Guide: macros, WoW, you and more

[Deezyl_Fizzlepop]

(Words in GREEN are clickable links sending you to the appropriate websites)

FIRST AND FOREMOST:

Many thanks to:
@lutechi for creating and maintaining this website.
@TimothyLuke for this amazing Picasso-like Addon.
(Please give Lutechi and Timothy Luke some love in subbing to their respective Patreon accounts here and here. And Twitch channels here and here.
All past (R.I.P. BeefWellington (aka Beef) and Gween), present and future macro creators!

About me and a little bit of insight into where I’m coming from:

Hi! I’m Deezyl Fizzlepop and I’ve been playing Hunters exclusively since the Burning Crusade expansion and Guild Leader for 11+ years for the same Guild. In the Legion expansion, our Guild was #3 on our server in progression Raiding. It was hardcore and miss those days competitively Raiding as a Raid Lead and co-Raid Lead. But like almost any progression Guild, it fell apart so now you can call me “casually hardcore”. So you kinda have to know your stuff.

I’ve used the original Gnome Sequencer when the Developer semlar published it on WoWInterface in 2014 before Timothy Luke took Gnome Sequencer Enhanced (GSE) and made this remarkable Addon what is today. I use GSE due to my disability which gives about 20-25% feeling in my left hand I dare not use a keyboard for WoW anymore except for typing which I’m slow and sloppy and use both Razer’s Tartarus v2 Keypad and Naga Pro mouse for movement and macros.

I read all new posts on this site. Why? Maybe to help someone out or maybe to glean a little bit of information that’ll help me out because you never know…

DISCLAIMER:

I DO NOT AND WILL NOT release any of my macros to the public because they’re tailormade for me, my playstyle, gear, Talents, latency, etc. and you WILL get sub-par results. Macros are NOT one-size-fits-all. They’re not cookie-cutter. What works for the macro creator, me or you WILL be different.

Which Class/spec has the best macro?

1. Macros that works flawlessly for me would not inherently work for you unless you both play and are geared similarly to me. It is based on you, the macro you wish to use, and your character. With any sort of precision, there is no way to address this.

2. The best response to this is the class you know how to play without a macro in fact. With this in mind, you both know what the character should do and can look at the macro and make the required changes.

tl;dr: macros are NOT cookie-cutter. Macros are NOT-ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL .

Let’s begin:

A good macro is the one you make and tailor to your needs either from scratch or someone else’s macro(s). It takes a while but it’s well worth it in the long run. As your gear changes towards possible soft/hard caps for a stat(s) (if applicable) so will your macro DPS numbers. And your macro needs to be changed to reflect it for best the DPS output.

Testing:

I start by testing all macros I can find for that class and one at a time taking out all redundant and unnecessary spell/abilities standing unbuffed in front of a Training dummy without any opener/burst macros. I’m ONLY INTERESTED IN THE MAIN MACRO, not an opener/burst which can be done separately. Each pass is three minutes in length and I do this four times for one macro to account for variables. (you can use a Raid Training dummy-but all I care about is the highest DPS number or the total average of the macro).

Next, I record four passes for each macro on Notepad with the macro name and take the highest/best overall number out of all of them (if some are close then just get the average of that macro) from my Details! Damage Meter Damage Done logs.

If they’re very, very very, close, just average them out and go with the highest numbers. If the numbers are the same I choose the one that gives me the highest burst. Also, it’s perfectly acceptable to mix and match macros, i.e. Single Target and AoE from other users.

Example in Notepad form:

HurpaDurp's macro:  
Single target: 2.2, 2.3, 2.1, 2.2
AoE: 3.5, 3.4, 3.4, 3.5

oMg BeSt mAcRo EvA:
Single target: 08, .08, .09, .07
AoE: .03, .02, .02, .02

How to macro your rotation:

An underrated possibility with Raidbots is that you can actually compare your own testing to the sim and see where you are in terms of casts for your macro

Use the following to set up a “Target Dummy”-style sim UNBUFFED and NO BLOODLUST that is exactly three minutes in length.

By pressing Full HTML Report on the Results page, you can get a detailed breakdown of the sim. Most importantly, you can look at the Abilities 'Execute tab to see the amount of times that each spell was cast. You can compare your own casts to these to learn how the sim is playing differently.

Next, I use Details! Damage Meter (The most powerful, reliable, handsome, damage meter for World of Warcraft.) and see how the better macro that I’ve tested performs by the percentage of each spell/ability. In GSE there’s the Debugging feature (as @TimothyLuke demonstrated in his GSE University Twitch videos ) to see what spells/abilities are firing, when not firing.

After testing all macros starting at 250 ms minimum (I cannot stress this enough) then play around with the speeds in increments of 10+ ms while recording your results up to say around 200 ms (my Single Target, AoE, and Opener/Burst sweet spots are set at .250 ms). And, yes, if it’s too fast (say below 100 ms) you can cause a macro to skip over spells/abilities-which COULD be lifesaving, wiping, victory, or defeat, become random casts and flag those users for pressing a button at inhuman speeds which COULD POSSIBLY be grounds for a BAN from Blizzard. Then in comes: “ZOMG! BlIzZ bAnNeD mE fOr uSiNg gSe!”.

Trying to get close to the % of what should be cast and when is the hardest part in Raidbots. But sadly as our gear changes your macro should change as well if there’s a drastic Stat increase/decrease and that means more testing (if it’s a few % points, I won’t bother. I’m NOT anal, I don’t think it’d make much of a difference). Haste is the hardest part because it affects your macros if there’s a spike big enough.

SAVE ALL OF YOUR RECORDED RESULTS TO NOTEPAD! Because if someone comes out with a new macro or an updated one you can try it out and compare the differences.

Fine-tuning:

You should review and make changes to your macro any time you replace a piece of gear, particularly when that piece of gear has Haste. Unfortunately, these improvements would be special to you and won’t necessarily work with other individuals.

To see how well your macro(s) is doing after Raid you can enable the Combat Logging feature (to enable Combat Logging just go to your chat window and type /combatlog). PREFERABLY BEFORE THE FIRST BOSS IS PULLED.

Using WoWAnalyzer (a tool to help you analyze and improve your World of Warcraft raiding performance through various relevant metrics and gameplay suggestions. It gives detailed insight into various things such as cast behavior, buff uptimes, downtime, cooldown usage, wasted resources, and more.), paste your warcraftlogs report URL into the field on WoWAnalyzer’s home page. Then pick the fight you want to analyze, and select your character. That’s it! The analyzer should do the rest of the work.

TL;DR: If you didn’t want to do all of that I mentioned then just test out every macro for your Class/Spec via the Training dummy, record your results and go with the one that gives you the highest or best average.

Make things easier on yourself:

Know your class and spec. I’m a firm believer in constantly reading Icy Veins (which provides news and detailed guides for World of Warcraft.). Read up on how we play, function, what’s good and bad, etc. Everything we need to know is right there.

Sim your toon:

Simming gives you a good idea of how your character should be performing under perfect conditions. It lets you see if an item will give you a numerical advantage if you use it correctly. Raidbots is the best place to do it and “provides many different tools for simulating your character, allowing you to quickly and easily assess different factors, whether it’s stats, gear, talents, or more. That doesn’t necessarily make it less useful, however, as it is still the fastest way to create a simulation report for analysis.”

Stats:

Stats don’t matter. There’s no “needed” amount to any stat. In 95%+ of cases, just go with the highest item level. You should never need to worry about particular stat percentages for any stat, as any Hunter spec. Nor should you use other people’s stat “weights” or amounts as inspiration for “what to go for”, or “good amounts to have”. You should never use stat weights, and Pawn is a useless addon. The only thing that should be determining the stats you use is Raidbots Top Gear: Top Gear - Raidbots - This can tell you what gear to equip and what gems and enchants to use, and much more…

How to use Raidbots to optimize your gear:

Azortharion has wrote and updated a guide over on Icy-Veins that is all about simming yourself. It is quite long and detailed but should tell you pretty much everything you need to know about Raidbots. It’s relevant for ALL CLASSES as well.
How to Sim Your WoW Character? A Guide to Raidbots

Quality of Life links:

• Addons: If you’re not playing WoW on a potato then get some.
• bloodmallet offers DPS simulation data for everyone for World of Warcraft. Comparing different setups often requires simulations. To ease this need for information bloodmallet offers a wide range of prepared simulation data. This way you can get your overview a lot quicker and get back into the action faster. As with all prepared information, the exact context of your character is missing and that can change the outcome. Therefore make sure to regularly simulate your character yourself.
• Discord: There are Community Discord Servers for every Class out there and every ASPECT to WoW. Plus, our very own WLM Discord for GSE (invite link). In there if you’re not sure or are intimidated, just tell people that your new or having trouble with something, and nine times out of ten you’ll get a reply in that channel…but might not be the one you wanna hear…
• ELVUI: A user interface designed around user-friendliness with extra features that aren’t included in the standard UI. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. If you don’t have this then you’re doing it wrong.
• GSE needs no explanation.
• Simulationcraft is a small addon that simplifies the process of generating a Simulationcraft profile for your character.
• Weak Auras is an incredibly powerful addon, enabling users to create or import custom alerts for pretty much anything they want to see is a must and with wago giving you a ton of options to go along with them with much, much more.
• WoWUP is an up-and-coming addon manager which allows you to manage and auto-update your World of Warcraft addons, with support for Curse, GitHub, and Tuki/ElvUI.

Read, learn, experiment, and expand your mind. Don’t be lazy. This site is WoW Lazy Macros-NOT WoW Macros for Lazy People.

TO ALL MACRO CREATORS:

1. IF YOU DO NOT LIKE CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM or CRITICISM IN GENERAL or THE SAME QUESTIONS ASKED OVER AND OVER AGAIN or TROUBLESHOOTING SOMEONE ELSE’S PROBLEMS WITH YOUR MACROS THEN DON’T BOTHER.
2. TRIPLE CHECK YOUR SPELLING.
3. MAKE THE MACRO(S) EDITABLE, NOT READ ONLY AND IN ENGLISH.
4. QUADRUPLE CHECK WHAT TALENTS YOU HAVE POSTED.
5. Post what ms you’re running the macro(s) at.
6. hElP! mOdZ kEyZ nO wOrK!!one!oNe!1!: Do yourself a favor if you’re using things like [mod:ctl] or [mod:alt], etc… and post it in the opening thread saying in GSE Options that there’s a box you can click to undo Keybinds (Clear Keybinds box).
7. Please use the CORRECT gear, gems, enchants, etc. for EACH SPEC you’ve created a macro for because you’re cheating yourself and others out of a potentially awesome macro because it’s NOT performing correctly i.e. In Feral gear for Balance, Guardian, and Restoration, Protection Paladin for Holy and Retribution… (I have a feeling that’s what a lot of macro creators are/have been doing)

In closing, if you have any questions or comments or thoughts at all please don’t hesitate to get a hold of me here via this Thread, in PM’s, Discord: Deezyl#3253 or add my BattleTag: Deezyl#11651.

-Deezyl

[Deezyl_Fizzlepop]

**Lots of editing and added content.

[pho]

This should be the introtext of the site. There are so many important informations in this thread. Thank you for that. After trying all sub rogue macros and then reading that often the makers are not even level 60 with there chars, I decided to just create and test my own macro myself from the get go.

[Deezyl_Fizzlepop]

@pho
Thank you for the very kind words!

[Deezyl_Fizzlepop]

If there’s a enough interest from people I can release my Opener/Burst and Traps macros for MM Hunter. They’re nothing special but’s just what I use. Lemme know.

[Izzi]

Making your own macro is a great thing. No one knows your play style like you do. And even if there are best skills and talents, sometimes they are not the best for you. Or you may want them to go off in a certain order, or have different mod to do certain things, because that is what you are used to. And Pho is correct that sometimes people, myself included, put out a macro on a spec that is not what they are used to. Using myself as an example. I was asked to make a Unholy macro. I do not main an unholy. My 60 DK has been blood since he was reborn. But I attempted to make a macro for the spec anyways. I personally said on that macro that I did not main an unholy and was open to suggestions. So it happens, from time to time, that a macro can be built by someone that is either not top level or not mained to the spec of the macro that was made. And since there are 35 specs I can understand that.

I personally play many classes. Because someday I will pick a main, I think. I have been trying to decide that for the last 1, 2, 3 or 12+ years. My wife is the same way, so we play and delete more toons then I would care to admit. I used to make macros for just her and myself, but I decided to share some of them to others here. I figured if I could help at least one person that was a good thing.

In closing, agree with the OG poster of this. There are many great sites and tools to use. I personally love ELVUI and recommend it. My wife on the other hand hates it and loves the straight wow interface. Neither of us is right or wrong. And I would not not say you are playing wrong if you are not using it. And as for the note to creators, yeah I get it. No one likes mistakes, but they too are human. And if they are like me, more then likely going to have mistakes and spelling errors lol. Just point them out, question talent selections if they do not look right. I think most people that release macros are like myself and are willing to explain or fix mistakes they made. The last thing I would add is, Icy Veins is a great site, but never follow any site suggestions and selections on a toon that you play. I often compare and differ from the findings on Icy Veins. That maybe do to my play style and my non-hardcore, non-try-hard mentality of my main lacking WOW life.

Thanks for putting all the links in one spot to help others. And don’t take me wrong like I am attacking you, Just adding my 2 cents and perspective.

Izzi

[Deezyl_Fizzlepop]

@Izzi

I personally play many classes. Because someday I will pick a main, I think. I have been trying to decide that for the last 1, 2, 3 or 12+ years. My wife is the same way, so we play and delete more toons then I would care to admit. I used to make macros for just her and myself, but I decided to share some of them to others here. I figured if I could help at least one person that was a good thing.

Legion was very ALT friendly and loved leveling but since then Blizz kinda killed that off somewhat and now I level all of mine to max via mostly questing then just park them.

@Izzi

I think most people that release macros are like myself and are willing to explain or fix mistakes they made.

But that gets old very fast as you can pretty much answer the same questions over and over in one thread because people really dislike reading an entire thread to find out an answer to a question that’s already been answered.

That’s why I suggested macro creators put Talents and ms in their description as I’ve seen that those are probably the two most asked questions.

@Izzi

That maybe do to my play style and my non-hardcore, non-try-hard mentality of my main lacking WOW life.

I’m totally opposite. Once you get a taste of competitive Raiding (or PvP, even) with a great group running PUG’s or LFR isn’t quite nearly the same.

I have a very big disdain for LFR and even normal Raids with PUG’s because usually if we wipe on trash there’s always someone quitting the group and even more so in LFR in Boss wipes. I’m in it for the long haul no matter how many attempts it takes to down a Boss.

@Izzi

And don’t take me wrong like I am attacking you, Just adding my 2 cents and perspective.

Not at all!! Thank you so very much for reading all of my ramble and hope my thread helps you (or anyone) in the least.

[Deezyl_Fizzlepop]

@pho

This should be the introtext of the site.

Should this be a Sticky? That’s not me to decide but I’d be floored if it was. (Even though I don’t think it’d be worthy)

[pho]

I don’t think this would change anything. The typical user (me included) comes here and is looking for a ready to go macro. In most cases you get happy here with the macros. This really gets relevant when you want to even be remotely competitive. I myself never really played WoW because I simply can’t play without GSE(I played classic till BC). I mean yeah I could click a rotation and I think this could work maybe for a hunter. But that all falls flat if you want to something more in the endgame.

And I think it depends somehow what class you want to play. With a sub rogue GSE or the macrosystem of blizzard is very limited. You have to invest time to get the best out of it and then this thread is very important. But by this time you already looking for better ways to setup your own macro and search here for your guide. Or you simply just reroll to a different class. You have to be willing to invest time in your class, char and the macros and I think this is not the typical user who comes here looking for a well tested macro.

I invested over 8 hours yesterday on a training dummy and on raidbots for my perfect macro but then I had the same problem with every other macro tested for a sub rogue on this site. The damage falls flat and you never get to next perfect burst like you would without GSE and capable hands.

[Deezyl_Fizzlepop]

I’d thought of that and still wanted to post this for others that want to take the time and explore a new avenue to making/tweaking/tuning a macro.

[Izzi]

I been playing games since 1999, I started in EQ, believe me WOW at it’s hardest never had the strain and stress of raiding in eq. And honestly the raiding in EQ killed raiding for me personally. A normal raid night would be 3-4 hours of just setting up the raid. For those who raided in EQ they know what I am talking about. Wife and I raided some in WOW up and through Pandria. But our computers got little old, and were struggling with the raiding. We planned on getting new ones, but before we could we lost our 18 year old son, he too was a WOW player and we left the game. We did not play through WOD, or legion and the start of BFA. Wife and I talked and decided that our son would want us to play so we fired up the old computers. They were out of date back then and were way way out of date for BFA. We struggled through BFA on systems that could not handle WOW. If there was fog in a cave I would lag so bad that I would nonstop run into walls. So I tried to avoid caves at all cost. We got new computers shortly before shadowlands, and we plan on raiding more.
And I agree that LFR and LFD tools will are nice, they are also detrimental to the game. The part of an MMO is the people, my best friend is a Monk we played with in EQ. With lfr and LFD you rarely meet people that you will ever play with again. so people tend to be more toxic because they can be. And you never make the friendships like you did before, when you actually had to find player that played when you played. But that is a topic for another day.

I don’t see myself ever getting back into hardcore game mode. I like playing when I want to play, Doing what I want want when I want too, not having to dedicate a certain time multiple time a week to raid. I want to play the classes and specs I want to play, not have a guild ask or feel obligated to change to a spec or class because that is what the guild needs. I did that for many years. I am enjoying trying and playing all the classes. seeing what classes and specs fit me and my playstyle. But there is nothing wrong with being hardcore raider or M+ runner, pvper or a casual player. It takes all kinds. My wife loves running old dungeons, has started tanking and is loving that. and at the end of the day that is what matter, did you enjoy your time in the game? Did you have fun?

[Deezyl_Fizzlepop]

**added a sentence about Keybinds and how to clear them.

[Deezyl_Fizzlepop]

I want to take the time to thank @baddiemcbadface for all of they’re guides, knowledge, insight and inspirational contributions to this site. Without they’re help so many macro creators and macro users would be lost.

Oh, and thanks for the free bump!

[Deezyl_Fizzlepop]

**added in Thank you’s and a GSE Discord invite link.

[Deezyl_Fizzlepop]

**added in a small fine-tuning topic.

[Deezyl_Fizzlepop]

And for all the BM Hunter’s out there:

(per Azothorian)
On February 3rd 2021, Beast Mastery’s overall damage will be buffed by around 5%. This does not have any implications for the recommendations in the Icy Veins guide, but it does make Beast Mastery closer to Marksmanship in terms of competitiveness, although it is still clearly behind.

[Deezyl_Fizzlepop]

**added a YouTube How to use Raidbots video section.

[Deezyl_Fizzlepop]

**heavy editing and format changes.

[Deezyl_Fizzlepop]

**added in how to use Combat Logging under Fine-tuning.

[phil-f]

When fine tuning dps macros I look at the number of each spell cast in a 5 min period, as well as the damage as that can be effected by crits. For instance, does one iteration have more or less of an important cooldown in it. Important when putting together macros at low item levels due to better gear scaling on some spells.

When tuning tanking macros I see how long the character can face tank the tanking dummies.