5.3 F&B Macro Assistance

[Alaira]

Destruction
Fire and Brimstone no longer requires a Burning Ember to cast. Instead, the spell causes Immolate, Incinerate, Conflagrate, and Curse spells to consume a Burning Ember when cast, and the effect remains active as long as the Warlock has at least 1 Burning Ember remaining.

With the 5.3 change coming on Tuesday, I'm wondering how to preserve the function of F&B as it exists on live. I currently have the following:

/cast [mod:shift] Fire & Brimstone
/cast Incinerate

A similar macro is used for Immolate. I want to continue using the mod:shift conditional so that F&B is only engaged while holding Shift, but am not sure whether it will be possible considering that Blizzard has redesigned F&B as a toggle ability

[Cirayne24]

Does toggling Fire & Brimstone take a GCD?

[Netherspark]

Maybe this; It should toggle F&B on, cast Incinerate and then immediately toggle it off again. Though I obviously can't test it yet, we'll have to see how the toggle works.

/cast [mod:shift] Fire and Brimstone
/cast Incinerate
/cast [mod:shift] Fire and Brimstone

or maybe:

/cast [mod:shift] Fire and Brimstone
/cast Incinerate
/cancelaura Fire and Brimstone

never mind...

[Alaira]

Appreciate the input, but I'm not sure Netherspark's macros will serve the same function. In 5.2, F&B doesn't cancel until I release shift. With the macros included as possibilities, the keypress would only be good for one cast then it would deactivate F&B.

I'm looking for a way to replicate the "while shift, do this until no shift" state. I'm essentially getting the 5.3 effect in 5.2, but simply release a key to cancel instead of having to push the button again. Blizzard appears to be trying to enable the 5.2 macro as a default, but can't quite make it the same and are going with the next best thing.

[Netherspark]

Appreciate the input, but I'm not sure Netherspark's macros will serve the same function. In 5.2, F&B doesn't cancel until I release shift. With the macros included as possibilities, the keypress would only be good for one cast then it would deactivate F&B.

That's exactly how it works on live right now. F&B isnt staying active, you're just spamming it.

edit> never mind, my macros wont work.

[Deleted]

The macros should make it work exactly like the 5.2 version.

In 5.3 using the above macro this is what happens: You hold shift+press incinerate = F&B activates and Incinerate gets cast, then F&B gets manually deactivated by the macro. Press Incinerate again while still holding shift and the same thing repeats.

The difference to the 5.2 version is that u would have to press the button twice to activate/deactivate F&B.
I could imagine a macro like this:

/cast [mod:shift] Fire and Brimstone
/cancelaura [nomod] Fire and Brimstone
/cast Incinerate

With this macro it should be possible to chain cast incinerates with either shift(aoe) or nomodifier(single target).

[Netherspark]

/cast [mod:shift] Fire and Brimstone
/cancelaura [nomod] Fire and Brimstone
/cast Incinerate

With this macro it should be possible to chain cast incinerates with either shift(aoe) or nomodifier(single target).

Casting F&B while the buff is active will toggle it off it in 5.3 - your macro would prevent chain casting whether holding shift or not.

[Deleted]

Casting F&B while the buff is active will toggle it off it in 5.3 - your macro would prevent chain casting whether holding shift or not.

Oh, okay didn't know that, it's crap though...still no aoe spam possible then....

[Netherspark]

As far as I can figure there is no way then to emulate the 5.2 version.

[Woz]

Assuming it's off the GCD (which it should be, though never did PTR this patch) you shouldn't even need the macro >.>...

[Destroyed]

afaik it works just like rogue blade flurry, toggle it on off the gcd, spam your spells and it'll wear off if you dont have any embers available

[Alaira]

Apologies, the replies came late in my day yesterday. You all are correct in that F&B with my 5.2 macro did not maintain the buff on my character; it was a perception of having the buff active while Shift was held, and otherwise not active. I was looking to maintain that, without requiring an extra keypress to toggle off. Leaving the buff up until I run out of embers is terrible for DPS, for obvious reasons. I suppose I'll just have to adjust to the new mechanic.

[Biomega]

The new FnB is indeed a toggle. Press once: FnB activated! Spam your AoE. Press again: FnB deactivated! Resume single target. It also toggles off automatically once you drop below 1 Ember.

[Wildkarde]

The new FnB takes some getting used to but is also so much more fluid during heavy aoe spam than the old version that required you to pay close attention to your cast bar to make sure you didn't clip and cast a single target spell. Would be nice if instead of toggling off when you ran out of embers it stayed on but cast the single target version of the spell, but Blizzard may thin that is too easy.

[Surutcra]

I'm a bit disappointed by the change to be honest...

Overall it's clearly more practical / better than in used to be, but :
- You cannot macro it, and even though it's off the GCD you still cannot cast it while wasting your previous (single target) spell.
- If you deactivate it while casting a FnB-affected spell (Inci, Immo, Conflag), it will interrupt the current cast.

[Deleted]

/cast [mod:shift] Fire & Brimstone
/cast Incinerate

actually works u just gotta change the way u use it compared to 5.2 macro immo/conflag/incinerate, if u wanna AOE use any of spells with mod to toggle on F&B once and keep using spells without the mod when u wanna stop F&B use the mod again to toggle F&B off

[Morrigenn]

The new FnB takes some getting used to but is also so much more fluid during heavy aoe spam than the old version that required you to pay close attention to your cast bar to make sure you didn't clip and cast a single target spell. Would be nice if instead of toggling off when you ran out of embers it stayed on but cast the single target version of the spell, but Blizzard may thin that is too easy.

This ^^

I did see my AoE numbers go up with the change but it was sort of disorienting to have it remain on, and it took a while to try and work out a fluid way to toggle it back off without burning up all embers (unless in a max ember generating situation).

(Now if I just didn't have to use the targeting reticule for RoF.... )

[Dreyo]

After playing with the 5.3 F&B, I am dumbfounded as to why anyone would want to go back. This is what it should have been at the start, it's so much more fluid and straightforward.

[Scathbais]

After playing with the 5.3 F&B, I am dumbfounded as to why anyone would want to go back. This is what it should have been at the start, it's so much more fluid and straightforward.

^100% agree. Now to just unlearn hitting my F&B button before each cast.

[Alaira]

I honestly don't know why people were hitting F&B before casting in 5.2. You could just macro them together with a modifier and use the macro for AoE and Single Target depending on the state of the modifier.

Another thread on this popped up today, and a couple people have contributed to the following:

#showtooltip Incinerate
/cast [mod:shift] !Fire and Brimstone
/cancelaura [nomod] Fire and Brimstone
/cast [nochanneling] Incinerate

Source: MMO-C Has anyone a working Fire and Brinstone macro

Shift to AoE, no modifier to single target. I'm going to be testing this shortly.