Swipe MacroFollow

Yes, I'm playing my alt as a tank. Scary.

Here's what I've come up with for a swipe macro (pieces borrowed from several sources). I've found it helpful. Perhaps someone else will. Of course, you pros out there can just call me noob and I'll move along.

#showtooltip Swipe (Bear)
/cast [nostance] Dire Bear Form
/targetenemy [noharm]
/stopmacro [noharm]
/startattack
/cast Swipe (Bear)
/cast !maul
/script if GetRaidTargetIndex("target")==nil then SetRaidTargetIcon("target",7) end


Edited, Apr 18th 2010 9:18pm by dadanox

It will put you in dire bear form if you are in human form or somehow pop out.

It will automatically target the next closeby enemy (provided your current target isn't hostile), so no tab target needed, and no need to select an enemy prior to swiping. You can of course select a specific target at any time by clicking or tabbing to them. Once your target is dead, it will automatically switch to the next one in the group.

If there is no nearby enemy, the macro will stop.

If you don't have enough rage, it will autoattack.

Once you have some rage it will swipe and keep maul up.

It will mark an "X" raid icon on your target, and move it as your target changes.

Edited, Apr 19th 2010 9:38am by dadanox

The startattack is just saying "if I don't have enough rage, please just pretend I right clicked the bad guy and smack him."

Originally, I had the raidicon line closer to the top, and I was marking friendly players when no hostiles were around. Now that I look again, If swipe fails, it shouldn't make it to the last line of the macro, so I could probably take the /stopmacro line out.

Edited, Apr 19th 2010 1:44pm by dadanox

Maul is an on-next-attack ability, so when you activate it you don't use it right away.

When you put a /use Maul line in a macro, and hit it, it will use the ability and then activate Maul. If you use another one (either the same macro or a differnet one), however, befor Maul goes off it will de-toggle Maul.

Using /use !Maul will turn Maul on if it isn't, and do nothing if it is. So you don't lose any attacks. Very useful for Warriors, DKs and Druids. On my DK, /use !Rune Strike is in almost all of my ability macros. So I almost always have RS activated and ready to go.

I have an active dislike for /castsequence macros. Too much is going on to make them very good in my opinion, well for raiding at least.

I don't use many castsequence macros but I do use this one for single target raid tanking because it hits mangle on the next global after the cooldown and only involves 2 things in the rotation. I have found this to work great tanking hardmode IC 25 for threat (along with spamming fff and demo roar). I would never use one in cat dps rotations but for bear tanking on bosses it is a strict rotation.

Back in vanilla, there were mods that could do that. I had one which you could spam which would use all your abilities depending on how much rage you had, including demo roar & maul if you had high rage. The same button spamming also charge if you were out of range and taunted if your target was not targeting you. I had another mod which bought up a unit frame for any mob you were in combat with even if you were not targeting it. So if you were fighting a pack of 5 mobs, you could see if any of them were targeting someone other than you (the tank). So I just spammed my tanking button, and clicked on any mob that wasn't targeting me to charge to it and taunt.

Was very, very easy mode :)



Mind you, there was also a deeps mod that was like the current mods that showed which ability you should hit next. Except you could one-button spam to just hit those abilities automatically. It even tied in to the mob-info mod to know the health of the mob to know if you should FB instead of rip if the mob was close to death.

The game is much harder now - you actually have to pay attention and know what you are doing!

Or wait for the next hellscream buff

Sorry for the double-post, but I found something interesting and wanted to alert you all to it, if you're looking for this built-in Tab function.

#showtooltip
/stopmacro [noharm]
/startattack
/cast Swipe [harm]
/cast !Maul
/run SetCVar(”targetNearestDistance”, 10)
/targetenemy [harm]
/run SetCVar(”targetNearestDistance”, 41)


Basically, this one will...

1. Enable auto-attack.
2. Cast Swipe if your current target is hostile.
3. Enable Maul.
4. Set the /targetenemy range to 10 yards.
5. Target a new enemy.
6. Set the /targetenemy range to 41 yards (default).
7. Cancel the macro if your target isn't hostile.

1. Means you don't have to right-click stuff.

2. Often you already have a target selected when you press Swipe the first time and there's no reason to have to target a new target before the first Swipe. Gives you some measure of control.

3. Means you don't have to spam Maul.

4. There's no reason to target enemies outside of the 10 yard range and this one will prevent the /targetenemy function to accidentally target nearby patrols and stuff.

5. Means you don't have to spam Tab.

6. Returns the /targetenemy range to 41 yards which is the default setting, I believe. This prevents the macro from messing up your normal Tab targeting range as it basically resets the settings to the way they were before you ran the macro.

7. Prevents you from accidentally blowing Swipe if the target is neutral, I believe. Maybe it won't, I'll have to see if I can test it.


The servers will be up in about 20 minutes, so I'll test it there and fix whatever errors there might be.

Edited, Apr 28th 2010 10:46am by Mazra

Man I get so many crits and dodges when I don't jump I use maul anyway lol, kills two targets faster at least

I like that. I'll add it, thanks!!

Yes the tanking rotation is easy, but with castsequence macros I found it easy to keep mangle 100% before the mangle buff while raid leading in progression hardmode fights. Also being the officer who organizes our strats in the guild I spend a lot of time watching what everyone else is doing to see what changes we need to make. I usually play kitty for this reason though and only tank when someone is absent or it is a 3 tank fight.

Considering that you're spinning your mousewheel and not just clicking it once/twice, I'm going to hazard a guess and say that you just aren't noticing it click off (the button highlight does not always disengage despite the attack being disabled).