Spec-Smart macros, please! (help request!)

[Verain]

When I press semicolon (Z on your heathen torture-boards)...

-Verain will shadowstep, burst of freedom, or prep.
-My druid will wild charge or displacer beast
-My DK will death grip
-My mage will blink
-My warrior will charge

It's the movement key, is my point. Prep got thrown in there because, well, you know why.

So here's what I want:

A macro that will look like shadowstep, and CAST shadowstep when pressed, if I have shadowstep in my spell book, and if I don't, then it will look like prep, and CAST prep when pressed, if I have prep, and if I don't have either of those, then it will look like burst of speed, and CAST burst when pressed

The current behavior when picking a new talent is that I get a dead button on my bar. I don't want that, it's stupid, and it's a useless extra step.

Is this a thing I can do?

[Squirl]

Essentially, this is not possible with a macro. You need an addon (which I do not believe currently exists, but theoretically could).

There have been a huge amount of these threads on the UI forum. I hope Blizz just addresses it soon.

[Verain]

Aha! Which addon?

Nice, I didn't think I was the only one in drag-and-drop hell.

[Coldkil]

Macros can check for active spec - this means that you could make a macro that does "if combat, cast SS - if sub, cast hemo". In fact, it's more or less the way the buttons are handled now for different specs, in which you have some abilities that replace others.

You macro won't work this way - you actually want that it checks what talent you have active, and in case use it. Afaik, there is no macro condition that does that.

Also don't know of an addon that does that.

[Verain]

Well, that trick will help me with my other buttons. While my button position was previously based on history (aka, the order in which the moves were added), mop replaced the specs and so I have to change that. I would like a button that does, say, vendetta if muti and killing spree if combat. Or one that does ambush if NOT muti, and mutilate if mutilate. Can you toss a sample in here?


The second thing is basically as you describe- I want a button that activates whatever is specced in my "movement tier". If that's not something Blizzard supports, they obviously should.

[Squirl]

Which addon?

Like I said, I don't know of one that exists right now; however, the API is there.

[Verain]

Sorry, I misread as "..which I believe exist", some how. Power of wishful thinking.

It does seem like something that should be fixed Blizzard-side.

[Coldkil]

The second thing is basically as you describe- I want a button that activates whatever is specced in my "movement tier". If that's not something Blizzard supports, they obviously should.

Actually, it's not and can lead to improper behaviour - like bugs or activation of wrong abilities. Anyway, i'm searching for that or something similar - i think a simple addon could also be done. Still i need to verify if it's legal or not.

But the API to check talents should be present and available to mod authors, i could give it a try.

[Verain]

Actually, it's not and can lead to improper behaviour - like bugs or activation of wrong abilities. Anyway, i'm searching for that or something similar - i think a simple addon could also be done. Still i need to verify if it's legal or not.

No, I'm pretty sure this is exactly the sort of thing Blizzard allows and encourages (and should) in general, man. That's the whole point of macros.

If you can cast shadowstep without speccing it, then we have bigger problems than a macro that allows you to respec without playing drag-and-drop!


Macros that Blizzard has stopped in the past have almost universally been ones that allow for the game to be in some unhealthy manner automated. For instance, if you made a macro that was "try to press backstab: if you can't, press hemo", that would be something they wouldn't like (and if you do want that macro, you have to use something like a Nostromo or Logitech keyboard, or use an out of game macro program- in all of these cases, you are gambling with your account to some degree once you automate that).

The old /castrandom macroes were invalidated. This was never a rogue issue, but fury warriors, enhancement shaman, and death knights were able to get a lot of their damage on the table via one button- the mechanic was, you'd press the button, and it would pick a move and try to do it. If the move was on cooldown or out of resources, nothing would happen. So you'd press the button again. This was by no means ideal dps, but it offered such simplification that Blizzard eliminated it- now your castrandom will pick a random thing, but if it doesn't work, it will keep trying until it does.

The macro (or addon) I describe is nothing like that. It just lets you respec faster. When I spec shuriken toss, it goes directly over my "U" key ("F" for you guys with fascist keyboards). I don't need to do any damned hoopla, it just happens. There's no way to game or exploit saying "this button equals shadowstep, prep, or burst of speed", unless Blizzard has screwed up what is accessible with /cast- and if they did, the issue would be for them to fix /cast.

There is nothing wrong with automating a spec-level choice like this, and Blizzard should absolutely support it in their UI.

[Deleted]

I'd also be interested in something like this.

[papastealth]

TalentSpellMacro makes autoupdating macros. I believe it can even be called from your existing macros. Worth a look.

You can also chain macros if I remember correctly. So you could theoretically make a movement macro that checks for your talent tree and calls the appropriate macro.

Another idea that you could mull over is going to Ion for your actionbars. It makes every one of your actions bars a macro slot that can accept huge macro lengths. I bet you could make a "universal" button of sorts using it.

[Kritheo]

Stance macro will work for ambush and muti you mentioned. IE in stealth use ambush if unstealthed use mutilate, but the thing is you would need to disable class bars or get a barmod that allows you to bind it specific. I use Dominos. There is one more advantage which is this cuts down on bar lag during stance changes ie shadow dance. the stances are or were 0,1,2,3 but i have not checked in mop some are saying that shadow dance bar was combined to stealth bar so this might suggest that the stance for shadow dance was removed and it is just considered stealth bar now. If I can remember i will post the macros for you cause i cant remember 0-X is which stance atm. maybe 0=nostance or out of stealth? then 1 is stealth 2 is vanish and 3 is shadow dance before? This is prob incorrect. will post macro later!