Multi cast bar macro tutorial.

Lazy Macros
1

Normal single target format

Hotbar 1 - main rotation

Hotbar 2 - Secondary (2nd) ability set

Hotbar 3 - if applicable is tertiary (3rd) ability set.

AOE follows the same format.

 

First off shift 1 is hotbar 1, shift 2 is hotbar 2 and so on so for hotbar 3 it will be shift 3. Also make sure in the interface settings you have hotbar 3 enabled.
Next up I wouldn’t use any 3rd party keybinds if you are having trouble.

Now to the macroes single target goes to hotbar 1 key 1 if that is your wish, macro 2 goes on hotbar 2 and key 1, macro 3 goes on hotbar 3 key 1 – it doesn’t matter what key you assign to the 3 hotbars as long as it’s the same key on all 3 hotbars. With the AOE rotation just use a different key – for example key 4 on all 3 hotbars. Or key 3 if you wish. It doesn’t matter just make sure they are all the same key for all 3 hotbars. Same applies with the single target rotation. Once you get that sorted then you can try a third party addon.

Also duplicate all hotbars then all that will be flashing are the macros and not the rest of the hotbars. The other thing as has been mentioned numerous times is to make sure the spacing is correct – just copy and pasting from here has caused problems so double check everything. One thing you can do is test the primary macro (will always be the first macro for hotbar 1) and to do that remove the line /swapactionbar 1 2 and test it without swapping bars – if that works then the rest should as long as you add back that line. If it doesn’t work then a spacing or other problem is happening.

2

Can you explain how to make this work when using the add on Bartender ?

3

This feature has been disabled by default, but its still there! Turn it back on in the settings, Bar 1 -> State Configuration -> ActionBar Paging etc.

4

So I understand this correctly “Shift” doesn’t mean Shift key, correct? It refers to the shifting between different bars?

I have been a one button/one bar/ one marco DPSer for a long time. The question is will this squeeze out that .02% extra DPS that we all seem so anal to get [This is not an insult my son is constantly giving me shit for tweaking my gems. reforges and gear for that extra .0125% DPS (as he refers to it)] But I do understand a previous comment you made that there are some abilities in one marco DPS barrage seem to get skipped or delayed.

5

Shift 1 is the in game shortcut for hotbar 1 which is the shift key+1 and so on. Having abilities used as soon as available is a lot more than a fraction of dps. Put it this way - in some of the macros abilities got skipped by up to 5 or more full rotations, I will give a few examples.

One macro Shadow-Word Death worked sporadically and had no set pattern as to when it worked - when it’s supposed to do 1-2 per trash raid mob it was doing none and on boss fights missed at least 6. One other macro missed Dire Beast and Glaive Toss by up to 5 rotations - now count that up over a full raid and see what you are missing, I guarantee it’s more than a fraction of dps. I have proven it.

More than one hotbar is still essentially a one button macro - you are still only hitting the one button correct? The only 2 differences are 1, abilities work when next in the cast queue and 2, you are using more than one hotbar. Previously I have never used hotbar 2, maybe only for fishing and crafting shortcuts which I can live without and with 6 hotbars I don’t seem to be lacking space.

Finally to the other macro makers my comments are by no way a slur or detriment to your work, I applaud anyone helping others out but as we know Blizzard have changed the way macros work so we have to change with it and make the best of what we got to work with.

6

Easy there, I wasn’t doubting your DPS numbers but I just wanted to verify that this change was worth the effort of changing what I am using which I am quite comfortable with.

So basically if I have already remapped all my keys, I need to at a minium return action bars to their orginal default keybinds. Any others I need to return to their defaults?

 

 

7

Hotbar 1 – main rotation

Hotbar 2 – Secondary (2nd) ability set

Hotbar 3 – if applicable is tertiary (3rd) ability set

equals this?

Hotbar 1 – /castsequence reset=0.3 1,2,Howling Blast
/castsequence reset=0.3 1,Obliterate
/cast Frost Strike

Hotbar 2 – /castsequence reset=0.3 1,Howling Blast
/cast Obliterate

Hotbar 3 – /cast Howling Blast

8

If you have remapped hotbar 2 or 3 there is no need to return them to their default settings because when the hotbar swaps you are using the default 1 to = keys - if you have changed them then stick with what you are used to.

And yes Bill that is the correct layout you posted. But I am not sure if what you posted is optimal as I haven’t got around to Frost DK yet but will be in the near future.

9

Thank you for your response, I will attempt this on my Ret Pally this weekend. I really don’t want to mess with my main (Fury Warrior) till I am comfortable with this.

10

How does a marco with “/swapactionbar” differ from the above example I presented above.

I understand that “/swapactionbar” is suppose to “you are actually pressing two spells with 1 key (with multiple clicking tho). You can also swap between more than 2 bars, therefore, technology you are pressing more than 2 buttons if you continuously press the same key.” https://wowlazymacros.com/forums/topic/the-priority-cast-macros

But after looking at your Fury one I am confused.

If:

Hotbar 3

/castsequence [mod]Wild Strike
/castsequence [combat]reset=0.3 1,Dragon Roar
/castsequence reset=0.3 Raging Blow
/use [combat]13
/use [combat]14
/swapactionbar 1 2
/targetenemy [noexists][dead][noharm]
/startattack [exists,harm,nodead]

but

 

Hotbar 1

/castsequence [mod:ctrl]Battle Shout;[mod:alt]Wild Strike;reset=target Bloodthirst,Wild Strike
/cast [combat]Berserker Rage
/cast Charge
/use [combat]13
/use [combat]14
/swapactionbar 1 2
/targetenemy [noexists][dead][noharm]
/startattack [exists,harm,nodead]

When does Dragon Roar get activated if Hotbar 1 doesn’t have Dragon Roar in it and Hotbar 3 is:

/castsequence [combat]reset=0.3 1,Dragon Roar

or is Actionbar different from Hotbar?

Sorry for all the questions but I hate not understanding why or how it works. Am I overthinking this?

11

So it seems for every answer I get I have two new questions, I am really interested in this but I am not getting it. Any helpful youtube videos out there that can help?

12

Hot-bar/Action-bar are the same thing technically. I will try to explain. I am using bartender 4 and has different command to switch action bars(/changeactionbar). Take following 3 macros.
Macro 1 goes on bar 1 button 1

#showtooltips Obliterate
/castsequence reset=target Howling Blast, Plague Strike, null
/castsequence reset=0.5 0,0, Howling Blast
/castsequence reset=0.5 0,Frost Strike
/castsequence reset=0.5 Obliterate
/changeactionbar 2
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Macro 2 goes on bar 2 button 1 & 2 (same button as bar 1)

#showtooltip Plague Leech
/castsequence reset=0.5 0,Horn of Winter
/castsequence reset=20 Plague Leech,Plague Strike,Howling Blast
/cast [combat] Pillar of frost
/use [combat] 13
/use [combat] 14
/startattack
/changeactionbar 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Macro 3 goes on bar 1 button 2 (should be used when the target is below 35%)

#showtooltips Soul Reaper
/castsequence reset=0.5 0,0, 0,Howling Blast
/castsequence reset=0.5 0,0,Frost Strike
/castsequence reset=0.5 0,Obliterate
/castsequence reset=0.5 Soul Reaper
/swapactionbar 1 2 (If you use Bartender 4 use /changeactionbar 2)
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Setting up Bartender 4:

Step 1 In configuration select Bar 1, enable it. Select State configuration

Step 2 In state configuration tan check Enabled and then check Action-Bar Paging.

Repeat step 1 & 2 for Bar 2 as well. and further more to bar 3, 4, 5 or 6 if you need to swap all those bars. Note: bar paging/swapping only works for bars 1-6.

Once you have done this, go back to General Setting tab for the bars and uncheck enabled for bar 2-6 so that they are hidden. Note don’t uncheck “enabled” on Bar 1 as we will be using that bar.

At this point Bartender 4 is all setup so close the configuration.

Creating Macros: Note: you will need an ad-don called SuperDuperMacro for most of these priority style macros as it allows longer than 255 character macros.

Now open macro windows by entering /m or /macro in the chat window and create a new macro global or character specific. Create the above 2 macros provided by Captivation_Li

Put macro 1 in bar 1 button 1. Click it once and it will disappear. This is because the line /changeactionbar 2. Now the action-bar 1 has changed to action-bar 2. Now put macro 2 in bar 2 and same button as bar 1 which is button 1.

Now when you click macro 2 it will change to action-bar 1 and you will see macro 1 in the same place. As you click button 1 over and over you will see that button 1 will keep switching between macro 1 & 2.

Understanding macros.

When you select a target, while you are in combat or out of combat, first click will trigger Macro 1. Macro 1 will start of by applying Frost Fever (Howling Blast) and switch and try to Plague Leech and fail & switch bar and apply Blood Plague (Plague Strike). At this point, Macro 1 will always keep Frost Fever up and every time the bar switches, and you hit macro 2, it will go through a cast sequence of Plague Leech, Plague Strike, Howling Blast.

Frost Fever and Blood Plague are always up and Plague Leech gets used on every cool-down. there might me some delays on the Plague Leech but that’s due to GCD and Macro 1 trying to cast higher priority spells.

Now if I want to use the Soul Reaper Macro (Macro 3) it will go in action-bar 1 button 2 and on action-bar 2 I would also put Macro 2 on button 2. This way when ever I hit Soul Reaper Macro and the action-bars are switched, I will get the Macro 2 on the same button as well and the rotation goes on smoothly.

I hope you understood the concept.

13

@ Bill, Hotbar 3 is for this discussion, segment

/castsequence [combat]reset=0.3 1,Dragon Roar
/castsequence reset=0.3 Raging Blow

which is a priority cast sequence for that button alone so if Raging Blow is not available it will cast Dragon Roar. If Raging Blow has procced it will cast it. DR has no need to be in any of the other macros. Actionbar 1 is hotbar 1 they are the same thing. All /swapactionbar 1 2 is is a code for the macro in language the game understands because /swaphotbar 1 2 is not the right code.

In your above example you have Obliterate in there twice and Howling Blast in there 3 times which is not really necessary but can be left that way as long as it doesn’t spam one spell as priority and not cast the others. I have made test macros before like that to ensure a spell works and it makes no difference if you have the spell in there once or three times it still works.

My only issue with my Warrior set is sometimes Colossus Smash doesn’t go off when it’s ready and rarely Raging Blow times out so I make sure I keep an eye on them two spells. Macros shouldn’t be used as failsafes guaranteed everything works when it’s ready. Certain abilities should be available to hit separately to weave in with the macro. For example while I spam my Warrior macro I will weave in Storm Bolt/Battle Shout as it won’t work for me anywhere in the macro. Same goes for Colossus Smash if it doesn’t go off immediately - just weave it in.

Thanks Gen Coup for your detailed explanation - I might add duplicate all spells on the hotbars except the /swapactionbar macros.

14

MJ, I believe there is only 1 Obliterate. And yes I agree that there is no need for HB to be in macro 2. For Macro 1 the only reason for HB to be there twice is because when you switch targets it starts off by casting HB and PS to get FF and BP up right off the bat. Once they are cast one time, I believe the following line never gets executed in macro 1. Unless I am mistaken.
/castsequence reset=target Howling Blast, Plague Strike, null

For Macro 3 Obliterate is necessary as we still need to Obliterate when we are doing Soul Reaper rotation. After I posted the above reply I have made some changes to the macro 2. Here is the new set that I am using and so far it is working very smoothly.

Macro 2

#showtooltip Plague Leech
/castsequence reset=0.5 0,Horn of Winter
/castsequence reset=20 Plague Strike,Plague Leech
/cast [combat] Pillar of frost
/use [combat] 13
/use [combat] 14
/startattack
/changeactionbar 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

The only issue I have noticed is that sometimes Plague strike doesnt cast and ths macro gets stuck trying to cast Plague Leech and I know what the problem is. I am not hit/expertise capped and I believe if I cast PS and I miss, the macro will move on to PL and gets stuck. So what I am doing for the time being is keep an eye out for blood plague and if it is not up and I dont see Blood Plague apply on the boss for few sec I just stop and cast a PS and then continue with the macro.

Also here is a post I made in monk thread to rectify tired finger problem due to very fast spamming to ensure that all the spells in the priority are cast.

"Thanks for the response and clearing things up for me. In quest for being lazy, I did some digging around. Now I haven’t tested this with the monk but I did it with my ret/prot paladin which has about 7 spells including execution sentence and the system works and I never missed a spell. Yes, I felt some spells were delayed only by a sec or two. So heres what I did.

I use a separate game pad (Belkin Nostromo n52te) on which I have mapped the number pad of my keyboard. I was able to setup a continuous trigger (using the game-pad software) which simulates button down-button up of the game pads keys. I set it up to repeat up/down motion every 50ms and used cast sequence reset = 0.1 (/castsequence reset=0.1). Give it a shot.

Note: You don’t need a specialized game-pad/keyboard/mouse to achieve this. Quick Google search came back with a utility that does key press simulation for your existing keyboard. I haven’t used it my self but I am sure someone can try it out and give a feedback. Utility is called: Auto Keyboard Software Utility"

15

Please avoid using any utilities that inserts a delays in actions that i mentioned in my above post. This is against TOC/EULA. I am going to stop doing that before I get banned.

16

Can you make it so the bars you use for swapping dont show up at all like in spam the macro and the bar in my case bar 1 is only visible? As i dont get that to work when i press the macro its switch to the other bar so all other hotkeys are gone and i press macro again and it switch back to bar 1 in bartender 4

17

There used to be click macros with a main click macro that clicked other macros but I am not sure that is still possible. It worked something like this.

/click can be used for many different purposes. You can chain together multiple macros by /click’ing buttons with other macros on them. For example, you might have a really long macro that doesn’t fit into 255 characters. Put as much of it as you can in one macro and end it with the following line:

/click MultiBarRightButton1 or /click MultiBarLeftButton1 for example.

The rest of the code would go into a new macro that you would then place on MultiBarRightButton1 (the first button of the right-hand vertical extra action bar).

And so forth you can also do button 2,3 and as many as you like. I haven’t been able to make this work yet so if anyone can let me know.

As for the /swapactionbar macros all you do is duplicate all spells on the other hotbars (except the macros) then all you see flashing is the macros themselves and not the whole hotbar. There is no way that I know to swap action bars without them actually swapping.

@Gen I have been using AutoKeyboard software and am not sure if it is against the ToC when gaming mice and WoW’s own keyboard can do it. If it was then Warden would have booted me by now. I would be really sad if it is because it allows me to use macros I could otherwise not use.

18

I opened a ticket to confirm the auto keyboard and this is the response I got back. So the way I am seeing it is that this is not too big on their radar. Also with these auto press utilities, I will not be constantly holding it it down because of the game mechanics and also I like to time some of my DPS cool downs with heroism or wait to pop at certain stage of the fight. Seems to me that we can use it as long as we don’t make it to a point where you set it up as press and continue action until next key press and then walk away and turns out the boss is dead and you are still going on with the macro.

I suppose this will not result in a permanent ban right off the bat. We will be given a warning before they bury us permanently. Any thoughts?

This is the latest response from Customer Support:
Hello , and thank you for contacting the Blizzard Support department!

I’m sorry that I was unable to speak to you today, but after looking into your issue, the general rule of thumb with macro programs is “one press, one action”. As I understand your description of the action, they hold the key down once to repeatedly use the macro in-game. This would indeed violate the rule of automation, and is something I’d recommend against to be on the safe side.

Should you need further assistance, please use the Need More Help button below, otherwise hit Close Issue.

Regards,

Customer Services
Blizzard Entertainment
http://battle.net/support

19

[quote quote=5483]I opened a ticket to confirm the auto keyboard and this is the response I got back. So the way I am seeing it is that this is not too big on their radar. Also with these auto press utilities, I will not be constantly holding it it down because of the game mechanics and also I like to time some of my DPS cool downs with heroism or wait to pop at certain stage of the fight. Seems to me that we can use it as long as we don’t make it to a point where you set it up as press and continue action until next key press and then walk away and turns out the boss is dead and you are still going on with the macro. I suppose this will not result in a permanent ban right off the bat. We will be given a warning before they bury us permanently. Any thoughts? This is the latest response from Customer Support:
Hello , and thank you for contacting the Blizzard Support department! I’m sorry that I was unable to speak to you today, but after looking into your issue, the general rule of thumb with macro programs is “one press, one action”. As I understand your description of the action, they hold the key down once to repeatedly use the macro in-game. This would indeed violate the rule of automation, and is something I’d recommend against to be on the safe side. Should you need further assistance, please use the Need More Help button below, otherwise hit Close Issue. Regards,

Customer Services
Blizzard Entertainment
http://battle.net/support [/quote]

 

 

MAYBE U NEED THE GAME TO MAKE YOU DINNER OR SOMETHING TOO?

20

[quote quote=5484]

Gen Coupe wrote: I opened a ticket to confirm the auto keyboard and this is the response I got back. So the way I am seeing it is that this is not too big on their radar. Also with these auto press utilities, I will not be constantly holding it it down because of the game mechanics and also I like to time some of my DPS cool downs with heroism or wait to pop at certain stage of the fight. Seems to me that we can use it as long as we don’t make it to a point where you set it up as press and continue action until next key press and then walk away and turns out the boss is dead and you are still going on with the macro. I suppose this will not result in a permanent ban right off the bat. We will be given a warning before they bury us permanently. Any thoughts? This is the latest response from Customer Support: Hello , and thank you for contacting the Blizzard Support department! I’m sorry that I was unable to speak to you today, but after looking into your issue, the general rule of thumb with macro programs is “one press, one action”. As I understand your description of the action, they hold the key down once to repeatedly use the macro in-game. This would indeed violate the rule of automation, and is something I’d recommend against to be on the safe side. Should you need further assistance, please use the Need More Help button below, otherwise hit Close Issue. Regards, Customer Services Blizzard Entertainment http://battle.net/support
MAYBE U NEED THE GAME TO MAKE YOU DINNER OR SOMETHING TOO? [/quote]

And feed it to me as well. Now buzz off.