Pimp my UI: Help/Harm Macros

Macros: not this complicated.

Inspiration, yay! Those who read last week's post will know that I've been seeking a topic to blog about for a few weeks now (my post buffer used to be 2 weeks long, and I used it all up). Then, a friend of mine who's leveling a priest sent me a simple whisper asking about help/harm macros. How could I have forgotten to write about something so core to the class? So, this week, it's all about macros.


Macro Basics

While I bet a lot of my readers have heard of macros before, here's a short introduction for those who haven't. A macro is a short program you can write to convert a single key-press or mouse-click into more than one game action. Generally, anything you could do with the chat box is something you can make a macro do, like saying something in chat, inviting someone to your group, or even casting a spell. Unlike most real-world programming languages, macros are designed to be simple, and you don't need to learn a lot to make use of them. Macros are part of the game, you don't need any addons to use them, and they're completely approved by Blizzard.

To make a macro, first, open the macro window by typing /m into the chat box and hitting enter.

Help/harm macros are simple macros you can write to condense one helpful spell and one harmful spell into a single button, freeing up space on your keyboard and action bars. You'll see two tabs near the top of the window, General Macros and Specific Macros. You'll probably want character specific macros for today. Once you've selected the kind you want, click the New button in the bottom-right corner. This will open a smaller window for you to name the new macro and pick an icon for it. Once you've done that, click Okay. You'll now have a new blank macro button in your macro window, and a blinking cursor in the box below labelled "Enter Macro Commands:". Type the macro commands in there (I'll explain this part in a little while), then drag the macro button onto your action bars just like a normal spell.

As I mentioned above, macros can do anything you could from the chat box, and to make it do something, you just put that command in the macro. To do more than one thing in the same macro, just put the next command on the next line. Today I'll be focusing on casting spells, but if you're interested in doing other things, here's some further reading: Slash Commands on WoWWiki (a little outdated, but still good.)


Making a Help/Harm Macro

Help/harm macros are simple macros you can write to condense one helpful spell and one harmful spell into a single button, freeing up space on your keyboard and action bars. Normally, you can't use multiple spells that have a global cooldown in the same macro, but help/harm macros can because they only try to use a single spell at a time.

You make a macro cast a spell like this:

/cast Flash Heal

That will cast Flash Heal when you activate the macro. You can use any spell name or item name, and it will try to cast the spell, use the item or equip the item. So far, this macro's not any better than just putting Flash Heal on your action bar. Now we'll make it do something Flash Heal can't on it's own: work when you target an enemy.

/cast [help] Flash Heal /cast [harm] Mind Flay

This will cast Flash Heal if you were targeting a friendly player, and cast Mind Flay if you were targeting an enemy. Cool huh? Now you only need a single button for both spells. For any macro command, you can put a set of square brackets between the command itself and the rest of the line. Anything between the square brackets will modify how the command works. [help] makes it skip the command if you're not targeting a friendly target. [harm] makes it skip the command if you're not targeting an enemy. You can also preface any modifier with "no" to make it mean to opposite. For example:

/cast [noharm] Flash Heal /cast [harm] Mind Flay

This is almost the same as before, but now it will also heal you if you're not targeting anything. (Of course, it might also strip you out of Shadowform if your target dies right before you hit the macro! Oops!) Anyway, using these tags, you can build your own macros to do whatever you need.

Advanced Macro Construction

Here are some more modifiers I find useful:

• [mod] - Only do this if you're also holding a modifier key (meaning, Shift, Ctrl, or Alt.)
• [exists] - Only do this if you actually have a target.
• [spec:1] or [spec:2] - Only do this if you're in your primary or secondary talent specialization.
• [form] - Only do this if you're in a form (meaning, in Shadowform.)
• [dead] - Only do this if your target is dead.
• [mounted] - Only do this if you're riding a mount.
• [@player] - Use this on yourself instead of your target.
• [@focus] - Use this on your focus instead of your target.

You can also set multiple different modifiers to the same command. For example:

/cast [mod, @player][noharm] Power Word: Shield

This will use Power Word: Shield on myself if I hold a modifier key, or use Power Word: Shield on my target if I'm targeting a friendly player. By putting multiple modifiers together in the same set of square brackets, separated by commas, they all apply together. By making a separate set of square brackets, the next set will only be attempted if the first set gets skipped. You can also put [] with nothing in it to make it just try to cast the spell with no modifiers at all if the other brackets got skipped.

By creatively using all the tools I've provided here, you can fit a ton more stuff onto your bars, and make some pretty handy stuff. Soon you'll be making complex macros like these ones that I use:

/cast [harm, nomod] Mind Spike /cast [mod, @player][noharm] Power Word: Shield /use [mod] Healthstone

/use [help, nomod][noexists, spec:1] Flash Heal /use [help, mod] Binding Heal /castsequence [harm, spec:1] reset=9.5 Holy Fire, Smite, Smite, Smite, Smite, Smite /use [nohelp, noform, spec:2] Shadowform /use [nohelp, form, spec:2] Mind Flay

/cast [harm] Psychic Horror /cast [help, nodead] Leap of Faith /cast [help, dead][nohelp, nodead] Resurrection

The Death Log (Recount addon tips)

Most people use Recount (or Skada, its leading competitor.) For those that may not know, both are combat log parsers, addons that read the combat log and collect useful data from it that might otherwise be hard to find by reading the combat log manually. Both addons' primary use is for their damage meter function. They can also display a lot of other very useful information. Today, I'll be explaining how to use a severely under-used feature of Recount: the Death log.

By default, Recount shows its Damage Done meter, but it has numerous other settings that can be accessed by right-clicking on the Damage Done text in the upper-left corner of the Recount display. To access the Death log, right-click and select Deaths (about 40% of the way down the list). This will bring up a count of how many times people have died.

Alone, this is not very useful. Once someone has died, however, you can click on the bar for them. This brings up a detail window, displaying more information on what caused the death (you can get details on other Recount settings too, for example, a breakdown of which attacks caused the damage for Damage Done.)

Click for a bigger version.

In the Death Details window, you'll see a listing of all times that player has died since you cleared your Recount data, in reverse chronological order (most recent on top.) On the right, the actual details for the selected death are shown. You can change which details to show, but by default, it will include all incoming damage and heals on them, and the actual moment of death, for up to 10sec before they died. This is extremely useful. You can see, for example, which healers healed a tank that died in the moments leading up to the tank's death, or what sorts of damage someone took. Without this information, you'd have to just try again and hope for the best. With it, you might learn that a certain DoT must be dispelled, or a specific spell must be interrupted, and can try again forewarned, and therefore, forearmed.

Lastly, for a quick at-a-glance summary, you can bring up a graph of the person's HP made from the data shown in the Death Details window by clicking on the Show Graph button in the lower-right. The Death Graph can be used to quickly see whether to blame the healers or not. If they went from full-to-dead in less than about 2 seconds, then it's not reasonable to think any healer could have responded. Similarly, if they were receiving a lot of heals, but died anyway, there's still nothing more the healers could have done.

One common complaint I hear from new healers is that they get blamed for any and all deaths (even when, as the healer, they know there was no way for them to fix some of the deaths.) By proper use of the Death log, you can not only figure out what went wrong on your wipes, so as to fix it, but you will also begin to see that in most cases the healers are not why someone died. I hope that eventually blaming the healer won't be the default stance for anyone who dies, and fewer new healers will be scared away from the role.

Reducing Startup Time in Windows

Hey, everyone, it's been a while since my last post. Today I'm writing about something a little bit different. Today, I'm going to explain how to use msconfig to make your computer start up faster.

Caveats: This guide is written based on Windows 7 Home Edition; while I can personally vouch for the process being very similar in Windows 7 Starter, I can't say the same for all versions of Windows 7, let alone older versions. Also, it is likely that you will disable something you'll want turned back on again. Keep note of what you turn off so that you can undo the changes if you need to.

Step 1: Open the start menu, type "run" into the search box, and hit enter.

Step 2: Type "msconfig" into the box and hit enter (or click OK.)

Step 3: In the 'General' tab, (it should start out with this tab open, but it might not, so switch to it if needed,) choose 'Selective startup'. Don't change anything else in this tab; it will update itself automatically to match what we're going to do in the other tabs.

Step 4: Switch to the 'Services' tab. This will have a big list of program components that get started when your computer boots up. Most of them are parts of Windows. You can hide the Windows components by checking the 'Hide all Microsoft services' checkbox. You'll be left with a short list of programs that you or a family member installed. Leave antivirus software enabled, but other than that, uncheck anything you don't use absolutely every single time you use your computer. This will not prevent you from opening those programs later; it just won't pre-load them during the boot. If you don't know what it is, leave it checked.

Step 5: Switch to the 'Startup' tab. You'll have another, smaller list of programs. This one is exclusively non-critical stuff that you or a family member installed. Uncheck everything except for antivirus software and things you use every single time you turn on your PC. If you don't know what it is, uncheck it. Once you're finished, click OK.

Step 6: The system will request to restart. Unless you have some reason not to, go ahead and restart it. It should start up much more quickly than you're used to. After the restart, if you notice something doesn't work that you want back, you can re-enable it the same way.

So, what does this all have to do with raiding in WoW? Not a lot, I guess. Have you ever had a computer crash mid-raid though? This might help you get back into the game faster, and more importantly, less frustrating waiting as you start your computer up every day!

Next post, I'll be talking about Shadow Priest DPS, with in-depth rotational advice, and mechanical tips.

Pimp my UI: Losing my UI

For those who don't know, (and why would you, I've been posting more than usual, not less,) my old hard drive bit the dust about a week and a half ago. I'll be back up and running by midweek next week, but even after that, my finely-crafted UI will be gone. Rather than lamenting the loss, I see this as an opportunity to plan out my new UI.
So, here's what I want from my UI:

• I need to be able to see the 3D environment.
• I need raid frames.
• I need a minimap.
• I need target and focus frames.
• I need a personal buff/debuff display.
• I need a quality casting bar.
  
• I want visual/clickable actionbars. (I can only handle/remember so many keybinds.)
• I want an XP/rep bar. I've grown rather fond of the defaultUI ones.
• I want a DoT timer.
• I want to minimize my eye movements.
  

So, time for a rough sketch...There, done. I didn't find a spot for an XP bar, but then, that's not really all that important in combat anyway. I think I'll find a way to tack it onto the character sheet, like the pet XP bar for Hunters. Similarly, I don't have a castbar labeled yet, I'll play with it and see where I want it; "it" means Quartz, of course. I may try to compress the whole thing downwards, I'm not sure I want so much of my rear blocked.

Pimp My U/I: Thoroughput

Welcome to the first installment of Pimp My U/I! In this episode, I'll show you how to boost your thoroughput tenfold* without a single change in gear or talents.

*May not actually be tenfold.

The basic premise of increasing thoroughput via User or Interface changes is identifying what's using your time that's not actually casting a healing spell, and finding a way to work around or eliminate it. First off: Latency!



-Latency-

As most should know, the internet is not a big truck; it's not something you just dump something on, it's a series of tubes. Those tubes can be filled, and when they're filled, the internet will be delayed for you and me.

So, if the internet is being delayed for you and me does this mean it's slowing our heals down? Absolutely. You can find your 'ping' or 'latency' by mousing over the Game Options menu button on the default blizzard UI. It is also displayed on the top of Ventrilo (this is typically close to the latency with the game server), and several addons exist that can track your latency. The number is listed in milliseconds (ms), which are 1/1000 of a second.

You can speed up your heals by casting the next heal before you finish casting your current one by a time approximately equal to your latency. If you're a little early, the game server will remember that you want to cast the next spell, and will pop it for you immediately when your old spell ends. On 200 ms latency (like I have) this tactic provides a benefit equivalent to 500 Haste Rating. This is a massive difference and well worth the effort to learn and employ.

I use a handy addon called Quartz to help with this, Quartz is a castbar mod that replaces the blizzard one, making it easier to read, and marks the bar with the spot where you should send your next spell to nullify the effect of latency. Very useful, and so far has worked every patch without a hitch.



-Clicking-

For many raiders, this is a basic thing that they've long-since eliminated. For others, it would never even occur to them that there's a better way. Simply put, moving the mouse around takes time, time that could be used doing something else, like anything else. I will admit, that I am still a clicker; I commonly click on other players or their healthbars to target them. This is mostly acceptable, because the only other thing I could be using my right hand for is uh... well, I don't plan on keyboard turning, but I just thought of a great reason to figure out how to free my right hand.

At any rate, the preferred solution is to either: eliminate clicking to cast spells, or find a way to select your spell without moving the mouse. The popular addon, Healbot, offers the option to bind spells to your mouse buttons, allowing you to left-click to Flash Heal someone, or right-click to Greater Heal them, for example. My current setup actually uses no addons to help manage my spells; I only use the basic UI. I have simply dragged the raid frames out of the Social tab. I click a health bar to target it and I have (almost) all my spells bound to my keyboard. Whether you choose to use addons or not, you need to find a way to avoid using your mouse to cast spells, because it's slow, imprecise and can make your buttons run away.


-Proaction-

As a priest, I have somewhat more spells available to pre-heal than, say, a Holy paladin. Proactive healing isn't really an option on every fight or for every healer, but when applicable, it can make the difference between a boss kill with loot, or a wipe with ball jokes. The idea of proactive healing is to use some kind of pre-healing on someone likely to be taking damage when you wouldn't otherwise be casting. Typically the tank is a safe bet, but putting HoTs on the tank is something every healer knows to do; what people typically miss is other raid members who are likely to take damage. That warlock who can't control its threat? Shield it. The tree standing in front of a Deep Breath? Yell at him over vent while putting shield, mending and renew on him. Did you forget to grab the Dark Essence for the Dark Vortex? Guardian Spirit will actually cover your mistake for you! (Not that I'm speaking from last Tuesday's experience or anything...) Pre-healing won't always keep people on their feet, and there's some kinds of stupidity that you simply can't do anything about, but this skill has definitely saved plenty of lives, and routinely makes the difference between wipes and kills for me.

Although I'm sure some addons may exist that would help, I have yet to find one that can replace simply paying attention to your raid.