This post holds macros that you may find useful for Lady Deathwhisper and Saurfang in ICC. If they fit your play style, great; if not, don’t use them. Also note that these macros are at their bare bones. You should add in Kill Command, trinket activations, etc., as appropriate.
This post assumes that you know what macros are and how to use them. If not, see an intro to macros and how to make one.
/cast [mod:shift, target=pettarget] Serpent Sting; [mod:ctrl, target=pettarget] Viper Sting; Serpent Sting
The above macro is designed for the two fights where your pet is attacking the boss while you may be attacking something else. That is, it’s for Lady D and Sourpuss. It casts Serpent Sting or Viper Sting, when holding shift or control, respectively, on your pet’s target. This allows you to avoid having to make an on the fly manual re-target to the boss while you are still focusing on an add. Alternatively, you could use the option target=focus if you want to keep the boss as your focus, but I prefer target=pettarget due to other macros I describe below.
/cast [mod:shift, target=pettarget] Chimera Shot; Chimera Shot
This is effectively the same macro but for MM hunters who can manage to refresh their dots on the boss rather than reapply them. Regardless of whether you’re MM or not, it may help to enable a frame that shows the dots you have on your pet’s target.
/cast [mod:alt, target=focustarget] Explosive Shot; Explosive Shot
/cast [mod:alt, target=focustarget] Chimera Shot; Chimera Shot
/cast [mod:alt, target=focustarget] Serpent Sting; Serpent Sting
These three macros are specifically for Lady Deathwhisper. With them, it is assumed that, as a mixed damage class, you are free to damage what you want so long as you are downing adds. It is also assumed that you have the tank who is taking care of fanatics as your focus. These macros allow you to continue to send auto shots (physical damage) at adherents (your target) while using modifier keys to send magic damage to the fanatic that your focus is attacking. At the same time, with no modifier, they allow you to use your the given abilities as normal.
/cast [mod:alt, target=focustarget] Serpent Sting; [mod:shift, target=pettarget] Serpent Sting; [mod:ctrl, target=pettarget] Viper Sting; Serpent Sting
Because you may wish to apply Serpent Sting to three types of targets in the Deathwhisper encounter (the boss, your focustarget, and your target (when shieldless)), a more complex Sting macro may be necessary. This one above synthesizes the preceding Sting macros. A warning: I have not tried this one out yet, but it should work.
As an alternative to the above macros, you could also create a separate actionbar that has your normal abilities, but with simple conditionals like [target=pettarget] and [target=focustarget] defining the default actions. For example, /cast [target=pettarget] Serpent Sting. That way, you have the special ICC macros and keybinds on one actionbar, keeping your time-tested and refined shot and sting macros in their normal locations.
/cast Explosive Shot
/script SetRaidTarget("target", 1)
This macro is intended for Saurfang in a situation where you need to identify the Blood Beast you are attacking. Here it marks your Blood Beast with a star, with the advantage that you have to do no more than normal dps to mark it. You can also use the script with another shot or sting. Distracting Shot may come to mind first as a possible replacement, but distracting shots are perilous when the beasts are near Saurfang and unnecessary because as super awesome hunter your dps should be enough to hold agro. Other numbers in place of 1 set different raid icons.
Unfortunately, /cast [target=Blood Beast] Distracting Shot does not work the way I would want it to. What might work instead? That is my challenge to you. I want you to make a macro that casts Distracting Shot only if the target is a Blood Beast. This macro also should not cause you to target the nearest Blood Beast, but rather allow you to continue to stay on your current target (which is hopefully your assigned Blood Beast). Personally, I’m stumped. By being careful it’s not too hard to avoid screwing up a Distracting Shot, but it’d be nice to preclude it entirely.
-Eidotrope
I think hunters should be nerfed…
Love, all other DPS classes.
1. You can use new format of [target=target]:
[target=pettarget] => [@pettarget]
[target=focustarget] => [@focustarget]
2. You can shrink your macro:
/cast [mod:alt, target=focustarget] Explosive Shot; Explosive Shot
to
/cast [mod:alt,@focustarget][harm]Explosive Shot
3. Great macro I using for kiting Blood Beasts on Saurfang:
/cleartarget
/targetexact Blood Beast
/stopmacro [noexists]
/script SetRaidTarget(“target”, 1);
/cast Distracting Shot
/y Nuke Star!
1 and 2. Yes, those are good ways of shrinking down the number of characters if you happen to need space. Thanks!
3. I’ve tried out lots of macros like that. While they do preclude shooting Saurfang with DS, they don’t allow you to stay on the Blood Beast you’ve chosen. Rather, they move your target to being the nearest Blood Beast. On 10man, this doesn’t matter so much, but on 25man I often find myself needed to taunt a beast that isn’t the nearest one. It’s that problem that prompts my challenge in the post.
Works perfectly for me in both 10 and 25 versions.
If your target is out of range it will never distracting another target. It clears target before targeting anything else.
I’m not saying your macro doesn’t work, I’m saying it doesn’t perform the function that I asked for in the post.
For instance, say you have to DS a Blood Beast that is on the melee. The Beast you’re kiting is probably closer to you, so the macro you’ve described would only send a Distracting Shot to the one you’re kiting. At the same time, a hasty retarget to the Blood Beast on the melee could cause you to accidentally target the boss instead. That’s why I want a macro that prevents DSing Saurfang but doesn’t merely target the nearest Blood Beast.
I dont think you can find a macro for absolutely any situation. 10 man is pretty easy, it is just /tar blood /cast arcane shot (if you are MM not using arcane shot this should always taunt your beast and you can slow it with the next shot. But if you have 5 mobs with the same name and you want the macro to sometime pick the nearest bloodbeast, sometimes 3rd closest, then i think it is just not possible… The best strategy we “developed” so far is that any melee AoE ability is forbiden, boomkin casts knockback wave and assigned people just pick their assigned beasts, while they trigger frost traps
It’s not a targeting macro that I’m asking for. You still do the target selecting yourself. The macro comes in by precluding the use of DS if your target is Saurfang and/or is not a Blood Beast.
However, regardless, I agree that it’s not likely that such a macro exists.
I have an idea for it. Not sure if it would work. Make one of the tanks your focus. Then do
/cast [focustarget] Kill Shot; Distracting Shot
I’m gonna play around and see if this could work.
Honestly, do you really need a macro? You place the hunter in the upper left side, when the beast spawn, the designated DPS target the left best. The hunter shoots an explosive shot into the left then ditrscting shot the right one and continue to DPS the right one, kiting it over the frost trap. In this time, the rest of the DPS will stay on the left will it is burnt down and then onto the other which you have burnt half way anyways…
BUT…in all honestly, not sure if its laziness or just smarter. A Druid who can root or DK who have ice chains the right mob, is ENORMOUSLY easier. The left is dead before the right is unrooted/de-iced….We have done it 3 weeks now in a row where the first dot didnt hit until 18%….easy breezy!
Like I said in the post, a macro for Distracting Shot isn’t necessary, it’d just be a nice thing to have. A misplaced Distracting Shot can screw things up, from ruining positioning by relocating the boss to causing a wipe.
and also, you are speaking about 10 mans which is not an issue. The issue is to pick up one of possible 5 blood beast that are attacking melee :)
/tar Blood Beast
/cast Distracting Shot
/targetlasttarget
This will target the Blood Beast, Distracting Shot, and then target your previous target.
Done and done.
Nope, like I said, it can’t cause you to merely target the nearest Blood Beast. It has to be the Blood Beast you’ve targeted (which isn’t always the nearest one, especially on 25man).
Also, the macro you’ve written will cause you to shoot Saurfang with Distracting Shot if the the Blood Beast isn’t in range, which would be bad.
Gads, this is some high level sh*t. And here I thought I was being diligent by having macros for Bone Spikes and Blood Beasts.
I do use a Distracting macro for the Beasts (along with Silencing and anything else not on the GCD). But only in our 10M, where there’s only 2 of them, one on each side, and the chances of targeting the wrong one or screwing up some other way are minimal. But alas, I can’t help you with your wished-for BB macro. Good luck.
Is it possible to macro target units depending their symbol, if so would be your solution [@{star}] kill. Would solve your problem. Probably isn’t possible but cool if it is
Holy crap, really? I had no clue you could use @{star} in a macro… thanks!
We’ve usually got a melee able to call it out, so if they can just mark it instead, then a hunter can grab it with a macro. I like that.
I was asking, not stating :) would be really useful if you could
Sorry, this doesn’t work.
Euripides is right, raid icons are not accepted as macro conditions. And, even if they were, what’s to prevent your script line from making Saurfang star if you’ve accidentally targeted him?
To answer your question; I do not think that it is possible to ‘cast only if target is $foo’; whether that ‘foo’ is “A blood beast” or anything else, within a macro. (An addon could probably do it.)
My hope was to find a macro genius reader who knew a nice trick. Maybe scripting would do it.
It might be also useful for Marrowgar 10 to do something like /tar bone /cast Arcane shot (or any other shot that you dont use and therefore is ready). It is not necessary for Marrowgar 25 because everybody except for hunters stacks “inside the boss so you just use your Volley and all spikes are gone in 5 seconds while you continue dpsing the boss
You’re right, /tar Bone Spike can be helpful.
The Unit ID identifier of bossN was added in patch 3.3.0, it could be inverted to logically make sure you are targeting anything except the boss
Copied from wowwiki UnitID page:
“bossN”
The active bosses of the current encounter if available N (1,2,3). (Added in 3.3.0)
so the macro would be
/cast [no @boss1] Distracting Shot
I haven’t tested it so you would need to make sure you have the right number for Saurfang.
While this doesn’t check you are targeting a blood beast it does make sure your aren’t targeting the boss which I think was the main objective.
That’s a cool idea- I’ll try to test it :)
Thanks for the tip about boss IDs, that’s great!
The no option doesn’t seem to work with other unitIDs, though. A “[no @focus]” will just cause the game to not understand your macro.
To understand- a “[no@focus]” will essentially be a dead macro- but “[no@bossN]” is still currently untested?
On a side note, on my 25 this past week a warrior pug kept yelling at me and the hunters for using Distracting Shots in their rotations to pull the blood beasts- apparently he had an add-on that detected shots being fired off.
So other hunters be warned should you pug the tanks may yell at you and ban you from using distracting shots.
Yes, [no @boss#] is untested, but considering how enemy unitids generally behave the same relative to macro conditions, and how I’ve never seen “no” used like that before, my hopes aren’t high for this macro.
While I agree that Distracting Shot isn’t needed as part of a rotation (and is often a wasted gcd when you already have agro), don’t listen to anyone who tells you to not use it at all. Pulling a Blood Beast off someone is a very important thing we can do, and Distracting Shot is often essential for when such a person has already generated a lot of threat.
What about
/stopmacro [target=Deathbring Saurfang]
(or put his unit id there)
/stopmacro is very picky as a slash command and won’t work like that from what I’ve seen.
At that point is when you and the other hunter MD the blood beast to him… or the boss.
With T10 bonus is there a macro to rotate throught enemis to serpent sting each of them ?
I would recommend the tab button or manually selecting your targets. I don’t believe there is a macro option that lets you retarget according to debuffs.