to set your focus to your mouseover target using /focus [target=mouseover].

Once you have a target set, you cast any spell that is castable on a target (depending on friendly/hostile) using the macro conditional [target=fucus].  Just put this between /cast and whatever your spell name is!

This is useful for Crowd Control, for anyone that targets a specific mob to CC, like mages or priest.  So, something like:

/cast [target=focus] Polymorph

/cast [target=focus] Shackle Undead

will cast that spell on your focus target so you can keep up your banal pew pewing away at Skull!

I use focus for my misdirect.  I set which ever tank I’m set to be MDing onto as my focus, and then whenever I cast misdirect, it automatically gets put on him.  This helps so once I have my target I don’t have to switch to the tank and back to cast, and also if someone pulls aggro or there is some sort of emergency in combat, I can toss up a misdirect quickly to help the tank gain control.

I have heard that using a focus is also really useful for healers, but I have yet to experiment with that much.  I suppose you could have your tank as your focus so your heals will go to them while you can have a mob targetted, or heals will go to the focus unless you have another friendly player targetted.  If anyone has more information on how healers take advantage of the focus mechanic, I’d be happy to find out! 🙂

The Macro Post Pt. 1

As a profession, I am a software developer, so code is pretty much my life.  So understandably, I love me some macros!  I find that macros really do make the game more enjoyable, being able to customize how your spells are cast or giving one button extra functionality to cater to my play style really does make me a happy girl.

I’m breaking this post into parts, because I am still developing my favourite Priest macros.  To be honest, I haven’t really tried many yet… but I’m getting to know what is useful and what I need from the healing I’ve been doing so far.

So, this post will be mostly be Hunter and General macros!  They’re pretty simple ones, other than the 3:2 macro, I don’t like to over-complicate things.  I am not a big fan of having one button with multiple functions (right-click on it to cast this, left-click to cast that, alt-click to cast the other thing) because I’m sure I’d never remember which is which.

Steady/Auto Macro

Macro 1:

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast Steady Shot
/click [target=pettarget,exists] MultiBarBottomLeftButton12
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Macro 2:

/castsequence reset=4 Kill Command, !Auto Shot, !Auto Shot, !Auto Shot

This 3:2 shot rotation is courtesy of Manito.  It’s quite detailed and it is split into 2 macros.  I’d explain it in more detail, but check out Manito’s information, he explains it better than I could!

Set focus

/focus [target=mouseover]

This is mostly useful for my Misdirect and Shackle Undead macros.  When you press whatever key you have it bound to when you are moused over a target, it will set that target as your focus.  Also if you want to clear your focus, you can just use this macro when your mouse is not over any sort of target.  Simple!

Misdirection on Focus

#show Misdirection
/cast [target=focus,exists] Misdirection;

To me, this macro is a must-have.  Misdirect is special, and it sort of requires two targets.  One to misdirect onto (such as a healer) and one to misdirect to them (such as a raid boss).  So it only makes sense to use the handy focus feature of the game!  It basically allows you to have a ‘backup’ target that you can cast things on.  This is helpful so you don’t have to switch between one target and the other, and it is also good for when you are in mid-fight and get an add or someone steals aggro, just toss up a misdirect and shoot away!

I also have a similar macro set up for Scare Beast, for the rare occasion where I need to chain fear some mob.

Random Mounts & Trinket Swapping

/equip [mounted] Bladefist’s Breadth;
/equip [nomounted] Riding Crop;
/userandom [nobutton:2,nomounted] Swift Red Windrider, Reins of the Violet Netherwing Drake;
/userandom [nomounted,button:2] 3 15, 3 16, 3 17;
/dismount

Yes, yes, I’m one of those people.  I have a collection of mounts and non-combat pets that any Pokemon fan would be proud of!  I don’t like being caught on the same banal mount as everyone else.  When I heard that mounts wouldn’t be taking up bag space come Wrath time… Man!  That is exciting news!  It’s bad enough that I have to take up an entire slot for my quiver… *grumble grumble* But yes, back to the macro!  Since macros have a max length of 255 characters, I can’t exactly fit all of my mount names in there.  So I used bag slot numbers instead, and I’m just careful not to move them around much.  You can find out how these numbers work here.  When you right-click on it, it will land mount, and left click it will air mount.  It also swaps between my Riding Crop and my Bladefist’s Breadth trinkets – but be careful!  If you fly or ride into an instance, these will not be swapped back!  You’ll have remember to do it manually.  Now all I need is an addon that makes my screen flash at me or something when I’m wearing my Riding Crop and not on my mount…