Targeting Macro Question/Oil Slick

Unfortunately, pet_select_name doesn't work with Oil Slick so you have to use a targeting command. The drawback of that is that the Oil Slick has to be in your field of view. That's only a minor issue though.


I use a simple bind on my Mind/TA Controller: /bind o targetname Oil Slick


Unfortunately combining a targeting and a powexec command often misbehaves, requiring that you hit the bound key or macro twice. This occurs when the powexec attempts to execute before the targeting or selection command actually takes effect.


Here's one example of a macro:
/macro OS targetname "Oil Slick"Xpowexecname "Fire Ball"
Then edit the macro to change the X in the middle to $$

That still runs into the activation problem where you have to use the macro twice. Also, as written it will target anything with either "Oil" or "Slick" in its name because there are no quotes to cause that two word entity name to be treated as a single argument. You can add alive and enemy to narrow the selection if you want to get fancy...

/macro Ignite "targetcustomnext alive enemy Oil Slick$$powexecname Blazing Arrow"
Then edit the macro to put quotes around "Oil Slick". (Powexecname only takes 1 argument, so you don't need quotes around "Blazing Arrow" as long as no programmer comes by and changes the specific command format or alters the command line parser behavior.)

I've been using 'targetcustomnext' to find things, since if there's multiple whatevers, each keypress will jump to the next one. In this case, if there's two TA defenders on a team and we both fire off Oil Slick, I can pick which one I want to ignite. (Maybe that works the same way with targetname -- I've never tried it.)

I use '/bind numpad0 targetcustomnext oil' to FIND the Oil Slick, then just mash the regular ol' key for Blazing Arrow to light it, thus avoiding all those unnecessary complications with macros.

targetname cycles too. It spams error messages if there's nothing matching though, while targetcustomnext doesn't.

Just using 'oil' as the argument to either targetname or targetcustomnext will target even npcs such as contacts with 'oil' somewhere in their name. So if someone names their Demon "Char Broil" (as I have), for example, you might end up using assist to target through that demon instead of targeting a slick. Using "Oil Slick" limits it to entities with that string as part of their name, which has proven reliable for me. If you get really worried about mismatches due to entity names use targetcustomnext alive enemy "Oil Slick" as listed above.

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I've had that procedure fail to work on some machines/keyboards. I don't think it ever works in macros, as that acts like a super fast key press and release. On my desktop I can use this procedure without concern. On my laptop I have to hold the key down for a fraction of a second to get it to work. In the past I had a notebook that it didn't work on at all (presumably some funky non-standard keyboard driver was in use). That was more than 5 years ago though.

Oddly, I just tried this bind and it targets any living enemy, not just those with "slick" in the name. I didn't think targetcustomnext would target anything unless the name string matched but it seems to behave differently in a compound bind. In this case it will target the slick in preference to other enemies, but if the slick isn't in sight it will pick something else to target (the nearest living enemy in sight that is further away from you than your current target, I think).

That seems to be a minor drawback however. Just make sure you can see the slick. Oh, also, remember you can't queue the bind either; as the targetcustomnext will process while the previous power (presumably the Oil Slick Arrow) is still activating and then queue the powexec attack. Since the slick won't be there yet when the targetcustomnext processes, you'll send your attack at some other target that was there when you pressed the bound key.