Something Useful For A Change

I make special effort to ensure that all advice I provide on this blog is as packed with misinformation, vagaries, and shoddy research as humanly (and worgenly) possible. And so it may come as a shocking surprise that I'm about to provide a few useful tidbits that other Warlocks might actually want to USE.

As I run Cata Heroics, I'm finding that Crowd Control spells (Fear and Banish specifically) are in actual frequent need.  I don't think I EVER cast Fear or Banish in any Wrath Heroic - or even Wrath Raid, so I've had to knock the dust off these spells and figure out a better, easier way to cast them.  They needed to be keymapped someplace very convenient.  And let's face it - there are more necessary spells and actions than there are keyboard keys available (at least within a convenient, easy-to-reach location).  For me, if I can't easily reach a key from my spell rotation position on the keyboard, it's not worth keymapping.  So I've tried to be very creative (and selective) with those keys in easy reach.

I created 2 very basic CC macros that functioned very well for me over the weekend: one for Fear, the other for Banish. 

Previously, I'd simply mouse-click a target that I wanted to Fear or Banish, cast my spell, then either mouse-click or Tab to the primary target (SKULL).  The problem I had was that very often, Karuri my Imp would get himself all worked up and just keep blasting the original Feared or Banished target with fireballs.  For Feared targets, it was bad news because his fireballs would break the Fear spell and I'd have to recast on the fly, only to have him wreck it for me again.  With banished targets the effect wasn't so bad, but all of his fireballs would be wasted - basically cutting my DPS by 2000 or so.  Either way, I had to get my Imp to switch to the main target - and quickly.

I'm not a Macro guy.  I'm a Google-For-A-Macro guy.  I'm a Steal-A-Macro guy. I've been caught copy/pasting from Cynwise's Battlefield Manual more than once.  Somebody reading this is guaranteed to come up with a better way to do this - and if they post it in the comments here, I'll be sure to steal THAT, too.  But for now, my 2 macros have worked well.  Let's have a look.

The Fear Macro

/cast Fear
/target focus
/petattack

Simple. With no Focus target designated, it will cast Fear and do nothing else, basically.  But when you've already established your Focus target, it does a couple really nice things:
1. It tells your pet to attack the Focus target (SKULL) instead of the target your're Fearing.
2. It switches you automatically to the Focus, eliminating the awkward mouse-clicking or tabbing to get to the main target (SKULL). Life gets a lot easier.

'F' Is For Fear
I keymapped the Fear Macro to the 'F' Key - because it's easy to reach, and 'F' is for Fear.

The Banish Macro

/cast Banish
/target focus
/petattack

See what I did there? Ooooh I changed the spell to Banish! The only difference with casting this spell, is if you try to cast it on a non-banishable target, you get a message telling you that it's invalid.  Otherwise, just like the Fear macro, with no Focus target designated, it will cast Banish and do nothing else.  When you've already established your Focus target, it performs just like the Fear - getting your Imp (and yourself) shifted over to the right target.

'R' Is For Banish
I keymapped the Banish Macro to the 'R' Key - because it's also easy to reach, and 'R' is for... ummm.... Banish.

Using the Macros
To use these well, you're going to have to establish an easy way to designate Focus targets.  I forget how Focus was originally mapped, and I'm too horrified of what might happen if I ever Reset to Default to find out.  But since I'm really only setting a Focus target before a fight - generally when the tank is marking one with SKULL, I figured it would be easy enough to just create a one-line macro so that I could button it on screen.  So I made a macro called "Focus" with nothing but "/focus".  I buttoned it on my UI in an easy-to-locate spot. 

When it comes time to fight, I simply choose the main target (SKULL), click my Focus macro to set it, then switch to the target I'm going to Fear or Banish when the fight starts.  Presto - I'm ready to go.

One More Thing
I think it's really important to have Death Macros.  They're indispensable.  I have 5 of them set up. Seriously.  The first - and most important - is to be used during a wipe, at the moment you see "ATTACKING YOU!!!" in thousand point font.  What this macro does, is it casts Incinerate, and then emotes your dying battle cry.  Let me illustrate:

A Raid Boss so large that all I can see are his toes has just stomped the rest of my party into the great black and white, and now he's turning on me - and I treat all of my dead comrades to the following:

"Mortigan casts one last Incinerate and cries, 'This one's for all the pretty unicorns!'" 

It's important to go out in style.  If you too want to die with style, just set up a button macro on your UI with the following:

/cast Incinerate
/emote casts one last Incinerate and cries, 'This one's for all the pretty unicorns!'

My other Death Macros are reserved for non-wipes, and should be used frequently when another member dies, but you survive.  They are also emotes, with wonderful, heart-warming messages like:

"Mortigan starts to dig a grave for <dead guy>."

"Mortigan rummages through <dead guy's> pockets. There MUST be something here worth selling!"

"Mortigan starts to take <dead guy>'s cloak. Oh wait, never mind, he's getting rezzed."

FYI - I use %t in place of <dead guy> so that it populates with the name of the target.  <Dead guy> is just there for illustration purposes. I just be sure to click on the corpse before running the macro.

Enjoy!

Mortigan the Helpful

PS - If you're going to cast Fear, you'd better friggin set up the Fear Glyph, or you're going to have your target running all over the map, pulling who-knows-what.  ONLY use Fear if you've got the Glyph to keep him standing dang still.