Shaman Macro Help

Guides UI and Macro
1

Elvie, I looked at your sticky on this and I’ve built from that, but I’m trying to get my GF’s UI set up for this and she’s only got access to about 12 buttons total, all on the mouse, only one modifier and that not easily accessible.

She’s wanting to play Resto Shaman.

I’m looking at this basic layout for stuff. I haven’t prioritized her spells yet or gotten any real look at basic Resto Shaman play, but the macro templates I’m looking at, given her input limitation are as follows:

Targeted Healing/Dispell/Buff

#show
/cast [mod,@player][@mouseover,help,nodead][@focus,help,nodead][@targettarget,help,nodead][]SPELL

Targeted Attack

#show
/click ElvUI_BarXButtonY
/cast SPELL

Targeted CC/Interrupt

#show
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][mod,@focustarget,harm,nodead][harm,nodead][]SPELL

Reticule Spell

#show
/cast [mod,@player][@cursor]SPELL

Non-Reticule Totem

#show
/cast SPELL

Restricted Non-Targeted Abilities (think Bloodlust)

#show
/cast [mod:shift]SPELL
2

Thats the only one jumping out at me that could cause issues. You’ve got @targettarget before @target which is rarely ideal.

#show
/cast [mod,@player][@mouseover,help,nodead][@focus,help,nodead][help,nodead][@targettarget,help,nodead][]SPELL

You might also want to setup the reticle spells so they dont immediately cast while out of combat so you can more accurate place things like healing rain prior to a pull.

#show
/cast [mod,@player][@cursor,combat][]SPELL
3

Why not just install the addon Healbot? It can be great…
for healing at least

4

She’s likely using a Naga or similar in which case using mouseover macros on the 1-= keys (bound to the thumb buttons on mouse) will give her more flexibility than Healbot allows and with better unit frames.

5

@Nixun/@Elvenbane

She’s got two, and only two, input sources.

A G600MMO mouse and two foot pedals for strafing.

Use of modifiers is problematic.

I’ve mapped them to the G7, G8, and far-right-extra mouse button.

Using them requires a degree of muscle coordination that slows her down a bit much for routine use.

Movement is handled with mouse-driving plus left mousewheel tilt for backing up and foot pedals for strafing.

That leaves 12 buttons on the side array and right mousewheel tilt.

If I could figure out a way to select abilities or targets using her mousewheel that might open up a few additional options, but that’s a different project.

She can click on buttons on the screen for non-mouse-targeted abilities .

I’ve got her targeted attacks all set up to use a somewhat baroque macro-chain to ensure that she’s got a good target to shoot at when the’s DPS’ing. So she doesn’t need to do more than just click the attack buttons to do that (all very much secondary to healing activities).

I installed Clique, but discovered that she can use mouseover on unit frames in ElvUI without it, so I’m not sure she’ll need to keep that.

Check my logic here: I’m trying to teach her NOT to “target” for healing. I’d like to see her using “target” ONLY for attacks. Ideally, she’ll drop her tank in focus (never going to raid - so five-man only here). I left target out of the mix entirely on purpose because of this.

The thought here was that if she needs to heal/dispell/buff herself, she can hold down ANY of the mod keys and do so (sometimes this causes her to move her mouse off a bit but since it’s not necessary to point it at her unit frame, that’s fine). She can also do that by mousing over her own unit frame and casting. “Normal” mode would be mousing over the player unit frame and casting. If she’s NOT over a player target frame and there’s no modifier, she casts on the tank. If the tank is dead (she might not see that immediately) she’s going to cast on the unit that is currently targeted by (likely) whatever killed the tank. That’ll be whatever player is its biggest threat (likely) or possibly my pet (which goes into tanking mode automatically when the tank dies or becomes unhelpable and may have taunted already).

I agree that it’s rarely ideal to skip @target, but this is, I believe, a rare situation.

If my thinking is off on that, please chime in.

#show
/cast [mod,@player][@cursor,combat][]SPELL

Absolutely. Great catch. I’ll make the change now.

6

If she was playing a disc priest I’d agree with you but as an r-shaman you’re more of a dedicated healer and don’t spend much time dpsing so it’s generally a better practice to target the tank and offheal with mouseover. You could switch things around and use targettarget for dps abilities (honestly given her limitations i’d go the gnome sequencer route for dps).

Mouseover Enemy: Cast on Mouseover
Target Enemy: Cast on Target
Mouseover Friend Targeting Enemy: Cast on Friend’s Target
Target Friend Targeting Enemy: Cast on Friend’s Target
Default casting behavior. This condition also serves to generate the correct tooltip.

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead] [harm] [@mouseovertarget,harm,nodead] [@targettarget,harm,nodead] [] SPELL

[aside]
She’d probably have an easier time playing a Mistweaver than an r-sham as the majority of MW heals are smart and therefore require much less target switching.

7

I generally advise against using #showtooltip for single-ability macros and using #show instead because that gives you immediate feedback on mouseover as to whether or not you’ve actually put the macro on the bar. Assuming you’ve not done something clever like naming all your macros the same or putting nonsense names on them, you can still tell what’s there, but you can also see immediately where you’ve inadvertently pulled the spell to your bar instead of the macro.

Assuming I wrote my macros correctly, assigning the Tank as her Focus unit would have the exact same effect you’re describing.

In terms of priorities, it should do this:

  • Cast on Self if Modifier Key Held (unlikely to happen, but there)
  • Cast on Eligible* Mouseover Unit
  • Cast on Eligible Focus** Unit
  • Cast on Eligible Target of Target Unit
  • Cast in Default Mode

* Helpable and living
** Tank is routinely assigned as her Focus Unit.

In normal usage, if she’s not mousing over a specific friendly player frame, it’ll direct healing or whatever to the Tank. If she IS mousing over a specific friendly player frame, it’ll direct healing there.

I can’t see that it matters from the point of view of properly directing heal/dispell/buff abilities/spells whether the Tank is Target unit or Focus unit.

The problem is that the semi-automated targeting chain of macros I use (and that I’ve given her) relies on commands for setting the Target unit that don’t exist for setting the Focus unit.

Examples:

  • There’s a /targetexact, but not a /focusexact.
  • There’s a /targetlastenemy, but not a /focuslastenemy.
  • There’s a /targetenemyplayer, but not a /focusenemyplayer.

That pattern of missing /focus* commands is true for every targeting command except /cleartarget|clearfocus and /target|focus.

That macro chain is quite versatile and useful, particularly for someone who doesn’t have great dexterity. I can build in and have built in defaults for “stay on current target” with overrides for “attack tank’s target” (well, focus target) and “switch to the closest target in my forward cone” and “switch my target unit to the unit under my mouse” (not just attack it, actually assign it as my target unit).

Dumping that would increase the complexity of her doing any DPS at all and while it’s not the most important thing for her to do, there are times when healing becomes entirely secondary and what is required is for everyone to pour damage into a particular mob.

Believe me, I tried.

She’s dead set on playing Resto Shaman.

I’m looking at Gnome Sequencer for DPS now.

8

Interesting using two pedals for strafing. I never thought about that! It would free up A and D for other spells.