Hey all,
I see a lot of macros using “Nodead” in them. However, I have seen very few instances where I would use this and was wondering what the actual purpose or use case for this would be.
Can someone provide me a couple of examples?
it’s just a layer of safety from getting an error, targeting macros sometimes have a tendency to target dead things, especially if you’re specifying an NPC name.
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Okay. I can’t really think of an example when I would need it with my @mouseover macros. Seems like the spell would just not cast anyways if I mouse over a dead npc.
Thanks
It presumably prevents your cursor from entering that lit up/pending cast state if you try to cast something like a healing spell on an invalid target.
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I think it also helps when you have multiple-use macros, ones that have different spells for either helpful/enemy targets. If you are trying to cast something that would normally cast at a target (though target is now dead), adding the =nodead allows your macro to skip the target if dead and not get stuck before moving onto its next parameter, as the macro system is a bit imperfect. Since they are used for a variety of types of spells/situations, there are quite a variety of codelines that are infrequently used depending on your style of macro usage.
It’s to make sure you don’t cast on a target “that exists, but is dead”.
There are a few macros that will target a dead NPC. I have one I haven’t fixed yet for my BM Hunter. It’s the Spirit Beast heal where I tap the macro to cast on myself, and I have a /targetlast line added for the pet and myself to retarget the last target I had, but sometimes that mob dies during that time, and I’m sitting there trying to kill a dead mob.
I got around it for the most part because I use Vuhdo on all my characters and just made a key-combination for it there. Sometimes I’ll still use the macro because it’s right there on my thumb, though. A [nodead] modifier might fix that issue, but I’ll still have to retarget.
I didn’t even think to try a /cast [@player], so that might work, but it seems I might have tried that, too. I dunno.
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nodead is a must for mouseover macros.
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Is there any good site to learn these? I could never get any that I seen to work.
I took them out and mine still work flawlessly.
Sure, but what if you try to cast on a dead body? You’ll get an error.
It’s helpful if I am trying to lay on hands or bop someone who is low. If they die just as I go to cast I don’t want to to default cast on myself and waste the CD.
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Not that I have noticed. Although, I don’t mouseover stuff that is dead because it’s dead.
Which is kinda my point. What is an instance where you mouseover something dead to try to cast on it.
Everyone says you get an error, but the alternative is to just not cast it if the target is dead. So, are we just eliminating an annoying error message? If that’s the case it’s not really necessary because the end result is the same.
It seems more useful in the case of a macro that is targeting a specific mob, whereas, if it is dead, you don’t want to target it.
If I mouse over someone to heal them and in the split second before I press the button they die then I don’t want to try to cast on them, fail because they are dead, and then cast on myself by default.
That’s not what would happen though. It would just not cast on the target because they are dead. It would never self cast, you would get an “invalid target” message. Unless you had it written into your macro that if there is no eligible target, you are to self cast.
This brings me back to my point, I think the only thing it does is essentially prevent the “invalid target” message, which is moot.
So you don’t get the stupid condition where you try to heal someone right as they die and your cursor highlights (because you’re in the select-target state) and you can’t cast anymore spells until you actually click a name or press escape to cancel state.
Yeah, it’s frustrating.
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Hmmm… okay that makes sense. I likely just haven’t noticed it because I am a druid and most of my spells are instant except for regrowth.
I first started using mouseover macros in my Druid. If you try to rejuv a target that has just died, your cursor highlights and won’t let you cast another spell until you change state. It’s super annoying on a class that’s already global starved.
I haven’t really encountered this that I can remember. Thank you!
This could be because I use “exists” … perhaps that not only checks for a target but also checks that it is a valid target?