I'll assume that you know how to find the macro utility inside the game (just type /m ) but you just can't get even the simplest macro to work. Let's start out with a simple one line macro that does only one thing. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You like to fish and it's way too much trouble to open your bag to equip your fishing pole. Lets make that a macro! For this one I would select the "?" icon which will display the icon of your pole. Name: "fishing" /equip Seth's Graphite Fishing Pole You'll have to replace "Seth's Graphite Fishing Pole" with the name of your pole. That's it. This macro will equip your fishing pole. Then that pesky mob over there decides it doesn't like you fishing so close to him. Well you can't open all your bags looking for your weapon! We need another macro. For this one I would select the "?" icon which will display the icon of your weapon. Name: "War Axe" /equip Crystalforged War Axe Again, you'll have to replace "Crystalforged War Axe" with the exact name of your weapon. Now you can re-equip your trusty axe and defend yourself. Really simple so far? Sure it is. You have to be sure you are spelling the name of your fishing pole, weapon, or whatever it is that you are equipping correctly, or the macro will not work. Now, what to do if you dual wield or carry a shield? We have that covered. In this next case the weapons are main hand and off hand type weapons. If you were to have a character that dual wields then you have to make sure the proper weapon goes to the proper hand. My rogue uses this macro. Name: "weapons" /equip Howling Blade /equip Knightly Longsword of the Bear It's never failed to put the first listed weapon, Howling Blade, in the main hand, and the second listed weapon, Longsword of the Bear, in the off-hand. Personally, I think it's a good idea to always equip your main-hand first, then the off-hand item. You'll see why further down the page. There are ways to force a weapon into a particular hand, provided the weapon can be used in either hand. You can also use a macro to swap weapons from hand to hand or even swap out a weapon for a third weapon, but for now I'm keeping this simple and I'm leaving that out for the moment. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the above example we used up two buttons on your button bar with two macros. Button space is limited so lets combine both macros into one button that does two things. This macro equips the war axe with a left-click, or a fishing pole with a right-click. I named it "weapon/fish" which helps me remember which click does what when I mouse over it. For this macro I selected the fishing pole icon. Name: "weapon/fish" /equip [button:1] Crystalforged War Axe /equip [button:2] Seth's Graphite Fishing Pole You can also equip several items with a similar macro to the above. A single left-click equips your head armor and weapons, and a single right-click equips your fishing pole and hat. Name: "weapons/fish" /equip [button:1] Titansteel Guardian /equip [button:1] Faces of Doom /equip [button:1] Hateful Gladiator's Satin Hood /equip [button:2] Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat /equip [button:2] Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole -- Read this carefully: -- This is very important info about going from a single two-handed item, to two one-hand items... * You must equip the main-hand item, or the item you want in your main hand FIRST. * Then equip the off-hand item second. If you try to equip an off-hand weapon first, your macro won't work. Instead of swapping items you'll get an error message telling you that you can't equip that item along with a two-handed item. --- Equipping an item into a specific slot. --- So what to do then? This is how you can force an item into a specific slot. In this example the dagger (Scarlet Kris), goes into the main hand (slot 16). And the sword (Thrash Blade), goes into the off-hand (slot 17). Name: "weapons/fish" /equipslot 16 Sharpened Scarlet Kris /equipslot 17 Battleworn Thrash Blade /equip [button:2] Big Iron Fishing Pole Even with the above macro, if you are currently holding with a two-handed item, you STILL have to equip the main hand first or your macro will not work. You will get an error message telling you that you can't equip that item along with a two-handed item. In that case, you must have your " /equipslot 16 " command before your " /equipslot 17 " command. See here for a description of equipment slots and bag slots. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This section is quite obsolete since poisons are handled completely different, but I'll keep this here for reference purposes. Speaking of /equipslot, Rogues can apply poison to their weapons by slot position, regardless of weapon in hand. If your rogue likes to swap out weapons depending on the situation, these macros apply poison by slot position. The last line, "/click StaticPopup1Button1" is optional. What it does is click the Ok button for you when you are asked "Do you want to replace X poison for X poison?" so that you don't have to. Apply poison to weapon in slot 16, the main hand weapon: #showtooltip /use Crippling Poison /use 16 /click StaticPopup1Button1 Apply poison to weapon in slot 17, the off hand weapon: #showtooltip /use Deadly Poison /use 17 /click StaticPopup1Button1 Apply poison to weapon in slot 18, the ranged slot (thrown weapons): #showtooltip /use Deadly Poison /use 18 /click StaticPopup1Button1 Oh yeah, use the "?" icon for these macros and it will show the icon for the poison you choose. Replace Crippling & Deadly with your favorite poisons. Of course you'll get an error if you try to apply poison to a fishing pole, gun, or a bow. See here for a description of equipment slots and bag slots. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Again the name of the macro reminds me which click uses which item. For this macro I selected the "?" icon which displays the mount for the left-click. Name: "Gryphon/Ray" /use [button:1] Swift Purple Gryphon /use [button:2] Silver Riding Nether Ray This next macro is like the above but rotates through several mounts. Each time you left-click the macro, the next mount in the list is summoned. Each time you right-click you summon the same mount with every click. For this macro I selected the "?" icon which displays the next mount in the left-click rotation. Name: "mount/stallion" /castsequence [button:1] White War Talbuk, Great Blue Elekk, Swift Mistsaber /cast [button:2] Black Stallion You can also use "/castsequence" on the second line for rotating through your favorite flying and ground mounts. Each left-click sequences through the flying mounts. Each right-click sequences through the ground mounts. Name: "fly/ground" /castsequence [button:1] Swift Purple Gryphon, Silver Riding Nether Ray /castsequence [button:2] White War Talbuk, Great Blue Elekk, Swift Palomino Anywhere you can use /castsequence, you can also use /castrandom for a random selection instead of sequential. Who doesn't have a 3 button mouse? Maybe you have 3 favorite mounts. Name: "Chop/Turtle/Stal" /cast [button:1] Mekgineer's Chopper /cast [button:3] Sea Turtle /cast [button:2] Black Stallion As you can see above, [button:1] is the left mouse button, [button:2] is the right mouse button, and [button:3] is the middle mouse button. You may have noticed that " /cast " and " /use " are sometimes interchangeable. They are in this case, but my curiosity isn't great enough to research this further. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Druids can make good use of the " /castsequence " command. For example, when in cat form you cast thorns on yourself or Insect Swarm on a mob, you loose cat form! A " /castsequence " macro will make life a little bit easier. Instead of clicking on two buttons, you click twice on only ONE button. Once again, I would select the "?" icon which will automatically display the appropriate spell icon. The macros below are for feral cats. The first click will cast the spell, and the second click will return you to feral cat form. For casting Thorns and returning to Feral Cat form: /castsequence Thorns, Cat Form(Shapeshift) For casting Insect Swarm and returning to Feral Cat form: /castsequence Insect Swarm, Cat Form(Shapeshift) Incase you're wondering, the various druid shape shifting commands are: /cast Bear Form(Shapeshift) /cast Aquatic Form(Shapeshift) /cast Cat Form(Shapeshift) /cast Travel Form(Shapeshift) /cast Tree of Life(Shapeshift) /cast Swift Flight Form(Shapeshift) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- " /castsequence " is also used to cast spells in a sequence similar to the example above. If you have a favorite casting sequence for every mob, you can do that with just one button. To over simplify, you could write this working but very bad example: /castsequence Vampiric Touch, Devouring Plague, Shadow Word :Pain, Mind Flay, Shadow Word :Death You cannot use a macro to cast one spell after another with just a single click. You have to click your macro button again and again to sequence through your spells. The above macro is not the best idea around as it has no reset. Should you switch to a new mob or your spell misses, the sequence will continue to progress. So we need a reset for it. To keep it simple we'll use three reset options, a timer, a mob change, and combat status. If more than "x" seconds lapse, or if you select a new mob, or leave combat, the macro starts over. This is done with: reset=10/target/combat There are a few more reset options that can be used. You'll have to look them up. :-) The following is a much better macro than the above version; /castsequence reset=10/target/combat Vampiric Touch, Devouring Plague, Shadow Word :Pain In the above example you sequence through the three spells... However: If it's been more than 10 seconds since you last clicked the macro, the macro resets. Or, if you switch targets the macro resets. Or, if you leave combat the macro resets. Personally, I would not make a macro like this that is longer than just a few spells. There are way too many things that can change to cause you to modify your spell rotation. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Instead of using /castsequence my priest's 3 main buffs are all on one button, Fortitude, Inner Fire, & Shadow Protection. I put Inner Fire on the middle button because I don't really like using scroll wheel's button, and it only needs to be cast on herself once. Name: "Fort/InrFire/Shad" /cast [button:1] Power Word: Fortitude /cast [button:3] Inner Fire /cast [button:2] Shadow Protection Easily adapted to any of your caster's spells for damage, healing, buffs, or whatever. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My priest likes to wear her Elegant Dress around town and there are times when she forgets to put her gear back on before running off into the wild. This button quickly replaces her dress with all of her normal armor in just one quick click. Name: "Armor Up" /equip Frostwoven Cowl /equip Mystic Frostwoven Shoulders /equip Mystic Frostwoven Robe /equip Mystic Frostwoven Wristwraps /equip Frostwoven Gloves /equip Frostwoven Belt /equip Frostwoven Leggings /equip Frostwoven Boots With just one panic-click, she's fully geared and ready to go. This macro brings up a new problem concerning macros. A macro can only be 255 characters or less, and the example above is 216 characters! Pretty close to the limit. In my case here she keeps her weapons equipped because she likes the look. If you want to take off a weapon or two, possibly a shield, and re-equip them, you can easily run into the 255 character limit. So what to do if that happens? It's quite simple... Um, yeah. Instead of using item names like we've done so far, we use item numbers as shown below. Name: "Armor Up" /equip item:41521 /equip item:41523 /equip item:41525 /equip item:41528 /equip item:44211 /equip item:41522 /equip item:41519 /equip item:41520 These two macros are functionally identical, but the second macro uses only 136 characters, saving enough space to allow you to equip a few more items such as a weapon and a shield. This makes reading a little more difficult so I try to avoid this method. If you like, you may mix item names and item numbers, possibly replacing only your gear with long names with item numbers, until you get below the 255 character limit. If you are running over the 255 character limit, then this is an easy work around. Many addons will show you the item number in the tootip window when you mouse over the item. If that doesn't work, you can always look up the item on wowhead.com. There are also addons like "Outfitter" that will do this same thing much easier, but for equipping a fishing pole & hat or swapping weapons, you might want to use a simple macro. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Speaking of Outfitter, you can use a macro to call your saved Outfitter outfits. Unfortunately, Outfitter macros do not work in combat but can still be useful. To wear an outfit, simply call the name of your saved outfit. /outfitter wear outfitname You can even unwear an outfit, removing your current outfit. /outfitter unwear outfitname Or you can switch between two outfits, the one currently worn, and the one called "outfitname". Click to put on "outfitname" and click again to go back to previous outfit. /outfitter toggle outfitname Outfitter comes with more detailed documentation on this. In your WoW folder, go to: /Interface/AddOns/Outfitter/Documentation/UsersManual.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This macro is one I found on the web, tricky in it's short length, yet simple enough to modify for many different spells that many casters can use. I use this one with my priest to cast levitate on a party member or herself. A left-click casts levitate on her current party member target. A right-click casts levitate on herself no matter what her target might be. Again, I named it to easily remember which click casts levitate on who. Name: "target/me" /cast [button:2,target=player] Levitate; [help] Levitate To use this macro with another spell, you must be careful to use the exact name of the spell or your macro will not work. One way to be sure of the correct spelling, open your spell book, and shift-right-click the spell you wish to cast into your macro. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Professions can use up a couple of buttons. Easily whittled down to one button. Name: "Survey/Archy" /use [button:1] Survey /use [button:2] Archaeology Or maybe put 3 professions on a single button, Name: "Mill/Inscrip/Tail" /use [button:1] Milling /use [button:3] Inscription /use [button:2] Tailoring Simply adapt for your professions. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This macro is a bit different. When my hunter calls his pet cat, he says, "Come my fine furry four footed friend!" while calling his pet. You can have your character say something with the " /s " command. His pet's name is Ruby, so I named this one "Call Ruby", you might want to name it "Call Pet". Since the whistle icon is the call pet icon, I used that one to make things easier. Name: "Call Pet" /s Come my fine furry four footed friend! /cast Call Pet I've seen warlocks use a similar macro to call their minions, usually demanding the minion to come. Some people will macro their hearthstone and add: /cast Hearthstone /s There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home. The /s command is an easy one to fit into any macro, but keep in mind that if you're in a group, macros using "/s" can be annoying if used too often. Many raid leaders won't tolerate you filling up the chat log with this sort of thing, and the same goes for the battle grounds. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Don't forget: If you upgrade your gear, you have to update your macros too! As I get better at this I may add more sophisticated macros with suitable explanations. I hope this was helpful. Thank you for reading.