I have run into a similar problem. Downloaded Very Vanilla got mq2 up and running downloaded MQZerker/ihcmercs and kinda got lost on what to run or how to do it. I run a Pally/bard/bst/zerker/Cleric Merc currently do not have a real Healer to play till I figure out how to run my group. Looking for suggestions or info on this.
Easiest is to have one toon to "drive" from. That's the character that you will manually play. First things first just play that character 100% manual. Let's assume you are doing that with the pally.
Generally on your "driving" toon you would have all your hotbuttons set up; this is what
@Shadow07 mentions in their post.
You can use
MQ2EQBC or
MQ2Dannet to communicate between toons and execute commands on them. The combination of the hotbuttons and those plugins will be what gives you "mastery".
This is what I do. I load up my 6 box crew: PAL/BRD/CLR/BST/BER/BER
In the MQ window of my pally I type in:-
/mac ihcinstall
This will then set up the right commands etc that we will use later. I only need to do it once and actually it doesn't matter which toon I run it on. But I concentrate on my pally as it's the "driving" toon.
I will play my pally manually, as DBG intended, and that includes pulling mobs. Although bards are better pullers, I don't know how to play them so I'm gonna let a macro play the bard. I actually use
KissAssist for the bard because IHC didn't seem to work right for me.
I make sure my pally is the MA and MT in the group (I use
MQ2Autogroup to do this so I don't have to).
I have a hot button on my pally that has the following line, which will cause
MQ2Dannet to :-
Line1: Target my pally (who is the MT)
Line2: Tell all in my group (except me) to run "ihcstart" IF and only if that toon is a zerker, beastlord or cleric
Line3: Tell all in my group (except me) to run "kiss" IF and only if that toon is NOT a zerker, beastlord or cleric
Line1=/dgga /target ${Group.MainTank}
Line2=/noparse /dgge /if (${Select[${Me.Class.ShortName},BER,BST,CLR]}) /ihcstart
Line3=/noparse /dgge /if (!${Select[${Me.Class.ShortName},BER,BST,CLR]}) /kiss assist ${Group.MainTank} 99
The EQBC version would be:-
Line1=/bcga /target ${Group.MainTank}
Line2=/noparse /bcg //if (${Select[${Me.Class.ShortName},BER,BST,CLR]}) /ihcstart
Line3=/noparse /bcg //if (!${Select[${Me.Class.ShortName},BER,BST,CLR]}) /kiss assist ${Group.MainTank} 99
Now I can switch windows and look at the MQ window. They should start loading stuff up. Generally I just let IHC write its defaults, the fact you don't have to work out ini's etc is one of its strengths. It might make you mem new spells etc to match the way it wants you to play.
For Kiss Assist, I use one of the ini's posted on this site, and see how I go.
For melee, you probably want a "camp here" ( `
/dgge /camphere` ) and "stop camping" button ( `
/dgge /campoff` ) on your pally. Setting the camphere will make melee run back to the spot they were in when you issued the command. This will stop them eventually wandering off out of your camp (with hilarious/fatal results) after a few fights.
Switch to each toon's window, and look at the MQ window to see if I get the loading messages for IHC or the (I don't actually ever do this now my set up is stable, but you should). If I don't, I manually target my pally, then type "/ihcstart" in the MQ window for my BST,BER and CLR. And on my bard I target my pally and type "
/mac kissassist assist" if I didn't get any luck using my hotkey.
Now I have verified my toons' MQ windows don't have any "The current macro has ended" messages (which means there's an error somewhere), are sitting there doing not much (or have finished memming/buffing spells) I am ready to pull...
So now I pull with my pally and run back to camp. Not much will happen (except maybe the cleric should heal me) UNTIL the mob hits between 97-99% HP (this can be changed). At that point the others should start to kick on. If I pull multiples and my bard has been set up right, it should mez the ones I, as the main assist, DON'T have targetted.
Other than buffing (make sure they're not invis as they won't cast spells when invis), they won't do all that much until they have a mob on xtarget they can assist with killing, so maybe you were doing things right but needed to take an extra step...