I had a revelation last week. It’s one I’m not afraid to share because I suspect there are a lot of players in the same position as me.
That position is peering out from round a corner with a bemused grin and crimson cheeks, watching the macro users of our raid do ten things at once while showering the raid in light and laughing at the boss. We’re cautious because they’re clearly performing some kind of common folklore which all players should know, right? And we shouldn’t even consider asking about macros?
Wrong.
If you’re in that position of knowing nothing about healing macros then we have something in common, you and I. Maybe you’ve just started a new healing class and know nothing about it. Maybe you’re looking to improve your WoW playing generally. Maybe you’re a raid leader, like me, and have been getting into macros via raid leading and now want to see if this macro malarky can do anything for your healing. Whatever the case, read on.
If you do know something about macros then have a read anyway – some of these might be basic to you, but you might pick up something that saves your skin, bark or cow-printed hide.
Paladins
1. Buffs up quicksmart
/castsequence [target=focus] Beacon of Light, Sacred Shield
- This macro will put both of your essential healing buffs up on your focus, which is likely to be the tank.
- TIP: you can use the addon Need To Know in conjunction with this setup. It’ll give you permanent timer bars for those buffs regardless of whom you’re targetting.
2. Easy judging
/cast [target=focustarget] Judgement of Light
- Casts your judgement of light which both does healing and gives you a powerful haste buff
- It won’t cause you to overaggro when casting your judgement as you’re using it on the tank’s target
- Means you don’t have to mess around with tab or mouse targetting a mob to cast it on. You may need to re-target your tank but that’s less trouble than having to target everything manually.
- TIP: you could use the addon Clique, which will allow you to set up mouse and key bindings for anything you could wish. Want to heal the tank? Sure, click the <insert mouse button here> and you needn’t retarget them after using your JoL macro.
3. Catch-all Holy Shock
/cast [mod,target=player] [nogroup,target=player] [target=mouseover,help,nodead] [target=targettarget,help,nodead] [] Holy Shock
- If you have an enemy targetted it will automatically holy shock you
- If you have *anything* else as target and a friendly unit as mouseover (or target) then it will holy shock that friendly unit
Priests – holy and discpline
1. “oh noes” button
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast [combat,@player] Power Infusion
/cast [combat] Inner Focus
/cast [spec:1,@mouseover] Penance; [spec:2,@mouseover] Greater Heal
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
- It works for priesties of both healing flavours. Yep, you read right, It’ll work by casting one of the spells, based on whichever spec you’re in. This saves you having two separate macros for holy and discipline
- You could also add commands to pop your trinkets (/use 13 and /use 14) but be careful of the macro character limit.
2. Holy single target “oh noes” button
/cast [target=focus] Guardian Spirit
- For you holy priesties. This is an “oh noes” button if you’ve been focussing on the raid and see that your focus, probably a tank, is wilting a bit and needs help now.
3. Discy Pain Suppression management
/cast [target=mouseover] Pain Suppression
/sw 8
/script Stopwatch_Play();
/say Pain Suppression Up!
/in 8 /s ***Pain Suppression depleted***
- This is most useful for keeping track of PS cooldown and alerting you when it’s ready again – useful in fights where you need to time cooldowns and don’t have time to keep an eye out for them ticking down
- TIP: this one may not work off the bat for you. The ‘in’ command is said to be provided through an addon, possibly the Ace3 library, though various people with various addon setups have got the macro working.
4. Discy raid-healing insta-bomb
#showtooltip Divine Hymn
/cast [target=player] Power Infusion
/cast Inner Focus
/cast Divine Hymn
You’re a discy priest so you’re probably healing tanks most of the time, right? That might be so, but sometimes you’ll be on raid anyway, and sometimes you’ll be on tanks watching the raid take heavy damage – and we all know how comfortable that isn’t. This macro will help you help the raid recover and soak up damage.
- Try to have Borrowed Time proc’ed too for the (extra) haste
- You’ve just given yourself power infusion which both reduces your cast time and mana costs
- Bubbles! Bubbles everywhere! Your increased critical effect chance from inner Focus should mean more chance of divine aegis’ popping up.
Druids
1. Rolling Lifebloom
/target TankName/cast [modifier:shift] Rejuvenation ; [modifier:alt] Regrowth ; Lifebloom
- Make a macro for each tank in the raid and you’ll be able to keep them all rolling on 3 stacks of Lifebloom, lag and catastrophe notwithstanding
- This particular macro also has modifiers which give you flexibility in HoTs. Got a bit of extra time? Throw Tank1 a Rejuv. by pressing shift. Everything refreshed and got a couple of seconds? Stick Regrowth up by holding down alt
2. Quick response to tank death
#showtooltip Rebirth
/castsequence reset=600 Nature’s Swiftness, Rebirth
/run c=”Don’t release! I got ya.”if UnitInRaid(“player”)then SendChatMessage(c, “RAID”)elseif GetNumPartyMembers()>0 then SendChatMessage(c, “PARTY”)end
- This is your “oh noes tank’s dead!” macro
- It’ll immediately get him back on his feet and announce what you’re doing.
2a. Intuitive-res macro
#show Rebirth
/cast [@mouseover, combat, dead] [@target, combat, dead] Rebirth; [@mouseover, dead] [@target, dead] Revive
- This is a similar one for other “oh noes” times – specifically when key people have dropped like lightbulbed flies. If you’re in combat it’ll try to use combat res, if you’re not it’ll use revive
- Just be sure you’re out of combat after a fight’s ended before you use this, for fear of wasting your combat res.
3. Easy poison cleanse
#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover, help] [] Abolish Poison
- This is a time saver anywhere there is a lot of poison kicking around. Its utility is simple: it allows you to cleanse your mouseover target without having to target them then retarget your healing target
- TIP: I reckon this one works for all healing classes for their various cleansing duties.
Shaman
1. Earth Shield ease
/cast [target=focus] Earth Shield
- Very, very simple way of refreshing earth shield on the tank, providing that your tank is your focus.
- TIP: you can also get the addon Shaman Friend to support this macro by playing a sound when ES runs down. Alternatively you could have it in place of the macro: it can be setup to provide a focus button for earth shield refreshing, and a box which visually tracks ES stacks so you don’t miss it falling off.
2a. “Oh noes” button version 1
#showtooltip Healing Wave
/cast Nature’s Swiftness
/cast Tidal Force
/cast Healing Wave
- Any resto shaman worth his salt has some form of this macro. Some shamans prefer not to attach a healing spell to it so they can choose whether to fire off a single target spell or a chain heal after nature’s swiftness. You could make both of those options achievable by altering the macro slightly, to this:
2b. “Oh noes” button version 2
#showtooltip Nature’s Swiftness
/stopcasting
/use 13
/use 14/cast Nature’s Swiftness
/Cast Tidal Force
/cast [mod, help] [mod:shift, target=mouseover, help] Chain Heal; [help] [target=mouseover] Healing Wave
- This version will cast healing wave after blowing your cooldowns or, if you hold down shift, it will cast chain heal. It also uses your trinkets (/use 13 and /use 14) for extra “oh noes” aversion value.
In both of these you could also add a command to tell party chat or a specific target that you’re averting catastrophe this time by blowing all your cooldowns, and so won’t necessarily be able to save the day again. At least for a few minutes.
External links:
There look to be quite a few sites out there with musings and help on macros, ranging from forums to class-specific blogs to macro specific-all class sites. Some of them are better than others. Here are the ones I found to be either most useful for digging these macros up or, in the case of the third link, just a Very Good Idea:
- Arena Junkies – Arena Junkies macro forum – for your PvP macro needs
- Elitist Jerks’ various guides, forums and threads have some useful macros squirreled away.
- Macro Explain – does what it says on the tin. You paste in a macro, it explains each line of the macro. The website also has links to other macro resources and addons.
- PlusHeal – plusheal’s macro forum – you’ll find good discussions and very helpful folks here.
- WoWWiki – WoWwiki’s section on macros has links to class specific macro pages.
Most of these macros have been tested but let me know if any of them make things go boom. Or worse still, make nothing happen at all. I hope these do work and help you have more fun healing. Perhaps it’ll even bring about that myth us healers have heard whispered about – less stress while healing.
What do you think? Are you a macro-newbie and had been afraid to admit it? Feel free to do so! Share your tales of macro learning experiences. Also let me know if any of these prove really useful or otherwise. Likewise, if you’ve been hit by inspiration and have just spent thirty minutes writing some new healing macros or perfecting existing ones, do share them!
This is a post by Mimetir, an oversized owl of a raid leader on The Venture Co (EU). You can find my twitter feed here.
(Macro image created by Emrank @Flickr, used under CC)
