FOCUS, young Padawan, FOCUS

So, this is finally the topic I have been saying for like, ever on getting up on the forum.
Focusing allows you to keep a target mob in "limbo". think of it as setting a favorite target.
You litteraly can have all your spells set up to target 2 players, mobs, or a player and a mob, vice versa.

When you focus on someone by using the /focus command a small window opens up and looks the same as if you just targeted something, ie it has it's mana, health, buffs, debuffs just like a standered target.

But now here's the magic...
Any spell macro that you have set up with
/cast focus Holy light (rank11) as an example
will cast on the focus target and not on your actual target.

So instead of clicking on the spell, and then on your targets portait, you can hot key the spell to a numeric key for instant casting. And this is all naitivly built into wow!

Here is an indepth like to how focus works. X-peral supports focus nicely.

http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/05/18/focus-man-focus/

- Atherial

this is the focus macro i use for healing the tank of the group as a shaman but it is easily adapatable for any class

#showtooltip Lesser Healing Wave(Rank 7)
/tar dobber
/cast Lesser Healing Wave(Rank 7)
/targetlasttarget

i never have to click on dobber i can just spam the button

there is a differance between your macro and a actual focus macro..

Focus is togglable, meaning that you can tab on foddermike.. and hit focus.. ALL of your spell macro's set to use focus set on Fodder...

With that macro tatzar your macroing Dobber specifically, so you would have to stop, go into your macro editer, and change the target manualy...

Think of it this way.. using Focus allows you to always target more then one player, allowing you to use your macro spells AND your normal casting spells on two seperate targets with out retargeting, or switching your targeting system between the two.. They are always selected!

- Atherial

tatzar wrote:

this is the focus macro i use for healing the tank of the group as a shaman but it is easily adapatable for any class

#showtooltip Lesser Healing Wave(Rank 7)
/tar dobber
/cast Lesser Healing Wave(Rank 7)
/targetlasttarget

i never have to click on dobber i can just spam the button

Given this example you can change it to be:

#showtooltip Lesser Healing Wave(Rank 7)
/cast [target=focus, help, nodead] Lesser Healing Wave(Rank 7)
/targetlasttarget

Then before the fight just target the person you want to keep alive (no matter who it is) and type:

/focus

and that person will be the target of your healing wave until you change the /focus person or type :

/clearfocus

For those of you who are new to macros or do not understand them I will break out the macro above:

This will show the spell/skill you enter after #showtooltip as the button's icon (you MUST choose the "?" as the macro icon when you create the macro for this to work). Also, if you use a spell that takes a reagant and that spell normally lists how many times you can cast it based on how many reagents you have in inventory then that number will display as well if you use this command.

#showtooltip Lesser Healing Wave(Rank 7)

This is the meat of the macro and the most confusing to people not familiar with programming. First you are using a "cast" command as in casting a spell (easy to understand). Next you are putting qualifiers in your casting command. "target=focus" this will target whoever you have focused. "help" this will only cast or begin to cast if it is a friendly NPC or Player. "nodead" as it implies it will only cast or begin to cast if whatever you have targeted is not dead. Lastly, is the spell you wish to cast when you click on the button.

/cast [target=focus, help, nodead] Lesser Healing Wave(Rank 7)

This last line will automatically target your last target and honestly (if I understand the focus correctly) is not needed in the macro because of the way focus works you never actually untarget your current target the previous macro line will just redirect the spell in the macro to your focused person.

/targetlasttarget


If you understand a bit of programming or a bit of scripting and are interested in macros here is a really good wowwiki page I use as a reference when writing macros.

http://www.wowwiki.com/HOWTO:_Make_a_Macro#Part_II:_Macro_Options