Macro Anatomy: Faerie Fire and Faerie Fire (Feral)
by Sean Forsgren 
Apr 26th 2008 at 6:00PM
Welcome to this week's Macro Anatomy! Today we'll be taking look at a simple macro I found for my druid alt, whom I am secretly leveling late at night after studying for finals, when I can't seem to bring myself to play my main. On that note, my apologies for the somewhat lackluster installations of this feature, until finals are done, and after my diving trip to Cozumel, things will be back on track.Now that you are almost aware of my entire life, let us get down to business. This macro serves to make two spells fit into one button, without button modifiers. To be honest, I had to read the spell description for Faerie Fire and Faerie Fire (Feral) a couple of times before I got it. (I really shouldn't be trying to assimilate non-school information right now, but I love WoW.) These two spells come in handy, I've already used it on a pesky undead rogue, and I wanted to make sure I wasn't leaving Cat Form or Bear Form while using it.
Come on in to get this little space-saver.
This macro will simply test which form (called a 'stance' in the scripting tongue), the player is in and cast the appropriate version of Faerie Fire. This macro will update the tooltip for the appropriate form as well, so really it's just a great little tool I use to streamline using the spell.
Here it is:
- #showtooltip
- /cast [nostance][stance:2/4/5] Faerie Fire; [stance:1/3] Faerie Fire (Feral)()
Have fun with it, and enjoy using the spell as much as I do. Although, any druid experts feel free to provide advice about its use, I love hearing from fellow players. Good luck to all of you Feral Druids! Finally, if you happen to play on a PvP server, pray you're not Horde, because I'm prowling around somewhere and you're closer to death than you know.
Every week Macro Anatomy takes you on a magic carpet ride through the world of macros. Sometimes you will encounter existing macros that you can use off the shelf. We'll break them down and figure out how they work. Other times we'll just talk about the different parts of a macro and how you can use them to create your own. You can always stop by the shop if you want to catch up or get started with macros.Filed under: Druid, Buffs, Talents, Features, PvP, Odds and ends, Tricks, Tips, Analysis / Opinion, Macro Anatomy
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ian Apr 26th 2008 7:47PM
Love these columns, Super useful.
Anychance we'll see one for shamans ? like using cure poison or cure disease on targeted friendly and purge or enemies.
Calaana Apr 26th 2008 8:05PM
#showtooltip
/cast [harm] Purge; [help, button:1] Cure Poison; [help, button:2] Cure Disease
I support the shammy stance, so here's some of the ones I use; no explains, I'll let Sean do that - gotta keep him on his toes somehow.
Mounts/travel form
~~~~
/dismount [mounted]
/cancelaura Ghost Wolf
/use [nomounted,modifier:alt] Golden Gryphon; [button:2] Ghost wolf; [nomounted] Great Green Elekk
/cast [nochanneling,nocombat,button:2] Ghost wolf; [combat] Ghost Wolf
~~~~
Shocks
~~~~
/cast [nobutton:2,nomodifier:alt] earth shock; [nobutton:2,modifier:alt] frost shock; [button:2,nomodifier:alt] Flame shock
~~~~
Shields
~~~~
#showtooltip
/cast [button:3] Water Shield; [modifier:alt,target=player] Earth shield; Lightning shield
~~~~
Swap between offhand weapon/shield or ss - Pvp macro
~~~~
#showtooltip
/equipslot [mod:alt,equipped:Shields] 17 The Decapitator
/equipslot [mod:alt,equipped:One-Handed Axes] 17 Triptych Shield of the Ancients
/cast [nomod:alt] StormStrike
~~~~
LB, purge
~~~~
/cast [nomod:alt] Lightning bolt; [mod:alt] Purge
~~~~
Weapon buffs
~~~~
#showtooltip
/cast [button:1,nomodifier:alt] Windfury Weapon; [button:1,modifier:alt] Frostbrand Weapon; [button:2,nomodifier:alt] Flametongue weapon; [button:2,modifier:alt] Rockbiter Weapon
~~~~
Weapon swap
~~~~
/equipslot [equipped:Fist Weapon] 16 Shard of the Virtuous
/equipslot [equipped:Mace] 16 Big Bad Wolf's Paw
/equipslot [equipped:Shields] 17 The Decapitator
/equipslot [equipped:One-Handed Axes] 17 Triptych Shield of the Ancients
~~~~
Think that should have more than enough content for at least one more article Sean :)
Ian Apr 27th 2008 8:36AM
Thanks Calaana.. will try out those macros..
Finnicks Apr 30th 2008 5:53PM
Calaana, I don't understand your mount macro... at all.
Why do you use modifier:alt for your flying mount? Seems a little silly. Also, the initial /dismount and /cancelaura stuff is completely unecessary nowadays since the game will automatically dismount you or pull you out of Ghost Wolf if you try to use abilities or other mounts (unless you're actively FLYING, which is not a time to be dismounting anyway). I would use something more like this:
/cast [combat][button:2] Ghost Wolf; [noflyable][modifier:alt] Great Green Elekk; [flyable] Golden Gryphon
A simple 1-liner that accomplishes exactly the same task.
Eternalpayn Apr 26th 2008 8:05PM
"Today we'll be taking look at a simple macro I found for my druid alt, whom I am secretly leveling late at night after studying for finals, when I can't seem to bring myself to play my main. "
Wow. I am doing basically the same thing, with a druid alt, without the finals part. Creepy.
Also, Ian, he posted something about that a little while ago. It was for something like that last time.
/cast [target=mouseover,exists,help,nodead] Renew; [target=mouseover,exists,harm,nodead] Shadow Word: Pain; [help,nodead] Renew; [harm,nodead] Shadow Word: Pain; [target=player] Renew
Just take away the stuff about mouseover.
Qzz Apr 27th 2008 4:17AM
One of the things I do with my Feral Druid is look at button placement. With a different bar for each form button placing can be helpful.
I put the Kitty button and the Stealth buttons in the same
place, spam the button and you are in stealth from caster. I do the same with Bear form and Enrage. This way you can pull with a spell and start slamming the bear form button and get enraged at the same time.
And always remember "Durids is storng for bare or cat or seel or whatver and u dosent haf 2 heel if u dont liek heel"
Acceptable Risk Apr 26th 2008 11:41PM
Here's one of my favorite Druid macros. It's a forms/travel macro.
#showtooltip
/cast [swimming] Aquatic Form; [modifier: shift] Swift Brewfest Ram; [flyable, nocombat] Swift Flight Form; Travel Form
/stopmacro [noform]
/cancelform [stance:2/4/5]
It picks the best quick travel form depending on the circumstance. Then it'll cancel the form with the second click, just like the normal form button. I also tossed in the ability to use a mount by holding Shift, for times spent in Azeroth.
pudds Apr 27th 2008 2:00AM
Shorter version:
#showtooltip
/cast [stance:1/3] Faerie Fire (Feral)(); [] Faerie Fire;
Indicates the feral version in stance 1 or 3, regular version in any other case.
Shanks Apr 27th 2008 6:40PM
I love this column, but I have to agree with pudds that Mr. Forsgren's original code is a bit bloated and convoluted.
"Shorter version:
#showtooltip
/cast [stance:1/3] Faerie Fire (Feral)(); [] Faerie Fire;"
We can shrink it still more. The empty brackets are unnecessary. As is the ending semicolon. And a few of the spaces.
"#showtooltip
/cast [stance:1/3]Faerie Fire (Feral)();Faerie Fire"
This should be functionally equivalent. Not that we're approaching the character limit with this one anytime soon.
To me, playing around with macros is about as fun as playing the game.
Pzychotix Apr 27th 2008 6:52AM
Question: Why don't you have your button already changed with button paging when you shift into a feral form? Almost any bar mod will change bars for you when you switch forms. Hell, even the base UI will change your bars when you switch forms.
Dan B. Apr 27th 2008 8:35AM
I use a similar macro because I don't have Faerie Fire (either) on my main rotating cast bar. I tend to keep my healing/dmg spells on there, or my cat/bear form abilities. with a macro like this I can push FF off to one of the other bars, and get a bar spot back.
Outrager Apr 27th 2008 4:21PM
I used to play a Rogue before my Feral Druid and I found that having the same bar in stealth+nonstealth was different from the rogue. So I made some macros that do the move depending on stealth or not. I know these aren't fairie fire related, but it's feral related =)
#showtooltip
/cast [stealth] Pounce; Maim
#showtooltip
/cast [stealth] Ravage; Shred
Now you don't have to waste spots on your bar.