Addon Spotlight: Mac Dual-boxing 2
Addon Spotlight: Mac Dual-boxing 2
Macros
Here is where you start laying the foundation for the slave’s interaction with the master. I spent time writing macros that enabled the slave to assist the master. Each combat and healing ability I use regularly on my slave (a Balance Druid) has an associated macro to assist the focus target. (Which I designate at the beginning of gameplay as my master.) Here are a couple of examples of macros I am using.
/assist focus
/startattack
I use this when I don’t really need much help and want to regen mana via
/target focus
/cast Regrowth
One of the healing spells cast on the master
/target Self
/cast Regrowth
Slave heals himself
/follow focus
Used to facilitate both toons moving together
/assist focus
/cast Starfire
A basic macro to cast a variety of offensive spells (Starfire in this case)
/drink
/eat
/dance
A few basic administrative-type abilities plus the Moonkin dance for laughs. (Note that these three are different macros.)
Once you’ve written macros to correspond to the abilities and/or actions for your slave, you’ll want to lay them out in the slave’s UI and bind them to bindings not used by your master client. (I use bindings like Alt+Ctrl+1 and so forth.)
Voice Commands
This is where the fun comes in, you will need to make sure that “Enable Assistive Devices” is enabled in your System Preferences (in the Universal Access menu.) From here, open up the Speech menu and navigate to the Voice Recognition tab. Set up your system to recognize your voice commands in your preferred method. (With or without a Push-To-Talk key and a preparatory command.) Now, click into your master client and begin creating voice commands. This is done by saying “Define a keyboard command”. Once you get it to work, a window will pop up and you’ll need to enter a name (which you will speak to initiate the command) and a keybinding. This is where you will want to marry up the three elements of the command.
For example:
I want my druid to cast Starfire on my current target. I have created a macro to do so, placed it on my action bar and bound it to Shift+Ctrl+4. I then create a voice command called “Star” and enter “Shift+Ctrl+4″ as the keystroke. Then, while playing my master account, I say “Star”, which passes Shift+Ctrl+4 to the game. This does nothing for the master (my warrior), but because of CloneKeys, my druid gets the same command and subsequently casts Starfire on my target. (via my Starfire macro.)
The greater part of all this work serves to facilitate voice commands to your slave that encompass the majority of abilities used in a group setting. I also bind the druids forms, Tranquility and other non-target-specific abilities to keybindings to be used via voice commands.
In the end I can effectively play two characters. I control my warrior (master) in the traditional way, while controlling my druid (slave) via voice commands. Everything from changing forms, mounting and following to spells and attacks are controlled by voice. (Think of it like playing with a novice player, you just have to tell him or her every little thing they need to do and when.)
Addons
I only use one addon to contribute to a more efficient dual-boxing experience. Twobox Toolkit allows you to designate a master for a character and a number of features suddenly come into play. The slave will auto-accept invites from the master, relay whispers to the master, auto-accept shared quests and much more. I would say this is a must-have for a budding dual-boxer. (I also borrowed the “master” and “slave” theme from this addon.) I’ve yet to test MultiboxerV2, but many multi-boxers swear by it. If you’re interested in getting started down this road, I’d highly recommend reading through the wiki and forums over at , the hub of dual-boxing information on the tubes.
Should you decide to try your hand at dual-boxing, I wish you the best of luck. I’ve found it to be a fun way to level alts, an entirely new experince that requires focus and good WoW know-how to pull off well. Share some stories about your dual-boxing experience! I’d love to hear some tips on how to PvP with two toons, I always get slapped around on my two, even by solo players looking for fun. Dismissed!
Filed under: World of Warcraft