Welcome back my brothers and sisters to the Church of Macrotology. Our sermon today is for all our newest friends to Macrotology that need a place to begin and spread their wings.

Some of the most basic macro commands that the makers have supplied us with are /cast, /use, and /target. These macros are used for simplifying tedious actions such as with buffing, finding a target in a crowd, or using a trinket. For example, creating a buffing macro is as easy as using one of our basic commands /cast and adding the word sequence to it.

/castsequence

This tells your UI to cast all of the spells listed in order separated by commas. 

/castsequence Prayer of Fortitude, Prayer of Spirit, Prayer of Shadow Protection, Inner Fire

The language does not allow a single click macro to cast multiple spells. Global Cooldowns cause the macro to wait when trying to cast the second spell and this pause causes the macro to require another click to cast the next spell in the rotation. This means one button will cast all of the spells listed, but it has to be clicked once for each spell.

Luckily, while multiple spells can not cast with a single button, most other actions can be. For instance:

#showtooltip

/use 13

/cast Shadow Word: Pain

First off, #showtooltip is a command that tells the macro to show the tooltip from whatever is being cast or used within the macro. If the trinket in slot 13 is Mark of the War Prisoner, then the tooltip will show that info. The tooltip for the buffing macro listed above would show the tooltip for each spell as it is being cast.

The next part of this macro, /use 13, is a command that uses the trinket that is currently equipped in your 13th gear slot. The 13th and 14th gear slots are your trinket slots. The overall purpose of this macro would be to use your Mark of the War Prisoner and then immediately cast Shadow Word: Pain. These actions are simultaneous yet not linked like spells are. This means that if you use this macro while your trinket is down it will still cast Shadow Word: Pain.

The last of our basic commands is /target. /target is probably the most useful of the three commands but requires the most knowledge of Macrotology to use effectively. If you wanted to use this command to find a boss in a crowded encounter, it would be as easy as typing:

/target “boss name here”

This can be useful but in a very limited capacity. This macro will target the boss listed and if you target another mob the macro can be used to re-target the boss without having to actually click on or tab target him.Lets look at a complicated targeting macro that lets you swap between targets.

 

1. /focus [target=focus, noexists]
2. /target [combat, noexists] focus
3. /clearfocus [nocombat, noexists]
4. /stopmacro [target=focus, noexists]
5. /target focus
6. /targetlasttarget
7. /focus [exists]
8. /targetlasttarget

This may seem very complicated but lets go through it line by line and try to make sense of it all.

1. Line 1 is telling the game to create a focus if you have not already done so. What is a focus? A focus is a target that you automatically return to when /target focus is used.
   
2. Line 2 is saying that if you are in combat your first button click will target who your focus is.
   
3. The 3rd line clears your focus when you leave combat
   
4. Stops the macro
5. This line is the actual button click command to target your focus
6. Line 6 is a command to target whichever other targets you switching to.
7. This line is checking to see that you still have a focus to target. (i.e. is he dead)
8. And finally return to your last target

This means if your focus target (A) is the main tank and your off tank is (B) and a random raid member is (C), then your first button click will set your focus as (A) when he is targeted. When you then target (B) you can use the macro button to switch back and forth between (A) and (B) without having to click on them. Now say you are a healer and random raid member (C) starts to take damage. Targeting them will now change the macro to switch back and forth between (A) and (C). Target A remains a constant in the macro because it is the focus until the focus  is cleared by leaving combat or dying. 

My friends, that is all for today here at the Church of Macrotology. I hoped you enjoyed learning the ways of the makers as much as I like talking about them. Please join me here again each week as we explore the world of macros and you.