Insanely Easy WOW Macro Guide page 3: You're going to make a macro, part 2

This is part 3 of the tutorial, if you haven't already, start out at the intro :)

Introduction
Page 2: You're going to make a macro, part 1
Page 3: You're going to make a macro, part 2
Page 4: You're not going to make a macro: Basic Macro Theory
Page 5: Basic Macro Commands list


Or, read on.








At this point the photo part of the tutorial is gone. Follow along as I hack up some of my warlock macros, using the explain-o-matic. Listen to the reasons, and watch how the macros evolve. Then I'll rock some basic examples to copy paste into the explain-o-matic just for you to dissect and check out.






--Soulburn Smart Summoning


Will use Soulburn to summon your felguard only if you are in combat, otherwise it will summon regularly.


#showtooltip Summon Felguard
/cast [combat] Soulburn

/cast Summon Felguard


This does what is says above. I used the Fel Domination version of this before. Now let's make it "work for you". Let's take a look at the things we can change to make it yours, and make it act like you wish. Summon felguard can be changed to summon succubus, summon felhunter, etc. for the pet you want. That's one edit we can plainly see.


#showtooltip Summon Felhunter
/cast [combat] Soulburn

/cast Summon Felhunter


Another is [combat] which is a condition in which the macro is modified to also cast the instant cast, no global cooldown, spell of Soulburn. I may now want to use it more often when running and hiding around a wall, etc. So let's make that decision ours instead of the game's. Replacing [combat] as a situational to [mod:alt] makes this macro ignore whether I am in combat or not, and allows me to decide by holding alt when I hit my macro when to use the cooldown.




#showtooltip Summon Felhunter
/cast [mod:alt] Soulburn

/cast Summon Felhunter


Sweet. What else do I want this macro to do for me? Well, It'd be nice to know the cooldown situation of Soulburn before I hop back into the fray of combat, wouldn't it? #showtooltip Summon Felhunter replaced with #showtooltip Soulburn lets me see the CD of Soulburn rather than the icon for felhunter.



#showtooltip Soulburn

/cast [mod:alt] Soulburn

/cast Summon Felhunter




This is a pretty hot looking macro for what I want, now. I can only think of one thing to make it better. I'd like to be able to tap the button again to add soul link to the mix. /cast can be replaced with /castsequence to allow me to add spells that will be cast after the first set, with a second tap of the macro. Note how they are separated by a comma and space, also note that in this instance the spell cannot be added in with simply another /cast line, as the macro would fail due to the global cooldown. After the global cooldown I'll simply tap the macro again to cast soul link.


#showtooltip Soulburn
/cast [mod:alt] Soulburn

/castsequence Summon Felhunter, soul link


Only one problem now, I may get stun locked and totally messed up after hitting the macro either with the Soulburn or without, and this would leave me on soul link with no pet to link to next time I tapped it. A minor issue for sure, but 2 taps instead of one and having to be aware of such things in battle can cause death. So if I want my macro to make this many decisions for me, I better make it just a little smarter. Or, of course, I could decide to cast soul link on my own. But macros have the ability to reset themselves on variable changes, etc. if you tell them to. They can reset when you change target, etc. In this case I think I want 20 seconds to cast soul link, after which the macro will reset. If I'm in a situation where I can't soul link within 20 seconds I think I'm out of luck anyways.


#showtooltip Soulburn
/cast [mod:alt] Soulburn

/castsequence reset=20 Summon Felhunter, soul link


There, I think we've taken this popular macro and adjusted it to my own needs and wants. I hope you can follow that well enough, but that I'm also not sounding like a teacher that thinks you're slow, lol.

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Playing with that action and the reset has me thinking about another macro I have used in the past.


#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=120 Fel Healthstone, Runic Healing Potion




This macro served me well long ago to use my healthstone, and if it was already used, within the 2 minute CD use a health pot instead. In this instance with show tooltip with nothing written after it, it swaps to my next cast item/spell. So after I use my health stone it will display my health pot, and I'll know what I'm on. But now I have a few changes to make, and updates. I want to use alt on the same macro to make a new healthstone.




#showtooltip
/cast [mod:alt] Create Healthstone
/castsequence reset=120 Fel Healthstone, Runic Healing Potion




Above the cast sequence we now have a mod situation that when I hold alt is activated, and I create a new healthstone. Now I'm going to decide between 2 things. Is it more helpful that I make a new stone and that resets the macro, even if my cooldown on it isn't up, or that my macro reset even when I have no new healthstone to use. I used to survive a lot less, and it was less of an issue, lol. But I believe that there are few situations in which I'm ready to make a new healthstone but not ready to deal with the CD. Therefor I'm going to try out making the reset depend on the macro being tapped with the same mod that making a new healthstone uses. By using the same modifier key to trigger both events my macro kind of decided on the reset while I use what I'd be doing anyways to make a new healthstone. However, to keep the decisions mine, in case of the extremely unusual circumstance that I make a new healthstone before my CD is up, I've decided I want to only monitor my healthstone icon, to decide when to make a new one, as well. Which is lucky, as the way I set up my alt reset would have canceled the other display anyways. The alternative and multiple cast sequences on one macro with modifiers is a little too much for this tutorial.




#showtooltip Fel Healthstone
/cast [mod:alt] Create Healthstone
/castsequence reset=alt Fel Healthstone, Runic Healing Potion






Truth is I have healing injectors thanks to the new engineering buff to their healing when used by engineers, but I want to keep this understandable for everyone. Now when I use alt to create a new healthstone my macro also uses that alt to reset itself. If I felt like it I could mod this macro further to either give it a different reset and have it use whichever happened first, a different mod, or the 120 seconds. Or I could create another modifier command that used health pot for when my health stone was on CD but I had already reset the macro by creating another. Like I said this really never happens, so I believe I'll leave it like this until I feel like it needs more work, by trying it out and seeing if it ever gets me killed, :)

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Here are a few macros to copy paste into the explain-o-matic and just check out to get some more ideas going.

/cast [nochanneling: Drain Life] Drain Life

#showtooltip Demonic Circle: Teleport
/cast [mod:alt] Demonic Circle: Summon; [nomod] Demonic Circle: Teleport;

#showtooltip Devour Magic
/cast [modifier:alt, pet:Felhunter] Devour Magic; [pet:Felhunter, target=player] Devour Magic

/petattack [target=mouseover]

/castsequence [target=mouseover] Corruption, Curse of Agony

/stopcasting/cast Earth Shock

/cast [nomodifier:alt] Lightning Shield; Water Shield

#showtooltip/stopcasting/cast [stance][combat,nomounted] Ghost Wolf;/dismount [mounted]

#showtooltip/cast [modifier] Revive Pet; [pet=dead] Revive Pet; [nopet] Call Pet; Mend Pet

Browse some more macros now if you like:

http://wowmacroswiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

You've got one more page of me before I suggest you try some of your own. 

Introduction
Page 2: You're going to make a macro, part 1

Page 3: You're going to make a macro, part 2
Page 4: You're not going to make a macro: Basic Macro Theory

Page 5: Basic Macro Commands list