Priest Macro Guide
July 4, 2008 by Zuggy · Leave a Comment
These days playing a priest is rough…in PvE you have to compete with shaman’s spamming chain heal on the raid, paladin’s spamming holy light on the tank, and in PvP you’re constantly running and getting beat down but double melee gib teams.
Needless to say, it’s a rough life for priests. However, a few well placed macros can change all of that and give you an immediate edge on your opponents.
Raid Healing Priest Macros
/stopcasting
/cast Greater Heal
/stopcasting
/cast Renew
/stopcasting
/cast Flash Heal
/stopcasting
/cast Circle of Healing
I think of all the macros, this is probably the most simplistic and effective. It drives me crazy watching healer’s jump or move in order to cancel a heal. This is incredibly inefficient as you lose large amounts of overall healing time throughout the fight. Getting used to a system of stopcasting macros will allow you to turret up and let the heals fly, maximizing your available time to cast heals.
Power Word Shield Macro
/cast [target=player] Power Word: Shield
Pretty simple, just cast a PWS on your self without ever having to drop target. Nice in the heat of an arena match or a raid encounter.
Dispel Macros
/target (name of your teammate)
/cast Dispel Magic
Generic quick target defensive dispel on your teammate.
/assist (name of your teammate)
/cast Dispel Magic
Generic quick target offensive dispel, great for assisting your DPS classes to clear shields, buffs, etc.
Note: The above dispel macros were pulled from the more complete guide here, discipline priest arena strategy.
Mouse Over Healing Macros
/cast [target=mouseover] Flash Heal
/cast [target=mouseover] Greater Heal
/cast [target=mouseover] Renew
/cast [target=mouseover] Circle of Healing
Now, this method of healing may or may not work for you. For my shaman I found it ideal to manage raid healing, by using these macros in combination with a raid unit frame mod called grid (to the left is a screenshot of grid). This basically allowed me to mouse over any frame within the grid unit frame and fire on chain heals on my shaman. You could achieve the same result using the clique mod, but I prefer the macros
Rebuffing Macro
/castsequence Inner Fire, Power Word: Fortitude, Shadow Protection
Requires multiple clicks, but will allow you to put all your buffing spells onto one bar. You can simply add any additional buffs you have based on race / talent spec (divine spirit for example) at the end of the macro, each requiring an additional click.
Trinket + Inner Fire + Devouring Plague Macro
#showtooltip Devouring Plague
/use NameofYourDamageTrinket
/cast Inner Focus
/stopcasting
/cast Devouring Plague
Nice macro that further consolidates clicks and action bar use
Trinket + Healing Macro
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Greater Heal
For reference purposes 13 is top trinket, 14 is bottom trinket. These type of macros are a staple for every class and spec. Now, the trinket may determine weather or not you use this macro. Some trinkets shouldn’t be used until a given point (IE…spirit based regen trinkets shouldn’t be used the moment the fight begins). Conversely you could create a +healing trinket and circle of healing for raid spamming, since you’ll want it up as often as it can be used.
Silence / Arcane Torrent Macro
/castsequence reset=45 Silence, Arcane Torrent
A good friend of mine used this a ton when I played with him season 3. Once again, it won’t make or break you, but it’s certainly a nice way to free up some action bar space.
The DoT Bomb
/cast Inner Fire
/stopcasting
/cast Devouring Plague / Star Shards (if you have it either)
/stopcasting
/cast Shadow Word Pain
Smart Shadowfiend
#showtooltip Shadowfiend
/cast [harm,nodead][target=targettarget,harm,nodead] Shadowfiend
This macro will send your shadowfiend to attack your target if it’s hostile. If you do not have a hostile target currently targeted then it will send it after your target’s target if it is hostile.
If you’re looking for shadow priest specific macros, check out this guide, shadow priest macros.
Best Unit Frame Addons
June 20, 2008 by Zuggy · 2 Comments
No custom user interface is complete without ditching the stock Blizzard unit frames. The blizzard frames are anything but “ideal, they are small, poorly positioned, and offer the user little information, especially for raiders. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of unit frame addons out there to help us out.
1. X-Perl Unit Frame
Perl has basically been around forever, I can remember using the very first versions of this module in AQ40. Overall, it’s just a great unit frame. It comes equipped with all the normal features you’d expect an addon to have; range finder, HoT monitor, raid frames, debuff highlighting, raid target icon, raid tooltip, in-combat indicators, 3D portraits, red and green combat flashes, timers, and configurable colors, just to name a few.
Setup on this mod is extremely fast, out of the box it’s pretty much ready to go and doesn’t require very much customization to get to looking good.
Download X-Perl Unit Frames
2. Pitbull Unit Frame
Pitbull is built on the Ace2 library of functions and as such uses very little memory. As far as features go, Pitbull tops all other addons. If you can dream it, chances are it’s an option in Pitbull.
While this feature has it’s appealing nature, it’s also a big negative for many users. Pitbull will take some time to setup. With so many available options the first couple times you configure the addon could be painful, especially if you are a perfectionist about your U.I. like I am.
Keep in mind, the screenshot above is just one possible U.I. you could create using Pitbull. There infinitely more complex (or simplistic) iterations you could build using the options available in this addon.
3. AG Unit Frames
AG unit frames may look suspiciously like Pitbull to you, that’s because it was created using the same scripts. Essentially AG unit frames is a more simplistic version of pitbull. It offers less functionality, but as a result the setup time is pretty quick.
The major draw back for me on this addon was not having a range finder, you may find other quarks you dislike about it, but overall it’s a solid mod that offers a minimalistic feel that’s quick and easy to setup.
4. Healbot Unit Frames
Though I haven’t had a chance to personally try out healbot in raids, It looks pretty solid from what I’ve heard and read. Healbot is built with the raid healer in mind and is packed with features to help you including: 20 key mouse combinations to cast any beneficial spell, usable items can be added to combos, macros can be added, target, focus, and assist can be
added, displays aggro, decurisve functions, monitor buffs / debuffs, configurable appearance, raid sync, range checker, etc.
Additional Unit / Raid Frame Addons
In addition to the above addons I’ve listed you may consider using some of the following.
Proximo
Proximo generates a small box (moveable via alt + dragging) that populates the names of your arena opponents and their current HP percentage. In addition, you can set certain bindings off the frame.
For example, a left click on a player in the frame could cast a sheep, set it as your focus, etc.
Grid Raid Unit Frame
Grid is an ideal solution if you have a unit frame that doesn’t provide very good raid frames. For me this was the ideal solution, since AG unit frames did not have a range checker.
Grid creates a small frame and fills it with a box for each member of your raid or party. From there each box is broken down into various sections which display various data; debuffs, buffs, aggro, HP, etc. All of which is 100% customizable.
Check out my full write up on grid raid unit frames for more information.
Think you’ve got an awesome unit frame addon that should be added to this list? Post yours below!
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