Totem Talk: Restoration addons and macros
Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration will show you how, brought to you by Joe Perez, otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and the For The Lore podcast.
We have come a fair distance so far, starting from the basics up through last week, when we talked about haste and its use to a raiding restoration shaman. Today I would like to discuss macros and addons for the restoration-minded shaman.
Macros have been in the game for a long time, and over the course of years, they have changed to allow or deny certain functions. The same can be said for the various addons that have existed over the life of the game. There are some addons and macros that can be particularly useful to you as a restoration shaman.
First, let us take a look at macros. The art of making a macro can sometimes be a bit confusing. While I will only be covering some of the more useful ones I've come across myself, if you want further information on getting started on macros you can certainly look at an oldie but goodie from the site here. The following multiple-part introductory guide to macros was written by former staffer Sean Forsgren and still holds a lot of information for anyone wanting to get started or brush up on macros. Feel free to check these out:
So let's begin, shall we? Here are some macros that I have found useful in my healing travels.
Earth Shield Focus
#showtooltip Earth Shield
/focus [modifier, help] [target=focus,noexists]
/clearfocus [mod:alt]
/cast [target=focus] Earth Shield; Earth Shield
This macro allows you to set your focus and cast Earth Shield on the target at the same time. It also allows you to clear whatever your focus is set to by holding down the alt key and pressing the macro again. This can be particularly useful when raid healing and attempting to maintain Earth Shield on a target such as a tank or a particularly squishy DPS. The same principle can be adapted for any of the shaman spells just like this.
Riptide
#showtooltip Riptide
/focus [modifier, help] [target=focus,noexists]
/clearfocus [mod:alt]
/cast [target=focus] Riptide; Riptide
I use it for Earth Shield and Riptide as well as Chain Heal. Focus macros such as these are fantastic ways to divide your attention effectively and allow you to maintain heals on important targets.
Purge
#showtooltip Purge
/stopcasting
/cast [@focus,harm,nodead][@target,harm,nodead][@focustarget,harm,nodead][@targettarget,harm,nodead] Purge
This macro will stop casting whatever you are casting and will begin to purge whatever the target of your focus is or if your target is an enemy, whatever your target is. While a lot of people claim this is primarily a PvP macro, a lot of shaman found this particularly useful during the Lord Jaraxxus and Faction Champions fights. I think this is something a restoration shaman should keep handy; after all, you never know when it will be useful. The macro itself can also be adapted for another useful spell we have in our arsenal, Wind Shear.
Wind Shear
#showtooltip Wind Shear
/stopcasting
/cast [@focus,harm,nodead][@target,harm,nodead][@focustarget,harm,nodead][@targettarget,harm,nodead] Wind Shear
These can also be useful in heroics, especially when trying for achievements like Less-Rabi.
Heroism/Bloodlust
#showtooltip Heroism
/stopmacro [nocombat]
/cast Heroism
I am not too proud to say I've found this macro useful. What this macro does is keeps you from casting Heroism when not in combat. While it may not happen to everyone, there have been times where I have accidentally brushed the Heroism macro, giving the entire raid exhaustion while waiting for a pull. This macro has helped make sure there have been no more accidents.
Emergency Nuke Heal
#showtooltop Nature's Swiftness
/stopcasting
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Tidal Force
/cast Nature's Swiftness
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/cast [target=Focus] Healing Wave
(If you are an engineer with the glove enchant you can also add /use 10 to activate that slot. Thanks to Mozz for the heads up)
This has quickly become one of my favorite macros. In a lot of the fights in Icecrown you will have to move, sometimes out of range of important targets such as tanks. This can result in the target's dropping very low in health and needing to be topped off fast. Fights like the Blood Princes and Sindragosa are good examples of this. This macro will use any trinkets you have equipped in either slot if they have an on use effect, cast Tidal Force to increase your crit rating and Nature's Swiftness for to make the next spell instant cast. This is also useful for fights like Blood Queen where you have a lot of people to top off after (or during) air phase by simply changing Healing Wave to Chain Heal. Effectively making it an group nuke heal.
You can set the target to anything from mouseover to target of target, but I tend to leave it on my focus target as during those fights I tend to have a tank targeted as my focus. You can also change it to [target=target] to cast it on whoever you have targeted at the time. This is a very useful macro.
Here are some utility macros for you to use that can allow you to clean up some bar space.
Water walk / breathing
#showtooltip
/cast [nomodifier:alt] Water Walking; Water Breathing
Will cast either water walking or water breathing based on whether you hold the alt key. This can be useful when doing daily quests and will likely have more relevance once Cataclysm comes out. This also applies to Water Shield and Lightning Shield.
Shields
#showtooltip
/cast [nomodifier:alt] Water Shield; Lightning Shield
Again very useful for soloing and daily quests.
Weapon Imbue
#showtooltip
/cast [nomodifier:alt] Earthliving Weapon(Rank 6); Flametongue Weapon(Rank 10)
Every so often, you will find yourself throwing up a Flame Shock or throwing a Lava Burst at a boss. So when you are trying to eke out that little extra DPS for the raid on that boss' last 1%, this will let you hot swap Earthliving Weapon out for Flametongue. Sometimes every little extra bit counts.
Hex
#show
/say I think %t is feeling a bit ... froggy ... Get it? hahah
/cast Hex
Even as restoration shaman, we have full access to the Hex spell. No matter what we are doing, we can drop a hex. This can be useful in fights where every bit of crowd control needs to be used, like faction champs, but the spell can also be used to save your own bacon. While this macro is very simplistic, you cannot fathom how important it can be to announce something is CCed in the middle of a group. You can obviously change the text to suit whatever you want, but you get the idea.
rez
#show
/cast Ancestral Spirit
/say Hey %t, This better not just be an attempt at getting mouth-to-mouth.
This is more a matter of convenience. During wipe recovery, sometimes multiple healers will attempt to resurrect the same target. While not necessary, a simple notification to those around you to who you intend to res helps get the raid up just a little bit quicker so you can give the boss another go. Choose different text as you see fit.
There are a ton of macro combinations you can make. These are just some of the ones that I have found most useful in a raid environment. Do you have any you'd like to share with us? Feel free to leave them in comments or email them directly to me. I will make sure they get posted and that credit is given.
Now that we've talked about macros, let us take a look at some addons you may find useful.
