Macros, cooldowns and trinkets

So, this is my current DPS macro on a frost mage with glyphed water elemental:

#show Frostbolt
/cast [nopet] Summon Water Elemental
/cast [pet] Waterbolt
/cast icy veins
/cast focus magic
/cast presence of mind
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Frostbolt

Now, it works fine most of the time, but it sometimes get 'stuck' when water elemental dies and is on cooldown, or sometimes when trinkets are on cooldown and I'm in combat - not all the time, but sometimes - Basically it gives me ability or item not ready yet when I spam it.

Since I don't quite have been able to find out when it does this or not, I would need some help to decipher what this macro does and potential hangups in it.

Your casting focus magic on your foe. Likely you want to move that focus magic over to your buff routine.

http://www.macroexplain.com/

If it was just focus magic you could change that line to

/cast [@player] focus magic

of course, auto self cast option would clear that up.
Also changing your trinkets to

/use 13 [combat]

helps you get the most out of your trinket time.

I never did hear how the option I gave you worked last time you asked this question here http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=27449

The other suggestion I have is to move your elemental macro to another button if it dies often enough that cool down isn't up and rewrite macro like this

/cast Frostbolt
/cast icy veins
/cast focus magic
/cast presence of mind
/use 13
/use 14

Thanks guys, and sorry for the lack of feedback Solon, I didn't try that as I have yet to go to a dummy and time a click macro - And for frost I would have prefered if it wasn't needed.

But, to rephrase this slightly - Is it a correct assumption that:

/cast a
/use z
/cast b

will keep casting a if it's not on cooldown (on repetetive presesse), if a is on cooldown, it will try and use z, and if that is on cooldown it will cast b - ie b will be cast on the "3rd" press if a and item z isnt available to use?

I'm not only trying to get the macro to work, but also understand the principle as it confuses me ;)

I'm essentially using the same macro, on my Frost mage.
The spells are the same, but the ordering is a tad different.

I've got Icy Veins, Focus Magic, Presence of Mind, and both trinkets in there.
I have the summon pet, and [pet] Waterbolt in there too.

My pet hasn't died much.
It's more a case of not having it out, after a flight somewhere.
I'm using a Disc priest as healer, on my mixed team, which has the frost mage on it.
So a lot of instant cast Holy Nova spam for heals; can spam it all day, basically.

Not exactly Perrigrin. Instant spells and trinkets are different than spells with casting time. If I understand it correctly myself, your macro gets hung up on casting water elemental when you have no pet and the cooldown is not ready. In that case frostbolt will not get cast until elemental is off cooldown and you have a pet again. The instant spells and trinkets can go after a spell with casting time and still trigger. They don't really follow the order that they are listed in.
So:
/cast frostbolt
/use 13
/cast fireball
should cast frostbolt and use trinket 13, then do nothing until frostbolt or trinket is ready again, fireball will never cast.

/castsequence fireball,
/cast frostbolt
/use 13

should cast fireball, use trinket, cast frostbolt, then hang until fireball is ready again. The fireball line will not advance until fireball is cast again. If you want to have 2 cast time spells on separate lines in one macro you must disable the first one somehow before triggering the second, thus

/cast [nopet] elemental
/cast frostbolt
works great, as long as your pet never dies while the ability is still on cooldown. When you have a pet it ignores the first line and goes to the second.

If you really have that much trouble with macro hanging over casting elemental, then you should move it to a new macro.
Once again, I would move trinkets and instant cast spells after your frostbolt. If you are worried about wasting them on 1 cast trash do this:

/cast [nopet] Summon Water Elemental
/cast [pet] Waterbolt
/cast Frostbolt
/cast [combat] icy veins
/cast [combat] focus magic
/cast [combat] presence of mind
/use 13 [combat]
/use 14 [combat]

If you absolutely NEED them used before your first cast of frostbolt then I can try to come up with something else, but I know it will mean a /click macro for sure.

All of the non-GCD abilities will fire off on the first press.
At least the first press where all the conditionals are true.

The first ability on the GCD will hang or cast.
And then the next.

If you are short on characters, /use and /cast, function the same.

You could go with:

/use [nopet,mod] Summer Water Elemental
/use [pet] Waterbolt
/use Frostbolt
/use [combat] Icy Veins
/use Focus Magic
/use Presence of Mind
/use 13 [combat]
/use 14 [combat]

The macro with a mod key will summon the pet.
Without the mod key, it will not try to summon the pet, which means it cannot hang, if there is no pet and the pet is on cooldown.
I believe Presence of Mind only fires off on offensive spells, not the pet summons.
Similarly, you don't mind if a party member gets Focus magic buff early.
And you might want to not already be in combat for these to fire off.
Then again, you might want them to not fire off until the 2nd spell.

Does Focus Magic work on the pet or something? I thought focus magic was a buff you had to cast on a different party member, which boosts both characters crit chance. Unless I'm missing something in the frost tree.

That said, Isn't Arcane still more DPS?

Focus magic seems to work on pets. My question on a group, which is the best to put it on? Protection Pally or just put it on the highest crit % toon in the grp? For me that would be on of my warlocks.

I just have /cast Focus Magic.
It lands on a random party member.
Since no matter who I lead with, I target the mob when I push my "click" spam key.

The other toons, auto assist the hot toon.
And cast at the mob.

The mage never actually targets the party.
But after a session of grinding mobs, be it in an instance or several outdoor mobs in succession.
2-3 members of the party have the buff.

I'd assume, any one of them gets a crit, and the mage then gets the bonus from the spell.

What about putting the line "/cast [nopet] Summon Water Elemental" at the end of the macro instead of the beginning? If the macro locks up cause of pet summon cooldown all the other commands are issued while waiting for cooldown to come back online. Unless a GCD error or un-useable ability in a macro will lock it no matter where it is in the code?

Also, does a water elemental scale in power with the mage's Int/sp? if so, casting the trinkets prior to summoning will be a boost too.

If you want the line to ever execute, you'll need it ahead of Frostbolt.
And if it is ahead of Frostbolt, it can get stuck when you have no pet, and the pet is on cooldown.

I would think the best bet will be to include it early in the macro.
With a mod arguement, for summoning pet only if the mod key is used.
That or put it on its own button.

I'm very confused - what are you guys doing with focus magic? It's a buff. it shouldn't be in any cast macros for damage. You cast it once, it only works on a single player (not the caster), for 30 minutes and cannot be on more than one player at a time.