LiteAssist

LiteAssist is a very basic addon to replace the standard /assist macro.

It lets you set a unit (a player, pet or NPC) that the mod remembers. When you push the assist key, it causes you to attack the same thing as that unit. It changes your target (what you are attacking) to be the same as their target.

LiteAssist provides extra key bindings to learn who to assist and to assist them. You can (and must to use this addon) set them up via the WoW Keyboard Options menu.

LiteAssist really is light. There are no /commands and no fancy GUIs, just the 3 key bindings.

Configuring LiteAssist

After entering the World of Warcraft game, go to the Keybind settings menu, scroll down to the LiteAssist section and set the key bindings. Then just use the keys to activate the learn and assist functions. See below for more details.

Key Bindings

The three key bindings are:

1. Learn unit to assist from your current target.
2. Learn unit to assist from whatever your mouse is hovering over.
3. Assist the previously learned unit (i.e., target its target).

You can find these under the 'LiteAssist' heading in the Keyboard Options menu.

I use shift-G (learn target), ctrl-G (learn mouseover) and G (assist) for the three functions.

Notification Messages

When learning a new assist a message will pop up in the middle of the screen to inform you.

Clearing Assist

Learn assist with no unit targeted/mouseovered to clear the assist. The assist also starts out cleared before you first learn something.

When the assist is cleared, the assist key will assist your current target, exactly like WoW's default assist function. This makes it safe to override your regular assist key.

Target Frame Indicator

When you are targeting the same unit as your assist, a small icon of a pair of crossed swords will be shown at the left of your target frame. This only works with the default Blizzard interface, not other unit frame addons.

Advanced Macro Support

When you assist the learned target, LiteAssist is internally running a hidden macro with '/assist PlayerName' in it.

If you create a macro of your own named LiteAssistMacro AND include in it the text {LiteAssistUnit} (just like that, including the curly brackets), LiteAssist will copy that macro, replace the text {LiteAssistUnit} with the name of the player you learned, and use that instead.

You can include {LiteAssistUnit} more than once and it will replace all the occurrences.

Note that LiteAssist will not change your original macro, and dragging it onto a bar will not do anything. Copying a macro just saves me writing a user interface to allow you to edit the hidden internal macro text.

Non-Keyboard Use

If you want to set up buttons on your action bar to trigger LiteAssist, you need to do so by creating macros like these and then dragging them onto your action bar.

To learn assist from target: /click LiteAssistLearnTarget

To learn assist from mouseover: /click LiteAssistLearnHover

To assist the learned unit: /click LiteAssistMB

Due to Blizzard changes in TWW to prevent chaining macros, this method of activating LiteAssist only works for players in your party/raid and does not support the advanced features from "Advanced Macro Support" above.

Limitations

Due to intentional limitations by Blizzard you can't change assist in combat. If you try to learn a new assist while in combat LiteAssist will remember what you tried to do and apply it when combat ends.

You can (obviously) still assist the learned unit while in combat.

If This AddOn Seems Abandoned

If more than two weeks go by after a major patch and this addon isn't updated, I've probably been hit by a bus. In that case I encourage anyone with the necessary ability to take over maintenance of the addon. It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License, which means anyone can take it and do whatever they want with it, as long as they too release their code under the same terms.