One Simple Macro Is A Big Help

Everyone is looking for things that will make playing the game simpler.  Unfortunately, simple isn’t always better.  But every now and then you run across something that really changes the way you play.  We don’t always do simple (because the pros gripe at us), but it’s a pretty good bet that not everyone knows about this little gem.

If you’re a healer, you already know about this one, although you might not even know it.  Anyone who uses Clique, Healbot or Vuhdo use it all the time, it’s just built into those mods.  But recently I ran across a situation where I needed to extend the capability of clicking on something to cast a spell.

Every time we do a post about gear we get hecklers.  When we do product reviews it really is because we like the thing, not because we’re paid to talk about them.  The Razer Naga mouse is a great example, the G13 from Logitech is another.  Yes, you can do well with a two dollar mouse and the keyboard, but the G13 and the Naga really make the game easier to play at a much faster pace.

The problem is that not every product interfaces well with the game UI and all your mods.  In other words, getting the G13 and the Naga to do everything I wanted them to do wasn’t just a matter of plugging them in.  The G13 really needs bartender and the Naga . . . is a story all it’s own.  The Naga has a product specific in-game mod, but it overrides Bartender, so I had to find another way to get those 12 extra buttons to work.

The issue there was that I wanted to be able to use those buttons by clicking on the Vuhdo bars.  That turned out to be tricky.  But the neat thing is that once I found the solution it made a LOT of things easier on all my toons – and not just for healing.  The solution is also so easy that even a complete newbie can figure out ways to use it without having to know everything about the game or being a master at making macros.  And you will even find plenty of ways to use it even if you don’t use stuff like the G13 and Naga.

Let me introduce you to the mouseover macro

The mouseover macro lets you cast any spell you like on any target without having to target them first.  OK, that sounds wierd, so let’s go at it another way.  There are several ways to “target” a friendly player or mob.  One way is to click on their toon, lots of folks target this way, clicking on the boss or mob directly instead of tab targeting.  Tab targeting is another way to do this.  The only problem is that tabbing may or may not select the mob you want to actually target, so you’re looking for the red aura around their feet to see what you are nuking.  Another method is to click on a character portrait.  You can click on a bar in your group or raid in any UI to target a friendly player.  There are other ways to target with hot keys, but we won’t review them all.

As you can see, each method has certain drawbacks.  If you tab target you can’t target friendly players and don’t have complete control and may have to tab several times to get the right target.  If you are trying to target friendly units, you have to click a portrait or the player’s toon directly.  There isn’t really one targeting method that does everything – but the mouseover macro fixes all of that.

All you have to do is open the macro screen and type this:

/cast [target=mouseover] Spellname

Now, the spell name needs to be whatever spell you want to cast exactly as it appears in the tooltip.  For instance, if you want a macro for something you rarely use but need to cast quickly in an emergency, such as Lay On Hands, you would make the macro read like this:

/cast [target=mouseover] Lay on Hands

Notice that the words ‘Lay’ and ‘Hands’ have a capital letter, but ‘on’ does not.  You have to type the spell name in exactly the way it appears in the tooltip.

It comes in handy for a lot of spells for every class.  And what it does is reduce your reaction times by a click or two.  Instead of having to target something with a tab or a click, all you have to do is hover your mouse over the toon, the portrait, or any other bar on your UI and hit the button for the macro.  You don’t have to hit a button to target and then hit the one for the macro.

Warriors can use it for things like intervene, intercept and interrupts.  Paladins might want lay on hands and divine intervention.  Mages might like it for something like slow fall and priests for levitate.  I use it on my druid for innervate.  Anything you want to cast where it’s just easier to hover your mouse and hit a single button that helps you play faster is fair game.

So for my Naga mouse, I have up to six mouseover skills on the bar assigned to the mouse, and then Vuhdo for the standard stuff on left and right click and the scroll wheel.  This little macro has opened up a whole new level of versatility and I just didn’t know about it until I needed to find a solution.  It’s nothing new, but it just might help you Dominate like never before.