I'm horrible at this Blogging thing

Ok, I admit it. I have trouble remembering to write for my blog. I tried to do it everyday, but Real Life intrudes and keeps me from updating, then I'll go days or weeks without remembering to write anything. Sorry :(

I recently had an old user of my SwiftShift addon write to me about an updated version, so I wrote back to him about how you can replace SwiftShift with new Macros. Here is a copy of the email I sent back to him:

Hiya!

Thanks for your interest in my old addon, Swiftshift ;)

Ah, those were the good ol' dayz... First the bad news: they killed off SwiftShift. When The Burning Crusade was released, they made changes to the Addon API that broke SwiftShift, as well as MOST other addons.

Now the good news: When they broke all those addons, they also added new functionality to their Macro system such that you can now completely replace everything Swiftshift did with actual normal in-game macros. With the latest patch, 2.3.0, they added full-blown automatic shifting from one form to another without having to shift to caster form first. Yeehaw!!

Here, for YOUR conveinience, I will list for you the macros that I have written for MY druid(s). This is what I'm using today in the wow client 2.3.0.

This is my bear macro. this shifts me from any form to bear form when I spam it. I'm currently spec'd for Resto, so I don't have feral charge, but I used to have charge as a built-in part of the macro - if I spammed it, I'd shift to bear form, then charge my target on the next keypress (just like I used to do with SwiftShift) Here is the feral charge version.

#showtooltip
Feral Charge
/cast [stance:1] Feral Charge; [nostance:1] Dire Bear Form

Next, this is my Cat Form macro. Just like I did with Feral Charge, my cat macro is designed to shift me to Cat Form, then prowl on the next keypress, so if I spam it, I go sneaky kitty asap.

#Showtooltip
Prowl
/cast [stance:3,nostealth] Prowl; [nostance:3] Cat Form

Being Resto spec'd, I also have a treeform macro. Here it is

#showtooltip
Tree of Life
/cast [nostance:5] Tree of Life
/cancelform
[nostance:5]
<--- that line probably isn't needed, but I havn't changed it yet (for 2.3)

Now, for the finale, here is my all-purpose use-anywhere travel form macro. This automatically uses the best escape form for whatever the situation. If you're not in Outland, it uses travel form. If you are in outland, it uses Flight form. IF you're in outland, but in combat, it uses travel form - but if you keep spamming it, as soon as you come out of combat it will pop you from travel to flight form for escape. If you're swimming, it uses aquatic form instead of anything else.

/cast [nostance:6, flyable, nocombat, outdoors, noswimming] Flight Form; [nostance:2, swimming]
Aquatic Form; [nostance:4, combat, outdoors, noswimming] [nostance:4, outdoors, noflyable, noswimming] Travel
Form

If you don't have flight form yet (not level 68) then use this macro instead:

/cancelform
[stance:1/3/5]
/cast [nostance:2, swimming] Aquatic Form; [nostance:4, outdoors]
Travel Form

The last macro is used for "Caster Form". being a druid, I use this whenever I need to heal myself, or dismount, or just shift to caster form. It does all that.

/castsequence
[target=player,nostance, nomounted] reset=12 Regrowth, Rejuvenation, Lifebloom, Abolish
Poison;
/cancelform
[stance]
/dismount [mounted]

Now, to use these, if you are not familiar with macros, you should do /macro and create some new macros and stick these macros into them. Then, find some open slots on your action-bars and drag the action tiles to those slots. Then, go into your keybindings menu and set the keyboard bindings so that whatever buttons you usually use to shift to forms activate these macros instead. Viola!

Trimble Epic

Patch Day!

Well, today is patch day. 2.3 is coming in, and we're all looking forward to it.

This time, I plan to do as much review of macro changes as I can. There has been alot of changes to the spellcast system, including changes that make /stopcasting obsolete when it comes to stacking spells like Nature's Swiftness followed by Healing Touch.

...should be interesting :)

Feral to Resto - an almost complete UI tear-down and rebuild

Last week (before I left for Atlanta), I respec'd my druid to resto.

My druid has been Feral since he was born. I've collected much feral gear, with a focus on tanking. I did almost every single quest in outlands, during which I collected much feral, balance, and healing gear.

The quest rewards for druids in outlands is very well designed. As I was questing, it was VERY rare that I had too decide between a piece of feral gear or a piece of healing gear. Most of the quests had rewards that made it very easy to decide what to choose - i.e. there was usually 1 cloth item, one leather item, one mail item, and one plate item. When it was a weapon, it was usually something like 1 staff, 1 sword, 1 wand, and 1 dagger. Bottom line - I gathered plenty of healing gear, even though I was leveling feral.

Once I reached 70, however, I stopped questing and started running instances seeking specific stuff, which meant my collecting of healing gear all but stopped. The other day I was messing around in my bank, trying on my healing set when I realized - my healing set SUCKS for level 70. So, I decided I'd respec to Resto and try to run some instances with PUGs specifically to try to get some better healing gear.

Anyway, My druid is Resto now, so I thought I would take some time to talk about some of the changes I had to make to my UI in order to play as Resto instead of Feral. The differences were so vast that it was practically a complete tear-down and rebuild.

First, I had to go in and revamp all of my attack macros. I had to remove Mangle from both bear and cat form attack macros, replacing Mangle with Claw for cat, and just removing Mangle from bear altogether, since bear doesn't have another ability that works similar to mangle.

Next, I had to adjust my bear form macro because it also included feral charge. I also lost feral faerie fire from both forms, so I ended up with less buttons to mess with while in feral forms.

I also had to rebuild my travel/aquatic/flight form macros, only because flight form changed from stance 5 to stance 6.

I had to build a whole new shapeshift macro for Tree Form, which was easy...

#showtooltip
/cast [nostance] Tree of Life
/cancelform [nostance:5]

What was complex was having to re-work all of my healing macros to be castable in EITHER cast form OR tree form, but not in any other form. Here is an example of my Rejuv macro

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover, exists, stance:0/5] [exists, stance:0/5] [target=player,stance:0/5] Rejuvenation
/cancelform [nostance:0/5]

Here's the breakdown of how that macro works:

1) #showtooltip makes sure that I can see the tooltip for Rejuv (I like to be able to check how much mana a spell costs now and then, so I ALWAYS add tooltips to my macros)

2) The next line has lots of conditionals in it, all of which end in casting Rejuv. First, it checks if my mouse pointer is over a valid (exists) target, AND that I'm in EITHER caster form (stance:0) or Tree of Life form (stance:5). If all of that is true, then it casts Rejuv on the target under my mouse pointer.

3) If any of that is not true, then next it checks to see if I have a valid (exists) target, AND that I'm in EITHER caster or tree form. If that's true, then it casts Rejuv on my current target.

4) if any of that is not true, then next it checks to see if I'm in EITHER caster or tree form. If that's true, then it casts Rejuv on myself (player). (note that 'player' is always a valid friendly target)

5) Next, and because it's on a separate line from the /cast - this part is always checked, it checks if I'm in any stance OTHER than caster or tree, and if so it executes a /cancelform. This way, if I hit the macro while in bear form, it entirely skips the /cast line and goes straight to shifting me out of bear form. The next keypress of this same macro will cast Rejuv depending on my target.

So, I had to edit ALL of my healing macros this way since they are all castable in either caster form, or tree of life form, except for Healing Touch, which still can only be cast in caster form, and abolish poison and remove curse (which, I understand will be tree castable after 2.3)

Another thing I had to do was to build a whole new actionbar, since Tree Form has it's own bar after shapeshifting. Also, adding a new actionbar means linking the actionbar back to caster form. What I mean by this is that I like to keep certain actions in the same place on each bar. For example, I like to keep my button to cast Healing Touch on myself on button 1. So, since my macro for that handles both shifting me to caster form, and then casting healing touch, I put a copy of the macro on both button 1 of my tree form bar, and button 1 of my caster form bar.

Next, I had to redo Clique. Clique, if you're unfamiliar with it, adds click-casting to unit frames. Click-casting is casting spells by clicking on unit frames using various combinations of right or left mousebutton along with shift, alt, and ctrl modifier buttons.

Being a druid, I have Clique configured using almost all custom macros instead of direct spells. This allows me to embed shapeshift checks into every action it does. For example, I use shift-left-click universally as "decurse" on all my characters (priest=dispel, paladin=cleanse, druid=remove curse). On my druid, however, I use Clique's internal macro editor to shapeshift first if I try to click-cast on someone while in the wrong form.

/cast [target=mouseover,exists,nostance] Remove Curse
/cancelform [stance]

I use this instead of simply Remove Curse to make sure it shifts first.

Part of restructuring Clique was changing my slow and fast casted heals. On my priest, I have alt-left-click set to a fast heal (flash heal) and alt-right-click set to a slow efficient heal (normal "Heal"). Since I can't use Healing touch as a tree, I moved regrowth from being my fast heal(alt-left-click) to being my slow heal(alt-right-click) and set my fast heal as a Nature's Swiftness - Regrowth macro. Granted, I can only use that one once every 3 minutes, it's still where I expect to find it when I need to save someone's ass FAST.

Another thing I added to my interface is a new macro that pops both of my healing trinkets. Combined, they add an additional +300 healing. I use these just before starting a Lifebloom stack on the main tank, since Lifebloom carries bonus healing effects for as long as you can keep the stack running. At the moment, I don't remember the actual macro, but it was basically /use trink1, /stopcasting, /use trink2.

Another new macro is as follows:

/cast [target=focus] Lifebloom

I didn't include a stance check, since this macro only occurs on my tree form bar. What I do in a group is to set the main tank as my focus. This way I can maintain a lifebloom stack on the MT by just tapping that macro, regardless of where I am or who/what I have targeted. When I solo (as a tree?!? wtf) I keep focus set to myself so that my MT macros hit me instead.

I also updated the settings of Quartz to enable timer bars for the buffs on my focus. This makes it SUPER easy to keep an eye on the remaining time on the Lifebloom stack of the main tank. With practice, and a keen eye on that 7 second bar, I can keep the Lifebloom stack on the MT running, along with lifebloom stacks on 2 other group members, and STILL be able to time innervating myself without dropping ANY of the 3 stacks.

I think the hardest part of playing a tree druid in a group is simply trying to decide between using a lifebloom stack or a single rejuv to heal a party member. Using Rejuv means Swiftmend is available when an ass-saving is needed, but using Lifebloom means the high-speed hot can be bumped up twice to full potency and carried on if needed.

There are other changes I've had to make, but off the top of my head, I can't remember any of them right now. I'll either come back and update this post if I remember more, or just add a new post if it's important enough.

Withdrawl ensues.

I've been away from game for over a week. I still have access to the web, so I can still read about the game, listen to my podcasts (of which I intend to post soon hehehe), etc. I just can't play. Withdrawl ensues.

I'm in Atlanta staying with my brother-in-law because my wife agreed to help babysit their daughter. Unfortunately, I failed to pack my WoW rig because she wanted some "time away from that game" for us to nurture our relationship. I hope it's working hehehe. I Love my wife :) She's awesome.

Let me tell you about her. She plays WoW. That, all by itself, makes her the sexiest kind of woman a geek could ever hope to marry. But, it get's better! She's GOOD at it. She isn't an uber detail geek like myself, but she does know how to bash heads in. She and I love to run our level 29 BG toons together. I heal, and she smashes heads in. She plays the legengary purple haired female troll warrior 'Smashnbash', who always leaves a trail of bodies in her wake. I play Plagueflesh, the undead shadowpriest and his cockroach.

One of her favorite things to do is to go into WSG, pick up the enemy flag, then camp the enemy graveyard. She knows that when she has the flag, the enemies will, for the most part, ignore the priest and the paladin who are keeping her healed, and try to smash her. She just smashes people into the ground, they keep ressing, and she smashes 'em again. I just let her keep going until I, as her healer, run out of mana. I can pretty much keep her and myself up indefinately, so long as I have mana. (I go through ALOT of stranglekelp and kingsblood hehehe)

She's great, and I love her. She's also pretty :) (/hides from the impending smack)

I'm sorry. I suck. I'll try to write more.

Damn I suck...

When I started this blog, it honestly was my goal to write something in it every day. Unfortunately, real life and other issues cause me to be pulled away from writing. I know that's not a good excuse, so I'm going to be brutally honest. I just have a hard time dealing with the drive to write.

You see, I have a tendancy to want to write long detailed explainations about how things work and how I'm thinking... My wife hates it when I do that, so I tend to just not write if I can't do that. I feel I'll bore people too much If I write that way, so I tend to just not do it.

The sad part is that I ingest SO MUCH WOW-BASED content each and every day, that I could probably write tons and tons if I just buckle down and do it. So, I'm going to try again to commit to writing every day. It may not always be about Macros. I also like to PvP and other stuff, I'll try to write about whatever I'm thinking about.

What saddens me is that - to date, noone has ever left me a comment. So, I just don't feel like I'm talking to anyone. Perhaps if I felt like someone was listening, I'd feel compelled to write more. /sigh.

Anyway, I'm planning to write more today to get myself going again.

Death to PUGs

You know what I hate about WSG?

You can assemble a top-notch team of players, hone their skills to the point that they are almost unkillable. You get them together, queue up for a WSG battleground, and prepare to fight.
Now, unless you brought enough of a team to cover BOTH offense and defense, (which means you pretty much run the whole raid) you have to do either offense or defense.

If you choose to Defend, you are at the mercy of the rest of the PUG players to go get the enemy's flag. When the enemy is good, they can't, and you end up repelling invaders again and again, but never get to bring the enemy flag home.

Now, if you play offense, you can go stomp the enemy to hell, take their flag, and bring it home, but invariably, the rest of the PUG cannot keep the enemy from taking your flag. Then, you end up sitting in your base, holding the enemy flag, repelling invaders bent on killing you, while the rest of your PUG tries in vain to organize themselves enough to go kill the enemy flag carrier that has your flag.

Either way, you watch a stalemate that just won't die.

The worst part is - when you play offense, and successfully take the enemy flag and bring it home, then pass off the flag to some other PUG group to defend while you go get your own flag back, they will be attacked and die the moment you're out of spitting distance.

Death to PUGs.

Troubleshooting Ventrilo

UDATE 3: I've expanded my Ventrilo troubleshooting section at Home Tech Lab. You should check it out, it might be easier to read than this older article.

Recently, a member of my PvP team (which I've recently started to call Team: Unstoppable) purchased a new headset so that he can communicate with us on our private Ventrilo server. He wasn't able to get it working, despite my attempts to guide him through checking everything. I've helped many people troubleshoot their Ventrilo settings when they first try to get it working, so I thought it would be useful to spell out the step-by-step troubleshooting routine that I usually use when walking someone through this. Note that this guide is intended for Windows XP. I have no intention of purchasing Vista any time soon.

The very first step is to plug in the mic. If it's just a microphone, you plug it into the microphone jack on your PC. If it's a headset combo with both a headphone plug and a mic plug, then you should plug them each into the proper jacks on your PC... (Unless your computer is one of those that disables the output to your speakers when you plug in headphones...)

The next step is to make sure that your computer is actually listening to the microphone. In Windows XP, your soundcard is capable of recording audio from one of many sources - but only ONE source at a time. To make sure that your soundcard is receiving input from your Microphone...

1) Double click on the speaker icon in your tray, down on the right next to the clock.

2) When the Volume Control window comes up, click on Options, and then Properties.

3) When the properties window comes up, pay attention to the name listed in the Mixer device: dropdown box. There -should- be only one name in the dropdown box... It should be the name of your soundcard. Take note of this, you may need this later for troubleshooting. If is more than one name in the dropdown box, make note of that too, as you make need to try different settings here to find your true microphone input.

4) There are radio buttons (the round buttons) next to the words Playback and Recording. Press the radio button for Recording.

5) In the box below, you should see checkmarks for all of the devices that your soundcard can receive audio input from. Make sure that the checkmark for Microphone is checked. You might also see something called "Stereo Mix"(or similar). I recommend you also hit the checkmark for Stereo Mix, since you can use that later to do some fun things with Ventrilo.

6) Click OK when the check marks are set. You should see the Volume Control window get replaced with the Recording control, and you should see slider controls for at least Microphone (and hopefully Stereo Mix).

7) Set the slider control for the Microphone to about halfway to start with. You should adjust this slider later if you need to make your microphone more or less powerful.

Now, leave that window open and start up Ventrilo.

8) in Ventrilo, click Setup. This will open the settings window. It doesn't matter if you're connected to a server or not.

9) On the first tab, at the top right, there is a dropdown box for Input Device, and another one for Output Device. You need to make sure the Input Device dropdown box is set to the same soundcard name as you saw in the properties window in step 3.

10) Now, click the Monitor button to start the monitor tool. If everthing is configured correctly by this point, you should see some numbers in the box in the middle of the settings window. These numbers represent the volume leven that the microphone is picking up. Normal numbers should be somewhere between 2 and 10 when you're not talking, and somewhere between 10 and 100 when speaking. If you're getting numbers like these, then your microphone is working properly.

From here, you should setup either Push-to-talk or voice activation levels, and click OK. Your Ventrilo should now be ready to use.

UPDATE: I've written a followup article on this, which you can find HERE!

UPDATE 2: I've opened a new website that focuses on issues like this. Home Tech Lab is a resource for troubleshooting technical issues in the home computer.

Macro Guide

Blizzard has just posted a very nice official Macro Guide. Go check it out!

2.2 Patch information about Macros

Great information on macros posted on the forums

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1778019289&pageNo=1&sid=1#0

Really useful information.  I should probably just post it all directly, but I don't know if that's really fair to those who found it all.  For now, just click through to the thread.

Patch Day!

So, today we have a patch day!

I will be reviewing macro information and posting anything notable that I find.

I remember reading something about Druid shapeshifting (cancel form) supposed to be being moved to client side, which means it can be used with /stopcasting. If this is true, I'll post updated shapeshift macros. UPDATE: It looks like this was moved to 2.3, and is NOT found in the 2.2 patch that came out today.

NEW Starcraft 2 unit review!

Ok, I fell prey to this.  I was looking on YouTube for any new Starcraft 2 information, and I happened upon THIS video.  I chuckled.  LOL.

New unexpected units!!!

World Series of Video Games - R. I. P.

So, I watched the WSVG on tv not to long ago. They featured some WoW arena action.

I was unimpressed.

The problem was in the way they covered the play-by-play. The announcers tried to call it like a football game or a wrestling match.

That's not going to work for gamers.

I was sitting there watching this thing, thinking to myself the whole time - How much is this guy hitting for? How much mana does that guy have left? What's this guy's spec? What's he wearing? What buffs does he have?

All I was getting is crap like "Oh, they're attacking {druid} now. Down he goes."

Until they understand what a gamer wants to hear, they're going to continue to screw this up.

Well, it looks like they didn't figure it out in time. WSVG has closed it's door. Shame. There was potential there.

Druid Wiki

Ok, this isn't directly related to macros, but my main is a druid so I find this information interesting.

There's a Wiki specifically for druids available at http://druid.wikispaces.com/

It's got some nice interesting stuff there.

Excellent information about Druid:Tree of Life

WoW Radio:World of Theorycraft recently did a show about resto Druids using Tree of Life Form with massive amounts of +healing to be some of the most powerful healers. It almost makes me want to drop feral myself and go back to being a pure healer. (nah... heh)

Well, today I also came across this post in the druid forum. Looks like someone calculated the maximum possible +healing a resto druid can currently gather.

Interesting :)

Another favorite Addon - Clique

I want to tell you about perhaps the most important addon you should have. It's Clique. If you have any spells, abilities, or items(bandages?) that you can use on party or raid members, then you should have Clique.

What does it do? It enables click-casting. Click-casting is when you cast a spell on target just by clicking on it's healthbar (usually while holding down shift, or ctrl, or alt, or a combination of these.)

Let me just give an example.

I'm on my priest in the BG. I'm partied with a Warrior and a Mage, and I'm targeting the enemy hunter that the warrior is attacking.
The warrior starts to take some damage, so I just right click on her healthbar, which causes me to cast Renew on her. This does NOT change my target - I'm still targeting the enemy hunter.
The mage in my group is also taking some damage, and I need to Flash Heal him. I hold down Alt and left-click on his healthbar and I cast Flash Heal.
Oh no, an enemy mage just sheeped my Warrior. I hold down Shift and left-click on my warrior's healthbar to cast Dispel Magic on the warrior to free her up.
My mage is still taking damage, so I decide I want to PW:Shield him. I hold down CTRL and SHIFT and left click him, and he's instantly shielded.

I hope you're getting the idea. I've got a bundle of spells that I can cast just by left or right clicking on the healthbars of my party members depending on what combination of modifier keys i'm holding down.

It's a little like playing a musical instrument. There are "chords" of keys you hold down to do various things.

I want to point out that I'm not a button clicker. By that, I mean that I hate clicking buttons on my action bar with my mouse to cast spells. I perfer to hotkey everything. Targeting a party or raid member, however, makes mouseclicking a necessary evil. There just isn't a more efficient way to select a raid member as the target of a spell than to click on their name in your party or in CT_RaidAssist's big block-o-names. Using Clique, I can combine the action of casting a spell and selecting the beneficiary of that spell in one motion.

Here's another useful example to illustrate the power of Clique.

I'm on my Druid raiding... whereever. I need to cast HoTs on a bunch of people.
I hold down CTRL and ALT...
I left-click warrior1
I left-click warrior2
I left-click rogue1
I left-click rogue2
etc...
I let go of CTRL and ALT.

Simple simple simple.

If you're not using Clique, you should be.

New favorite Addons

I've recently been testing out a pair of timer mods that I've fallen in love with...

First, there's Quartz. This is a casting timer bar replacement addon that does some awesome stuff. It replaces the default blizzard casting progress bar, but it shows some really great info such as casting time, time left, latency, spell name, spell icon, etc. It also shows you what your target is casting.

Above and beyond that, it also shows you timers for the buffs or debuffs on your target. This is awesome for me when I'm playing my druid because - as a bear tank - it's incredibly valuable to be able to see easily how much time is left on my lacerate debuff, my demo roar, and my mangle. As a mage, it lets me see how long I have on my sheep, Frost Nova, Frost Bite, etc. Since the game only gives you duration data on your own buffs/debuffs, it really helps to identify those buffs/debuffs that belong to me.

Second is Cooldown Timers 2. This is an Ace2 mod that has a brilliant configuration scheme. What it does is monitor your abilities and items with a cooldown and shows a progress bar for each one. Also, when a cooldown ends, it alerts you with text on screen and a pleasant sound. When you install it, there are some boxes in the middle of your screen - just drag those to some nice spots and shift-left click the boxes to lock them down. I suggest casting some spells that use cooldowns before you lock them down so you can see how it will look before you lock it.

Very very awesome mods. :)

Mage BG macros

So, I got my Mage up to 28 and took him to AB a few times. He was just cannon fodder in WSG at 19, but my survival is much better at 29 due to better survival tools (mana shield, blink, etc)

So, one very important macro I've been using alot is my Counterspell macro. It's very simple, but very powerful.

/stopcasting
/cast Counterspell

Another critically important macro that I use in the 29 BG's is this one:

/use [target=player, nochanneling] Heavy Runecloth Bandage

Hehehe The trick is that you can USE a Heavy Runecloth Bandage as long as you can get your first aid up to 225; you just can't make them yourself. AFAIK, there is no level requirement for first aid up to 225. It just takes an investment. HRB can heal 2000 damage in 8 seconds. Since my health is only 500, I can heal to full in 2 seconds with these. Unfortuntely, as a mage, my mana is my health (with liberal use of mana shield), and noone can simply "heal" my mana back. /cry I shoulda been a 'lock.

Macro of the Day

Here is my Macro of the day:

This is for my shadow priest. I specifically spec'd into improved mind blast only enough to reduce it's cooldown to exactly 6 seconds for this macro.

/startattack
/castsequence [nochanneling] reset=5 Mind Blast, Mind Flay, Mind Flay;

Ok, here's what it does:

First, it ensures that I'm in combat with my target. If I'm not swinging my staff, I should be.
Next, it

Next, it starts casting Mind Blast if I'm not in the middle of channelling a spell (such as Mind Flay). Once Mind Blast is finished casting, Mind Blast starts cooldown at exactly 6 seconds.

Next, the macro starts casting Mind Flay. Mind Flay is a channeled spell, and lasts 3 seconds (if not interupted).

Next, it casts Mind Flay again. Since I spam this button rapidly, the two back-to-back Mind Flays are seamless, and to the target it looks like I've got a 6 second long Mind Flay.

Since the macro features [nochanneling], the macro itself will not interupt Mind Flay so even when I spam the button continuously, the Mind Flay's execute smoothly.

The 5 second reset makes sure that if I stop spamming the key before both Mind Flay's are cast, the macro will reset by the time Mind Blast is up again.

On occasion, I need to snare a target indefinately (WSG ftw!). To do that, I use a variation of the macro that is bound to the same key plus Alt. Here's that macro:

/cast [nochanneling] Mind Flay

This one very simply only casts Mind Flay, but it does it continuously. If I get hit, it recasts it instantly (assuming I'm rapidly spamming the button) so to the target, it appears that he can't break my Mind Flay snare. Oddly enough, my enemies seem to hate that. :P If they manage to hit me during the global cooldown, (first half of Mind Flay), then it appears to break the Mind Flay stream for a short moment, but it recasts as soon as GCD is done.

This same concept works with other single target channeled spells like Arcane Missiles and the Night Elf' priest's Starshards.

Enjoy

Ultimate macro to Mount Up!

Here's a link to an incredible thread about mount macros!

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=110633869

Thanks Troodi of Maelstrom!

New upcoming Macro commands?

I just read about some new macro commands that will be available in {an upcoming} patch. Here's the skinny:

Macro Commands
* NEW - /petautocasttoggle
* NEW - /targetlastenemy, /targetlastfriend
* NEW - /targetexact
* UPDATED - /cancelform will be recognized instantly (as /dismount is currently)

There is speculation that the thing with /cancelform will allow druids to shift directly from one form to another without visibly appearing in caster form at all, or to begin casting caster spells directly from feral form(i.e. instantly shift out when you start casting a spell like Healing Touch) I imagine a natures swiftness/healing touch macro will now be totally instant from feral form to healed. ouch to pvp opponents!

How to create macros in World of Warcraft

Today, I'm going to describe the very basic steps to creating and using macros.

This article is for those of you who have never used a WoW macro because you don't know how to set one up. Perhaps you've heard about macros and wanted to try using one, but you're intimidated at the thought of (gasp!) PROGRAMMING !!! Don't worry, I'm going to hold your hand through the entire process.

First, log into the game. That seems pretty simple ;)

Next, it's often helpful to open your spellbook. You can use your spellbook to help fill in exact spell names in macros. You open your spellbook by clicking the little Book icon to the right of your action bar, or by pressing P (assuming you haven't changed the keybinding for it)

Now, type in /macro and hit enter. (You can also access macros from the game menu by hitting escape (or clicking the computer looking icon to the right of your action bar) and then clicking macro... but at this point, I highly recommend that you get used to typing in some slash commands like /macro.)

This brings up the macro window. This window has two sections, top and bottom. On the top, you have 18 button slots for macros, and two tabs across the top that essentially separate your macros into two pages. The "General Macros" tab is a page where any macros you make will be visible to every character on your account, no matter which game realm/server you play on. The "{character name} Specific Macros" tab is another page with another 18 macro slots that is unique to the specific character that you are logged in with. This means you have access to 36 individual macros per character, however 18 of those are shared by all of your characters.

When you create your macros, they will appear as buttons in one of these 18 button slots, and you can drag a copy of the button from there to your action bar exactly the same way you drag spells from your spellbook to your action bar.

The bottom section is the actual macro editor. It has a button to show you what icon goes on your macro, the name of your macro, and the macro commands that make up what your macro is. There is also a button for changing the name or icon of your macro and and indicator to show you how many characters your macro is (it can not be longer than 255 characters).

To create a macro, first choose which tab your macro should be on. If you want this macro to be just for this character, click the character Specific Macros tab. Otherwise, just select the General Macros tab.

Next, on the bottom, click the New button.

This brings up a little side window with a box into which you must type the name for your macro. The name you enter here will show up as a word on your macro button. You must also select an icon for your macro. You can select from a huge number of icons - they have just about every class's spell icons, icons for mounts and buffs, etc. You are even allowed to use an icon for a spell for a class that isn't the same as what you're playing (i.e. if you're playing a druid, you can select the mage's fireball spell icon if you want)

There is one special icon you can use. The first one, the question mark icon is special. When you use the question mark icon, the macro will automatically substitute the question mark for the actual icon of whatever spell your macro contains once you drag it out onto your action bar. The question mark icon can even automatically change itself depending on the conditionals you macro might use. More on that later ;)

Once you have chosen a name and icon for your macro, click the Okay button.

Now you're ready to start typing in the commands for your macro.

If this is your first macro, you should start with something easy. Here's an example:

/cast Fireball

This macro, when activated (by a mage) would cast a fireball spell at your current target (if you have one).

If you had your spellbook open, you can make typing this macro easier by shift-clicking Fireball in your spellbook. Then, edit the macro to remove the part that says (Rank 4).

It doesn't seem like much of an improvement over just using the usual Fireball(Rank 4) icon, but actually this macro will do something useful - it automatically selects the highest rank of fireball spell that you have. So, if you make this macro today and the highest rank of Fireball that you have is Rank 4, then when you train to get Rank 5, the macro would automatically start choosing rank 5 since it's your highest rank.

When you finish your macro, you should drag the icon for it down onto a slot on your action bar. Then it's ready to use.

To use a macro, click it's icon, or press the keyboard/mouse button that goes to that action bar slot. You can change the keyboard button for a slot by editing your keybindings. I'll talk more about that later.

That's it! You've now an expert in creating macros. Using the steps I've outlined, you can create new macros and use them on all your World of Warcraft characters.

Now that you know how to create macros, go check out some of the various macro posting on the wow message boards or other places on the net that feature WoW macros.

Good Luck!

Riposte/SS macro

Here's a recent post I made on the Blizzard Forums in responce to a poster asking for a Riposte/Sinister Strike macro. Another Poster responded that it is no longer possible.

This is because you can no longer have a macro conditionally decide between two spells based on combat status such as "you just parried".

A castrandom macro could be made to randomly select between Riposte and SS, but even after you do parry an attack, the macro would still have a random chance to select SS instead of Riposte, blowing your opportunity to use Riposte. You could weight Riposte as more likely to be selected (i.e. /castrandom Riposte, Riposte, Riposte, Sinister Strike <-- this gives 75% chance to try Riposte, and 25% chance to try Sinister Strike), but what happens here is that when you haven't parried, 3 out of every 4 keypresses will result in "That ability is not ready" type of messages. If you spam the button fast enough, this could be a workable solution, but it would sure make your trigger finger tired fast ;)

These types of /castrandom macros are better suited to an ability that has a cooldown. For example, on my druid, I use "/castrandom Nature's Grasp, Faerie Fire()(Feral), Mangle(Cat), Mangle(Cat)". When I spam this macro, the cooldowns for Nature's Grasp (60 seconds) and FF (6 seconds) are usually down, making Mangle(Cat) the only workable choice. This type of macro works because if a castrandom macro fails due to the spell being in cooldown, it does NOT trigger the global cooldown, so you can spam this kind of macro as fast as you can. The extra Mangle is in there to change the weighting so that Mangle has a 50% chance of being selected and the other two spells each have 25% chance of being selected. This makes sure I will eventually get them off, but priority is on Mangle.

What makes these work differently than the Riposte/SS random is that neither NG or FF have an opening requirement, so when they do come up, they will work - eventually. Since Riposte has an opening requirement, it might not go off. If I remember correctly, these conditional spells have a "window of opportunity" where they are available for a few seconds when the condition happens. If that's the case, then a castrandom with Riposte would work, but don't be angry if you happen to get a streak of bad luck and your castrandom macro decides to SS every time GCD is up instead of using Riposte.

My recommendation: keep your conditionals on their own buttons, or change your macro so that you Riposte when you press a modifier key like alt, ctrl, or shift. Then, use something that will alert you to the opportunity like Scrolling Combat Text (SCT), and just be on your toes ;)

Replacing the SwiftShift addon

Well, first things first. This first macro post is for my Druid readers.

I was the author of SwiftShift, and I've fully replaced SwiftShift with the new in-game macros. Here I will introduce the macros that I have been using in game to replace it.

Here is my Bear Form macro. It actually combines Bear Form and Feral Charge into one macro, which I find to be very helpful.

#showtooltip Feral Charge
/cast [stance:1] Feral Charge; [nostance] Dire Bear Form
/cancelform [stance:2/3/4/5]

This macro is designed to be spammed until it works. If you just want to get into bear form, spam the macro until you're in bear. If you also want to Feral Charge your target, keep spamming the button until you charge. It will take you out of any other form and put you into Bear Form. The tooltip part is nice because it lets you see the cooldown of Feral Charge on your bear button.

Note that if you are under level 40, simply remove the word "Dire" from the macro.

Ok, next is my macro for Cat Form. This macro combines Cat Form and Prowl into one macro, which makes for a very useful "oh crap! HIDE!" macro.

#Showtooltip Prowl
/cast [stance:3,nostealth] Prowl; [nostance] Cat Form
/cancelform [stance:1/2/4/5]

This macro will put you in Cat Form from any other form. Again, the Tooltip part is to allow you to see the cooldown on your Prowl.

Next is the mother of all shape-shift macros, my All-terrain Travel Form macro.

/cast [nostance:5, flyable, nocombat, outdoors, noswimming] Flight Form; [nostance:2, swimming] Aquatic Form; [nostance:4, outdoors, combat] [nostance:4, outdoors, noflyable, noswimming] Travel Form
/cancelform [stance:1/3] [stance:4, nocombat, flyable]

This macro is awesome! Again, it's designed to be spammed until you get what you need. First, if you're in Cat Form or Bear Form, it will shift you out of either of those forms. If you're in Outland, and you're in a place where it is legal to fly, and you are NOT in combat, (and you have it...) it will shift you into flight form. If you ARE in combat, it will shift you into Travel Form instead. If you keep spamming it, as soon as you come out of combat, it will shift you out of Travel Form and into Flight Form. If you happen to be swimming, it will put you in Aquatic form instead. If you are not in Outland, it will only put you into Travel Form instead of Flight Form.

I'll come back to this macro at a later time to do a complete breakdown of how it works. WoW macros are really cool these days.

One more macro: For players who are under level 68 and don't have flight form yet, you should use this macro instead, as it will put you into Travel Form even when flight form would be available

/cancelform [stance:1/3]
/cast [nostance:2, swimming] Aquatic Form;[nostance:4, outdoors, noswimming] Travel Form

This one does the same as above, but only uses Aquatic Form and Travel Form, even when you're in Outland. Upgrade to the other macro as soon as you hit level 68, and get flight form. Good luck collecting the 600 gold for Riding Skill 150. (as a bonus, Flight Form automatically bumps you to 225 riding skill for FREE!!! 300 Riding skill will still cost you 5000 gold)

That's it for tonight, check back for more Macros!

A little about myself

Let me tell you a little about myself.

I've been playing WoW since before it's release. I got in to the beta during the final stress testing phases of the game, and have been playing ever since.

I am the creator of a few "Addons" for the game, namely Buffbot, Swiftshift, and my most important - Mouselook. All of which were specifically intended to improve the user interface as I played the game.

Before WoW, I played Dark age of Camelot, which is another Mmorpg. In that game, I played an Albion Highlander Minstrel known as Jjoe Nitro, and I became famous for charming high level mobs and running around with them in Emain Macha killin' Hibbies. :) Doing that required deep knowledge of how the keyboard worked with the game, and a deep knowledge of how the spells of the Minstrel actually worked.

When I started playing WoW, I found the controls to be strikingly similar, but subtly different enough to cause a problem. I still remember the very first day AFTER the very first night I played the beta of WoW - my right arm practically fell off my body. zOMG it ached sooo badly, I wished I could have ripped it off my body.

Why did it hurt so badly? Simple. In WoW, to look around using the mouse, you simply hold down the right mouse button. The problem is that I was holding down that button for 4 hours straight. You see, In DAoC, I played using the mouselook feature turned on full time, and used a "mouselook toggle" button to play. That means normally my mouse cursor was NOT on the screen, and I had to hold down a button when I wanted to click things with the cursor. This worked well for me since I executed every command using hotkeys - that is commands bound to the keyboard. When I tried to play the same way in WoW by holding down the mouse button, after several hours, my whole arm from my middle finger up to my shoulder ached.

It didn't take me long to discover that the user interface in WoW was fully customizable, and that a mod called LookLock already existed to do what I needed. It was part of the Cosmos suite, a UI addon compilation that has been available to the game since before even I started playing it. Once I downloaded LookLock, I realized it was close to what I wanted, but not quite...

So, I modified it. I took the code from LookLock and threw away most of it and kept just the part that engaged the mouselook mode, and dynamically assigned the left and right mouse buttons to move backward and move foward respectively - Just like how it works in DAoC. Over time, Mouselook has evolved into what it is today. I still use it, and frankly if I didn't have it, I wouldn't play the game. period.

When Blizzard prepared to release the expansion, The Burning Crusade, they released a massive update to the way UI mods work that threatened to kill Mouselook completely. They made it so that Mouselook would not be able to dynamically remap the mouse buttons while combat was happening! Talk about gimping you at the worst possible moment! I was ready to cancel my account and not look back. Anyway, I worked with one of the greatest Blizzard guys - Slouken - and we came up with a way to keep Mouselook working without it being considered an exploit. Thank you Blizzard!

Today I still play a Druid, although it's the 5th druid I've started. I play with some personal friends of mine on the Illidan server, on the Horde side. I've also played on Thunderlord, Arthas, Skullcrusher, Warsong, Dark Iron, and a few other servers.

That's enough for now, I want to go play :P

Welcome to World of MACROcraft

Welcome to World of MACROcraft!

This blog is about the game World of Warcraft and specifically, how you control the game.

I intend to discuss the in-game macro system, keyboard and mouse control, addons/mods, and anything else that might relate to how you interact with your computer while playing the game.

To me, a good user interface is like a musical instrument. Over time, your hands (or whatever you use) will learn to translate your thoughts into actions instantly without looking at the keys or thinking about how to push the right buttons to do the action you want to do - you think of the action and it happens on screen.

I invite any questions or comments from anyone who happens to read this blog. I truely hope that I can contribute something useful to the WoW community.

-Trimble