Isboxer Advanced Interface Setup
This is the third guide in my Learning how to box with Isboxer series. If you're on this page I am assuming that you have already read my 6box First Steps Guide as well as my Standing on Your Own With Isboxer Guide. Both of these guides are packed with information and this guide is going to continue to build off all the information shared in those guides.
If you haven't read those guides do so now. Moving forward I expect you to know the following things & have them set up on your characters:
1. You have setup Assist, Heal, Groupheal, DPS and Follow Macros and you've played your box team for long enough to be used to using them all
2. You've spent at the very least 6 hours playing your box team with the previous macros I gave you
3. You have at the very least glanced over Almar's Isboxer Interface Page.
4. After reading this you should take your box team to a difficult zone and keep pushing yourself until you wipe. If you wipe immediately then go back and start over in an easy zone and repeat the entire process.
I'm being dead serious when I keep telling you to stop reading and go play. Let's compare this to driving, you just learned how to drive and I am about to start teaching you how to race. If you're not 100% comfortable driving into a sharp turn going 50 yet then you shouldn't be learning how to race. Those of you out there who aren't completely comfortable with your setup and able to box effectively should not be trying to take things a step further.
The reason for this was explained on the previous page. I don't want you to get into an extremely hectic situation and panic. If you place yourself in the shoes of an inexperienced driver, trying to take a turn too quickly will often result in you panicking and performing way worse than you might have originally. The same can be said about boxing in general. If you get in over your head you might panic and forget even what your most basic keys do. We all do it - if you're reading this thinking not me then you just lack the imagination to think of a situation that would cause you to have such an emotional reaction.
This is very important because if you setup too much of your interface before you learn to play ... and you make it so complicated that you can barely remember it outside of combat... there's no way that you're going to remember it all while in combat let alone while in a hectic situation.
For the rest of this page I am going to give you practical advice and teach you one of the most nifty tips for memorizing what your interface does. You've seen me using these same tips in almost all my previous screen shots but this is the first time I am going to take a moment to actually explain it!
~~~ Color Coded Macros ~~~
These bad boys will help you remember almost every single macro that you make for your box crew. Really all you have to do is make a completely empty macro on your tank in place of where you have the macros on your boxes. What I mean is, let's look at the Follow macro which you've already made.
On my tank the Follow macro is blank - there's no text in it at all because he isn't going to be following anyone. The reason he has a Follow macro at all though is because I want to remember that the F6 key is my follow key. This is replicated for basically every other keybind I have. I put the blank macro there to help me remember what ability is in that location.
I very strongly recommend that you steal this idea and do something similar for your setup. You'll want to do it right now for the keys you already have and you'll want to remember this for the future keys that I teach you. Now moving onto the next thing... Practice.
That's right folks, practice some more. You might think I am being redundant but there really is no way to let X amount of time pass for a guide. Meaning you could literally just read through my entire guide and overwhelm yourself extremely easily - setting up an interface so complex you barely understand what's going on. I imagine a few people are going to do this.
Also, on the flip side of things I imagine there are some people out there that will need a lot less practice than others. You kind of have to make this determination depending on who you are individually. When you feel comfortable, that's when you should proceed to the next part of the guide. I'd say that if you've been majorly confused by any part of this process, you should wait longer to proceed than if everything came easily.
In the mean time here is some more basic macros/keybinds you can experiment with before taking the big gulp of my next guide:
Optional Slow Macro (I actually don't recommend this in your final setup)
Optional Mez Macro (I actually don't recommend this in your final setup)
The Twincast and Fade keys are part of my main setup and I use them constantly. On the flip side of things the Optional Slow/Mez macro I don't use/actually recommend you don't include in your final build. I do however want you to experiment with the keys (if you want to) for you to understand why I don't like them and why you should avoid stuff like that with Isboxer. Instead of using the Mez/Slow buttons you'll be utilizing Hotbar swapping instead.
Once you're fully comfortable, proceed to the next guide: Going Super Saiyan