World of Warcraft Macros Made Easy!

Macros in World of Warcraft make that world much easier to deal with. There are macros that a player should certainly know about, and there are macros that some cannot live without. Learning how to work with and create macros is certainly the way to go for someone who is aspiring to be successful in-game. With this being said, let's get straight into creating macros...

Starting a Macro

To create a macro, you are going to want to first of all be logged into World of Warcraft. Once you have loaded in, you can either click the macro button at the bottom of the screen, or you can type in "/macro", both will open the macro menu. To make a new macro, simply hit the "NEW" button on this menu. This will give you a chance to name your macro, and choose an icon to go with it. Please note that if you choose the question mark, then the icon for the first spell in your macro will replace this question mark.

Once we have named our macro and chosen an icon, we can start throwing commands in there. The only rule that you need to remember when you are creating a macro is that if a command invokes the global cooldown, you cannot cast another spell in that macro. Since the macro goes from command to command in the macro without stopping, once you cast a spell that turns on the global cooldown of 1.5 seconds, all of the other commands that try to cast a spell or use an ability will be skipped over, since they are inside the global cooldown.

The First Macro... "/say"

Our first macro is going to be a simple command:

/say "LFG Black Temple PST"

This is a far more useful macro then you would think. The reason for this is because you can use it for any channel you are in, so instead of /say you can use /g for guild chat, /p for party chat, etc.

Putting the /say Macro to good use

So now that we have the basics of a macro down, let's try something a little more useful. Sometimes it is good to announce to everyone an important message. As a priest, it's a good idea to announce when and who you have thrown your fear ward on, because you wouldn't want another priest to overwrite your spell.

/raid "Hey All, I Just Cast Fear Ward on %t"

/cast Fear Ward

This will announce to the raid that you just cast the spell fear ward on your current target, and then it will actually cast that spell on your target. This is good when you cast important spells, such as a battle resurrection, or a normal resurrection, innervate, etc.

Different Ranks?

What happens when you have a spell that has many different ranks, however you want to use a certain rank in your macro? You can include the rank that you wish to use in the actual macro.

/cast Spell of Pwning

This macro will cast the maximum rank of the spell, regardless of how many different ranks you actually have learned.

/cast Spell of Pwning (Rank 50)

However, this macro will cast only rank 50 of the spell.

Having the ability to specify different ranks of spells and abilities is quite powerful, as it allows you to easily use down-ranked spells for certain occasions. Now, if we need all of our high ranking spells and abilities on one bar, a second bar that has the down-ranked versions of the same abilities, and then the ability to switch between the two. This can be done with the following command:

/swapactionbar 1 2

This will let you swap between your first action bar and second one. This is also useful for a healing class, where they can have all of their healing spells sitting on one bar, and damage spells on a second bar. Having this macro on both the first and second action bar will let you switch between the two action bars.

Pet and Minion Handling

One of the hardest things of playing a hunter or warlock is controlling your abilities and those of your pet at the same time. With macros, you can easily do both at the same time.

Throwing Hunter's Mark on a target and sending your pet in to attack, while you stay at a safe distance, has never been easier with this simple macro.

/cast Hunter's Mark

/petattack

Any of your pet's abilities can be used in a macro, so if you are saving your Fel Hunter's spell lock ability for the right time in an arena game, you can use a macro to unleash this powerful spell.

/petattack

/cast Spell Lock [modifier]

/r why

Note that the [modifier] command makes it so that in order to actually cast the spell lock ability, you will need to hold down either the CTRL or ALT key. This way you can control the exact moment when you will spell lock an opponent.

Warlocks can easily benefit from pet handling macros and the /castsequence command. Using this command, you can have one macro that contains many different spells and abilities. Using this macro will cycle through each of the spells in the macro.

/petattack

/castsequence Immolate, Curse of Agony, Corruption

Now every time you click this macro, you will cast each spell in the macro in that exact order. You will still have to wait for the global cooldown, however instead of clicking on one button and then another, you only need one button to do all of this.

Crowd Control Made Easy

In the heat of a battle during a raid, effective crowd control can really mean the difference between an easy fight and a raid wipe. Trying to locate and click on your target to sheep or shackle is not the easiest thing to do when you have five or six other mobs running around. Having a macro that would allow you to choose a target, use your crowd control ability on it, and then switch to another target would make life much simpler.

/focus [modifier] target

/cast [target=focus]Shackle Undead

This will allow you to hold either the CTRL or ALT key down and click the macro to Shackle your target. Now, anytime you want to re-Shackle your target, all you need to do is just click the macro. Once you have set your "focus" target, you can go ahead and target either a friendly player or hostile mob, you do not have to re-target your focus target, because the macro will do it for you.

So far, we have barely skimmed the surface of macros. There are many more things you can do, and as long as you know the command for them, you can use macros to get it done. To find more information on specific commands to use, or what macros can be useful to a certain class, check out www.wowwiki.com. They have a great section devoted to macros, sorted by class. You can also check out the World of Wacraft Forums, as they have a section devoted to macros, and UI support.