Macro Question

[aremy39]

I'm new to the game and have a noob question about macros (level 60 death knight)...I tried creating a simple macro after reading the guide

/cast Death Coil
/cast Strangulate

It doesn't appear to work...will this macro cast both in sequence??

Thanks!

[cabby]

There is a tricky aspect to the macros, you can't have 2 abilities in a macro that activate the global cooldown. So any skill that has a cooldown listed in the tooltip will activate the global cooldown. You can only have one of those per macro.

If memory serves me correctly from my DK, both Death Coil and Strangulate have cooldowns. What I do for the DK is I have Strangulate and Mind Freeze in a macro together. If Strangulate is on cooldown then it will use Mind Freeze, but Strangulate is better as it has a range, Mind Freeze doesn't have a cooldown but it's melee range.

#showtooltip
/cast Strangulate
/cast Mind Freeze

[krendar]

I am not a macro-expert but from the top of my head:

/castsequence Death Coil, Strangulate

You will actually have to press the button twice to use both abilities. After both abilities are use the sequence will start all over.

[aremy39]

Thanks! Really Helped!

[Kamchak]

If you do go with the /castsequence macro, add in a target reset.

It will look like this;

#showtooltip
/castsequence target=reset Death Coil, Strangulate

It will be an advantage to add the target=reset portion like above to any cast sequence macro you make.

[cabby]

The only problem I see with the 2 spells in question being used in a macro together is that Strangulate is only effective against spell casters. It does no damage so it is a situational spell only. Death Coil on the other hand is a damaging spell and can be used in any fight.

[Kamchak]

Agreed. Mind you I dont use my DK for much besides being my JC, but as a player you need to take a look at what you can string together in a fight, and macro those abilities together.
For example, in bear tanking you use Lacerate(bear form) x 3 then pulverize. This you do over and over and over in a single target tank situation. So the macro looks like this;

#showtooltip
/castsequence target=reset Lacerate(bear form),Lacerate(bear form),Lacerate(bear form),Pulverize

You can also macro in a Mangle and a Thrash if you like to make it look like this;

#showtooltip
/castsequence target=reset Lacerate(bear form),Lacerate(bear form),Lacerate(bear form),Pulverize,Mangle(bear form),Thrash

The target=reset means that if the target dies on the third Lacerate, and you move to another single target to tank, you wont open with a useless Pulverize.
This is the real reason why the guide tries to inform you how macro's work, so you can decide what you can macro together, and how to do it successfully.

NOTICE: I am at work typing this out, so if you copy/paste that macro and try to tank with it, do NOT change your bars and delete your setup. It may need tweaking. If you want me to set it up and/or go ingame and copy/paste what I have (cant recall explicit details by memory), Ill be happy to help you. Send me a PM and Ill work with you till its set up right.