All the "rules" of multibinding? My findings, and looking for more experiences

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Dreadmore, Feb 24, 2018.

  1. Dreadmore Augur

    Hi all, is there a comprehensive write-up anywhere of multibinding, especially one that includes all of its quirks? My search has been unsuccessful, so I've done some experimentation on my own and here's what I've found.
    • Disciplines:
      • You can put different discipline hotkeys on different buttons on the hotkey bar with no issues.
      • You can even use multiple bars. They will activate in order with each press: hotbar 1 button 1, H1B2, H1B3... H10B10, H10B11, H10B12.
      • They will activate the first available discipline.
    • Spells
      • Spells also cast in the order they are placed on the hotkey. They will cast the first available spell
      • They also seem to share the same "group" with disciplines. One press of the key will activate which first spell or discipline is ready.
      • Any spells that refresh all your spells' cooldowns should not be the first spell in the multibind. Otherwise it locks up the multibind until that particular spell itself refreshes.
    • AAs:
      • AAs cannot be multibound.
      • Multibound AAs will only activate the last AA, i.e., having different AA hotkeys on B1, B3, and B5, only B5 will be activated. This also applies across hotbars: with a multibind on H1B1, H1B2, H2B1, H2B2, only H2B2 will ever be activated.
    • Macros:
      • Similar to AAs, they cannot be multibound. It will only activate the last macro in the chain.
      • AAs and macros also seem to be grouped together, in that if you have a macro in B1 and an AA in B2, only B2 will ever activate.
      • However, if you put a discipline between a macro and an AA, it serves to "break up" the multibind into two chains. Example: macro B1, discipline B2, macro B3, AA B4 will cause B1 to work until B2 is triggered, then will only fire B4 until B2 refreshes, after which it will repeat.
      • Same thing with spells!
      • Macros and a single discipline will also tend to trigger off of one keypress.
    • Primary vs. alternate keypresses:
      • I did not find any difference between exclusively using primary shortcut keypresses vs. alternate keypresses.
      • When mixing the two, the bound key will go through all hotkeys where it is the primary keypress first before going through keys where it is the alternate keypress.
      • Unfortunately this does not serve to separate the "chain" so you will still need a spell or discipline hotkey somewhere if you want to hit multiple macros and/or AAs.
    I may eventually put this into a flowchart or some kind of graph like that to make it more clear.
    The clever among us can probably come up with something that totally changes the game for them, and for sure it varies by class and play style, but for the stupid like me, I am still experimenting and seeing what I can do.
    What else can you add? Did I get anything wrong here?
  2. Thrillho Augur


    I don't know how accurate this part is. My mash key has 11 abilities bound to it, 3 of those are AAs and can be activated. The AAs are in spots H5B1, H5B3, and H5B11. The only time there is an issue with activating an ability is sometimes when I have a discipline running.
    Brohg likes this.
  3. feeltheburn Augur

    THIS
  4. Dreadmore Augur


    Interesting, I can't get this to work for me at all.

    I wonder what other variables there are... Can you briefly explain the setup? Like what keys do you have bound maybe? I would absolutely love it if I could hotkey multiple AAs. I've had to restrict myself to one macro to /alt act multiple AAs + multiple discs/spells for years.

    Also as noted above, for whatever reason it is different in my EQ, putting disciplines or spells between AAs will allow them all to activate. What's in your H5B2 and H5B4-H5B10? Any spells or disciplines?
  5. AlmarsGuides Augur

  6. Dreadmore Augur


    Do you remember exactly what is in those macros? For example, the magician one with "Target" on hotkey 2 and "pet attack" on hotkey 3? I've had no success with /target or /xtarget. It will always just trigger the latter one, which I have /pet attack in.
  7. Feljar New Member

    Don’t forget items in your list. My zerker has his epic on one of the keys and it activates fine and doesn’t hold up the chain. If I put a summons fire orb on my mages bind, it never activated and holds up the chain for some reason. Also, AA’s don’t always lock up the chain. My zerker has a few AA’s on it and they all work fine, but again my mage, with Banestrike and Force of Elements on her bind, just locks up. For the life of me I can’t fiqure out why my mage account has so many problems. I end up just using all spells.
  8. AlmarsGuides Augur


    You'll have to be more specific.

    My target macro(s) consist of

    /pause 5, /assist <Name of My Tank>
    /stand

    and my Pet attack macros consist of just /pet attack

    If you wanted to combine these two into one macro you would HAVE to use pauses to make sure it works properly. Something like

    /pause 5, /assist <Tank>
    /pause 5, /pet attack
    /stand

    Would work fine
  9. Weebaaa Augur

    Have you any experience of the keypress continually trying to cast a spell that is already greyed out on the multibind?
  10. Dreadmore Augur


    Well I was leaving out parameters to the /commands on purpose for the reply since what you have implemented is more important. But I did just try out what you suggested, and nope, it just isn't working for me. As a test, i tried putting /say 1 on the target key and /say 2 on the pet attack key, and all I ever end up /saying is "2."

    I really wonder what the difference is. There's gotta be other factors. I just hope I can influence them.
  11. Dreadmore Augur


    This happens to me, sometimes unpredictably, but usually when there is anything that refreshes a spell gem. It's as if a spell gem being greyed out is seen differently whether it was greyed out from one mash key vs. another vs. forceful rejuvenation vs. left-clicking the gem.
  12. Thrillho Augur


    For some reason, the order of them makes a difference. I used to be stuck at 7 abilities. If I added any more, something else wouldn't activate. But then someone told me the order they're using and added even more. I don't know why, and don't know how to determine the order aside from testing or someone telling you the order for your set (most likely due to testing it themselves). The only thing I can think of is not lining two AAs up side-by-side.

    The abilities, in order: Banestrike > Drunken Monkey Style > Zan Fi Whistle > Firewalker's Synergy > Hoshkar's Fang > Firestorm of Fists > Curse of the Thirteen > Doomwalker's Precision > Vigorous Shuriken > Intimidation > Two Finger Wasp

    Zero macros. Zero discs. Zero items.
    Brohg likes this.
  13. AlmarsGuides Augur


    If you're trying to bind TWO macros to the same keypress it isn't going to work efficiently and never will. I've tested it endlessly while learning how to box.

    The reason is because when you execute a macro it instantly stops executing all previous macros. So if you bind two macros to 1 keybind it'll automatically ALWAYS cancel one of them out when you hit the keybind.
  14. Dreadmore Augur


    Oh. Well sure, that is the definition of "multibind," right? Binding multiple hotkeys to one key. That's what I'm trying to address. Thrillho's comment (#2) has me interested though, because I've found your quote here to be true not just with macros but also with AA hotkeys--however he has gotten multiple AAs to work.
  15. AlmarsGuides Augur


    It is the definition of multibind which is why I linked you the guide on my website which explains what can be multi bound together, what cant and why =P


    Multiple AAs will work together, Multiple discs will as well, as will multiple casts. This of course assumes you don't put them into multiple macros. I bind them all to the Hotbar in an individual slot like it shows on my site.

    AAs mixed with /casts don't work efficiently.
    AAs mixed with /discs work fine from what I have seen

    Also when doing multibinds you're allowed ONE macro. The way I play is 1 macro with my 3 forces loaded into it then I have my three spells I spam on my wizard all bound individually to the bar. They're all bound to the same keybind though which is Num Pad .

    So when I hit Num Pad . I use one of my three forces OR one of my three spells. The forces usually only fire when I have a spell on Cooldown which is exactly what I want them to do. Also, I've never had anything hang or an ability skipped while setting things up this way.
  16. Dreadmore Augur

    Just to make sure we're on the same page, are you creating hotkeys from the AA window, or are you using /alt act in a macro? The former does not work for me as it, similarly to having multiple macro buttons, only ever activates the last AA hotkey in the bind. And well, the latter, you know...


    I find that being restricted to just one macro is a real problem for me, so I'm trying to find ways around this.
  17. Thrillho Augur


    I set my AAs up through the hotkey window, without using a '/alt act' macro. All of my AAs are instant-cast though - do your AAs have casting time? Maybe that's the issue.
  18. AlmarsGuides Augur


    I am using /alt activate in macros but you can only use 1 macro of them at a time.

    The first way you mentioned you'd have to create 1 bind on your bar per ability, which would work too.

    You could do something like 5 AAs in a macro & multibind it with a few spells NOT in a macro and it would work.


    I can 100% guarantee you that you will NOT be able to multibind more than one macro filled with abilities and expect them all to fire. Macros aren't designed appropriately to do this which is why I have had to go through so much trouble reverse engineering a better way to play.

    You can toy with it all you want, I spent about a month and a half 2-3hrs a day figuring out my own way to play though because I had the same issue you're having here. You can't even use two macros back to back on different keybinds because macros cancel each other out and will not finish all the lines included before starting a new one.

    To quote my site: "When you use one macro before another macro has finished - it cancels it out completely. What I mean is if your macro is on line 3 and you hit another macro it stops right then and there and starts firing off the new macro - it doesn't finish the last two lines."
  19. Dreadmore Augur



    Seems to be the same whether it's insta-cast or with a casting time. Only the last AA will ever work. I have three different AAs in B1, B2, B3, and only B3 ever activates, regardless of what AA is in (I've played around with switching those AAs to different buttons, and only the one in B3 ever activates or shows its recast timer message).

    That's fine, we've totally established this already since my original post, and in fact it was something your guide helped me confirm over a year ago when I first set up my multibind (thanks for creating and sharing these). However I'm still trying to figure out why this won't work for me:

    In my client, it works exactly the same as having multiple macros... only the last one in the multibind will activate.
  20. AlmarsGuides Augur


    Are they all instant cast abilities with no cooldowns?

    I don't think I have ever done multibinding in a situation where I was using multiple abilities all of which had no cooldown. That's the only thing I can think of what would be causing your issue.