Thursday, April 23, 2009

Druid Tank Macros for mouse clickers

Sorry for the delay. I actually quit playing WoW shortly after I started this blog. I realized it was becoming more consuming than I really think a game should be in my life. Since then, I've decided to get back into simple programming and maybe develop a little game for the iPhone or something like that.

I wrote a small video game in high school using Pascal and draw commands that was kind of fun, and I'm rebuilding it now using C++ and the Dark SDK developer kit. It's been fun so far. I might get back into WoW someday, but now just isn't the time for me.

Anyway, on to the tanking macros.

I use the mouse to click commands, so I actually put the stuff I use most in the center of the screen in the default ui. That means that the abilities I almost never use go in the 1, 2, 3 spots, and the stuff I use all the time goes in the unbound spots on the upper row. Anyway, having them there makes for easier clicking.

Nearly every ability on my druid that I use regularly is macro'd. At the bottom of this post, I'm going to paste my whole macros-cache.txt file so you can see the ones I don't discuss.

First, the general tanking macros. Let's start with pulling. Naturally I use faerie fire(feral), but that doesn't start autoattack, so I made a macro to simplify pulling:

#showtooltip Faerie Fire (Feral)()
/cast Faerie Fire (Feral)()
/startattack

I don't mind the out of range error on this one.

Once the mobs get closer, it's time for a swipe/maul spam. None of my trinkets are really "o shit" buttons, (and frankly, I never remember to use them) so I just go ahead and maximize my trinket and barkskin uptime by putting them in the swipe/maul macro. To simplify, I put Maul on mouse button two on just about every macro. That way, I can just right click while spamming left click. In this way, I don't have to move the mouse at all, and it's better for me than an all out Maul spam because I get to (1) choose when to use Maul, (2) use the underlying attack (Swipe) without using Maul, and (3) queue up Maul from nearly any button on my toolbar.

Here's the Swipe Macro I use:

#showtooltip swipe
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast barkskin
/startattack
/use 13
/use 14
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/cast [button:1] swipe; [button:2] maul

Using this for my swipe macro, I just click hell out of it, and right click every three or four seconds to queue a Maul. very easy stuff. You'll see that the error noises are disabled, and because we always use the question mark for the icon, it's going to show you swipe. If you notice that your Maul isn't being consumed, then you aren't positioned properly for it, and should take a half step backward to let the mobs step in front of you.

In the same vein, I use the following macro for Lacerate, you'll see it is pretty similar in that it triggers trinkets and barkskin for maximum uptime and also can be right clicked for maul.

** you CAN copy/paste these into WoW. You just have to use Ctrl-V to paste it into the macro interface because there is no right click command menu. **

#showtooltip lacerate
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast barkskin
/startattack
/use 13
/use 14
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/cast [button:1] lacerate; [button:2] maul

You may notice that these have startattack in them. That's not just a failsafe in case autoattack isn't triggered because of a positioning error. It has another very important function. By including /startattack, you tell the macro to target an enemy if nothing is targetted at the time. It's like pressing tab except that it doesn't change your current target if you have one. It also will always default to an enemy in range if there is one. A nice trick in WG is to clear your target before running into a laggy mob of enemies and use these macros. You'll hit whoever is in fronto of you! It also works on spells, like Faerie Fire Feral up there. For example in H VH, you can stand by a portal and spam the FFF macro and the very instant the enemy is targetable (also works on bosses like cyanagosa that don't let you target before the fight.

This is very helpful for mouse clickers because you don't have to try to mouse target and you don't have to hit tab before a fight.

The Mangle one is of course similar:

#showtooltip mangle - bear
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast barkskin
/startattack
/use 13
/use 14
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/cast [button:1] mangle - bear; [button:2] maul



TL:DR -- these macros make tanking super easy for mouse clickers. Use Faerie Fire to target and pull enemies and then use Swipe/Mangle/Lacerate as normal but you can right click to queue a Maul. You will always maximize your trinket and barkskin uptime without annoying error sounds/messages.

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