Encrypted Text: Macros and you
by Krystalle Voecks 
Jul 4th 2007 at 5:09PM
To be honest with you all, there are precisely two macros that I use with any regularlity. Now this isn't to say that there aren't some really creative macros out there. There are no less than three monstrous threads on the US Rogue forums full of all manner of macro you could ever want. (While we're on the topic, Blue, could you sticky the most recent one please? Thanks!) But to be honest, a lot of it is, from personal experience -- really superfluous. Sure. I could set up a macro that would throw five Sinister Strikes and then an Eviscerate:/startattack
/castsequence Sinister Strike, Sinister Strike, Sinister Strike, Sinister Strike, Sinister Strike, Eviscerate
but to be blunt, looking at the above makes me a sad panda. It takes all of the challenge and fun out of playing a Rogue to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there's a place for macros that are pages long. But I'm not certain that automating everything via an enormous compendium of macros will honestly ever take the place of a smart Rogue who pays attention and can tell "useful" macros from "overkill."
Now, before everyone sends me tons of hatemail about how I'm 'teh worst Rogue evar' bear with me. I'll try to explain why I'm pointing fingers at some of the Rogue macros out there, and why I feel they are more of a hinderance than a help. And just to prove I'm not totally anti-macro -- I'll share the two that are staples in my bar and I admit I'd hate to play without.
One of the ones that I remember fondly was the Auto-Riposte macro. What this macro used to do was to throw Riposte any time that it was available, and Sinister Strike when it wasn't. Sadly, due to the changes in the scripting system, the calls that used to work so beautifully for this macro have been reduced to the following -- that people are still suggesting the use of:
/startattack
/castrandom Sinister Strike, Riposte
The problem with this is that the system isn't actually checking to see if Riposte is available; it's simply "guessing" at which to pick next. The problem that I've seen from personal experience is that, more often than not, it guesses wrong and you wind up missing out on an opportunity to use Riposte. This is a shame because Riposte is really a fantastic ability if you're soloing your way up through the levels. Frankly, I'd keep Riposte on the bar, or on a handy hotkey before I'd even consider taking a chance on the above macro mis-firing and losing it for me.
Now, if you're zipping around the world and you run across a nasty that is beating on you, many Rogues will tell you to Gouge and bandage. The only problem is that without Improved Gouge, having hotkeys for bandages (which I have, admittedly) or being one of the fastest clickers I've ever seen, you're going to barely going to get in time for much of a bandage. But never fear! There's a macro for that too -- and this one is at least somewhat useful:
/castsequence Gouge, Heavy Netherweave Bandage
(note: add appropriate bandage name in as needed) Now there's a couple of problems with this macro, honestly. First of all, you have to have Auto Self Cast checked in your options. Without that, you'll mash your macro button wildly, Gouge... And then be staring at the blue-haloed Mickey Mouse Glove pointing at your Rogue, as if singling you out, saying "guess who forgot to check Auto Self Cast!" Also, if you haven't cleared that "sequence" after you screwed up the first Gouge/Bandage sequence, the next time it will not Gouge. It will instead skip straight to the bandage part, thereby completely screwing up your cooldown, and probably getting you killed in the process. The second problem is that if the Gouge fails for whatever reason, you will blow your bandage cooldown and pretty well blow your chances of getting that save off. Eventually, with the Auto Self Cast on, and all things being well with the world, you will get your Gouge and Bandage macro running correctly. But I seriously wonder if it deserves a spot on the main bar, versus good old fashioned everyday Gouge on the bar and instead having a potion/bandage within hotkey/clicking distance. Only personal playstyle will decide the ultimate utility here.
Now, this is not to say that all castsequence macros for Rogues are evil. There are actually some really great ones out there. But there are probably more problematic ones than there are good ones, and only careful testing, with attention to your personal playstyle and your meters will give you a good idea if they are good for you.
With that said, I honestly feel that many Rogues could use the following two macros. I will admit that the second one is much more situationally useful than the first, depending on what your Rogue has in the way of trinkets. But for many Rogues in the later stages of the game, both would be fairly useful.
The first is simply named "OMG" on my bar, actually. It is most commonly referred to as a "Rogue-Tanking" or "DPS burn" macro, and is largely simple in its execution:
/castsequence Evasion, Blade Flurry, Adrenaline Rush
In my case, I add Berserking on the end of that because of the Troll racial, so there may be additional racial goodies for you to add on the end of your own personal versions. I know some people at endgame who also like to throw Cloak of Shadows into the mix. The point of the above macro is for one of two situations: the last few percent of a Boss, when you're either dealing with a situation where your healers are OOM, your Tank has just died, and the Boss is now coming to snack on your face -- or when your Tank has established aggro so well that you turning into Taz on the backside of the boss during the last few percent won't pull aggro, no matter what. Alternately, it's also great for when you're soloing and you've bit off more than you can chew. If it's the choice of cooldowns, or repair bill -- you can bet which one I'm picking.
Now, the other macro that is a recent addition to my staple, but an elegant one that I've welcomed as a nice way to crank just a bit more damage than I was before:
/use 13
/use 14
/startattack
/cast Sinister Strike
I have replaced my normal Sinister Strike button with that one, I admit. What it does, in essence, is to activate the trinket in my top slot, then attempt to activate the bottom trinket, then begin an attack, and if all those are already going or on cooldowns, it will throw a Sinister Strike. When used in conjunction with trinkets like Bladefist's Breadth, Terokkar Tablet of Precision, the Ogre Mauler's Badge -- or indeed any trinkets with good "use" abilities that you find yourself forgetting to use, it can be extremely handy. The only major down-side of the above macro is if you are running in-game sound, you will get the error noise from when you're trying to use a trinket while it's on cooldown. A lot. But I find that liberal application of good music over top of your turned-down WoW sounds deals with that nicely.
There are some great macros out there. There are some really wretched ones that will lose more opportunities for you than they will create -- as well as turning us into the one-button-mashing wonders that people accuse most of us of being. How much (or little) you want to automate your game is entirely up you, and should always be based on your own personal playstyle.
So before you jump into a battleground or an instance with the Macro of Supreme Pwnage that you took off [Joe's Uber Rogue Blog o'News] thinking that you're going to destroy everything, get out there and test it first to make absolutely certain that it does what it's supposed to. Doing your own research and getting first-hand experience with macros (as with everything) will not only always beat the best-intentioned advice, it will also teach you how to beat anything you come up against in the game.
More resources for those wanting to do their own research:
Filed under: Rogue, Analysis / Opinion, (Rogue) Encrypted Text
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Pingmeister Jul 4th 2007 5:22PM
I keep meaning to make the Pickpocket/Ambush one.
Zardilann Jul 4th 2007 5:30PM
Currently use a few macros, but the most important is:
/targetenemy
/startattack [target=target,exists,stance:0]
I replace the tab-functionality with this one, as I love tab-targeting, but hate it not starting my attack. Of course I don't want it to start attacking while in stealth.
rick gregory Jul 4th 2007 5:32PM
Yeah, that's a macro that EVERY rogue should use:
/cast Pickpocket
/stopcasting
/cast
where is whatever your opening attack out of stealth is - Backstab, Cheap Shot, etc.
You'll get healing potions, Blinding and Flash Powder, poison mats and a bit of change. If you're skilling Lock Picking you'll also get Junkboxes that will help you do that.
For this to work you need to have Autoloot on in Interface preferences. And, since there's a small chance that you will be detected you might want to use just the opener when in instances.
Nialyah Jul 4th 2007 5:49PM
I use a couple of handy Macros myself, lets see.
Delete any stars "*" that is written in the macros as I'm using them to try and tell specifically what's happening at each important string.
Deadly Throw Combo:
#Show Deadly Throw
/cast Deadly Throw
/cast [equipped:Thrown] Throw; Shoot
(This will use deadly throw if you got combo points. Normal throw if none)
Auto Pickpocket on Opener*:
/cast Pick Pocket
/stopcasting
/cast Cheap Shot**
(This auto pick pocket for you when you open an attack making it nice and smooth with grinding)
*You have to turn auto loot on in the interface options
**Replace it with whatever opener you want, Ambush, Garrote etc
No attack expose armor:
#Show Expose Armor(Rank 6)
/equip Light Crossbow*
/cast Expose Armor(Rank 6)
/stopattack**
(This will apply expose armor on your enemy without breaking blind, sap, poly etc)
*This causes global CD which makes you unable to attack before the expose armor
**Stops the attack after the expose armor, obviously
Note: You can leave out the equip bow string but then you need to practice 180 degree facing when applying your expose armor, positive you'll still have your thrown weapon equip, negative, not always safe/working.
My mount macro:
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");*
/use [outdoors,nomounted,nomodifier:ctrl] Ebon Gryphon**
/use [outdoors,nomounted] Black War Steed Bridle
/dismount [mounted]***
/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");****
(Ok big one! this will use my flying in outland, normal in azeroth, bgs, arena and other non flying areas, and itll force use my normal by holding down ctrl when i use it)
*This string will prevent wow from showing a lot of errors when using this.
**As normal mount comes second in line, flying will be tried first.
***In case you can't use flying, e.g in Azeroth itll pass and use this string (without showing an error as i took that off in the first string
**** This string stops the ignore errors string
Mouse Over Blind / Normal Blind
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/cast [target=mouseover] Blind*
/cast Blind*
/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
(This will apply Blind on mouseover. This means if you hold your cursor over your enemy and press the button it will apply Blind to that guy. But as its comboed with normal blind method in case)
*Mouse over blind
**Normal Blind
Guess that's it. I do not use macros for standard moves such as ambush, backstab, stealth, sinister etc as I think it very much depends on which opponent you're against and the situation which method you'd want to do. Doing it manually brings me more in control, much like a racing game or whatever, master manual gear control and youll rule all the automatics out there :P
My 5cent
Acceptable Risk Jul 4th 2007 6:11PM
Replace your Gouge button with this macro:
#showtooltip Gouge
/castsequence reset=10 Gouge, Heavy Netherweave Bandage
That'll Gouge then bandage, but if you don't don't use the bandage, it'll reset once the Gouge cooldown is up and you'll be free to Gouge again.
And in fact, I think you can do it like this:
#showtooltip Gouge
/castsequence reset=10 Gouge, [target=player] Heavy Netherweave Bandage
I've never tried the target modifier inside a castsequence, but if that works, it should work fine without auto self-cast.
Sevryn Jul 4th 2007 8:09PM
yeah, i bet i could pick all the bad macros from any class and make their players look like idiots, too.
robodex Jul 4th 2007 9:22PM
The best macro to have during an instance/raid is the following:
/startattack
/cast skill
Where Skill is the skill you most normally spam (sinister strike, backstab.) This means you can almost always keep attacking without having to right-click the mob or change hotkeys.
Only problem is if the closest mob is CC'd and you're spamming this, you might end up hitting the CC'd mob before it dies.
Shunpo Jul 5th 2007 5:03AM
This one is my favorite for BGs:
/targetenemy
/cast sap
I have it bound to my middle click and I spam it when another rogue is around, I'm always the first to get off the sap :)
Also, my general purpose middle button macro:
/cast [stealth] Sap; Feint
So I can easily feint whilst in raids/groups.
And of course the trinket macro:
/cast SS or Backstab
/stopcasting
/use Bladefist's Breadth
/stopcasting
/use Ogre Mauler's Badge
/startattack
Shunpo - Lightbringer
Rob Jul 5th 2007 12:19PM
THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT MACRO FOR PVE:
Step 1: Select your tank and type:
/focus
(You can make a macro for that if you like, I don't think it's really needed. You just have to do it once per party.)
Your Tank is now set to be your focus. You'll notice he has a glow around his portrait when you select him to let you know this. It won't change unless you set a different focus.
Step 2: Create the following macro:
/assist focus
THAT'S IT!
Icon's are great. But using this macro, you will always be able to attack whatever your tank is attacking.
Acceptable Risk Jul 5th 2007 12:49PM
@9 Rob
I disagree here. A good tank will be constantly shifting targets in order to keep the aggro of them all. You're making your tank's job harder by constantly switching targets as well.
This is why each group needs an Assist to target the highest priority mobs. As a rogue, you make a prime candidate for the job. The tank should be /assisting you in between other tanking targets in order to keep the main target off of the DPS and the DPS should be /assisting you in order to burn down the target as fast as possible.
Rob Jul 5th 2007 1:19PM
@10
No macro is going to take the place of a plan or communication. But this macro is still very important!
Yes, there are lots of reasons why a tank will start spanking a different mob, a sap breaks or whatever. But I'd say the number one reason is, someone attacks something that they shouldn't and he has to pry them off. Even more reason to use this macro!
As part of threat control you should check and recheck what the tank is fighting! I have this macro mapped to the "forward" button on my mouse. I'll hit it every once in a while during fights to make sure the tank is still on my target (hitting it doesn't interrupt any abilities or combo points).
If he's not attacking who I think he should be, then it's time to stop and re-evaluate the situation. See if there's a caster that needs kicking or a loose mob to blind. But it's not very smart to just keep wailing away at a target that the tank isn't currently tanking.
Genoce Jul 5th 2007 2:26PM
/startattack
/castrandom Sinister Strike, Riposte
I saw this on the wowwiki macro site, and i was like "wtf are ppl thinking?" when i saw this... There's a really simple way to do this, i have used this since version 1.5 or something:
/cast Riposte
/cast Sinister Strike
It will cast Riposte if possible, otherwise it will skip over it and cast Sinister Strike. Really simple. Just add that /startattack if you want it to begin autoattack also.