Us poor Shaman’s really got the bum end of the stick when it came to abilities, our screens are literally flooded with buttons for direct damage, self buffs, damage shields and of course the big one, totems.
And here I am compounding the problem – telling you how to add yet MORE buttons…
Well, not TOO many more buttons – and once you have these situational macros down, you can realistically delete all those “plain” totem buttons.
Important notes for those new to macros:
You cannot set a cast sequence delay for /castsequence macros. To cast all the totems in a particular macro – you must press or click the action button as many times as there are totems, waiting each time for cooldown to end.I’m going to split this post into a few sections to give you an example of how you can use situational macro’s with your totems to reduce button spam on your screen.
The first section is…
PvP Macros:
Example 1 – Shaman Flag Defence Totems Macro
/castsequence Earthbind Totem,Windfury Totem,Frost Resistance Totem,Fire Resistance Totem
Best set up in advance, I find this a good all purpose macro, especially if you have a melee class or two in proximity.
Earthbind is the most important to me – so it goes first. Sneaky flag stealers will take a snare, and if you also hit them with a frost shock they’ll really move slowly. Windfury is to help any melee classes dish out as much damage as possible at the point being defended as possible. Frost and fire resistance are just good back ups to help negate spell damage.
Example 2 – Shaman Attack Totems Macro
/castsequence reset=30 Stoneclaw Totem,Grounding Totem,Magma Totem
Being setup in the middle of combat, its best to use this setup if you’re approaching a combat already in progress, as dropping all three of these will take precious seconds and if you get nuked soon after you drop them all then there was obviously no point in dropping them in the first place.
Stoneclaw is good for protecting your totems and yourself (if you get the highly recommended Stoneclaw Glyph which puts a damage shield on you), so it goes down first. Grounding is next to prevent any incoming spells, and then Magma to help you continue dishing out damage to any melee classes that stun you. Take that rogues!
The other great thing about /castsequence macros, and the spells themselves in this sequence, is that it will hold the last spell of the sequence for you until you need it.
So you could for example just drop stoneclaw and grounding totem, and leave magma until you feel in danger from a melee class, saving you precious time to start unleashing with lightning bolt.
This macro has a reset value, which means it will start again if you haven’t hit magma totem in 30 seconds – the cooldown for Stoneclaw totem.
PvE Macros:
Example 3 – Shaman Leveling Macro
About to die? Don’t feel like doing a corpse run?
Use this macro.
/castsequence reset=15 Earthbind Totem, Stoneclaw Totem,Grounding Totem, Lesser Healing Wave, Lesser Healing Wave
Whilst running in panic from chosen foe, earthbind will slow melee, stoneclaw will hopefull take some of their aggro and stun them, while protecting you (again see the stoneclaw glyph), grounding totem to take out any last ditch spells flung at you, and then a pair of LHW’s to heal yourself up, before you proceed to keep running in panic.
Of course if you have herbalism and the Lifeblood skill, it’d be wise to put that right up at the start of this cast sequence. You don’t have Gift of the Naaru, do you? This is Horde leveling guide..!
Example 4 – Health and Mana Recharge Macro
/castsequence Mana Spring Totem, <mana item>, <food item>
These are just a few examples of Shaman macros you can use for your totems, and personally I don’t need many “miscellaneous” totem buttons after using these multipurpose macros.
Your attack totems like Magma and Searing are probably good ones to leave out for flexible usage, as are your mana and healing totems.
And if you want to just keep all your totem buttons, and use these too? That’s cool – you probably won’t notice 3 more amongst 50!
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