Setting up Healers

Well I have my 3 Hunters setup pretty much polished thanks to all the help I received here. I have a ton of commands on my 5 button mouse, sheesh that sure made my life easier. Now I want to start up some serious leveling on my Guardian\Minstrel combo. They are currently lvl 25 and so far so good. Basically I have the same setup as the Hunters and when I need to heal I just use the mouse which is slow to do. So I came here to ask some much needed advice from the pro's.

The Minstrel is so totally different from every other class in how it does things or accomplishes it's missions. It can DPS, or Heal or both (well not too well). And using just a plain old Hunter DPS rotation does not work well with how a Minstrel operates. So I broke down and bought me a Logitech G11 keyboard and am in the process of trying to figure out a setup for the Minstrel using the "G" keys to control the Minstrel and the regular DPS keys to control the Guardian. The few times I have had these characters in an instance type atmosphere were .... errr....painful. I had the Minstrel in War Speech (DPS mode) and trying to heal the Guard when he got ganged up on, then attracted too much healing aggro and boom down he goes and I sat there kicking myself in the ... err, well you know. I think I can do better than that or at least I hope to. My goal is to be able to get instance groups as a combo and no one knows they are controlled by one person. I can tell you right now my technique needs some improvement.

So after much mental prognostication on the matter, I decided my wisest course was to come here and do some research. Hehe that didn't take long. Anyone care to indulge in a conversation about Healing in Lotro in an Multi box environment?

Here is what I have come up with so far with very little testing.

Setup a Healer ATG in ISBoxer.
Assign my Mini to that ATG.
Then I made a new group under Keymaps named "Healer" for lack of a better term.
I started to make new key assignments for all the individual actions I wanted the Mini to do separately from the Guard and map them to the Quickslots in Lotro. That way I can keep those separate from the normal 123 of the DPS keys. For instance, his Ballad rotation.

Also I setup keys to use both (all he has at this lvl) heals on each member of the 6 person group (sorry fellowship), including the mini. I have all these extra keys now, I might as well use them, right?

What I am imagining myself doing is to rotate key presses between the Guard and the Mini with my left hand. And having targeted healing instantly with a key press.

I just got the keyboard yesterday so I haven't had much time to test this out. I am hoping some of you would give me some pointers on your experiences. Am I headed in the right direction or totally off base here?
Any and all help would be much appreciated by not only me but people who come to read this forum after us.

<I'm not at home, so I don't remember exactly what functions are assigned to which keys, but the gist is correct>

For my guard, mini, 4xhunter team I have the following keymaps setup (but no triggering key):

HunterSpam uses the basic skills in order to gen focus, then a focus dump:
press 1, don't advance for 1.6 seconds (gen focus)
press 2, don't advance for 1.6 seconds (gen focus)
press 3, don't advance for 1.6 seconds (gen focus)
press 4, don't advance for 1.6 seconds (use focus)

GuardianSpam basic attack I use this when I don't have a block or parry reactive to use:
press 1, don't advance for ?? seconds
press 2, don't advance for ?? seconds
press 3, don't advance for ?? seconds
press 4, don't advance for ?? seconds

GuardianBlock block reactive chain:
press ALT+1, don't advance for ?? seconds
press ALT+2, don't advance for ?? seconds
press ALT+3, don't advance for ?? seconds

GuardianParry parry reactive chain:
press SHFT+1, don't advance for ?? seconds
press SHFT+2, don't advance for ?? seconds
press SHFT+3, don't advance for ?? seconds
press SHFT+4, don't advance for ?? seconds

MiniSpam tiers up the ballads, then runs one of the two anthem. This keeps him busy when healing isn't required:
Press ALT+1, don't advance for ?? seconds (Tier 1 ballad)
Press SHFT+1, don't advance for ?? seconds (Tier 1 ballad)
Press ALT+2, don't advance for ?? seconds (Tier 1 ballad)
Press SHFT+2, don't advance for ?? seconds (Tier 2 ballad)
Press ALT+3, don't advance for ?? seconds (Tier 2 ballad)
Press SHFT+3, don't advance for ?? seconds (Tier 3 ballad)
Press ALT+4, don't advance for ?? seconds (Tier 3 ballad)
Press SHFT+4, don't advance for ?? seconds (Antham #1)
Press ALT+1, don't advance for ?? seconds (Tier 1 ballad)
Press SHFT+1, don't advance for ?? seconds (Tier 1 ballad)
Press ALT+2, don't advance for ?? seconds (Tier 1 ballad)
Press SHFT+2, don't advance for ?? seconds (Tier 2 ballad)
Press ALT+3, don't advance for ?? seconds (Tier 2 ballad)
Press SHFT+3, don't advance for ?? seconds (Tier 3 ballad)
Press ALT+4, don't advance for ?? seconds (Tier 3 ballad)
Press SHFT+5, don't advance for ?? seconds (Antham #2)

Okay, now to put it all together:

Key press #1:
Use HunterSpam to all of DPS (DPS1,DPS2,DPS3,DPS4)
Use GuardSpam to Tank
Use MiniSpam to Healer

Key press #2:
Use HunterSpam to all of DPS (DPS1,DPS2,DPS3,DPS4)
Use GuardBlock to Tank
Use MiniSpam to Healer

Key press #3:
Use HunterSpam to all of DPS (DPS1,DPS2,DPS3,DPS4)
Use GuardParry to Tank
Use MiniSpam to Healer

For healing I use G1-G6, all basically the same. Note, this doesn't work in skirmishes because the target key 'F1-F6' toggles between the toon and the soldier.

Key press G1 - heal tank:
Disable MiniSpam in Combat keymap, send 'F2' to Healer
Press 1 to Healer (Bolster Courage)

Key press G2 - heal healer:
Disable MiniSpam in Combat keymap, send 'F1' to Healer
Press 1 to Healer (Bolster Courage)

Key press G3-G6: Heal DPS, same as before:

Key press G7 does the fellowship heal and Key G8 pops potions (healing and power)

Key press Num+ - restart MiniSpam:
Enable MiniSpam in Combat keymap, send 'ALT+=' to all windows (resummon soldiers)

tanker's setup got em thinking.... I was considering using a "trap" step to prevent my Minstrel's ballad spam when i needed to heal. Having a dedicated key works, you could prob have another keymap do that for you automatically.


The basic idea is that you have a x second block out from the ballad spam every time you hit a heal key. If you keep hitting heal keys, you continue healing, and dont bother to tier up your ballads. I'd think something like this would work:


MiniSpamBlocker (resets 5s after first press)
step 1: activate MiniSpam, don't advance for 900s
step 2: -nothing-, don't advance for 900s.


Then you would need to add to each of your heal keys
set step MiniSpamBlocker: step 2

When you set the spam blocker to step 2, it will stay there until the time out. I THINK that when you reset it to step 2 during each call to the heal routines, it will reset to 5s counter. Anyway, just thinking out loud without my setup in front of me. I typically, just chill on DPS until I don't need to heal any more, which i know is NOT efficient, but given that 4/6 of my characters can heal my Guardian at the same time, its not a big deal.

I agree it would be nice to automatically switch MiniSpam back on after throwing out a heal, but I haven't found a good solution yet. Your trapping idea has promise, but in the heat of battle, i'm usually spamming one of the heal buttons, and trying to DPS at the same time. I've been thinking about having my spam button(s) also heal, with the G keys used to select which target is currently getting the heals, and using the F keys to switch back to MiniSpam mode (or tell the team to pop potions)

Key 1:
Activate HunterSpam in Combat Keymap
Activate GuardSpam in Combat Keymap
Activate MiniSpam in Combat Keymap
Activate HealTank in Combat Keymap
Activate HealHealer in Combat Keymap
Activate HealDPS1 in Combat Keymap
Activate HealDPS2 in Combat Keymap
Activate HealDPS3 in Combat Keymap
Activate HealDPS4 in Combat Keymap

Key G1:
Disable MiniSpam
Enable HealTank
Disable HealHealer
Disable HealDPS1
Disable HealDPS2
Disable HealDPS3
Disable HealDPS4

Key G2:
Disable MiniSpam
Disable HealTank
Enable HealHealer
Disable HealDPS1
Disable HealDPS2
Disable HealDPS3
Disable HealDPS4

And so on, with 'F1' disabling everything except the MiniSpam

I run 3 characters, with the 3rd being the Healer. What I have done is dedicated 1 line of quickslots to the minstrel and moved everything else off that line on the other characters so that when I hit a heal button nothing on the others is affected.



On my setup F1 and F3 are sent to character slot 2 only. Reason is that Character slot 2 is my Healer. This way only the healer can target other members of the Team. It works the the same with F4, F5, F6.

Only F2 goes to all 3, so that they can target thru the team Leader. Which is setup to send to all but current.

Now that I have the targeting portion done, the next part I do within Lotro.

I bind my num keys to quickslots 49 thru 57. On the account with the Healer. I then can put healing skills in those slots. Next, on the other accounts I remove all skills from slots. I orginally did this to prevent my other characters from activating any of their skills. However, I now realize that I can set up the num keys to send to Character slot 2 only. But having it this way helps me to remember which keys I have bound and I am not hurting for by doing it.

From this my minstrel can target a team members, heal them and also enter and exit warspeech.
When I need the minstrels DPS I pop warspeech and the skills the others use are available to mintrel. Its not a perfect system but It works for me.

I won't run more then 3 as it becomes a bit much to keep track of for my taste. This doesn't work for everyone, but for me I can run a Guardian, Minstrel, Hunter group without any problems at all.

I bind my num keys to quickslots 49 thru 57. On the account with the Healer.

Do you move your right hand from the mouse to the num keypad to heal? I don't like to let go of the mouse (probably cuz I run around like a chicken wo/head when tanking)

I won't run more then 3 as it becomes a bit much to keep track of for my taste. This doesn't work for everyone, but for me I can run a Guardian, Minstrel, Hunter group without any problems at all.

It isn't a lot harder to manage four hunters over just one. Just send the same keys to each of them and hope they do the right things. Healing assignments get more complicated though.

I bind my num keys to quickslots 49 thru 57. On the account with the Healer.

Do you move your right hand from the mouse to the num keypad to heal? I don't like to let go of the mouse (probably cuz I run around like a chicken wo/head when tanking)

I won't run more then 3 as it becomes a bit much to keep track of for my taste. This doesn't work for everyone, but for me I can run a Guardian, Minstrel, Hunter group without any problems at all.

It isn't a lot harder to manage four hunters over just one. Just send the same keys to each of them and hope they do the right things. Healing assignments get more complicated though.

Yes, I do move my hand over to the num keys to perform the heals. It is possible to bind the num keys to work in conjunction with the Fkeys, however I have not for fear that I may be automating the process or making it a macro of sorts that might violate the EULA for Lotro. So I have kept it at one keystroke per action performed.

Its not that hard to manage 2 hunters with one healer. Because the 2 hunters keystrokes are identical and their skills are placed in exactly the same spots. Like say swift bow, its 3 on the keys above the w and e key on both hunters. Its still one action going to both hunters.
When I put the healer into the mix with warspeech I then can use it's ranged skills in much the same fashion. Just make sure that the skills for the healer are the ones that goes gray when the healer is out of warspeech. That's so the healer isn't trying to fight when she should be healing when you use the num keys.
It takes practice to get right and also I find if I spread them out that they are less likely to affect the healing abilities of the healer when the other 2 get hit with an aoe.
To do that I set up F7 and F8 to spread formation and to close formation.

Something like this
F7
Hunter 1---- Q
Hunter 2---- E
F8
Hunter 1----E
Hunter 2----Q

This makes it so that I can make both side step. Then I use the + and - as well as / and * on the num keypad to either forward and back ward all but current as well as rotate them if the target goes to the side. I can also rotate them by using mouse repeating. Then when battle is completed I simply hit F2 to make sure they are still on follow and also have an alias /follow setup on Quickkey 61 I think it is and bound to Num 9. From that I can be on the move again with all 3.

For Conjunctions. I use Num 0 to quicksloted to assist fellowship manuover which will pop the bullseye on the 2 following the current. For this you also need to go into ISBoxer and tell it to only send num 0 to all w/o current. Then for the 4 conjunction options you can simply bind those to up, down, left, and right on each character. So the order when a conjunction pops is num 0 then an arrow key and once the conjuntion is completed you can hit f2 so that that they focus back on the current. If you don't do this the others will stay focused on the target you performed the conjunction on.

That covers most of the special funtions that I have setup. Later I plan to look into a new Logitech 510 keyboard as the new one now has 3 sets of G keys. I want this so that I can set each up on potions with each set going to a character.
Hope this helps ya.

Wow just wow. Tanker, Shadow, Extremepayne, you guys rock. As usual in these threads I get the concept but its the execution I get hung up on. So I have some follow up questions that I hope you don't mind answering for this "dense" person.

I studied these posts and tried playing around with some of it this weekend and got mixed results.

1. Please define "Minispam", is this some kind of way to put all my ballads and anthems on 1 key and keep "spamming" that particular key? How do you turn it on and off? Right now I have my ballads using up 6 of my "G" keys, if I could reduce that down to 1 key that would be wonderful.

2.

On my setup F1 and F3 are sent to character slot 2 only. Reason is that Character slot 2 is my Healer. This way only the healer can target other members of the Team. It works the the same with F4, F5, F6.

Only F2 goes to all 3, so that they can target thru the team Leader. Which is setup to send to all but current.

Lol, I looked at and re read this so many times my head hurts. For the life of me I can't figure out how to implement this concept. Please don't think I am dissing you Extreme, I just plain old don't get it, totally my fault.

Lots of great ideas here guys, thanks for the replies.

The Concept of F1 thru F6 except F2 took a while to wrap my head around it. I actually experimented with it till I got it right. What's great about it is that you can make changes to ISBoxer and update Innerspace while you playing Lotro. This is handy because it allows you to test what you setup and if it isn't working right you can go back and make the changes and then update and test again.
The changes you are referring to need to be sent to your healer slot only. This means the account with the healer has to log in in the same order every time. In my case I use slot 2.
Another way to look at it is when using the ISBoxer wizard you gave each instance your launching a name. When setting up the FKeys send only to the instance that has the healer on it.

example.

F1-Slot 2 only-healer.
F2-all but current-Preferred leader
F3-slot 2 only
F4-slot 2 only
F5-slot 2 only
F6-slot 2 only

Key to making all this work is the group leader. F1 is always yourself.

F2 always the group leader. The toon that will lead the rest is always the group leader. This way when you setup F2 to all but current all others of the group will follow whomever the group leader is. If the group leader is told F2 as well then he will try to target others in the group. This you don't want to do.
Slot 2 only is the order of which I log my accounts in. I can change the order of which I log in the other accounts except the 2nd login. Its the only one that will hear all the Fkeys.
When sending heals to the other characters you have to remember the order they are in is based on the healer's point of view. Not the group leader.
Its a hard habit to fight, you mind wants to do what the current screen shows.
This is why I prefer to run only 3.
What I also try to do is login in the same order each time. like so

Account 1----Guardian--Slot 1 (Group Leader who invites everyone else) (F2) (all w/o current)
Account 2----Healer-----Slot 2. (Listens to all Fkeys) (F1)
Account 3----DPS-----Slot 3. (F3)
Account 4----DPS-----Slot 4. (F4)

This is about as good as I can explain how I do mine. I hope this helps.

XP.

1. Please define "Minispam", is this some kind of way to put all my ballads and anthems on 1 key and keep "spamming" that particular key? How do you turn it on and off? Right now I have my ballads using up 6 of my "G" keys, if I could reduce that down to 1 key that would be wonderful.

Take a look at my earlier post (the wall-o-text), minispam is described in the second or third block.

Basically, each step of minispam activates a ballad or anthem, the doesn't advance to the next step for a short period of time. I don't recall the time, but you can figure it out by trial and error. (start with a small number and if you are missing steps, increase it)

I find that sparring with my tank is a good way to work on timing issues.