meStevo

I'm by no means mr macro guy, but wrote a castsequence for my survival hunter that I'll post when I get home later tonight that works great keeping sting on a single target, using explosive when available and otherwise spamming steady shot.

The problem I have with it though is occasionally... usually when I have to stop and do something non macro related, and often when i temporarily change targets, i get a 'more powerful spell is already active' message when my macro tries to refresh serpent sting on my original target. What circumstances exist that don't allow me to overwrite my own sting and is this a problem for other macros, or just an issue with stings?

 

Largo

It may be that you have a temporary AP buff when you first applied a sting that later wore off. IIRC I had this happen while raiding since I typically try to Chimera roll the highest Sting possible when I see things like the Mirror proc bonus.

 

Iru

That can't be done with macros. You might consider the AutoAspect add-on though. I find it especially effective in combination with SCT.

 

jbrdbr111

Yeah I've noticed this as well, it seems like the macro clips the auto shots somehow..

 

Vvix

Was gonna ask for a macro like this, but now I see its apparently on its way any chance it will be posted here before monday evening, CET? BM hunter here, been asked to respec survival for raid tomorrow, and feel a little bit confused and trying to suck up every piece of Survival advice I can find in here.

/ww

 

Feldjaeger

so i modified this wowwiki macro a little

#showtooltip Chimera Shot
/cast [modifier:shift] Serpent Sting
/castrandom Chimera Shot, Kill Shot
/castsequence reset=5 Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

look alright?

 

jbrdbr111

Wouldn't the reset be 10, for the cd of chimera and all those Steady Shots?

 

Rokh

I'm still amazed when I see people that post incorrect information about the "reset" function of a castsequence.. the number has nothing to do with cooldowns of shots or timings of rotations; it simply means the castsequence will reset to the beginning after the elapsed time has completed without pressing the castsequence. In other words, reset=5 will reset to the start of a castsequence after five seconds of not using the macro.

 

Orphodoop

Are there any macros that may be added onto, say, the steady shot macro that will cast Hunter's Mark whenever it does not exist on the target? I tend to not see it vanish from a boss often -.-

 

TrevvyTrev

No. You cannot incorporate buff/debuff checks into macros anymore. We haven't been able to since 2.0 (pre-Burning Crusade patch).

 

Stack

I haven't seen this posted any ware yet. I'm pretty sure i have not seen any macro use this technique either so let me know if you find prior art.

this also works for any 2 spells so long as the first spell has no cooldown and takes longer then the GCD to cast.

when you cast steady it advances to the ,__ blank section and the macro falls through to the next line casting chimera. if your shot is hasted below 1.5seconds spamming the macro will result in you skipping chimera.

so long as you had a backup macro to manually cast or even just a different macro to cast chimera while under RF/heroism/iaoth you will cast steady untill you can cast chimera but there is no waiting so if you have .5sec before a chimera youll cast another steady first.

while i realize this isn't and end all be all solution for hunters maybe there is more to be discovered here if only the seed is set.

 

Ulfang

For certain fights where different tanks may need a MD at any given point (Get a misdirect on <insert tank name>) I like to use a set up a druid told me about he used to roll lifeblooms on the tanks:

/target <tank 1>
/cast Misdirection

bound to F1

repeat for tank 2 bound to F2

repeat for tank 3 bound to F3

Takes some time to set up but gives instant results with one button push as long as you can remember which tank is which.

 

Skim

I'd still be interested in seeing this SV macro. I hope you do get around to posting it.

 

Wolde

After seeing this piece of code i stole it and changed it a bit to serve my purpose as a survival hunter. This is the result:

This works wonders i think, even works on Lock & Load to do ES/SS/ES/SS automatically. It does however not fire ES when SS is hasted < 1.5 seconds as Stack pointed out in his post. I havent found any other way to do a macro that doesnt lock up on Explosive Shot. You still have to manually keep track of Serpent Sting, for that i recommend using Scrolling Combat Text and making a custom event that tells you when the serpent sting fades on target. (i can never remember too look and see if the sting is up if i dont do this, maybe you all are better at keeping track of debuffs but i sure aint good at that).

 

Durgosh

I would recommend a slight modification to this that I use. Have your one basic macro that misdirects to your focus:
Then, bind your function keys to the following macros:
I find this a much more elegant solution, as you actually never change your target yet accomplish the same focus swapping. I used a similar approach when I was trash pulling in Black Temple, though instead of three buttons, I used one using shift and alt modifiers. This allows for one button to switch between your tanks and allows for a little cleaner button binding, in my view.

 

Mr-Itchi

I use a very similar one:

How does yours work with the second part, after the colon? I'm afraid I don't understand enough about macros yet to use anything other than some simple ones.

 

Elvinalfie

I'm assuming that "Scratchi" is your pet?

Anyway to answer your question, the first part of that MD macro fires it onto the focus target but if there isn't one assigned then the macro will automatically fire the MD onto your pet instead.

 

• Nagisamuro

There's a sticky post in the official forum that you might find helpful: World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Cogwheel's Complete Macro Guide - READ 1ST!

But, to answer your question directly, it's all about the [square brackets]. You can do a couple of things with the brackets. You can specify a target for the spell that follows, which is what your MD macro does ([target=Scratchi] specifies the target for Misdirection, regardless of your current target). You obviously already know this much.

That's not all. You can also use the [square brackets] to specify some conditions. For example, [nodead] is a condition that is true if your current target is not dead.

Even better, you can combine both uses of the brackets. Looking at Durgosh's macro:
The first condition: [target=focus,exists,nodead]
This means to cast the following spell on my Focus, IF it exists (i.e. I have a focus) AND it's alive.

The semicolon allows you to specify additional conditions to test if the preceeding ones aren't satisfied. In this case, the first condition will be false if my focus is dead, or if I just plain haven't set one. In that case, the macro continues to the part after the semicolon.

The second condition: [target=pet,exists,nodead]
The means cast the following spell on my pet, if it exists and is alive. This will prevent the attempted spell cast if my pet is abandonded/dismissed, or dead.

If you specify a target within the brackets, then all conditions are evaluated with regard to the specified target. If you do not, then all conditions are evaluated with regard to your current target.

 

Iru

Actually, the semi-colon is superfluous in that macro. This has the same effect

/cast [target=focus,exists,nodead] [target=pet,exists,nodead] Misdirection

The [] act as a logical AND operator and using target= will force the correct targeting as long as the other two conditions are met. Separate conditionals ([]) are evaluated as a logical OR, meaning the first one to evaluate as true is applied. This helps lower the total character count if you're trying to do other things in the same macro; for bonus points change /cast to /use.

 

Tewjack

Please help a noob.

I'm a lvl 49 Tauren Hunter. I have no excuses, but I've just recently started messing with macros. I know...I'm pathetic. However, its become apparent to me I'm in dire need of a macro that will cast my (racial) War Stomp, then Disengage, and maybe, if possible drop a Concussive Shot. Everything I've tried doesn't work. I don't have the "macros" I've tried with me (shhhh I'm at work), so I can't show you where I went wrong. Please if anyone can tell me if this macro is even possible, and if so HOW, I'd be deeply indebted.

Thank you.

 

Terp

As far as Misdirection macros go, I'm pretty sure this will combine all of what's trying to be accomplished:

/cast [modifier:alt, target=TANK1, exists, nodead] [modifier:shift, target=TANK2, exists, nodead] [modifier:ctrl, target=TANK3, exists, nodead] [help, nodead, raid] [target=focus, exists, nodead] [target=pet] Misdirection

It will cast to specific tanks on the right modifier, anyone you are targetting, your focus, and then pet if none of those go through.

 

Durgosh

See, I have a serious problem with hardcoding tank names directly in to the misdirection macro itself. By having a macro that misdirects to your focus, this means you give yourself a LOT more flexibility. Consider if you jump in to an instance group with a tank you don't usually run with. Instead of manually editing your macro to include his name, you instead just set him as your focus and you're off to the races. That's my preference though, your mileage may vary.

For Tewjack, you can try the following:
What this does is give you a macro that you when you click it the first time, it will cast your War Stomp, then the second time you click it, it will cast Disengage, then the third time will cast Concussive Shot. The "reset=10" means that if you do not click that macro for 10 seconds, it will switch back to the first action in the sequence. Give it a whirl and see if it works for you.

 

Sean

I've been playing with using Arcane Shot in rotations as BM on the PTR (due to the upcoming nerfs to Steady) and came up with this macro:

This gives you a perfect rotation with the cooldown of Arcane Shot. Also with the Serpent Sting Glyph being changed to +6 seconds that also works in perfectly. Apply the Sting and then start firing away, at the time the Sting is due to be refreshed you'll have Arcane resetting and you won't be skipping a single beat. The stars pretty much aligned with the buff of the Serpent Sting Glyph.

The only thing I'm not sure on there is the best reset variable to put in to kill the sequence in case something happens, but on something static it works just like that.

 

Tewjack

Thank you so much. I guess I was trying to make it all happen in one button press. Is there a resource you recommend that I could learn the rules of macros? I've noticed that some macros have more than one shot/action on them and was wondering why the ones I mentioned aren't one of them. Anyway thank you again.

 

Durgosh

Nagisamuro posted an excellent link above that I will post again: World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Cogwheel's Complete Macro Guide - READ 1ST!

Also, check out WoW Wiki: Making a macro.