Beast Mastery and Me: Macros and More

Pike put up an outstanding article at Aspect of the Hare on Beast Mastery and the Zen of Shot Rotation. If you’re a BM hunter, go read her article. Become enlightened. Just don’t forget to come back here! (Oh, and she also introduced me to Greta at Aspect of the Girl, whose blog is new to the Aerie’s blogroll. Check her out when you can!)

Wasn’t that a great read? I don’t know about you, but it really pulled together a lot of theory for me into one compact mass. I’ve been reading about shot rotations, clipping, macros, et cetera, for months. And while I do understand most of it, I’ve never really sat and internalized that information. I’ve followed the advice of hunters I respect, and I’ve seen my total damage and DPS rise dramatically. I’ve seen my output in BGs at or near the top on a consistent basis (well, when I’m not spending most of the game in a graveyard, anyway). And my combined damage (with my pet) is always tops in a 5-man group.

But I think a lot of that success has been skill tempered with more luck than wisdom. Today, I feel wiser. Thanks, Pike!

Let’s Talk Shot Rotation 

I do use a macro. One reason is because I try to weave in a LOT of specials (especially in BGs, I’m using a lot of Stings–I’ve fallen in love with Viper Sting again!) and it means one less key to use. Another reason is if things are laggy or I’m feeling overwhelmed, the macro is a safety net. Interestingly, however, I find myself hitting my standalone Kill Command button more often than letting the macro do it. My macro also includes Arcane Shot in BGs, for the debuff it provides.

/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, Arcane Shot, !Auto Shot
/castrandom Kill Command 

In fact, if the macro procs KC, I’m a little miffed. I’m seriously considering removing it, since my KC is in a macro, too:

/stopcasting
/cast Kill Command
/startattack

This allows me to get off more KCs in a given encounter, even though it may clip a Steady Shot. But maybe I need to look at WWS as well, to see if I’m really being as effective as I could be. That could be my project for this week.

A Hunter Without A Pet Is Like A Mage Without Mana 

If a mage runs out of mana, all she can do is fire her wand, and pray. (Okay, so maybe I should have said Priest, but I like the alliteration in the heading.) A hunter who loses his pet has his total damage lowered by a third or more. Ouch! But we have skills and talents that help us keep our pet alive while simultaneously lowering the damage output of our target. After all, we are responsible for our pet’s health; our healers have other things to do! (As a Priest, hunter pets only rate above warlock minions on my priority list—and lower if I see the Hunter doesn’t bother using Mend Pet.)

Enter the Mend Pet macro:

/castsequence reset=15 Scorpid Sting, Mend Pet

Very simple, no? This is as close to a "fire and forget" as we can get: Scorpid Sting lowers the melee damage of a target for 15 seconds, which means either our pet or our tank (or both, depending on what the pet is doing) is taking less damage than normal, which is always a Very Good Thing. And, if our pet does need some healing, we can tap the macro anytime during that 15 seconds and get a heal started. Obviously, if we don’t double-tap within 15 seconds, the next time we hit the macro key, the sequence restarts with Scorpid Sting. 

Of course, there are mobs immune to Scorpid Sting: most (if not all) elementals, for example. Generally, for me, the loss of that bit of mana is inconsequential. I do have a separate macro for healing or feeding, depending on whether I’m in combat, and once I see the "Immune" popup in the scrolling damage text, I try to stay away from Scorpid Sting.

Mend/Feed Macro 

/cast [combat] Mend Pet
/cast [nocombat,modifier:shift] Mend Pet
/cast [nocombat,nomodifier] Feed Pet
/use [nocombat,nomodifier] Clefthoof Ribs


I have this macro bound to Ctrl-F. If I’m in combat, I can click the button or hit Ctrl-F to heal Talon. Out of combat, Ctrl-F feeds him some nice BBQ Clefthoof Ribs (lines 3 and 4); substitute your favorite pet food there, of course. If we’re out of combat but Talon still needs a healing touch, the second line, via Ctrl-Shift-F, casts Mend Pet.

If you often run with either of two pets (Pike, for instance, uses an owl and a cat, but I use a cat or a wind serpent), you can change the last line thusly:

/use [nocombat,nomodifier,pet:cat] Clefthoof Ribs; [nocombat,nomodifier,pet:wind serpent] Bladespire Bagel

So there we have it:  A shot rotation and macro that is probably non-optimal, but one that helps me keep me dialed in to both my target and my pet, as well as a couple macros to help ensure my pet’s (and therefore, my) survivability.

As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. Hopefully, I’ll post a follow-up article soon with some WWS before-and-after.