Whether you’re busy putting out the flames on a burning crusade, avoiding the wrath of the Lich King, or trying to stop a cataclysm, you’re probably having a good old time WoW-ing it up.  And if you’re one of the millions of subscribers to the world’s largest MMORPG (yeah, that’s a long acronym for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), then you may be interested to know some of the many ways in which your habit, er, hobby could be affecting your health.

Let’s just start by saying it’s not all bad.  Pursuing your interests is important.  Our culture places such an emphasis on hard work, long hours, and job devotion that it’s no wonder our stress levels (and attendant ailments) are at an all-time high.  Online gaming is a great way to reduce stress, exercise your mind, and escape from all the troubles of your daily life for awhile.  In addition, it never hurts to work towards achievable goals.  Success, in any arena, will help to build confidence.  Gaming can also hone your motor skills (whether you’re using a keypad or a joystick) and improve your language abilities.  Finally, it is a great way to meet new people and connect with a group of like-minded individuals in friendly competition.

Now, that said, there can also be a number of health risks associated with online gaming.  In terms of physical disorders, the list is extensive.  Sitting for long periods of time can cause issues in your body alignment that lead to aches, pains, minor injuries, and even scoliosis, so if you plan to spend a lot of time at the computer, invest in an ergonomic chair.  Persistent hand movements (such as typing and moving a mouse) can lead to carpal tunnel syndrome or repetitive-motion injuries (believe it or not, you can get sprains from repeated wrist movements). 

So if you notice pain, stiffness, or weakness in your wrists and arms, consider a brace that will keep them in line and prevent side-to-side motion.  You may also find yourself squinting after a while at a blurry screen.  Eye strain is fairly common for anyone who stares at a monitor for an extended period of time, so just make sure to spend a few moments focusing on something far away at intervals of approximately twenty minutes.

Finally, and it has to be said, lack of exercise due to a prolonged sedentary lifestyle can lead to all kinds of problems.  This is not to say that all WoW-ers are addicts, glued to their computers 24/7, eschewing a real life for one of simulated companionship and adventure (not that I would have any experience in that department…oh, EverQuest, why hast thou forsaken me?) but people who engage in online gaming occasionally do fit the stereotype of genius loner.  In any case, people who sit for a large portion of the day may eventually suffer from decreased circulation and muscle loss, while the inclusion of a poor diet (I think Flaming Hot Cheetos and Mountain Dew ought to be the official sponsors of online gaming) can lead to weight gain (and subsequent disorders).

However, the lifestyle of an online gamer certainly doesn’t have to conform to any one set of standards.  Like everything in life, moderation is the key to being healthy, happy, and well-adjusted.  So if you find yourself cloistered with your keyboard, think about finding ways to get out more, like possibly meeting your online buddies for coffee sometime to discuss other interests.  Or schedule in some exercise to ensure that your body is as fit as your mind.  There are many ways to be active (physically, mentally, and emotionally) so for the best health, make WoW part of a multi-faceted life, instead of pursuing it at the expense of everything else.

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"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute."
Gil Stern

Hey Fury Warriors! Ever miss a slam proc? 

How about you Affliction Warlocks? Notice nightfall fell off your combat text and you didn’t get a free SB? Well, Not anymore. 

Not anymore for anyone who has proc based attacks.  This is one of the two add-ons that I recommend 100% of players to use.  The other being grid, but that is neither here nor there.  Event Alert is a lightweight tool that gives both a visual and audio warning when you get a proc.  The sounds can be changed with a pretty decent number of options.  You can also change the position and size of the visual warning.  The warning itself is an icon just like the attack that proced.

So you finally took my advice and downloaded it.  Let’s take a look at some configurations.  First you won’t be able to access the menu from interface, start by typing /ea opt.  Here is what you will see.

Fairly simple menu let’s take a look at some of the options. 

Here we see the options for icon settings.  The “Lock Frame” box will allow you to position your alerts.  I hope I don’t need to explain the icon size and spacing. Open “Show/ Hide Alert Frame” this is how you’ll see changed made on this menu.  I recommend opening this first so you aren’t making changes in the dark. 

That’s it. Just adjust the size and spacing according to your choice of flavor .

Clicking the “Show/ Hide Class Alerts” will open this menu.  Again it’s pretty straight forward.  If you have things such as haste procs that don’t directly effect your rotation you can turn them off to relieve some of the sounds and clutter.

And my personal favorite is Sound Alerts.

Easy enough right?  Choose what you want to proc and what sound you want to make.  Personally I like the epic Pirate YAAAARRR.

For everybody who doesn’t think your class or spec needs this tool, take a look.  But you don’t have to take my word for it. Check out the list:

Death Knight

• Cinderglacier (Runeforging)
• Killing Machine (Frost)
• Rime (Frost)
• Rune Strike

Druid

• Eclipse (Balance talent)
• Nature’s Grace (Balance talent)
• Omen of Clarity (Restoration talent)
• Owlkin Frenzy (Balance talent)
• Wrath of Elune (PvP gear proc)

Hunter

• Improved Steady Shot (Marksmanship)
• Kill Shot
• Lock and Load (Survival talent)
• Rapid Killing (Marksmanship)

Mage

• Arcane Concentration (Arcane talent)
• Blazing Speed (Fire)
• Brain Freeze (Frost talent)
• Fingers of Frost (Frost talent)
• Firestarter (Fire talent)
• Missile Barrage (Arcane talent)
• Hot Streak (Fire talent)

Paladin

• Art of War
• Hammer of Wrath
• Infusion of Light

Priest

• Borrowed Time
• Holy Concentration
• Martyrdom (Discipline talent)
• Serendipity (Holy)
• Surge of Light (Holy talent)

Rogue

• Riposte

Shaman

• Elemental Focus (Elemental talent)
• Maelstrom Weapon (Fifth stack) (Enhancement talent)
• Tidal Waves (Restoration)

Warlock

• Backdraft (Destruction)
• Backlash (Destruction)
• Decimation (Demonology)
• Empowered Imp (Demonology)
• Eradication
• Molten Core (Destruction)
• Nightfall (Affliction)
• Glyph of Life Tap

Warrior

• Bloodsurge (Fury)
• Overpower
• Execute
• Revenge
• Sudden Death (Arms)
• Sword and Board (Protection)
• Taste for Blood (Arms)
• Victory Rush
• Glyph of Revenge

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"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute."
Gil Stern

Keep in mind though, this UI is meant to replace your stock UI that came with the game. Your frame, your target’s frame, and your target target’s frame is centered right at the bottom where it’ll do the most good instead of off in a corner somewhere.

Anyway, an excellent looking UI for a DPS and tanking class. As a raid leading healer myself, I’d probably butcher the UI with extra addons that I’d need unfortunately.

Go download it

Edit: FPS brought it up in the comments below but I wanted to echo it here as well. Read the FAQ on the forums. In order to modify the UI, you’ll need a basic text editor (a la Notepad++ not Notepad). The screenshots are just a sampling of what can be done, but you can add more bars as desired or change other settings.

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"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute."
Gil Stern

DISCLAIMER: This particular method only works in Windows Vista or Windows 7.  I have no access to an XP machine for testing or alternatives. Use at your own risk. This site, its owners and affiliates cannot be held responsible for any problems that might occur.

Lots of us toy with addons, and have our interfaces just as we want them.  Others tinker and meddle with everything, always. What happens when you share a computer with someone?  Or a patch won’t install, and you have to do a reset and repair? What if you want your perfect UI ready in an instant to raid with, but you want a testing environment to try out your new layout ideas?  Most people will just advise you to copy your entire /World of Warcraft folder, paste it beside the original, and make shortcuts from that folder to WoW.exe or Launcher.exe.  Indeed works like a charm, and I will not advise you otherwise if you have space to burn and time to kill.  Why time to kill?  You have to patch each install separately.  And you know how long THAT would take, even if you copied the patch file you downloaded to each folder.  And how big is that folder?  Huge.  My "stripped" install is almost 17 gigabytes.  Almost all of that is "\World of Warcraft\Data"  That’s pretty huge to copy over and over.  So let’s not.

The magic sauce in my solution involves making symlinks and Directory Junctions to share that huge \Data folder among all your sandbox installs.  It takes just a little Windows command-line voodoo, and some simple copy and paste.  On Mac and Linux, you have your own tools to do what I will describe, so I’m sure you can steal this concept for yourselves, and probably implement it easier.

Step 0:  Make sure you are patched up!

Never start this process without making sure you are completely installed and patched up.  Patching from a sandbox install leads to weirdness.  Again: Patching from a sandbox install makes things weird.  Don’t.  Patch up before you do this, and when you patch again, patch from your original installation.  Always.

Step 0.5:  Now that you are patched, backup or delete all those patch files!

You could burn them to a DVD, move them to a new folder, whatever you chose to do with them, but I like to get them out of the folder.  Anything with a version number glommed onto it is fair game for moving or deleting.  Anything with the word "downloader" in it is fair game for outright deletion, even if you are backing up your patch files.  The reason for this is we are going to be copying all the essential files to run WoW into our new sandbox folder, and why copy things that will never be checked until the next patch?  After all major patches, you should repeat this process of managing your patch files and recopying these fresh files into each of your sandboxes.  All of these files together are around 21 MB.  If you keep all your patches, it’s closer to 200-400 MB.  Which ever you are more comfortable with and have the space for.

Step 1: Create the sandbox installation folder.

Create a new folder alongside your World of Warcraft folder.  Not inside it, but next to it.  That could be in "/Program Files", or in "/Users/Public/Games", depending on your Windows version.  I’m calling mine WoWTestbed.  the reason for the folder being in this location, and not elsewhere is so your updaters will pick it up.  Curse Client will detect both as discrete installations, and update as such.  Otherwise, if you don’t mind manual configuration, put the testbed anywhere you want.

Step 2:  Create a a Directory Junction between the /World of Warcraft/Data folder and the /WoWTestbed/Data folder.

This is where the command line voodoo comes in.  Do not fret.  It’s easy.  The command involved is called "mklink", and How-To Geek has a great overview of the command.  We will be creating a Directory Junction, which uses the switch "/J".  The command is a little wonky in that the links are created "backwards".  The link order in the command is "To" to "From", not "From" to "To".  In this case, we would use:

mklink /J "C:\Users\Public\Games\WoWTestbed\Data" "C:\Users\Public\Games\World of Warcraft\Data"

This should create a hard link between the two, meaning when you go into "C:\Users\Public\Games\WoWTestbed\Data", you should see the full contents of "C:\Users\Public\Games\World of Warcraft\Data".  Try that now.  See?

Step 3: Copy the needed game files into the sandbox installation folder.

Copy the contents of "Users\Public\Games\World of Warcraft", not it’s subfolders, and paste them into "\Users\Public\Games\WoWTestbed\"  You do not need any other folders in "\Users\Public\Games\WoWTestbed\" other than the link to "\Data".  /WTF, /Cache, /Interface, all the other necessary folders will be created the first time you launch the game.

Step 4: Launch the Game.

Navigate to your /WoWTestbed folder, and double-click WoW.exe.  You should know it all worked out fine if you see the first-run cinematic, and your login screen is lower resolution than usual.  Log in and you should see a stock interface!  It’s all over but the shortcuts!

Step 5:  Create desktop shortcuts to your new testbed installation

While you have that folder open, right-click WoW.exe and choose Send To > Desktop (create shortcut).  Name this shortcut "WoWTestbed".  It is also a good idea to make a copy of the original World of Warcraft shortcut and rename it.  I have renamed mine "WoWDefault".  The reason for this is that WoW itself will create and modify the standard "World of Warcraft" desktop shortcut, which may spoil our custom shortcuts.  For instance, if you check "Show Launcher" from the login screen, it will change the shortcut from WoW.exe (if it was set there originally), to Launcher.exe.  Making a copy of the default shortcut gives us control over both the testbed and the main installation.

Step 6: Profit!

That’s it!  You should be able to launch your default WoW setup separately from your testbed setup, and create as many of these installations as you wanted to, as long as the folder names are different.

But what do I do with it?

Case 1: My girlfriend plays on my account.  She loves her interface, and I love to try new things.  I could just enable and disable addons willy-nilly, but that gets old quick, and often I screw up something anyway.  I created a testbed for myself, so I can tweak and twiddle to my heart’s content without disturbing her settings.

Case 2:  You’re an addon developer, and you need different environments with different setups to test your code.  Create as many as you’d like.

Case 3: Multiboxing.  Enough said.

Case 4: Patch day sadness.  Patch won;t install?  Have to do one of those "Repair and Resets"? Don’t want to wipe your UI, or count on the Blizzard Repair Tool to back everything up totally? Create a bare testbed, and log in and try patching with that.  The most work is done in the Data folder, so it can wreck the sandbox all it would like, while tending to your /Data.  I used this just today.  My main UI would not load fully, getting to a full load bar and stopping.  Instead of unloading all addons, I created a bare testbed and logged in and put with it.  Loaded fine.  Back to my main, untouched UI, and the same character now loads.

I encourage any interface enthusiast or Lua jockey to at least give this a try.  It works wonders so far!

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"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute."
Gil Stern

Get it on WoW Interface or Curse.

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"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute."
Gil Stern

Download Comix

I used to have a work supervisor who was fond of logging into City of Heroes over lunch and saying "Baff, baff, baff, baff!" under his breath as his body-armored and caped id-creature would pound the ungodly snot out of onscreen baddies. Apparently this is some sort of universal desire among a certain type of MMORPG player; one which has been initially addressed for World of Warcraft by Maido, and subsequently taken over by Si63, in Comix.

Comix is an addon th at adds sound effects and visuals to certain in-game events. Although inspired by comic books’ highly visual handling of battle noises, it also draws from other sources such as the late-sixties Batman TV show and other video games. The main feature of Comix is playing additional sounds and popping words like "CRACK!" and "SHONK!" (I haven’t spotted "FLRBBBBB!" as of this writing) on screen for certain events like hit, critical hit, battle or demoralizing shout, death, resurrection requests and more — Comix will also shake the screen for a particularly good critical hit. One of Comix’s most low-key and endearing features is the "sproing" sound it plays when jumping. One of the loudest features is the Mortal Kombat/wrestling announcer-ish voice that says "finish him" once an enemy reaches low health; even louder is the voice that makes up new name for kill types if you dish out more damage than required to make the dead mob dead in the heroic but ultimately losing battle to thin out spawns (I started calling him Mr. Ludicrous Kill as he seemed to enjoy saying "ludicrous" a lot). If you can, try hooking Comix up on an AoE caster with a warrior in the group for maximum laughs, and overall screen clutter. Comix also tracks minor statistics like how many jumps a character has done, and the number of hug a character has given (both of which can easily be reset, which would presumably be useful if suddenly faced with a spacebar clown or Goldshire intervention).

Although Comix is fundamentally a gag addon, there are a few surprisingly useful features. The play sound on zone lets me know when to snap open the world map to check for area fog when exploring zones. The "finish him" sound that plays when a mob hits low life is a useful audio cue to unleash a finishing cast or move (however, the sound also fired off on targeted mobs that aren’t tagged to the character). Having Mr. Ludicrous Kill voice is kind of like having a personal cheerleader or yes man, which is somewhat annoying for someone who can’t take a compliment, but it also makes repetitive mob-smacking a little less solitary. The Q*bert-like word balloon of comic-book expletives on death are oddly cathartic. The ability to track a character’s number of jumps also gives spacebar clowns some much-needed measure of epeen.

Comix has a quite robust range of options to customize things like animation speed, frequency, crit threshold and screen shake intensity and enabling/disabling various sounds; although the sound effects added by Comix are also noticeably louder than the game is on my setup, and an addon-specific overall volume slider would be a terrific addition here. The best part of Comix’s options panel is that every item on it is explained by a tooltip, and most of them even make sense. Comix is a hefty addon that will slow down gameplay, so those on high-population servers might want to get a laugh in less populated zones and disable it for srsbsnss; and anyone hurting for memory or graphics processing power should probably just use a series of Post-Its instead. When landing decent crits the screen can get quite packed, so it’s probably advisable to play around with the settings or disable Comix altogether when high situational awareness is required. For those who care about such things, although most of the content in the add-on is G-rated, there is an obvious expletive in one of the sounds that plays on crit.

I’ve been playing with Comix for a few weeks and the novelty hasn’t worn off yet. It is nice to have an addon make the "Baff, baff, baff, baff!" sounds so I wouldn’t have to, if I were one of those types of players. However, I still have to make "vroom vroom" noises every time I summon my mount, because I am one of those other types of players.

Download Comix

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"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute."
Gil Stern

Well worry no more.

There’s an addon called Blood Queen which manages all that stuff for you. For raid leaders, it becomes a big asset because the process doesn’t have to be micro-managed.

Features

• Auto-assigned bite targets
• Automatic raid icons set
• Takes into account deaths, disconnects, mis-bites and mind control’s

The priority list only needs to be built once and it revolves around your guild members. Keep in mind that this addon will only work if you are the raid leader.

Two priority modes

There are two ways to generate priority lists: From the raid or from the guild. The actual assigning of players can also be done in two ways. 

Normal mode: Bites are assigned according to a pre-set list or damage meter data from Recount or Skada. There are check boxes along the bottom.

Dual priority: Two lists are set up based on melee players and ranged players.

Note: It is also possible to set up opposite DPS priorities. For example, if a ranged player gets it, the addon can instruct them to target a melee player or vice versa. Very useful for tactical DPS reasons to spread the bite chain among the ranged players and the melee players. Check the Reverse first Bite box on the lower left.

Download it now!

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"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute."
Gil Stern

In a game as long-running as World of Warcraft, it’s easy for players’ friend and ignore lists to become overworked and disorganized. This can also be a problem for players with multiple characters, as keeping these lists synchronized across alts is not something automatically handled by the World of Warcraft client; but there are several good addons that can make contact management in Azeroth a lot easier.

Friend and Ignore Share

Vimrasha’s Friend and Ignore Share is a simple, lightweight out-of-the-box addon that maintains friend and ignore lists across multiple characters on the same server seamlessly and without modifying the existing UI. It will also add alts to your friends list for easy mailing. Although it hasn’t been updated in a while, it seems to be working well enough with patch 3.3. A noticeable drawback is that Friend and Ignore Share does not sync friend list character notes across alts.

FriendsWithBenefits

Tekkub’s FriendsWithBenefits is very similar to Friend and Ignore Share in that it syncs friends lists and adds alts without modifying the friend list UI. Although FriendsWithBenefits does not work for ignore lists, it does copy friends list notes across characters.

FriendsShare Resurrection

Kring’s similarly lightweight FriendsShare Resurrection automatically syncs friend and ignore lists, but does not copy over character notes or add alts to the friends list.

myFriends

Schied’s myFriends has friend and ignore list synchronization features as the addons mentioned above, with some additional features to keep lists organized, including an unobtrusive cleanup of the social window UI. MyFriends expands the total number of friends and ignores allowed and adds a "mute" category to the social window for suppressing voice chat from specific players. One of the most unique and useful features of myFriends is allowing the player to create their own categories within the friend and ignore lists. MyFriends copies notes across characters, but it does not add alts to the friend list.

Notes U Need

If the above mentioned addons are comparable to contact managers, Telic’s Notes U Need is akin to a blogging platform with contact management features. The feature list is extensive — not only does Notes U Need cover friend and ignore list synchronization, but it carries associated notes across alts by creating its own database and unobtrusively modifying the social window.

Notes U Need can also be set to automatically create notes for alts, guild members, party members, quests, and NPCs, and you can also create a general note to work on your Arthas/Mal’Ganis/Batman slash fic while waiting for raids to get started. Even a help to programmers, Notes U Need can execute a general note as a LUA script. Notes U Need also sports MapNotes integration for adding an on-the-spot map note without having to open the world map, and supports sending and broadcasting notes to other Notes U Need users.

To support the robust feature set, Notes U Need adds a dock four buttons to the main world view that can be disabled in the addon’s options. About the only advantage that the notebook and pen set I keep on my desk has over Notes U Need is that my notebook doesn’t give me LUA errors when I’m trying to set focus on the tank.

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"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute."
Gil Stern

When coming up with a score for players, Elitist Group summarizes important information about a player allowing leaders to make snap judgments. It includes details such as their:

• Gear
• Augments (Enchants, gems, etc.)
• Spec
• Completed instances and achievements within them

It even keeps a record of players that you have run with in the past.

Notes can be made about players. You can assign them a rating out of 5 when you finish an instance and include a comment about how they have performed.

Keep in mind when using this that it isn’t entirely indicative of player skill. It only displays what achievements they have earned, bosses they have killed (along with the amount of kills) and the gear they are wearing. For a healer like me who doesn’t know every stat that’s important for other classes, a simple mouseover will show what role an item or augment is best suited for. If I see a Ret Paladin wearing a hybrid set of DPS and healing gear, then he’s probably going to be passed over.

Even though the items themselves are scored, ilevel 200 blues are scored differently compared to ilevel 200 epics. There is a gear score at the bottom, but it represents the level of content that the player is ready for.

While it’s still not the best or most ideal way to score a player, it certainly offers more tools and information for you to make the decisions.

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"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute."
Gil Stern

Beginners’ Macro resources

WowWiki’s Intro to Macros
WowWiki: Howto Make a Macro
WowWiki’s useful macros for every class
EpicAdvice.com macros wiki
Spellbinder addon
GCD (Global Cooldown) explained
LUA scripting language
Macro Explain

How to build a macro

This is a brief guide that demonstrates how to make the most commonly used action-bar macros by building one up from basic to full-featured, with explanations at each step, using programming conventions designed to conserve as much of the 255 macro character limit as possible.
But first, what exactly are macros? Macros are small, simple programs* written in Blizzard’s chosen scripting language, LUA, that solve several problems:

1. Every class in WoW has many more abilities than fit on the main action bar. Macros let you consolidate these abilities into single action bar buttons, and access those abilities using modifer keys (Shift, Alt, Ctrl). Using macros you can consolidate up to 24 abilities on the easy-to-reach 1-6 keys.

2. Macros let you combine multiple abilities so that one button push activates both, saving time. Note that this only works when no more than one of those abilities has a cast time, or is instant-cast but on the GCD (Global Cooldown).

3. Macros let you do other things, like calculate your tank’s avoidance in current gear, or find the Time-Lost Protodrake as you fly through Storm Peaks. (These are relatively complex and beyond the scope of this intro, though I’ve included both examples at the end for the curious.)

Step 1: Open the in-game Macro editor

1. Hit the Game Menu button, or press Escape to open the Game Menu.

2. Select Macro from the menu, and the Macro editor window will open.

3. Create a macro by selecting ‘New’ in the bottom right of the macro editor.

4. Select an icon for it. Always select the red ?. Reason for that explained below.

5. Name it anything you want, as long as it is not the same name as an ability. For example, don’t name your macro Shadowbolt, name it Shdwblt, or Shadow_bolt, or Macro_Shadowbolt, or something like that.

6. Click OK, now enter the code in the editor box. Copy and paste from one of the macros below just to see how it works.

7. When you’ve finished entering the code in the editor, save it by simply clicking the ‘New’ button again, or click on any other macro icons you may have. There is no ‘Save’ Button.

8. Drag the macro onto an action bar slot, and either click it, or use the Game Menu -> Keybindings control panel to bind a key to that action bar button (or the excellent Spellbinder addon to bypass the action bar entirely and bind that macro directly to any key, even one not on the actionbar). Test it out.

Step 2: The basic (useless) template

The most basic macro template is this:

#showtooltip
/use Shadowbolt

#showtooltip makes the red ? icon turn into the Shadowbolt icon. The red ? is just a placeholder, and will display the icon of whatever #showtooltip instructs it to.

Use ‘/use’ instead of ‘/cast’ to save a character, which can add up on long macros that approach the 255 character limit.

This macro looks and works exactly the same as the Shadowbolt spell in your spellbook does. Drag it to your action bar, click it, and it fires a shadowbolt (if you’re a warlock).

Since it has no other functionality beyond the Shadowbolt spell in your spellbook, there is no point to making a macro this simple, it is only for demonstration purposes.

Step 3: The basic (useful) template

Now for a more useful template, that extends the basic one to include 4 levels of modifiers. This is what most action-bar ability macros share:

#showtooltip
/use [mod:ctrl] ability 4;[mod:alt] ability 3;[mod:shift] ability 2;[nomod] ability 1

or without the [nomod] at the end, which is equally correct and saves a few characters (max is 255 characters for any macro):

#showtooltip
/use [mod:ctrl] ability 4;[mod:alt] ability 3;[mod:shift] ability 2;ability 1

(there are some cases where inserting [nomod] is required, one of which is covered below. But most of the time it makes no difference, and you can leave it out to save character space)

Hold Ctrl and press this macro, and two things will happen: #showtooltipo will convert the red ? into the ability 4 icon for as long as Ctrl is held, and ability 4 will trigger.

Same with Alt and Shift. With no modifier key held, the icon for ability 1 will display on the macro, and ability 1 will trigger.

If you have mispelled an ability, or do not have it in your spellbook, the red ? will display instead of the ability’s icon, alerting you to an error in your macro.

You can make 6 macros with this basic template, and replace your spells on your 1-6 action bar, and it will allow you to access 24 abilities instead of 6 from that action bar, without using WoW’s more clunky action bar paging function.

You can further create additional macros with this template, and use the Spellbinder addon addon to bind them to any keys on your keyboard, for example those near and around your WASD or ESDF movement keys, for quick access to even more than 24 abilities.

Here is an example of a real macro, using warlock abilities. The concepts demonstrated are universally applicable to all classes:

#showtooltip
/use [mod:ctrl] Bronze Drake;[mod:alt] Ritual of Summoning;[mod:shift] Summon Felguard;[nomod] Shadowbolt

Or without [nomod]:

#showtooltip
/use [mod:ctrl] Bronze Drake;[mod:alt] Ritual of Summoning;[mod:shift] Summon Felguard;Shadowbolt

Ctrl + macro : displays Bronze Drake icon, and mounts you on your bronze drake
Alt + macro : displays Ritual icon, and casts Ritual
Shift + macro: displays Felguard icon, and summons Felguard
No modifiers + macro: : displays Shadowbolt icon, and casts Shadowbolt

Generally it’s best to put the lesser-used and/or the non-combat abilities with the modifier that is hardest to reach. For me, the hardest to reach modifier is Ctrl, so I put my least critical abilities, like my mount, there.

Alt is the next hardest to reach, so it gets the next least-critical abilities. Nomod is obviously easy to reach, so it gets the most critical abilities.

Any left over critical abilities I couldn’t fit into the nomod position on all my macros go with Shift, the next easiest-to-reach modifier.

Step 4: Multi-line macros

You can also make macros that cast multiple abilities with a single button push, as long as no more than one has a cast time, or is instant-cast but on the GCD (Global Cooldown).

For example, here’s an emergency Warlock macro for when the demon is killed. Warlock minions take up to 10 seconds to resummon, which can sometimes mean the difference b/t life and death (especially in PvP).

However, there is a talent in the Demonology tree called Fel Domination that reduces summoning cast time. When combined with another Demonology Talent, Master Summoner, the Warlock can ‘FelDom’ summon a demon in .5s.

This is a nice oh-shit button for Warlocks, however the lock has to hit 2 buttons to do this, and if they aren’t quick about it, the time it takes to do that can be costly. This macro combines Fel Domination and Summon Felguard into a single macro:

#showtooltip
/use Fel Domination
/use Summon Felguard

Instead of having to hit the Fel Domination button, and then the Summon Felguard button, the warlock can just hit this single macro to accomplish both abilities.

To add to this example, if you’re an Orc warlock, you can add the Orc racial ability Blood Fury to give your newly summoned Felguard a little more oomph for a few seconds:

#showtooltip
/use Blood Fury
/use Fel Domination
/use Summon Felguard

This works b/c both Blood Fury and Fel Domination are instant-cast and off the GCD, meaning they can be instantly cast one right after the other.

Summon Felguard has a cast time, meaning it has to be the last line in the macro, since anything that comes after cast-time spells or GCD instant spells are ignored by the macro.

Another simple, but extremely useful for dps, example of this is the Assist Macro. It enables a dps to quickly target and focus-fire the tank’s target:

/target TankName
/assist

Line 1 targets the tank (you have to edit this macro with the tank’s name for every run). Line 2 target’s the tank’s current target. Keep using it throughout the fight to make sure you stay on the tank’s target.

The only exception is if the tank has raid-marked the mobs in a kill order. In that case, follow the kill order, not the tank’s target (sometimes the tank has to briefly target another mob besides the Skull to hold aggro on the adds).

Step 5: Combine modifier and multi-line macros

Now, lets combine modifier macros and multiline macros into a single macro. Doing this can cause problems if you don’t construct it correctly. For example, there are several problems with the basic combined macro below, what do you think they may be?

#showtooltip
/use Fel Domination
/use [mod:ctrl] Bronze Drake;[mod:alt] Ritual of Summoning;[mod:shift] Ritual of Souls;Summon Felguard

The problem is that when you use this macro, you cast Fel Domination even when you’re holding Ctrl, Alt, or Shift. You don’t want to blow the crucial cooldown on Fel Domination when you just want to mount your drake, or summon a party, or create healthstones, only when you summon your Felguard. To fix this, you also have to add a modifier to the Fel Domination line:

#showtooltip
/use [nomod] Fel Domination
/use [mod:ctrl] Bronze Drake;[mod:alt] Ritual of Summoning;[mod:shift] Ritual of Souls;Summon Felguard

and/or

#showtooltip
/use [nomod] Fel Domination
/use [mod:ctrl] Bronze Drake;[mod:alt] Ritual of Summoning;[mod:shift] Ritual of Souls;[nomod] Summon Felguard

Both of these work correctly. The key is adding [nomod] in front of Fel Domination. Whether Summon Felguard also has [nomod] does not matter in this case. There are some rare edge cases where it does matter, but that’s beyond the scope of this intro.

However, there is another problem with this macro, albeit only an aesthetic one. The problem is that #showtooltip will now show the icon for Fel Domination instead of Summon Felguard when nomod is used. When there are multiple lines in a macro like this, #showtooltip always displays the icon of the first line. This can be fixed by copying the main line of the macro to the #showtooltip line:

#showtooltip [mod:ctrl] Bronze Drake;[mod:alt] Ritual of Summoning;[mod:shift] Ritual of Souls;[nomod] Summon Felguard
/use [nomod] Fel Domination
/use [mod:ctrl] Bronze Drake;[mod:alt] Ritual of Summoning;[mod:shift] Ritual of Souls;[nomod] Summon Felguard

Finally, there is one last problem. This macro will always use Fel Domination to summon a Felguard, even when you don’t need it to. In fact you want to save FelDom only for emergencies. So you can modify this macro to provide two Summon Felguard options, one with FelDom and one without:

#showtooltip
/use [mod:shift] Fel Domination
/use [mod:ctrl] Bronze Drake;[mod:alt] Ritual of Summoning;[mod:shift] Summon Felguard;[nomod] Summon Felguard

The above macro displays the icon for Fel Domination when Shift is held. If you prefer it to display the icon for Summon Felguard when shift is held, copy the main line of the macro to the #showtooltip line:

#showtooltip [mod:ctrl] Bronze Drake;[mod:alt] Ritual of Summoning;[mod:shift] Summon Felguard;[nomod] Summon Felguard
/use [mod:shift] Fel Domination
/use [mod:ctrl] Bronze Drake;[mod:alt] Ritual of Summoning;[mod:shift] Summon Felguard;[nomod] Summon Felguard

Using this macro with nomod will summon a Felguard normally, using it while holding Shift will insta-summon the minion w/ Fel Domination.

Step 6: Target modifier macros

You can also create macros that cast a spell on a specific target. We’ll use a Pally healing spell to demonstrate.

This casts Flash of Light on the current target:

#showtooltip
/use Flash of Light

This casts Flash of Light on yourself (if you’re a pally), even if you have another player currently targeted:

#showtooltip
/use [target=player] Flash of Light

This casts Flash of Light on your focus, even if you have someone else targetted:

#showtooltip
/use [target=focus] Flash of Light

This casts Flash of Light on whoever your game cursor is hovering over (the mouseover target), even if you have someone else targeted:

#showtooltip
/use [target=mouseover] Flash of Light

You can combine all into a single macro with modifiers:

#showtooltip
/use [mod:ctrl,target=player] Flash of Light;[mod:alt,target=focus] Flash of Light;[mod:shift,target=mouseover] Flash of Light;[nomod] Flash of Light

Step 7: Other examples

1. For DK tanks, our highest single-target threat ability is Rune Strike. However, Rune Strike does not work like most other strikes. It only becomes available to be cast after the DK has dodged or parried an attack, and clicking the Rune Strike button does not cause it to hit right away, but on your next melee strike.

Macro-deficient DK’s just put this ability on a action bar somewhere and try to keep an eye on it and hit every time it procs. But macros make using this ability every time it procs much easier. Just macro Rune Strike into every combat ability macro. Since you’re spamming these constantly throughout the fight, you’ll always activate Rune Strike whenever it procs:

#showtooltip [mod:ctrl] ability 4;[mod:alt] ability 3;[mod:shift] ability 2;[nomod] Obliterate
/use [nomod] !Rune Strike
/use [mod:ctrl] ability 4;[mod:alt] ability 3;[mod:shift] ability 2;[nomod] Obliterate

#showtooltip [mod:ctrl] ability 4;[mod:alt] ability 3;[mod:shift] ability 2;[nomod] Death Strike
/use [nomod] !Rune Strike
/use [mod:ctrl] ability 4;[mod:alt] ability 3;[mod:shift] ability 2;[nomod] Death Strike

#showtooltip [mod:ctrl] ability 4;[mod:alt] ability 3;[mod:shift] ability 2;[nomod] Blood Strike
/use [nomod] !Rune Strike
/use [mod:ctrl] ability 4;[mod:alt] ability 3;[mod:shift] ability 2;[nomod] Blood Strike

#showtooltip [mod:ctrl] ability 4;[mod:alt] ability 3;[mod:shift] ability 2;[nomod] Heart Strike
/use [nomod] !Rune Strike
/use [mod:ctrl] ability 4;[mod:alt] ability 3;[mod:shift] ability 2;[nomod] Heart Strike

#showtooltip [mod:ctrl] ability 4;[mod:alt] ability 3;[mod:shift] ability 2;[nomod] Scourge Strike
/use [nomod] !Rune Strike
/use [mod:ctrl] ability 4;[mod:alt] ability 3;[mod:shift] ability 2;[nomod] Scourge Strike

Why is the ! used? When Rune Strike procs, if you hit the Rune Strike button to cast it, it does not instantly cast but waits till your next melee strike to cast. However, if you accidentally hit the Rune Strike button again b/f your next melee strike, it will deactivate Rune Strike and you may miss the proc. Adding the !Rune Strike instructs the game to ignore the button press if Rune Strike is already activated and just waiting on the next melee hit, so it won’t be accidentally deactivated.

Having said that, this may have been changed by a recent patch, and the ! is no longer needed for these kind of abilities. However I haven’t tested that myself yet, don’t know for sure, and still use !Rune Strike.

2. One final example of multi-line macro, is my DK Blood tank oh-shit button. When I take big damage spikes, this macro buffs my self-healing with Vampiric Blood and then uses a Runic Healing Potion. I follow up with a Rune Tap and Death Strike. This can usually get me from 20% hp to 80% in a few GCDs, and is one of the few tanking abilities in the game able to mitigate spike dmg after it happens:

#showtooltip
/use [mod:ctrl] whatever;[mod:alt] whatever;[mod:shift] whatever;[nomod] Vampiric Blood
/use [nomod] Runic Healing Potion

Step 8: Advanced Macros & Scripts

Here are several examples of more advanced macros. These are actually scripts, rather than macros, and are more complex than the prior examples. If you’re interested in learning more, I suggest starting at WoWwiki’s macro page. EpicAdvice.com also has a good thread on macro resources.

1. Trying for Ruby + Emerald Void in Occulus and need a macro that helps your group time your timestops? Hit this one a the start of the fight:

/in 12 /rw Timestop #1 NAME1
/in 27 /rw Timestop #2 NAME2
/in 42 /rw Timestop #3 NAME3
/in 57 /rw Timestop #4 NAME4
/in 72 /rw Timestop #5 NAME5
/in 87 /rw Timestop #6 NAME1
/in 102 /rw Timestop #7 NAME2
/in 117 /rw Timestop #8 NAME3

2. Are you a tank and need to know what your total avoidance is? These macros will query your stats and tell you:

DK: /run ChatFrame1:AddMessage(format("Avoidance with Stoneskin Gargoyle: %.2f%%", GetDodgeChance() + GetParryChance() + 6 + 1/(0.0625 + 0.956/(floor(GetCombatRatingBonus(CR_DEFENSE_SKILL))*0.04))))

Druid: /run ChatFrame1:AddMessage(format("Total avoidance: %.2f%%", GetDodgeChance() + 5 + 1/(0.0625 + 0.956/(GetCombatRating(CR_DEFENSE_SKILL)/4.91850*0.04))))

Pally: /run ChatFrame1:AddMessage(format("Total avoidance: %.2f%%", GetDodgeChance() + GetParryChance() + 5 + 1/(0.0625 + 0.956/(GetCombatRating(CR_DEFENSE_SKILL)/4.91850*0.04))))

War: /run ChatFrame1:AddMessage(format("Total avoidance: %.2f%%", GetDodgeChance() + GetParryChance() + 5 + 1/(0.0625 + 0.956/(GetCombatRating(CR_DEFENSE_SKILL)/4.91850*0.04))))

Find the TLPD:

/tar Dirkee
/tar Vyra
/tar Time
/stopmacro [noexists]
/w Your Name %t Is watching you!
/run RaidNotice_AddMessage(RaidBossEmoteFrame,"THERE IT IS! KILL IT!", ChatTypeInfo["RAID_WARNING"])
/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\interface\\RaidWarning.wav")

Many more at WoWwiki’s Macro pages.

Summary

Create multilevel ability macros with modifiers:

#showtooltip /use [mod:ctrl] ability 4;[mod:alt] ability 3;[mod:shift] ability 2;[nomod] ability 1

Cast more than one ability at a time with multi-line, multilevel macros, as long as no more than one has a cast time, or is instant-cast but on the GCD. The cast-time or GCD ability must be on the last line of the macro, since everything after that ability is ignored:

#showtooltip
/use [mod:shift] non-GCD ability 1;[nomod] non-GCD ability 2
/use [mod:shift] non-GCD ability 3;[nomod] non-GCD ability 4
/use [mod:ctrl] GCD ability 4;[mod:alt] GCD ability 3;[mod:shift] GCD ability 2;[nomod] GCD ability 1

Copy the last line after #showtooltip to display the icons for the main abilities used in the addon:

#showtooltip [mod:ctrl] GCD ability 4;[mod:alt] GCD ability 3;[mod:shift] GCD ability 2;[nomod] GCD ability 1
/use [mod:shift] non-GCD ability 1;[nomod] non-GCD ability 2
/use [mod:shift] non-GCD ability 3;[nomod] non-GCD ability 4
/use [mod:ctrl] GCD ability 4;[mod:alt] GCD ability 3;[mod:shift] GCD ability 2;[nomod] GCD ability 1

*Macros are technically not programs at all, since they cannot run on their own, can only be run inside Warcraft. Which is why they’re called macros instead of programs.

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