Warrior MACROS Please!

[Hachiko]

When playing a WAR, honestly you should be using Bloodbath on Cooldown. It's not much of a cooldown in terms of mitigating damage, but over time it has an effect (at level 50, over the course of 30 seconds it can be 1000-1500 heals depending on various factors).

So honestly you should Either macro it into something you use frequently, or you should combine it with your DPS cooldowns (Internal Release and Berserk).

The Macros I find most useful, for me, are:

/micon "Skull Sunder"
/ac "Blood Bath" <me>
/ac "Skull Sunder <t>

I use this on Skull Sunder because I am always pressing the button during the cooldown. I tried it with heavy swing instead, and the problem is that sometimes I would trigger the global cooldown, but not actually get an attack out which set my combo rotation back at the start of the pull, and that sucks in terms of Enmity.

My Damage buff macro is:

/micon "Berserk"
/ac "Internal Release" <me>
/ac "Berserk" <me>
/ac "Unchained" <me>

I only ever use all 3 skills at the start of the fight, because damage is usually pretty light during the first 30 seconds and I can afford the time without my stacks of Wrath. Later in the fight I will use Internal Release and Berserk, but I will not use Unchained because I will be managing my Wrath stacks for Inner Beasts or to maintain the 15% healing. This is the order you want it in also, so you can get the most out of Berserk and so you can use Unchained early while only having 4 stacks from your combos.

You could also put bloodbath into this macro, and you would want to put it in first.

I'm thinking about macroing Foresight and Vengeance into other commonly used skills. Foresight because it's such a small mitigation you have to use it on cooldown to get much out of it (it works out to ~5% mitigation against Physical Damage only) and Vengeance because it's a little damage / enmity, and it's also a free Wrath stack off of the GCD.

I prefer to macro my off GCD skills into single cast non-opener skills, because I always press them while the global cooldown is going, which actually saves some time when compared to using them one on top of the other because you can cast them during the GCD, just not until your animation finishes.

Finally, I think I may try Haymaker. I will probably macro it into Storm's Eye since I hardly ever use the skill, and I think the 20% slow from haymaker would be useful (also note it doesn't interrupt your combo).

That would leave me with the following macros:

/micon "Fracture"
/ac "Vengeance" <me>
/ac "Fracture" <t>

/micon "Haymaker"
/ac "Haymaker" <t>
/ac "Storm's Eye" <t>

and

/micon "Maim"
/ac "Foresight" <me>
/ac "Maim" <t>

And finally, my emergency macro:

/micon "Convalesence"
/ac "Thrill of Battle" <me>
/ac "Convalesence" <me>

(I used to have Second Wind in this but I'm thinking I will drop that skill for Haymaker as per above).

I leave Featherfoot out of Macros as I try to get as much spread out cooldowns as possible, and I would rather not stack them all together. I also should get around to macroing Mercy Stroke into something, but I find the skill so underwhelming I don't think it's that big of a deal. I may need to find space on my bar for Holmgang as well, which I've been meaning to try, and space is at a premium playing with a gamepad.

[Kite32]

I've heard people talk about how useful Macros are, but I'm not really sure why you would/should use them rather than mousing over the skill or clicking the numbers..

[Kiteless]

I've heard people talk about how useful Macros are, but I'm not really sure why you would/should use them rather than mousing over the skill or clicking the numbers..

A lot of it depends on what you're comfortable with. Everything you can do with a macro, you can do without. The main purpose of macros is to increase efficiency and make specific functions easier. It's especially important for healers, who can use macros to mitigate the amount of time switching back and forth between a huge amount of targets.

For a class like WAR, you'll find most macros are used to clean up the skill bar, or group together skills that you'll end up using together all the time anyway. Hachiko posted some great macros for keeping CD skills up for those of us that tend to be forgetful with them (something I should probably look into doing, really).

I'd recommend waiting until you hit level 50 and complete your skillset before going in and setting your WAR macros. For healers, it's more of a necessity to set everything working at maximum efficiency, but for WAR, you want to figure out your preferred layout before you go setting everything else up.

[rogersj9878]

I've heard people talk about how useful Macros are, but I'm not really sure why you would/should use them rather than mousing over the skill or clicking the numbers..

A lot of it is pure convenience. At the moment, I've only macro'd my tank for marking targets (and announcing to the party with auto-translation, in case they're not quite sure what the 1,2,3 is for... don't laugh) for sake of convenience and speed. Some people set them to the point the game is nearly on an infinite macro loop, and others don't. It's personal preference. Things like buffing, I would suggest setting to macro, so you can make a simple 1 click/button press and ensure all your buffs are covered, and only take up 1 spot on a skill bar.

[VisRalis]

I've heard people talk about how useful Macros are, but I'm not really sure why you would/should use them rather than mousing over the skill or clicking the numbers..

Because PS3 / gamepad...

[Jyoeru]

I've heard people talk about how useful Macros are, but I'm not really sure why you would/should use them rather than mousing over the skill or clicking the numbers..

Macros can assist in having fluid rotation. As someone pointed out, they clean up the bars, too. I currently work with 10 hotkeys in my standard boss encounter. 5 of these keys are macros. One marks and casts tomahawk. Another puts most of my buffs into a one button spam mode. And so on.

I can literally open up on a boss with 2 buttons, then just hit whichever macro button applies in my sequence making use of the /wait 2.5 second command to automate that particular rotation. If I didn't have abilities grouped as such, it would be more buttons to press, more opportunity to screw up my attack orders, and I would probably miss fluid rotation, which would contribute to less damage, which would make me a less effective tank.

[Bixby]

/wait 2.5

Otherwise known as /wait 3. Which is why these sorts of macros are a bad idea. Building one second of dead time into each three-hit combo will catch up with you. As will all the times you have to run out of AOE and end up out of range or facing the wrong way right when ability #2 is supposed to go off, making you miss out on both of the last two hits.

Macros: Good idea.
Macros consolidating buffs: Debatable idea.
Macros dumbing down your rotations: Bad idea.

[Jyoeru]

Otherwise known as /wait 3. Which is why these sorts of macros are a bad idea. Building one second of dead time into each three-hit combo will catch up with you. As will all the times you have to run out of AOE and end up out of range or facing the wrong way right when ability #2 is supposed to go off, making you miss out on both of the last two hits.

Macros: Good idea.
Macros consolidating buffs: Debatable idea.
Macros dumbing down your rotations: Bad idea.

You say that with the gusto of good authority; like you know I can't possibly be doing it right. I tank better than at least 80% of the player base if I had to guess--based on all the tanks I've had to heal on my WHM. And that is being super modest and not in regard to primal HM tanking +. I am only level 49 so far, so my max experience is up to AV.

If you know what you're doing, then you can hit macro button, run/jump out of AOE (jumping keeps you from running back in just in case your macro goes off while running), and then run back in right as the AOE cast is done and still be home in time for your 2nd macro attack. No, it's not perfect. Sure, I've missed some opportunities. The problem with your argument is that you assume a move mechanic will be going off every time you have started a combo. This is not as frequent as you might think. Keep in mind that my Heavy Swing is on its own hotkey since it opens 2 different combo paths (which is how macros SHOULD be thought about, so yeah, a 3-combo macro is stupid, I agree). Most of the time I am running out of something, I have either just finished my combo, or just started it, or cast something else different. I have about a 1 in 8 chance of being stuck mid macro combo when a move mechanic is activated. My macro goes off just a hair after my GCD resets. I am okay with that. If I had to manage 6 more buttons to do everything manually, I'd likely screw up rotations and miss out on a fluid pulling experience.

I rarely have any issues because of my macros missing or missing a "second of dead time" into each 3-hit-combo, because my macros are split up according to a 2nd rotation. IE: I have a macro for skull sunder --> butcher's block (that also has an independent mercy stroke function so that when I can use mercy stroke, it will be used first, then the rest of the macro applies), and one for maim --> storm's path. At best, I lose .5 seconds for each 2 abilities cast. I'd like to see your science for how perfectly you execute your rotations to validate how you're losing 0 time when working rotations.

What you mean to say is that you don't like most macros, and think no one else should either. That you are bad with using macros, therefore everyone else is, too.

I am not a fan of this whole dumbing down rotation statement you made. That's an ignorant blanket statement which is unfair and elitist and, in the case of your generalized talking points with lack of concrete data and proof to the contrary, completely wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. If anything, macros make tanking too easy, sure. But for people like me who prefer to be optimized via efficiency, it's the way we roll. If you want 30 hotkeys and you can hit everything you mean to hit perfectly and always at the right time, then congratulations, you're a better tank than me. Too bad we can't have a tank-off, though. I'd really love to see you in action.

Hit me up if you want to learn how to macro right

[Killabye]

Otherwise known as /wait 3. Which is why these sorts of macros are a bad idea. Building one second of dead time into each three-hit combo will catch up with you. As will all the times you have to run out of AOE and end up out of range or facing the wrong way right when ability #2 is supposed to go off, making you miss out on both of the last two hits.

Macros: Good idea.
Macros consolidating buffs: Debatable idea.
Macros dumbing down your rotations: Bad idea.

I've tested it, 2.5 acts the exact same as non macro. It's the exact same timer and a quarter second before you can cast a new skill. It's the exact same, maybe you feel it's not because you're pushing buttons but it is

[repoe]

I've heard people talk about how useful Macros are, but I'm not really sure why you would/should use them rather than mousing over the skill or clicking the numbers..

I personally don't macro any abilities. If I do use a macro it's to tell the group usually something when their is no voice communication ie, Holmgang is down if that at all