Despite the popular (and usually correct) notion that you can only cast
a single spell or use a single item per button press, it is possible to
do so. However, what spells you can chain together is extremely
limited. If you read nothing else in this post, at least read the
Limitations section before posting questions.
---Limitations---
You
can only cast spells during a button press. You cannot have the macro
wait for any period of time and then cast the spell. The limiting
factor is cooldowns. Casting a spell (usually when you start to cast)
usually activates a global cooldown. You can only chain together spells
that could otherwise be cast together near-instantly. This means that
the first spell must be instant, and it must not activate a cooldown
that prevents the second spell from being used immediately.
---What You Can't Do---
All
of you that are looking for a way to cast Frostbolt, followed by Arcane
Missles, followed by Frost Nova, followed by Blink, can just give up
now. The first spell must be instant, and the next spell must be able
to cast immediately following the first. There's no waiting 1 second
for the global cooldown to pass allowed.
---What You Can Do---
There
are a few spells, usually a couple per class, that fit the rules for
chaining spells. They're usually spells that affect the next casted
spell, or abilities that affect the next used ability. This means
things like Nature's Swiftness, Presence of Mind, Heroic Strike, Raptor
Strike, etc. They have no casting time (instant) and they do not
activate the global cooldown.
---How Do You Do It---
The
script for doing it is relatively simple. Make a macro to cast the
first spell that fits the above rules. After that, you need to call the
script function SpellStopCasting(). This is the key. After that, you
can cast whatever you want that isn't on cooldown. For example:
/cast Nature's Swiftness
/script SpellStopCasting();
/cast Healing Wave
That gives you a single button press to cast an instant Healing Wave. Another example:
/cast Presence of Mind
/script SpellStopCasting();
/cast Pyroblast
That gives you an instant Pyroblast. Here's a nice one for Rogues with First Aid:
/cast Gouge
/script SpellStopCasting()
/script UseContainerItem(0,1) --Bandage
There
is an exception to this. Spell that are 'On next Attack', like Heroic
Strike or Raptor Strike should not have the SpellStopCasting(), as it
will cancel the spell from happening. Hunters should like this one:
/cast Raptor Strike
/cast Wing Clip
That's
will do a Wing Clip immediately, and a Raptor Strike on the next attack
(which might be immediately following the Wing Clip, if the weapon
speed timer is up). Warriors could do the same thing with Heroic Strike
and Hamstring, though that's quite alot of rage to burn through in
their case.
---Items Can Be Used As Well---
Most items aren't
hit by the global cooldown, which means that spells that activate the
global cooldown, can still be chained with many items. Druids could
make an emergency self heal that chained Rejuvenation with using a
healing potion. I like to have my Lightning Shield up at all times, so
I chain that before using my mount. Some trinkets can be used and
immediately followed by casting spells (such as the fire trinket from
the new lvl50 Mage quest).
---Tips for Effective Use---
This
functionality is best used to enhance your existing play style, not
totally change it. For example, a warrior (especially one who has the
talents to reduce their bloodrage damage) could chain bloodrage before
some/all attacks (Bloodrage+Execute would be useful), to make sure
they're using it whenever possible. You could add logic so that it only
uses the bloodrage if you have more than half health or something. You
could make sure you're making the most of your Elemental
Mastery/Presence of Mind by attempting to cast it with every Chain
Lightning/Pyroblast you cast. Explore the many possabilities!
Many
of these macros are best used in emergency situations, especially the
NS+Heal ones. If you were to already have a spell casting when you hit
the emergency heal button, it would being casting the heal without NS.
To get around this, if you have the room in the macro (macros can only
be 255 characters long, remember), add another '/script
SpellStopCasting()' line at the top of your macro. That will make it
abort whatever spell you might already have been casting, and do the
NS+Heal. Note that this doesn't just apply to NS+Heal; I use it for my
EM+ChainLightning.
Please note that the examples here are just
examples of how to chain spells together. In order to be very useful,
some of them (ie the healing ones) will require some other addon or
script to handle their targeting, so that your heal targets yourself if
you don't have another friendly unit targeted, or automatically targets
a certain party member, or whatever target you want.
---Chaining More Than 2 Spells---
Though
even more rarely useful, it is possible to chain more than just 2
spells/items. For example, we could enhance that druid emergency heal
even further:
/cast Nature's Swiftness
/script SpellStopCasting()
/cast Healing Touch
/script SpellStopCasting()
/script UseContainerItem(0,1) --Potion
---Exceptions---
One
thing to note about this is that if you chain Nature's Swiftness or
Presence of Mind together with a spell with a cast time, it won't work
while moving, whereas it would if you casted them seperately. I don't
know why, or of any fix.
This functionality also doesn't work
with form or stance switches. It seems that this is because you when
you attempt to switch stances/forms, your client doesn't actually
acknoledge you switching stances/forms until it gets the response to
that action from the server. In effect, stance/form switches have a
hidden cooldown of whatever your ping time is. I really wanted a
'switch-back-to-caster-form-and-start-healing' macro, but it doesn't
look like that's possible. If anyone has any way to get it to work, I'd
love to know.
Read the Top Horde and Alliance Leveling & Gold guides!
- Gold Secrets - Up to 200 Gold an Hour!
- Ultimate World of Warcraft Guide
|
