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A guest post by the macro master Myrliandre.
I’ve gotten used to random questions about macros being thrown at me by my hunter friends over the years, so when Frost asked my to write something for the site I had my pithy response to the short, smelly dwarf all ready … he then quietly pointed out to me I was behind in my dues and that my union membership was up for review soon and I relented, and here we are.
The whole subject of WoW macros is surprisingly complex for what feels like a simple system – probably something worth complementing the designers on, but it does mean that before tackling the questions of “how to write/what are some, useful macros for hunters?” it is worth qualifying what someone can expect to achieve with macros.
First the bad news, if you’re looking for one macro which you can mash with your face to make you a god amongst the DPS meters, then I’ve got some bad news – it doesn’t exist, and it never will. Blizzard, in their wisdom, and perhaps that belief people actually want to play the game, have intentionally limited how smart macros can be. There are not the common ‘if’ statements or looping statements found in most programming languages because Blizzard does not want to let you write something which makes all the tough decisions for you.
So, with that limitation aside there are definitely many useful tools which let us build macros to make it easier – and if used intelligently can offer real increases in damage output and more flexibility in play do it’s probably time to get on an have a look of a few which I feel are useful for us hunters.
Doing more than one thing with a single click
On of the most fundamental advantages of macros is the ability to do multiple things with a single click or button press. Consider the following:
/use 14
/cast Steady Shot
An extremely simple macro – all it does is activate your trinket and cast Steady Shot. So why is so good? It does them with a single press – no longer do you “lose” the time it takes to press the two buttons or click on them with the mouse.
/petattack
/cast Steady Shot
Is another great example of this technique.
However, there is a limit to how many things and which things we can combine with this.
The simple rule is that a macro will stop as soon as it casts a spell (uses an ability) which is “on the Global Cool Down (GCD).” In the previous two that means Steady Shot – if we wrote either of them with the order of the lines reversed, they wouldn’t work the same way, they would simple cast Steady Shot most of the time.
For hunters, knowing which of our abilities use the GCD is an important tool for writing this kind of macro, so here is the quick cheat sheet:
Hunter Abilities by Cooldown Type
| On GCDAimed Shot Arcane Shot Multi-Shot Serpent Sting Scorpid Sting Viper Sting Silencing Shot Steady Shot Kill Shot Explosive Shot Chimera Shot Hunter’s Mark Kill Command |
Not on GCDRapid Fire Readiness Bestial Wrath Trinket activations Pet Commands |
SpecialAuto Shot
The Aspects Pet Abilities |
If we put this together we can build something like this:
/petattack
/cast Kill Command
/cast [modifier] !Aspect of the Dragonhawk
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast Steady Shot
Which is starting to look a lot like the a good basic “spam” macro …
You’ll notice the inclusions of ‘[modifier]’ and the exclamation mark (‘!’) in that last macro, which I haven’t talked about yet, so I’ll tackle them in the next instalment. Right now I have to got talks to a big dragon about a trinket he owes me.
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Ive been trailing the net for a decent misdirection marco woundered if you could post a few of ur idears for a good on to target tanks? plz
/target tankname
/cast misdirection
?
Admin
To forestall a flood of requests for various kinds of macros — this is the first article in a continuing series!
Myr will be writing a guide for us on essential hunter macros, including a good misdirection macro, and then later a more advanced macro guide.
Oooo! Myr, could you make a macro that summons me a pony? an awesome pony that doesnt judge me the way Frost does, but with flaming hooves! Yea!
Lets call him Attumen! yea! (dont be jeleous Frost, I’m just cooler then you)
bah! never knew about /use 14. ive always been doing /cast loatheb’s shadow, and then changing it to /cast sphere of red dragon’s blood if i need the hit trinket.
so now im anxiously awaiting the next installment, for i am curious what md macro you all like best. for boss fights, i use a macro for md that puts it on my current focus (i also have various focus macros for switching focus and targeting focus’ target). so if im going into a fight with adds that an OT will be picking up, i focus the OT and help him when the adds spawn if needed (such as with Anub’Rekhan or Kel). if i have the main tank on focus, i can md an add if he gets loose or if someone accidently pulls aggro, or something gets on the healer. i know its imperfect but seems to work best for me atm.
anywayz, i also have to got talks to a dragon about a trinket…….
if you use /use 14, then don’t ever put your pvp trinket in that slot or you will be a sad panda
Currently Kill Shot is off the gcd so you can shoot it as soon as the enemy is at 20% health no matter what.
However, this is a bug that is being fixed on the next patch and it will use gcd
I use one similar to Bloodstly’s, but I add another line to target the Tank’s target, so I can just move on to my shot rotation
/target tankname
/cast misdirection
/target targettarget
I’ve just got this copied a few times to three different macros, for my MT, OT and a third tank if one is present. I just change the names in the macros before the raids get started.
OK, Frost. Yer bloody comment filter thinks I’m spammin’. Will need to break this down a bit.
Some other useful sites:
Instant gratification:
WoWWiki Hunter Macros
http://www.wowwiki.com/Useful_macros/Hunter
Basic Edumacation:
Bizz’s WoW’s Macro Guide (for the basics)
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/macroguide-one.html
WoWWiki (Between the above guide & Cogwheel’s in terms of complexity. Links to several class-specific libraries.)
http://www.wowwiki.com/Macros
finally got around to looking up my md macro. it revolves around keeping the tank (main or alt) on focus
/target focus
/cast misdirection
/targetlasttarget
i really like the last line because it doesnt require me to retarget the mob, so i dont break stride. if an add gets loose, i target it, hit this macro and then attack. i have a macro to /target focustarget to get back on killing the priority mob so i dont have much down time.
never thought about having different macros for different tanks (main, off, off2), i always did my based around focus, and thats either main or off depending on the fight. i may check into that.
Thanks guys for marco advice, were lvling a new tank at min and he’s bad on keeping threat. so every little helps to stop from wiping lol. dont usally have to use misdirect at all in raid other wise.
#showtooltip Misdirection
/Cast [target=Focus, help] [help] [target=pet, exists, nodead] Misdirection
This macro will cast misdirection to the tank you have set as focus (to set focus click target and press enter, type “/focus” without the quote marks), or if no focus is selected, md will go to your pet instead. No need to click md then click the tank, it automatically does it for you.
Fantastic Krys, that solves a problem I was having with my macro set up. Leveling without this macro design is a pain with all the mount/dismounting ><
/adulation
You’re welcome.
Make sure you have non macro MD spell button on your action bar just in case you need to MD to an off tank.
Happy to help.
And Krystallia gets to steal my thunder from the next installment
I’ll still find something to say about MD I guess.
Hah, Myr, I resisted the urge to post mine
Don’t I feel the dunce now? Myr, my apologies for posting that, I missed Frost’s comment above.
fwiw, im still very curious about your md macro
also curious about the survival rotation or steady shot macro you show us (if there is one). my rotation is so simple, i cant imagine making it simpler lol
thats one of the things i missed about marksman, it was more involved, i felt like a utility belt.
Here is a simple Misdirection macro I use…it requires a little bit of prep work before raids, but it works great…it allows you to cast the MD on your tank while not breaking focus of your current target
/cast Misdirection
/tar “tanks name” (without the quotation marks
/say Casting misdirection on “tanks name”
Line 3 is optional, but if there are other hunters in the raid, it lets them know that you are currently casting MD on the tank. Only 1 hunter can have MD casted on a tank, so it’s just a heads up…This is very simple and gets the job done for me without having to click my misdirect icon then target my tank, then go back to targeting the enemy…I also find it useful to put your pet on Passive while casting MD b/c while your MD starts a world cooldown, your pet usually get in 1 or 2 hits which only leaves you 1 hit to actually send some decent misdirected dmg to your tank.
HOPE THIS HELPS =D
can we use
/cast serpent sting
instead of steady shot ?
Member
I am trying to make a macro that casts chimera shot, silencing shot, and shoots my rocket glove. It works, but it show’s the 20 sec cooldown for silencing shot. How do I get it to show chumera shot’s 10 sec cooldown?
Contributor
If I remember correctly, Massai, it will show the cooldown of whatever you write first into the macro. So it’s likely that simply switching the order will do the trick.
Member
#showtooltip chimera shot did the trick.
.
Replicated this macro for rapid fire /trinket…..dps went up A LOT! Made possible in part by WHU!
In your example macro at the end you have both Kill Command and Steady shot, wouldn’t that not work since they are both on the GCD (according to your list)?
Silencing shoot is not on det global cooldown, and should be macroed to all your shoots.
And used unless some interuptrotation in raid i maid.