One button macro for guardian tanking!

[Icefalcon]

I was on the tanking forums and having a lovely little chat with someone about our whack-a-mole rotation we have going and starting thinking, 'hey could our rotation be macroed?'

So i created one

/castsequence reset=6 mangle, savage defense, swipe, thrash, Faerie Fire, lacerate

and yes it works prefectly. Thank you blizzard for making tanking so easy we can create a macro.. copy it to all keys and faceroll

This effectively kept up savage defense up 100% and kept all other abilities on cd. Love to hear peoples thoughts

[rated]

Sounds boring and lazy. No offense.

[Irony]

Would really only be effective on fights that require no movement. Macros like these can be created for almost any spec/class.

[Icefalcon]

Sounds boring and lazy. No offense.

Well thats what our class is so no offense taken. I've tested this and it works. Our rotation and abilities are setup that we can do this right now...

I'm hoping bliz does something to change it, but as it is this will work.

I actually added frenzied regen to the list and i'm still keeping savage defense up at 95%-100%...

[Kewi]

No frenzied regen? what happens when you run out of savage defense charges? how do you drop rage ?

If you want to make an inefficient tankign macro, then as Irony said.. one exists for every class

---------- Post added 2012-09-17 at 12:39 AM ----------

I actually added frenzied regen to the list and i'm still keeping savage defense up at 95%-100%...

Now you're trolling

It's not physically possible to keep a buff with a 9 second CD and a 6 second duration up for more then 66% of the time (for a fight of sufficient length)

And if you're macroing it in, you're not using at optimal times... such as wasting it on a single mob and not saving it for an AOE pull in 10 seconds.. or using it when you're OT'ing in a raid

[Icefalcon]

I haven't run out of savage defense charges yet. like i said i added frenzied regen and by the time i get to savage defense in teh cast sequence i have enough rage to keep it up

/castsequence reset=6 mangle, savage defense, frenzied regenenration, swipe, thrash, Faerie Fire, lacerate

I'd like to know why you think it is so inefficient. Most of our abilities have cds on them. Besides sd and mangle there isn't an ability that needs to be priority over the others. I've tested and i can work through the sequence such that it keeps savage defense up 95%-100% and still enough rage to activate frenzied regen. Now glyphed fr probably won't work...

also i'd like to know why movement would affect this? range issues i can see, but that will cause problems even if your not spamming a macro.

/edit just messed with moving or out of range and yes mangle and lacerate create problems but the other 5 abilities will work giving you 4-5 sec to move back into range of hitting something.

[uzumati]

You really need to learn how Guardians work

Savage defense can be kept up at 100% for 42 seconds after that it is capped at 66.67% uptime due to the 6 second duration and 9 second cooldown

Swipe never needs to be used on single target
Thrash only need to be used to keep the bleed debuff up unless FF is Glyphed then you insert Thrash as the filler
How do you handle Mangle procs in that macro?

[Kewi]

being able to cast SD every time it comes up in the Macro is NOT the same as having SD with 100% uptime... you are saying a druid can use your macro to get +45% dodge for 55-60 seconds out of every minute.. meaning a bear druid should have a static dodge percentage of about 70%+

[Icefalcon]

You really need to learn how Guardians work

Savage defense can be kept up at 100% for 42 seconds after that it is capped at 66.67% uptime due to the 6 second duration and 9 second cooldown

Swipe never needs to be used on single target
Thrash only need to be used to keep the bleed debuff up unless FF is Glyphed then you insert Thrash as the filler
How do you handle Mangle procs in that macro?

swipe might not need to be used, but it can be used due to all our abilities having cds.

thrash has a 25% chance to refresh mangle. I agree its a stupid mechanic and i hate the ability myself because it encourages us to use it as soon as it is off cd to potentially max out mangle use. I would rather use it once every 16 sec but that on hit proc makes it more useful to be used on cd.

Because it takes me 5-6 sec to go through the macro the mangle proc is almost not needed.

Is this the most efficient way to tank? I won't agree it is, but it looks like it will work and really the only point i have in posting this is to show that i really believe our spec/rotation needs more adjustment by blizzard. For those out there that want to be lazy try this macro.

[Deleted]

Your macro is great if you simply want to be a bad tank that takes a truck load of damage because you are not optimally using your defensive abilities. Being able to macro a cast sequence together so you can face roll on your keyboard does not mean you should. With almost every class you could do this, the fact is you will not be the best you could be by doing it!

[uzumati]

swipe might not need to be used, but it can be used due to all our abilities having cds.

It is simply a waisted GCD

Using the proper rotation you will never see everything on CD. You will see a slight variation since FF is effected by haste where it will appear like everything is on CD for ~0.2 seconds but its just the difference between FF CD and the GCD

You can Mangle, Lacerate, Faerie Fire, Lacerate All day long and never see everything on CD if FF is glyphed simply replace it with Thrash

Your macro is great if you simply want to be a bad tank that takes a truck load of damage because you are not optimally using your defensive abilities.

This is the only thing this macro will do

[Icefalcon]

Your macro is great if you simply want to be a bad tank that takes a truck load of damage because you are not optimally using your defensive abilities. Being able to macro a cast sequence together so you can face roll on your keyboard does not mean you should. With almost every class you could do this, the fact is you will not be the best you could be by doing it!

I completely agree with you. I didn't have Frenzied regen in there to begin with because it could be used as more of a as needed abilitye like bs or si, but was surprised that i could because i had extra rage.

Still as i see it this macro will work for us.

I feel we are weak without SD. Yes we have more mitigation then the other tanks, but without SD up i feel i get slammed hard. This cast sequence can be worked through by the time SD falls off, either right before, or right after. Mangle is tricky because yes it can be used earlier in the rotation if you get a proc. If you don't get a proc it becomes available at the right time. After those two abilities the rest of our abilities are fillers anyways. lacerate/thrash/faerie fire are only used to get mangle procs. We can swipe every now and then just because we can.

For progression i probably won't use this macro, but trash or fights that i just want to zone out here we go.

In cataclysm i don't think this could of been pulled off, but having most of our abililites if not all on a cd and cost nothing kind of promotes this type of playstyle imo.

[crunk]

you will do bad tank dps using this macro. it messes up priorities when things come off cooldown at the same time and you lose like 3k dps.... tested it myself.

[Djuntas]

OP, have you heard about prot paladins? They had the same thing, 6 9 macro's, it was called in WOTLK.

Nothing new here - many classes can macro stuff, but it dosent really work very good in most situations, but it can work sure.

If you really wanna try a macro-happy game, play Rift. Now thats a game where macro's owns, and are a must have.

[Deleted]

OP, have you heard about prot paladins? They had the same thing, 6 9 macro's, it was called in WOTLK.

Nothing new here - many classes can macro stuff, but it dosent really work very good in most situations, but it can work sure.

If you really wanna try a macro-happy game, play Rift. Now thats a game where macro's owns, and are a must have.

Exactly this, I really enjoyed Rift, then I discovered the power of the Rift's macro, then I quit.

PS : The ability to put all a cycle on a macro KILL gameplay. Like, imo, gw2 with his automagic rotation.

[Hyve]

Macros can actually be very limited. What happens when you're switching target, but low on Rage? What happens if your opener in your Macro is on cooldown?

As someone who spent a lot of Wrath of the Lich King trying to macro everything into a 1 / 2 button mash, it is so much easier to just master your keybinds and skills, and macro what is needed.

[Deleted]

I think hes just saying how lame bears are to play atm..

[rated]

Well thats what our class is

So roll a new class instead of figuring out a marco to dumb something down you already find boring. I like playing my druid to be honest, but that's just my opinion.

[crunk]

I think hes just saying how lame bears are to play atm..

i agree that bear is boring but what hes saying is that this macro is as optimal as playing properly which is simply not true

[Puri]

It works fine. You will do more dps if you simply smash your keys in order of high hitting skills down to low hitting.
This is how tanking worked since wotlk.

Until 5.0, you could excel as tank by improving your dps. Now, you can drastically improve your survivability and still get more dps if you don't rely on macros or smashing keys, and think about what you are pressing on your keyboard.

But in fact it is pretty much as all dps classes, the gap between a good and a bad player closes.