Demonstrably untrue, at least before today's patch. Pet ability prioritization still failed to always use the best ability when a GftT proc occurs, resulting in suboptimal pet rotations if relying only on autocasting. Lowest cost wouldn't result in the right ability being chosen and you'd have, for instance, Bite prioritized over Monstrous Bite intermittently, or Smack over Thunderstomp. For BM especially, combining proper ability prioritization with a shot macro would result in very real DPS increases (I found it varied between 50dps and 150dps personally, but I imagine it varies hunter to hunter).

That isn't to say the material here is particularly relevant anymore, or particularly accurate, but to say there is no place for macros isn't quite right. Even in 3.0.8, there is a use case.

Depending on the pet ability, you end up pushing out the use of the next ability by at least one pet GCD (1.25s). It is more pronounced for some abilities than others, but effectively by delaying the ability, you end up with it being used fewer times in a fight, which is a dps decrease. Depending on points in Longevity and the pet in question, it can result in different amounts of lost dps. Delay every Rake with a Cat by 1.25s and you have a fairly noticeable dps decrease. Likewise, pre-3.0.8, losing a Scorpid Poison stack (not likely, but possible if you recall your pet and send him back quickly and he chooses a claw instead of poison) could be quite costly.

There are plenty of valid tricks and tips that can be gathered here without artificially lowering your DPS or reducing your game interaction to pressing one button. If there are macro commands that eventually produce a rotation that cannot possibly be replicated by hand and is shown to be higher than manual weaving, then it is by all means welcome.

This isn't to stifle conversation on the topic, but to steer it away from promoting poor play. If you really think you have a valid point pertaining to macros then you'll present it as such. If you are posting a macro that is solely there smack a single button, then yeah, you'll have some time to reflect on it.

I think it's safe to call that post a vent

Macro mechanics, and even macros that keep 'baseline' abilities rolling while we take care of procs and whatnot are undeniably handy and worth discussing... but when people drop in out of nowhere and ask for a one-size-fits-all macro to cut'n'paste under their mousewheel, having either completely failed to read the thread or, having done so, haven't grasped that such a thing no longer exists... that doesn't help the Signal-to-Noise ratio at all.

Note that he isn't saying "Do not post more macros here ever," he is simply trying to keep people from asking for/posting 1-button macros that try and use every hunter shot that there is. I imagine there will still be no problem with posted pet-ability macros and such, since those link together valuable abilities that would otherwise require sets of manic clicking in order to accomplish.

See bolded text from his post:

I have tried several way of scripting macros, but most of them don't seem to work very well.
Like linking several shots to castrandom and so on.
So I worked out to make something a bit more optimal.
Note that the 3 macros are used together, using them separate is not optimal.
Except for the Pet macro which can be used for other specs as well.

Without knowledge about how a survival spec with Lock and Load works, these macros are pretty useless.
Since you need to pay attention to what goes on.
So you can't just close your eyes and spam them, which isn't the idea either.

The difference between handweaving and using the scripts below is that you might loose Serpent Sting up-time with the Lock and Load Rotation (lasts 6 seconds)
Plus if it is triggered at the wrong spot upon the normal rotation you risk to delay an Explosive Shot.
But if attention is payed, they do wonders.

These can only be used as Survival with Lock and Load / Explosive Shot.

First macro is the one I click spam just to keep the loop going.
It links to 2 modifier keys, 1 for putting up Hunter's Mark and another for using another rotation while Lock And Load is up.
Another thing that one could do is taking the Serpent Sting out of rotation and add it as modifier instead.

Button 10 on my Action Bar, bit in doubt if I should go with 18 or 24 seconds here, since with the new glyph change Serpent Sting lasts 21 seconds.
I got the idea expand it to 24 seconds and add 2 Aimed Shots into rotation.
So the Serpent Sting tick left out pr rotation shouldn't matter much I guess.
Plus that timing in Aimed Shot to exact every 10 seconds is impossible with Explosive Shot every 6 seconds.
At some point they will always end up at the same spot, which a hand weaved rotation won't prevent either.

The idea of a sequence it to tighten up shot delays.
So with a Global Cooldown limited to 1.5 seconds we want to get as close as 6 seconds between Explosive Shots.
Since that is the cooldown for them.
Note the [nomod] which means that without a pressed modifier key from the above macro, it will use the order of shots typed below.

Button 11 on my Action Bar, this is for a Raptor.
The idea is to provoke faster focus dumping and by that to increase the pets dps.
Since the priority of the build in auto trigger for pets doesn't seem to work optimal.
High crit rating required.

Yeah, you are taking what I posted slightly too far. The shot macro behavior I'm looking to curtail is that of 'I need to respec gief macro'. If there are at some future point new macro commands or changes to hunter mechanics that produce a macro'd command that either gives notable utility to the class or produces DPS higher than can be achieved by average to slightly above average manual weaving, then by all means please do discuss it. Most of the reasoning for the strong hand in regards to macros currently is that it promotes poor play, is presented in worthless posts, and brings the wrong kind of player to our boards. Essentially, we have nothing to gain from folks yammering about one button macros than more stupid posts for me to infract.

Well, with most 1-button spam macros failing due to haste buffs, they're never going to be a true replacement for knowing what the hell you're doing in the first place. To me, it's a cruise-control to have something like a "/castsequence , xxx" macro.

The main thing is, reading these forums gives you ideas on how to make your own macros that fit your particular needs based on installed mods, key bindings, and play style. I've learned a lot personally, so hopefully discussing general macro ideas and mechanics is still encouraged.

Back on topic, I'd be very interested to see how people are using macros to deal with skill bloat. I've been a manual weaver since autoshot was unlinked, but I admit I'm not the most dexterous person, so my easily accessable keybinds are limited to 1-6, ~, Q, E, R, C, and F (I try to use z and x, but find that on movement fights they are of limited use). I've tried shift keybinds, but my left pinky is pretty much useless.

My strategy is to bind common abilities to the same key with modifiers. I am considering writing up a macro that would save me space on my action bars- something that would send the pet in with shift, blow cooldowns without shift, and mend pet with ctrl-shift. I currently have to have a bar with each of these abilities taking a spot and bind them individually. I know that there are bar mods that allow key-binding to abilities right out of the spell book, but I'm not willing to make that jump yet.

I'm now trying the follow macro:

#showtooltip Auto Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/castsequence Steady Shot,
/cast Explosive Shot
/cast Aimed Shot
/cast [target=pettarget] Kill Command
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

I dont know why, but this macro dont fire out Aimed Shot. Maybe the ",", maybe other things, but I'm searching for somewhat for Steady Shot, Aimed and ES.