Friday, November 17, 2006

/castsequence

Okay, this has to be one of the better posts on the Blizzard forums right now. It talks about all the new, cool things we get to do with our macros. If you scroll down to the 4th post though, you get ot discover this little gem:

/castsequence [options] reset=#/target/combat spell1, spell2, spell3
Yes, I am in love with this. This macro will simply give a button you can mash to cast a series of spells. Sophisticated? No. Effective? Yes.

The classes that gain the most benefit from this feature are those who utilize spell 'combos' a great deal. Though any class can find use for this I anticipate Shamans and Warlocks utilizing this to highest effect.

Why? Both classes use spell 'cycles' a great deal. Shamans habitually throw a great deal of totems, and frequently the same ones. This macro will give them one button to mash to 'stomp' their totems. Warlocks use a large number of spells on enemies upon entering combat, this will let them mash one button for all of their DOTs.

Other uses I can see vary on class. When Sakuran was combat specced it would have been nice to mash one button to cast Evasion, Blade Flurry, and Adrenaline Rush for pure mayhem. Repentant seems to cast the same three spells at the start of every encounter: Power Word: Shield, Mind Blast, Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Flay, Wand. Button mashing would simplify that.

One of the example that was mentioned in the original post was mages mashing Frost Nova and Blink. For PvP I am dreading that combo... Though a lazy rogue could have his stun lock broken into a couple of buttons
  • /castsequence reset=combat/target Cheap Shot, Sinister Strike, Gouge
  • /castsequence reset=combat/target Kidney Shot, Backstab, Blind
And so on and so forth. So, yeah, I can't wait for BC. Acutally, I can't wait for this next patch which is coming SOON!!! Okay, maybe like a month, but that works for me.

3 comments:

Tauhid Chappell said...

hehe..sounds very confusing to me..but dont think the macro changes will affect hunters all too much..at least i dont think so...

Kinless said...

Hunters? Sure!

/castsequence reset=combat/target Hunter's Mark, Serpent Sting, Concussive Shot, Arcane Shot

I suppose if the target is already debuffed with something it'll skip to the next?

This sounds a lot like LazyHunter/LazyScript scripting to me. I thought they specifically wanted to break that kind of macro.

You know this almost sounds like it's becoming Guild Wars where you get eight buttons, no more, to do everything. What eight buttons those are is up to you to customize when out of battle/instance.

dbg9 said...

1st Macro:
/cast Hunter's Mark(Rank #)
/PetAttack

2nd Macro:
/castsequence reset=combat/target Serpent Sting(Rank #), Arcane Shot(Rank#), Arcane Shot(Rank#), Arcane Shot(Rank#)

3rd Macro:
/castsequence reset=combat/target Concussive Shot, Steady Shot(Rank #)

Hints for Optimizing your action bar: Put the Mark/Pet Attack Macro in slot 0, and put the Shoot Macro in slot 9. Then link the scroll down button on your mouse to slot 0, and the scroll up to slot 9. Put the Concussive Shot Macro in slot - and put your Frost Trap in slot =. Then link shift + mouse scroll up to -, and shift + scroll down to =.

Presto, your most useful spells in the most useful place, and you have freed up slots 1-8 for Raptor Strike, Mongoose Bite, Multishot, etc.