Strange Macro Behavior -- Any Ideas ?

[Nighthawk38]

Hello Everyone,

In an effort to "fix" my subpar DPS on my toons, I decided to break down their macros and see if I could find where the problem might be.

I was working with my Ele Shaman this morning, and ran across something I thought unusual. Any advice, help, or suggestions to fix this would be greatly appreciated.

Macro for Lava Burst : /castsequence reset=combat/target Lava Burst,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

(I mash my dps button at a steady 2 clicks per second) When I place this macro on my action bar that my /click macro points to, all by itself, it works flawlessly. It casts a Lava Burst, and casts the next Lava Burst right after the CD expires.

HOWEVER, when I place it with other macros in the /click, the lava burst sometimes fails to cast, and after it DOES cast, the next lava burst doesn't fire until 4 to 6 presses of the dps key AFTER it has come off CD.

The entire /click macro I am currently using is below

/click MultiBarLeftButton1
/click MultiBarLeftButton2
/click MultiBarLeftButton3
/click MultiBarLeftButton4
/click MultiBarLeftButton5

Button 1: /castsequence reset=combat/target Flame Shock,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,

Button 2: /castsequence reset=combat/target Lava Burst,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Button 3: /cast Lightning Bolt

The other two buttons are currently empty.

[Oatboat]

Only thing i can think of is if you are pushing it while you are casting lightning bolt its going to keep going so you might be skipping lava burst and going right back into another lightning bolt.

Since Lightning bolt is a 2 second cast before haste.

[kate]

Would throwing in a /stopcasting before the flameshock and lava burst macros make you stop casting a lighting bolt and cast either of those?

So,

/stopcasting
/castsequence reset=combat/target Lava Burst,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

on one button?

[Oatboat]

Well if you put that /stopcasting in there if he hits it before his lightning bolt or lava burst is complete before he hits his flameshock rotation it will interrupt and keep interrupting.

Did you try removing the last 2 buttons from your macro? Or you could throw in
/castsequence Water Shield,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, on 4 and delete the 5th

I dont know if that would hold it up but it might.

[DLoweinc]

are you sure it isn't because you have the lava burst macro set to reset on target? since it has a cooldown it could get stuck if you change targets just after casting it and it will have to wait until the cooldown is up.

When I'm checking my click macros I either have the #showtooltip as the spell i'm casting so I can watch when the cooldown is up, or I pull the spell from the spellbook and place it above that button so I can watch when the spell comes off of cooldown. I do this to make sure that things fire right after they come off of cooldown.

I have an addon that puts a cooldown timer on the button itself so I can easily watch this from my action bar.

As others said, if you can't find the problem, try removing the two blank/empty buttons from your click macro. i don't see why they would cause this behavior but it's worth ruling them out.

[Ualaa]

With a click macro, it tries to run them all at once.
If you put a stopcasting anywhere in the macro, then you'd constantly interrupt anything that is not an instant cast, so only the Flame Shock would go off.

If an earlier spell is on cooldown, then a later spell cannot fire off, unless the first is on the comma (null) stage. So if you don't have enough commas in the macro, then it will hang on whatever spell until that spell is available.

I wouldn't have a reset=target for the LavaBurst, as it is on a fixed cooldown which means if you do switch targets it will attempt to cast. If it happens to be on cooldown, then Lightning Bolts cannot fire off. Reset=Target in the Flame Shock is less critical, as you can Flame Shock a lot more often... but this will sometimes hang as well.

[Maxion]

With a click macro, it tries to run them all at once.
If you put a stopcasting anywhere in the macro, then you'd constantly interrupt anything that is not an instant cast, so only the Flame Shock would go off.

If an earlier spell is on cooldown, then a later spell cannot fire off, unless the first is on the comma (null) stage. So if you don't have enough commas in the macro, then it will hang on whatever spell until that spell is available.

I wouldn't have a reset=target for the LavaBurst, as it is on a fixed cooldown which means if you do switch targets it will attempt to cast. If it happens to be on cooldown, then Lightning Bolts cannot fire off. Reset=Target in the Flame Shock is less critical, as you can Flame Shock a lot more often... but this will sometimes hang as well.

Flame Shock cooldown is as long as that of Lava Burst, so I would have neither of them reset on target change.

[Nighthawk38]

Thank you all for the replies. I have tried all of the suggestions mentioned, but nothing has solved the issue. Guess I'll just have to deal with it for the time being.

If I discover how to solve the problem, I'll post an update.

Thanks again

[Maxion]

Thank you all for the replies. I have tried all of the suggestions mentioned, but nothing has solved the issue. Guess I'll just have to deal with it for the time being.

If I discover how to solve the problem, I'll post an update.

Thanks again

Could be that your number of commas need to be adjusted to your key spam rate. Maybe.

[Ualaa]

Flame Shock cooldown is as long as that of Lava Burst, so I would have neither of them reset on target change.

Depending how you are spec'd.

Lavaburst is an 8 second cooldown.
Flame Shock is a base 6 second cooldown, but can be talented to (-1/-2 or /-.2/-.4/-.6/-.8/-1.0) seconds.

I wouldn't really go with reset=target on either, either, but when I was testing my own click the reset=target almost never causes the click to stick with a four second cooldown and always having a Flame Shock on any target when the Lava Burst fires off is a bonus.

Since you have the GCD anyway (from the last cast), with Booming Echoes you're looking at up to 2.5 second of the click being stuck (if you use reset=target) vs two casts of Lava Burst which are not guaranteed criticals. The reset=target is a tougher choice for the Flame Shock then the Lava Burst which will lock the click for 8 seconds on a target switch.





The Shammy click I'm using is (I spam at 2 clicks per second):


/Cast Elemental Mastery
/Click MultiBarBottomRightButton7
/Click MultiBarBottomRightButton8
/Click MultiBarBottomRightButton9
/Click MultiBarBottomRightButton10
/use 13
/use 14

Shaman 1 (Flame Shock - 18 sec)
#show Flame Shock
/castsequence reset=combat Flame Shock,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Shaman 2 (Lava Burst - 8 sec Cooldown)
#show Lava Burst
/castsequence reset=combat Lava Burst,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Shaman 3 (Chain Lighting - 6 Sec (3.5 Talented).)
#show Chain Lightning
/castsequence reset=combat Chain Lightning,,,,,,

Shaman 4 (Lightning Bolt fall-through)
#show Lightning Bolt
/cast Lightning Bolt