(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?
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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.
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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:
- 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.
- TRIPLE CHECK YOUR SPELLING.
- MAKE THE MACRO(S) EDITABLE, NOT READ ONLY AND IN ENGLISH.
- QUADRUPLE CHECK WHAT TALENTS YOU HAVE POSTED.
- Post what ms you’re running the macro(s) at.
- 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).
- 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