Sequentially casting buffs: Power Word: Shield

[Bigfish]

I know this has been talked about in previous threads, but I don't think a satisfactory answer has ever been achieved, so I'm going to check in on this for a bit.

Basically, my 10-man is going to be looking at downing Loatheb after I can drop Heigan (long story for another time), and my consideration is that it would be beneficial to get rotating Power Word: Shield circulating over the entire raid. Now, granted, there is some 3.1 thought going in to this, and with the current cooldown I can't get everyone covered. Ideally, with 3.1, I can grab improved PW: S to reduce the Cooldown and get this to work.

Anywho, my speculation goes as thus:

/cast [target=raid] Power Word: Shield

Would this sequence through the raid casting PW: S, or not? If not, has anyone managed to develop a macro that does so?

[Heenan]

/targetraid ???

/targetraid
/cast Power Word: Shield

I use the following to put Levitate on the group and it works well, so I assume the above works the same way.

/targetparty
/cast Levitate

The only problem I've run into is that you can mash the macro and /targetparty will continue to cycle through group members while the spell is on cooldown, so you have to pause a moment between each cast to make sure it is applied.

[Bigfish]

Yeah, turns out that doesn't work. Its cool though, as a /targetraid should cycle through everyone and won't trigger on someone with weakened soul.

Of course, its somewhat nice the situation I was thinking of doesn't hit nearly as hard as I thought it would, so there's less of an issue with it.

[emesis]

On a totally unrelated note, this thread just gave me a thought for a panic-mode Hex macro (I run DK + 4 shammies).

Something like:

/targetenemy
/castrandom Hex,,,,

Bind it to a key and spam it madly for a second if you get a bad pull or something. The extra commas in the castrandom should make it so the macro only actually casts Hex occasionally, the rest of the time it should just cycle to a new mob.

Anyone done something like this? I'll have to give this a shot, could be fun.

[pinotnoir]

On a totally unrelated note, this thread just gave me a thought for a panic-mode Hex macro (I run DK + 4 shammies).

Something like:

/targetenemy
/castrandom Hex,,,,

Bind it to a key and spam it madly for a second if you get a bad pull or something. The extra commas in the castrandom should make it so the macro only actually casts Hex occasionally, the rest of the time it should just cycle to a new mob.

Anyone done something like this? I'll have to give this a shot, could be fun.

I use that for my mages to sheep things. I cant remember if i have the ,,, in the macro. I have 3 mages and if I press it 3 times they sheep up to 3 targets if I am lucky.

[emesis]

On a totally unrelated note, this thread just gave me a thought for a panic-mode Hex macro (I run DK + 4 shammies).

Something like:

/targetenemy
/castrandom Hex,,,,

Bind it to a key and spam it madly for a second if you get a bad pull or something. The extra commas in the castrandom should make it so the macro only actually casts Hex occasionally, the rest of the time it should just cycle to a new mob.

Anyone done something like this? I'll have to give this a shot, could be fun.

I use that for my mages to sheep things. I cant remember if i have the ,,, in the macro. I have 3 mages and if I press it 3 times they sheep up to 3 targets if I am lucky.

I now see some threads about this.

It looks like if you can get get 3 distinst semi-random CCs to hit without invoking multiple key presses/castrandom. Something like:

Shammy 1.
/assist main
/cast Hex

Shammy 2.
/assist main
/targetenemy
/cast Hex

Shammy 3.
/assist main
/targetenemy1
/cast Hex

Assuming your lead has something targeted, Shammy 1 should hex it, while Shammy 2 should hex the next enemy in tab order, and Shammy 3 the prior enemey in tab order.

This looks to be a lot better than the /castrandom, which would require multiple mashes and could end up CCing the same enemy target.

I can't see anyway to land CC on 4 enemies with one keypress deterministically, however. API reference says /targetenemy can only be used once in a macro.

Anyone have a working one-button solution for this? It looks to be pretty doable with a two-button solution (or using modifier keys), but that's kind of ugly. My thought for a modifier key solution:

Shammy 1:
/targetenemy
/cast [nomodifier] Hex

Shammy 2:
/targetenemy1
/cast [nomodifier] Hex

Shammy 3:
/targetenemy
/cast [modifier=alt] Hex

Shammy 4:

/targetenemy1
/cast [modifier=alt] Hex

Bind these all to a single key - say H. To use, hit H, then alt-H. Shammy 1 & 2 should cast Hex on their first target, while Shammies 3 & 4 should cycle past the first target to the second before casting Hex.

Anyone got something like this working that they can share? I will try this out tonight and report back ....