Friday, June 20, 2014

Awesome Macro News

In a post from Taepsilum on the EU forums it was said that they are going to be increasing the number of general macro slots from 36 to 100 which is extremely welcome news to me.  Source.  One of the quality of life changes I have been wanting for years is more macro slots.  For a macro junkie like me this is a fix that has me on a little bit of a high right now.

I often say sometimes the little things matter the most and this little change really has me excited.  Shadowmoon valley preview, blah, who cares, just come out with the expansion already.  I am not excited to hear any previews like that, I just want my content, however hearing about the macro changes makes me happy.

I will be interested in reading a bit more on the new conditions he mentions.  It would be nice to have one macro for one row of abilities like he shows.   It will make things easier so instead of needing three different macros or changing the one macro you use each time you switch skills.

I have one question however, does the "general" macro slots mean only the main shared ones or will each of our characters slots also being increasing?  I hope it is each character I really do but maybe that is just me being greedy now.

What do you use macros for?  Do you even use them?

I agree with Taepsilum, this is indeed great news everyone.

10 comments:

  1. As I mentioned in the add-on list I use Ion for macros in addition to being an action bar replacement.

    Basically, each button I pull out of my spellbook and put on my action bar is converted by Ion to be a macro... and I can edit the macro directly within the button, 90%+ of my macros don't even show up in the in-game /macro interface (a few toon-wide ones, like camera zoom, are in there for easier sharing). There's also a much higher character limit to the in-button macros.

    Ion itself is more or less in perpetual Alpha these days and has some bugs that can be ignored or worked around but I wouldn't trade it for anything unless I had no other choice, the in-button macro functionality is, far as I know, completely unique and is fantastic.

    It also has the ability to create custom flyout menus (like for hunter pets... imagine a similar interface for mounts, professions, buffs, etc). It's buggy but the framework is there and hopefully it'll eventually work fully.

    I'm sure for everyone else the increase in number of allowed macros will be useful but I won't even notice it.

    In terms of using macros, all of my toons use macros to some degree... my melee dps toons all have /startattack attached to all attack buttons. My healers all have dual-purpose dps and healing buttons depending on various conditions (generally the target, if I have a friendly targeted that target is healed, if a hostile is targeted I cast an offensive ability and if nothing is targeted then either my focus target or I get healed). My warrior has a 3-part macro for movement... hostile target I charge, friendly target I intervene and no target I heroic leap (that's how I get around my hotkey limitation, without that macro 2 of those buttons wouldn't be hotkeyed). My hunter has a MD macro sequence attached to every attack button with priority given to focus > target > pet.

    I'm a big fan of macros... I've always tended to avoid rotational macros (like the old paladin one-button attack macro, or the old kitty one-button attack macro... or the old hunter one-button attack macro... used to be a lot of classes you could basically automate...) but other than that, I like macros a lot and use them regularly.

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    1. I should give that a look see. Sounds like a great addon.

      Your warrior is going to need a hell of a lot more macros being they are bringing stance dancing back. Ups the skill level of the player some say to dance, but others just say (and I agree) all it does it make people copy stuff from a website to make macros. Better not to add the complexity that will only end up punishing the players that do not use outside resources.

      I use them for a lot myself, that /startattack is required for my hunters since they removed it from happening naturally some time ago. Sucks when you need to waste a macro slot for ever single shot you have when those shots should like that that baseline. Basically I have to use macros because blizzard does not want to put it back because bad players would pull because of it. Let the bad players pull because of it. They will learn that way. Maybe.

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    2. Bear in mind that Ion would replace Bartender or other bar replacement add-ons, I don't think you can use it in conjunction with one of those. If you're happy with your bars you'll probably want to stick with what works.

      Nah... I don't do top-level content on my warrior so I'll just leave off any abilities that are used outside of my default stance. They got rid of stance dancing for a reason and I'm hoping that what we're seeing right now is just a transitional point that'll end up somewhere less annoying. All they have to do is put a 30s CD on stances and dancing will go away, I have no issue with things like Shield Wall being tied to Def Stance but it should only be used in a situation where a dps is forced to temporarily tank, not just for a brief use of a CD and a flip back to whatever the normal stance is.

      Also, sounds like they are NOT intending to increase the slots for individual toons, just the shared ones. Still, better than nothing.

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    3. But I love my bartender.... :(

      Yeah, seems like they are just going the shared ones not the character ones. Would have been nice. Or like I think I mentioned to someone, a selection for class macros, so I can have the same marcos on all my hunters and not need to make new ones for each one. Sure it is just a case of cut and paste but I should not need to do that. My hunter set up should be my hunter set up.

      You might be right with warriors, it could just be they are working things out, but I do think they will bring stance dancing back and not just for the temp tank or 30 second cooldown things.

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  2. I saw the change to macros for talents in a tweet a couple weeks ago, that'll definitely be interesting. I'd be too embarrassed to admit how often I switch between Barrage and Glaive Toss, only to realize once the fight started that I forgot to move the active talent onto my bar...

    Also, I can't remember where, but they did mention that this was for the general, shared slots. They said there was some problem with adding them to each character (though I can't recall what the problem was).

    My problem with the individual ones is I don't really play lots of differenct classes. I've tried a lot of classes, but I only have max level hunters, druids and one DK (who I don't play enough to have macros for). So I leave a lot of the macros in the general area instead of individual characters, so I don't have to recreate them each time. So I'm definitely looking forward to using a few more. :-)

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    1. I would like to see them add a tab for class type macros. So I could just make "hunter macros" and then have all my hunters pick from there. Would make life so much easier when updating macros for some change or just adding new characters.

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  3. Of course, I use macros. That said, I have long been circumventing the limits by putting most of the code into a custom addin, so... It's still nice to have the limits expanded. I am using macros to do all kinds of things, from autoarranging frames to tracking achievement objectives to, of course, traditional PVP things like silence/sheep/whatever focused target.

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    1. I used to have so many macros for PvP and binds, oh my god binds, hunters have so many tools even if you removed half of them they still had twice as many as any other class.

      I never got an addon for more space but I should have. It would really solve a lot of issues.

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  4. OT: Checked guides for Midsummer Fire Festival. No new achievements, no new pets, even the cloaks that drop from Ahune are the old ilvl, which is now worse than TI. Meh. The only way this particular holiday is useful for me is the XP buff / XP from fire quests for alts.

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    1. They need to do some work updating the holiday stuff. Even if they do not often add new pets or mount and such they should at least update gear. Make the stuff be 522 drops instead, that would have worked and I am sure in the grand scheme of things added a few new 522 items with the same art as the original versions would have not been much of a big deal.

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