Macro things you can't believe you just learned...

[kate]

So on my recent team (druids), at level 30 I got everyone Balance as their secondary spec. I wanted to make sure I was always in moonchicken form before I started spewing magic. Also, because I am lazy, I wanted to be able to reuse that macro even if I wasn't specced Balance, but wanted to make sure I wasn't trying to cast spells I no longer knew.

Some googling and I found: the spec conditional! Maybe to some here this is old hat, but to me it was really interesting, so here it is:

Here's a macro I made for casting Moonfire if I'm in moonchicken form and of balance spec, putting myself in moonchicken form if I'm not in it, or just casting Moonfire if I'm not balance spec:

#showtooltip
/startattack
/cast [spec:2, stance:4] Moonfire; [spec:2] !Moonkin Form; Moonfire

I tried using a simpler macro where I check spec:2 and nostance:4 but that didn't work for me. The # for spec is 1 for your primary spec, 2 for your secondary.

Then I tried to get a bit more clever. Here I wanted to have a spammable castsequence that would intermix Moonfire with longer cast, harder hitting spells:

#showtooltip
/startattack
/castsequence [spec:2, stance:4] reset=target Starsurge, Moonfire, Moonfire, Starfire, Starfire, Starfire
/cast [spec:2] !Moonkin Form
/castsequence reset=target Moonfire, Wrath, Wrath, Wrath, Wrath, Wrath

In this case, it looks at the first /castsequence line and says if I'm balance and in moonchicken, use those balance spells and blow stuff up. If I'm not, it falls down to the next line, and if I'm balance it tries to put me in moonchicken. If THAT line doesn't get executed, then that means I'm not a balance spec currently, so just fire my very lazy spammable stuff.

It turns out there's also a similar conditional for talents - it's (shockingly): talent.

For this one, you have 2 numbers - first is the row, second is the column. So, to check if you have the level 100 talent all the way to the right, you might do:

#showtooltip
/cast [talent:6/2] Pulverize; [talent:6/3] Bristling Fur

This will - at least I think - cast Pulverize if you have that, or otherwise cast Bristling Fur.

Anyway, that was something I can't believe I just learned. If you're reading this far - share your tips that you just picked up.

[MiRai]

It's always nice to stumble upon new information that helps you out. For anyone who reads this and is interested in knowing all the macro conditionals available, there is a handy page on WoWpedia (I will forever call it WoWpedia) that has all of the up-to-date information on macro syntax.

http://wow.gamepedia.com/Making_a_macro

[Ughmahedhurtz]

You can prevent repeated shapeshifts via the nostance:2 modifier as well. Not sure if that's still a thing.

[kate]

You can prevent repeated shapeshifts via the nostance:2 modifier as well. Not sure if that's still a thing.

For whatever reason, when I use nostance:whatever rather than ! the macros break.

Thanks for the link, MiRai - somehow I had forgotten about the existence of that site.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

For whatever reason, when I use nostance:whatever rather than ! the macros break.

Interesting. I'll keep that in mind if/when I ever decide to respect mine for bear/kitty.

[JohnGabriel]

Interesting. I'll keep that in mind if/when I ever decide to respect mine for bear/kitty.

If you're experimenting, I think it has something to do with spamming the key. Like it breaks if in middle of checking specs or something.

[kate]

When it was breaking my macros, I meant that it wasn't showing an icon, just the question mark. I hadn't even been using it, so I don't think it's that. My guess is a syntax error which I couldn't find - in any case, reversing the logic/restructuring the macro as I did made it work so I just went with that.

What I did notice when I was spamming was that sometimes, if I was hitting the key really fast, I'd wind up not casting moon chicken form and just casting a spell.

[Andreauk]

For healing touch procs in catform I use this.. had to change it as the old one stopped working.

#showtooltip
/console autounshift 0
/use [mod][@mouseover, help, nodead, exists][@party1, help, nodead, exists][@player] Healing Touch
/console autounshift 1

[MadMilitia]

Until yesterday I had no idea you could get hunters to auto-face and it can all be done right in the WoW macro system.

#showtooltip
/cast Powershot
/stopcasting

Sure, you have to take a talent to get it but pretty handy.