Question about Tank Macros and Defensive Cooldowns

I have a question when it comes to tanking, particularly on WAR, but DRK and PLD input is also welcome due to wanting to become familiar with all of them.

In regards to Defensive Cooldowns, do you separate them all on your hotbar or are there any defensive cooldowns you just macro together either because they're more effective when paired with another cooldown, or are generally useless without being paired with another cooldown/ability? If so, which ones? Do you bother to put it on the hotbar anymore or just keep it macro'd?

You don't want to macro cooldowns together. Keep them separate.

I used to macro them together, but forced myself to separate them after I learned about the input delay. Separated they are far more reliable.

Pretty much every Warrior cooldown has a specific use, and you always want the ability to use them individually. Whilst in practise a Vengeance is generally always 100% better than, say, Foresight, sometimes you need to save Vengeance for a specific point in a fight to survive a really big hit. Thus you might want access to Foresight just to reduce a little damage before this point and save Vengeance. So don't be tempted to put Foresight in a priority macro that only uses it if Vengeance is off cooldown as some (bad) tanks do, sometimes you need access to weaker cooldowns.

Of course, every cooldown has slightly different uses too - Convalescence is great as a survivability cooldown if you're taking huge amounts of constant damage as it'll massively boost you being spam healed, but does absolutely nothing to reduce the damage of a single big tankbuster hit that might one-shot you. Likewise Thrill of Battle bolsters your maximum health and provides a small heal, but this is either an emergency heal or used to give a cushion for a single hit - it's pretty worthless as a cooldown when aoe tanking loads of hard hitting mobs for a while. You really do need access to be able to hit all of them individually, as much as this might ruin your hotbars.

In addition, macros are less responsive than raw skills because they dont queue up - you can press a skill "too early" and it'll just wait for the animation of the previous skill to finish and then fire it off as soon as it can. However, if it's in a macro and you press it too early, it will simply do nothing. It's not so bad with off-gcd abilities but it can still lead to moments where you hit a macro and literally nothing happens.

I think the only macros i generally see Warriors advocating are macroing Deliverance and Defiance into two separate macros with /hotbar action commands that swaps Inner Beast and Fell Cleave, and Steel Cyclone and Decimate, so you save two keybindings as these are basically the same skill and can only be used in one stance.

For over a year, I had my PLD CDs all under one macro. After doing stuff like Thordan Ex, I now have Hotbar 8 for my CDs (L2>R2 and R2>L2).

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

I think the only macros i generally see Warriors advocating are macroing Deliverance and Defiance into two separate macros with /hotbar action commands that swaps Inner Beast and Fell Cleave, and Steel Cyclone and Decimate, so you save two keybindings as these are basically the same skill and can only be used in one stance.

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That is an amazing idea and I might just end up doing that.

@OP - I used to have a couple of macros that I made specifically for dreadnaughts in T8, but other than that I've tended to keep all my cooldowns separate on my hotbar. It's more flexible that way. If you macro them together, you're more likely to run out.

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Originally Posted by Ashkendor

That is an amazing idea and I might just end up doing that.

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It's useful but there are a few major draw backs.

If you try to switch back to the other stance before their recast timer is up, the skills will swap but not your stance. And, if you try to switch again to get the skills to swap again and accidentally do it after the recast timer is up, it will drop the stance and your stacks.

Also, if something happens right as you swap stances that causes the macro to discontinue, your stance will not swap but your skills will. For example, if you die right as you stance swap, when you are raised, you might be raised back in defiance but your skills will be stuck on deliverance skills. And, if you don't notice immediately swap your skills back by dropping your stance and reactivating defiance, it can cause issues later.

You could just macro lock it but then you cannot use another macro for the duration of the lock. Considering I use a notification macro for Holmgang and Provoke, this isn't really an option. Just imagine stance dancing to tank swap and being locked out of using provoke until the recast for your stance dance is up.

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Originally Posted by Brian_

It's useful but there are a few major draw backs.

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Ew. That doesn't sound like it's worth the trouble of saving 2 hotbar spaces. x_x

It's not just the 2 hot bar spaces. It's the convenience, the muscle memory, and the ability to double dip on prime keyboard real-estate.

The thing with WAR is you have too many main rotation buttons since you basically use everything regularly. It's definitely a good thing that so many WAR skills are worth using, though. Out of all the classes, WAR probably has the highest percentage of regularly used skills.

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Originally Posted by Ashkendor

Ew. That doesn't sound like it's worth the trouble of saving 2 hotbar spaces. x_x

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All you need to do is hit the button a second time if your skills change without your stance. It's totally worth it.

I don't use macros at all. The benefits of only have two lvl60 DoW classes. And I use all my CDs individually, unless it's big pull or things are going awry.

And Bloodbath + Berzerk is its own defensive CD in an offensive way.