One Click Wonders: Part 2

Time for part two of the fantastic Mage macros.

For part two I think I'll post a few usefull PvP macros.

The first being the ever loved; "Ele, Freeze, and get your Shatter combo" macro.

/cast [target=pet,dead] Summon Water Elemental; [nopet] Summon Water Elemental
/stopmacro [nopet]
/petpassive
/click [pet] PetActionButton5
/petattack

Break it down!!!

Line one will pull out your Ele, if it is dead, or doesn't exist.
Line two will stop the whole thing if you can't get a pet (cooldown might not be up)
Line three will put your pet on passive so it follows you.
Line four clicks the Ele's "Freeze" spell, and will give you the targeting reticle to use.
Line five will make your pet attack the target you want. (if none are selected, it will attack the Nova's mob/player)

You'll need to click this macro,(or smash the button) a few times to get it to go through, but it's a pretty nasty one when used right.


The next one is a Focus and CS macro.

/stopcasting
/cast [target=focus,exists,harm] Counterspell
/cast [target=mouseover,harm] Counterspell;Counterspell
/cast [exists,harm] Counterspell

First line stops your casting, so that you don't have to jump, or move, or hit esc.
Second line will set your target to focus, or target your focus, and if they are casting anything, it will Counterspell them.
Third line will Counterspell your mouseover if you have no target/focus.
Fourth line will target your focus, and Counterspell them if you see them casting.

The last is for those pesky Grounding Totems. You know the ones that can soak up an intire Pyroblast, or ruin a good Shatter combo?

Well this will take em out with hardly any mana...

#showtooltip Ice Lance
/stopcasting
/target [exists] Grounding Totem
/cast Ice Lance
/targetlasttarget

First line shows the Tooltip
Second line stops your casting.
Third line targets the nearest grounding totem if there is one.
Fourth line will cast Ice Lance (or any other instant low mana spell)
Fifth line will retarget whomever you had targeted before.

One Click Wonders: Part 1

I've got a couple of friends that have leveled Frost Mages, and they were going over some of the more useful things for Mages.

They asked if I knew of any good macros.

Which made me think I should probably put a few of the more handy ones up here. And maybe add some macro links to the blog as well.

I don't use a ton of in combat macros, although there are a few that EVERY Mage needs to be very familiar with. I'll start with those.

One of the most important ones, both PvP and PvE is this:

#showtooltip Counterspell
/stopcasting
/cast Counterspell

This is the "Quick Counterspell" macro. Lets break it down.
The first line will show your tooltip, very optional.
The second line will interrupt any cast you are in the middle of, so you don't have to jump, or move, or hit esc.
The third line casts Counterspell, to interrupt a cast.

A good thing to note about the macro above, is that it can be used for anything else you might need, be it Ice Block, Ice Barrier, Mana Shield, Fire/Frost Ward, etc. All you have to do is change the tooltip, and spell name.

Another good macro for Mages...

#showtooltip Polymorph
/cast Polymorph
/stopmacro [noexists] [dead] [help]
/p Sheeping %t. Back off it.

The sheep and announce macro, basic, but still works well.
The first line, again shows the Poly tooltip, optional as always.
The second line will cast your Polymorph (if you want Pig or Turtle you'll need to specify).
The third line determines what you will announce. If the spell succeeds, you will say in party chat, "Sheeping . Back off it." If it fails, or your target is dead, it will not announce anything in party.
The last line is what will be announced. The "%t" is a command that will substitute in your target's name.

The next macro works wonders, and performs the same function as above, while adding in some more little tricks.

#showtooltip
/clearfocus [target=focus,dead]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]
/script SetRaidTarget("focus", 1)
/cast [target=focus]Polymorph
/stopmacro [nogroup]
/s --== Sheeping and Marking "%f" ==--

This one is a monster. But the only thing is does differently is that it deals with the "focus" ability.

Lets break this down...

First line will clear your focus if your old focus target is dead, or doesn't exist anymore.
Second line will set your focus on what you have targeted if you don't have a focus already.
Third line will place a Star marker over the head of the focus target (if you are group/raid leader/assistant)
Fourth line will polymorph the Focus target
Fifth line will stop the announce if not partied.
Sixth line will announce the sheeping.

We like this one better, usually.

This allows us to have another target frame, specifically, the focus frame. This frame will not change until you change it. So you can target your tank and type /focus, making another, completely independent frame show up. Or in the case of this macro, it will provide a frame with which to keep an eye on the mob you need to CC.

This one is to make conjuring and using those items easier.

/castsequence [modifier:alt] reset=120 Conjure Water, Conjure Food, Conjure Mana Emerald, Conjure Water, Conjure Food
/stop macro [modifier:alt]
/use Conjured Manna Biscuit
/use Conjured Glacier Water
/stopmacro [button:2]
/use Conjured croissant

This will conjure water, then food, then a gem, then water, then food, as long as you are holding the "alt" button.
If you simply click the button with your left mouse button, then it will make you eat Mana Biscuits (if you have any) or the conjured Food and Water. (the conjured food and water will both be used at the same time.)
You will need to update the macro as you level, and change the fourth and sixth lines to include the highest ranking foods/waters that you can make, so that they will be used properly.

This one is for Porting. As a Mage, you'll be using these spells very often, and this will make it easier.

#show Rune of Portals
/cast [modifier:alt] Portal: Shattrath; Teleport: Shattrath

This will allow the alt button + left click to cast Teleport, and the regular left click to summon a Portal. City names can change as needed, and if five macro's are made, it will allow you to have all your Teleports and Portals only take up five spots. The first line will show the number of Runes you have with you, and if you use the "?" icon for the macros, the picture will change depending on which spell you are casting.

The last one I'm going to include in this post is a mouse over macro, which is pretty handy if you don't use decursive.

/cast [target=mouseover,exists] Remove Lesser Curse

This should be bound to a key (I think mine is F1) and will allow you to mouse over another player, or his/her pet, and it will cast Remove Lesser Curse on whoever you are moused over.
One thing to note, is that you can make a Counterspell macro the same way, just replace the spell names, and possibly include a /stopcasting before the rest of the script.

I might go a little more in depth into Frost/Fire macros later, but for now, I'll stick to the more "essential" ones.

On the matter of CC:

Not only does a Mage supply one of the highest amounts of damage (assuming of course that the person playing one isn’t a complete moron, or pulls agro and spends 40% of the instance/raid dead). They can also supply one of the best buffs in the game, food and water, and one of the most reliable CC’s in the game.

Rank 1 Polymorph

This is rank one. Lets take a second to look at this, yes?

This spell works on Humanoids, Beasts, and Critters. Critters aside, this is arguably the single most effective way of CC’ing Humanoids and Beasts.

30 yard range. This is pretty decent range on a CC. The range allows you to keep your squishy little self well out of harms way and cast.

1.5 second cast. Not the fastest of cast times, but that shouldn’t matter if your keeping an eye on the mob like you should.

And for 150 mana, it’s a pretty cheep spell to use.

Last 20 seconds, with the highest rank lasting 50 seconds. For PvE, the duration of this spell is amazing. For PvP it’s not quite as useful due to diminishing returns, but will still work as an interrupt if you can get the cast off before your opponent. So, you cast Polymorph, your mob becomes a fluffy little sheep (or Pig or even Turtle)

So, how best to use this fantastic spell.

As I don’t PvP much on my mage due to the fact of me having exactly zero resilience, I usually use this spell for PvE. Since that is the case, I tend to use this macro for most of my “pigging”

/cast Polymorph: Pig
/p Sunrath is CC’ing %n, break it and you can tank it!

The first line allows us to cast Polymorph Pig (which not many in my guild have, so it’s handy to have different looking Poly’s), and the second line tells my party that I am Pigging a mob. The "%n" is a function that will place the name of my current target into the line of text.

Another good macro to use while sheeping is this little piece of work.

/targetlasttarget
/cast Polymorph: Pig

This will let you target your last target (presumably the one you are sheeping) and cast polymorph as long as you are facing your target. This works well for re-casting in the middle of a pull, when you know you aren’t going to be ready for the CC’d mob to come to the party.

The final two macros I’m going to post for this spell can be used when you don’t use your focus for the tank. I tend to keep my tank as focus, as it helps my slightly ADD self attacking the right target.

/focus
/cast Polymorph: Pig

This will set your current target to “focus” and then cast Polymorph. This is a very useful way of keeping an eye on your mobs, as it will add a target frame to your UI where you can see his status.

/target focus
/cast Polymorph: Pig

This will let you target your focus, and re-cast polymorph.

One thing to keep in mind when sheeping, is that the mobs, or person, you sheep will receive a buff. Yes a buff. Not a debuff, although it can be removed like one. It is considered a buff because it allows for a very high health regenerate while in the sheep/pig/turtle form. That being said, it’s not usually a good idea to sheep a mob/person when they are close to dead, as only a few seconds under the spell, they will regenerate most of their health.

One last thing, and something that most 70 Mages don’t realize right away, is that you can spellsteal from a mob that is polymorphed, with our breaking the CC. This is very useful when CC’ing in Magister’s Terrace. You can sheep, then steal all the fantastic buffs that those mobs have to offer.