C'mon, FOCUS!

Recently, I was healing a random dungeon with my guildies when I noticed that one of my DPSers seemed to be having trouble hitting the same mob as our tank was.  I asked him if he was using a focus macro, since I use them as a Retribution Paladin.  When he asked "what's a focus macro?" I decided I should probably do a quick walk through of these invaluable tools at some point!

Focus macros can make a huge difference in anyone's game play.  Whether you are a tank wanting to keep an eye on your healer or off-tank, or a DPS who wants to make sure you are attacking the right mob, focus macros can be quite handy.  So let's take this step-by-step and I will give you a little leg up on your next fight, be it dungeon or raid!

Okay, first off, what is a focus? How do you set a focus?  A focus is a specific person or mob that you set so that you can keep an eye on them.  You can set your focus a few ways, but the most commonly used ways are to either target the person you want to be your focus and type "/focus" or make a key bind.  I use a key bind, which is found under "Targeting Functions" in your Key Bindings section of the Game Menu (press ESC).

This way, all I have to so to set my focus is to click on the person and press "F."  Simple!

So, now that you have a focus, what next?  Hmm.  For the purposes of this article, I'm going to keep to the purposes of DPS, but the principles are the same for healing.  To make sure you are hitting the same mob that your tank is, focus your tank, and then take one of your skills that you use frequently and make a focus macro (for me as Retribution, I use Judgement).  It should look similar to this:

#showtooltip Judgement
/use [@focustarget,exists,nodead]Judgement;Judgement

Now, I can do my regular rotation, and when I throw in my Judgement into the mix, it will make sure that I am on the same mob as my tank is!  Of course, this is not fail proof, and may take some getting used to.  Please feel free to comment with your comments, questions, or concerns.

~Kita  ^.^