Using ALT to cast some spells on self

[Guest]

Hey all,

before 1.10 I was using DAB 2 and was using blizzard's own "self cast" stuff, but only on my priest's 1 to 0 buttons. I also have a lot of alt+<key> stuff mapped which should not be prone to any alt/selfcast modification.

So, this for example is what some of my spells were:

1 = flash heal on target
alt+1 = flash heal on self, no matter what my target is
4 = PW:Shield on target
alt+4 = PW:Shield on self, no matter what my target is
alt+g = mount/dismount
alt+z = shackle on target
alt+c = abolish disease on target

Now, I upgraded to DAB 3 and that disables all the blizzard's "standard ui" keybindings. You get an error "you're trying to use some standard ui keybing which won't work" or something if you try to use the alt-selfcast stuff in the Keybindings menu.

So, now I'm trying to find a solution. I tried Telo's Selfcast, which has 2 modes: either it only works if you have no target at all, or it selfcasts all spells when you press alt. The first doesn't help me, and the second is almost what I want, but not quite: if I enable that, then alt+c = abolish disease will always be cast on myself.

I know of a possible solution, which is to make a macro for each spell I want to selfcast and bind that to alt+<number>. But that's a really ugly solution.

I'm a bit sad now, because I really want to have it back to how it was. Does anyone have any suggestions about how to fix this? Either with DAB3 or with some other addon.

Thanks.

 

[Natalya]

I know of a possible solution, which is to make a macro for each spell I want to selfcast and bind that to alt+<number>. But that's a really ugly solution.

Had the same problem as you and this is exactly how I solved it. Created a new bar with macros for self casting and mapped them to alt+1 etc. After that, I ticked "hide bar" in DAB options, so basically it works just like you mentioned it doing before updating DAB:

1 = flash heal on target
alt+1 = flash heal on self, no matter what my target is
4 = PW:Shield on target
alt+4 = PW:Shield on self, no matter what my target is

You are right. It really isn't the most flexible way to do it but at least it works. So, if anyone has any better suggestions, I too would like to know.

As a sidenote, I just set up DAB to switch pages depending on target. If target is friendly, it displays page 1, which has all my heals etc. If the target is hostile, it switches to page 2, which has all my offensive spells. This seems like a nice way to save some precious action bar space.

 

[Guest]

Had the same problem as you and this is exactly how I solved it. Created a new bar with macros for self casting and mapped them to alt+1 etc. After that, I ticked "hide bar" in DAB options, so basically it works just like you mentioned it doing before updating DAB:

Bleh. But at least it works.

As a sidenote, I just set up DAB to switch pages depending on target. If target is friendly, it displays page 1, which has all my heals etc. If the target is hostile, it switches to page 2, which has all my offensive spells. This seems like a nice way to save some precious action bar space.

Interesting suggestion! I think I'll try that as well.

What I normally do when casting a heal/shield is choose the spell first (via a keypress) and the target next (via a mouse click). I guess I should reverse that then, for the page swap to work.

How do you deal with that?

 

[Natalya]

Interesting suggestion! I think I'll try that as well.

What I normally do when casting a heal/shield is choose the spell first (via a keypress) and the target next (via a mouse click). I guess I should reverse that then, for the page swap to work.

How do you deal with that?

Yes, for this to work, you have to do it the other way around, first select the target and then press your favourite hotkey. I'm so used to this method that it didn't even occur to me that someone could be doing it the other way around. So, for each and every heal, you have to take two actions: press a key, click the mouse, right? Well, your way probably works equally well until you begin raiding and have to start chaining heals, or canceling and recasting.

The way I handle it, I usually hover my mouse over the party frame, emergency monitor or player targets window depending on the situation. This way I can quickly target someone, hit a hotkey and move on to targeting the next person even before the previous heal lands, or keep spamming the key to chain heals. If you can manage to set up all the aforementioned windows/frames fairly close to eachother, this will probably be the quickest way to heal people.

 

[Guest]

Hm, sounds logical. My 54 priest will bow to your superior experience and change her ways

Thanks for your explanations.

 

[Jullius]

My mt window is next to the emergency window because of that

Unless I'm in a "kamikaze mages" group. Then I just look at my party in the ctra party groups.

 

[Natalya]

Hm, sounds logical. My 54 priest will bow to your superior experience and change her ways

/blush

Make me proud, young grasshopper.

 

[trancer]

As a sidenote, I just set up DAB to switch pages depending on target. If target is friendly, it displays page 1, which has all my heals etc. If the target is hostile, it switches to page 2, which has all my offensive spells. This seems like a nice way to save some precious action bar space.

What you could do is make ALT the key to swap to the target self bar (I believe you can do that). However you might still be stuck with the ALT+C problem as Liandra described.

 

[Natalya]

What you could do is make ALT the key to swap to the target self bar (I believe you can do that). However you might still be stuck with the ALT+C problem as Liandra described.

But you'd still have to have macros that target yourself on that bar instead of regular spells, right? Or is there an option in DAB to force spells in a certain bar to target yourself?

 

[Galatea]

Interesting suggestion! I think I'll try that as well.

What I normally do when casting a heal/shield is choose the spell first (via a keypress) and the target next (via a mouse click). I guess I should reverse that then, for the page swap to work.

How do you deal with that?

Yes, for this to work, you have to do it the other way around, first select the target and then press your favourite hotkey. I'm so used to this method that it didn't even occur to me that someone could be doing it the other way around. So, for each and every heal, you have to take two actions: press a key, click the mouse, right? Well, your way probably works equally well until you begin raiding and have to start chaining heals, or canceling and recasting.

The way I handle it, I usually hover my mouse over the party frame, emergency monitor or player targets window depending on the situation. This way I can quickly target someone, hit a hotkey and move on to targeting the next person even before the previous heal lands, or keep spamming the key to chain heals. If you can manage to set up all the aforementioned windows/frames fairly close to eachother, this will probably be the quickest way to heal people.

used to click on spell then target up until around lvl 35 when hubby wrote an addon to choose a lesser rank spell if the recipient needed a lesser rank to reach max health, or I only had enough mana left for a smaller heal (this addon is not useful in raid situations where you need to anticipate how much healing is needed by the time the heal lands)

what *I* want to know is DAB? wassat? and cleverly showing a different bar for offensive/healing spells? wow! WTB

 

[Natalya]

what *I* want to know is DAB? wassat? and cleverly showing a different bar for offensive/healing spells? wow! WTB

DAB stands for Discord Action Bars.

Calling it just an action bar would be somewhat of an understatement. DAB comes loaded with all sorts of funky scripting possibilities, which allow dynamic action bar or page shifting for instance. You can arrange and resize the bars whatever way you like and make them change on the go when certain conditions are met.

It's really great but also quite a pain to set up and configure, especially for the first time.

 

[trancer]

What you could do is make ALT the key to swap to the target self bar (I believe you can do that). However you might still be stuck with the ALT+C problem as Liandra described.

But you'd still have to have macros that target yourself on that bar instead of regular spells, right? Or is there an option in DAB to force spells in a certain bar to target yourself?

I believe thats doable, if not its certainly scriptable into DAB. Will try to figure out

 

[Natalya]

As it turns out, having DAB switching action bars 'automagically' depending on the target (hostile/friendly) isn't always such a hot idea. It works like a charm most of the time but can lead to some sticky situations when fighting mobs that MC people. DAB is clever enough to switch the action bars without the need to reacquire your target when it suddenly turns hostile, so chances are you might end up casting offensive spells instead of heals on the main tank when he gets mind controlled all of a sudden.

Not sure if there is some sort of a work around to these kinds of exceptions in DAB. Might be a way to set up a condition to not change the action bar page when the target is mind controlled or otherwise temporarily hostile. More than likely though, this sort of stuff is beyond the scope of DAB scripting. Will need to look into it.

Anyway, just wanted to give people a heads up before you go dotting your tanks instead of casting heals, like yours truly....

 

[Braque]

As it turns out, having DAB switching action bars 'automagically' depending on the target (hostile/friendly) isn't always such a hot idea. It works like a charm most of the time but can lead to some sticky situations when fighting mobs that MC people. DAB is clever enough to switch the action bars without the need to reacquire your target when it suddenly turns hostile, so chances are you might end up casting offensive spells instead of heals on the main tank when he gets mind controlled all of a sudden.

Not sure if there is some sort of a work around to these kinds of exceptions in DAB. Might be a way to set up a condition to not change the action bar page when the target is mind controlled or otherwise temporarily hostile. More than likely though, this sort of stuff is beyond the scope of DAB scripting. Will need to look into it.

Anyway, just wanted to give people a heads up before you go dotting your tanks instead of casting heals, like yours truly....

Should be an easy fix, just add a check if target is a party/raid with you (someonthing i do in my macros) - this still works when they are hostile (which sucks in duels).

 

[Natalya]

Should be an easy fix, just add a check if target is a party/raid with you (someonthing i do in my macros) - this still works when they are hostile (which sucks in duels).

I'll see if that can be done in DAB. If I remember correctly, the built in "if target is" -condition only had parameters like friendly, hostile, player, npc and so forth. But maybe there's another way to check if the target is in the same raid/party.

Meanwhile, could you list the macro you're using?