Insanely Easy WOW Macro Guide page 4: You're NOT going to make a macro: Macro theory

Awe, the posts seemed so cheerful till now, we were going to make a macro, we were learning so much. But I have to play Debbie Downer and tell you what is impossible, and what I simply suggest you don't make.




This is page 4 of the guide, if you haven't started at the intro, do so now, otherwise, read on.

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


Read on







Make your macros yours. It's an opinion, my opinion to be exact. A quick internet search for "WOW Macros" will send you on a long glorious trip through 1412353466 macros, many seemingly made just for the sake of making macros, some quite useful. Anything with 'one button' in the title I'm usually not a huge fan of. I'd still browse the heck out of the macros online, but I'd consider it window shopping. One could easily re-post the ridiculous amount of macros easily found online and get responses varying from "epic thread" to "...... ok, so how do I _______"


I don't want my macros to make decisions for me, usually. Some were a help as I first hit 80 and not so much now as I am capable of quickly making decisions for myself. Ask yourself "is this fancy, or is it what I need?" and also "is this very convenient sometimes, but other times will get me killed?". For example, there are many spammable dispel macros that can dispel off you, if nothing on you then your target, if nothing on them then your target's target, etc. That was darling before I learned what needed to be dispelled and what was less of a threat. A lot of good it does me to dispel off my target's target's target when I was trying to dispel an immolate cast off of my pal, triggering the global cooldown, and getting him crit to death. Why do it when I can choose on my own when I dispel and whom? For another example, there are many dot casting sequence macros, that's a blast untill a spell gets dispelled, resisted, or misses. Then you have to recast all of them to get that one back on them, for a waste of mana, tick overwrites, and wasted time.


What I'm going to want from you is a promise that you wont make terrible macros. The best macros are YOUR macros. Don't let the internet or me strong arm you into using dumb macros that don't fit with your play style.


"What can't macros do?" I'm glad you asked, pretend person I'm conversing with for the purpose of a segue.


Macros can't cast multiple spells at once that have global cooldowns. You will have to /castsequence or otherwise set up the macro and tap it multiple times. I usually don't like these macros anyways.


Macros can't target your aoe for you, it's sad, but there is no "center my aoe on my target" command.


Macros cannot perform actions and then wait to perform other actions without a further button press. In fact, they don't seem to be able to even delay a chat message anymore, which is sad as I used that for some cooldown reporting action.


Also, one of the most common requests for a macro is "I want a macro that will swap from my target to me, then cast _______ on me, then re-target my target." That's actually possible, but you simply don't want to do it. Don't over complicate things. That macro should simply be a /cast [target=player] your spell... type of thing, macros can cast on other targets without actually changing target, like our mouseover macro from earlier, it didn't change our target to the mouseover.


With that basic knowledge and what you've learned so far, you can open the next part of the tutorial, which has a command, conditional, etc. library and make what you like. I'm confident you're already prepared to make most of what you want to make. I can tell you that there are no macros I want to make for myself that I have been unable to. Browse through the macros you find, anything that looks interesting to you from now on you can paste into the explain-o-matic and dissect it. Then swap out it's identifiable parts to make it behave as you wish. Later I'm going to teach you how to micro manage your macros, how to get rid of unnecessary script pieces, advanced commands and techniques, and some fancy mouse script action that will save you a bundle on your car insurance... or at least a gaming mouse.


For now you are ready to edit macros and make your own stuff out of them. Don't worry about how pretty the final product is, just focus on getting them working as you intend.


To get your macros in game, type /m and hit enter, choose whether the macro is for all your characters or that specific one. Hit new, and copy paste what you've created in there after giving it a name.


Enjoy.


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