How to chain 2+ spells into a macro

[Matt]

Despite the popular (and usually correct) notion that you can only cast a single spell or use a single item per button press, it is possible to do so. However, what spells you can chain together is extremely limited. If you read nothing else in this post, at least read the Limitations section before posting questions.

---Limitations---
You can only cast spells during a button press. You cannot have the macro wait for any period of time and then cast the spell. The limiting factor is cooldowns. Casting a spell (usually when you start to cast) usually activates a global cooldown. You can only chain together spells that could otherwise be cast together near-instantly. This means that the first spell must be instant, and it must not activate a cooldown that prevents the second spell from being used immediately.

---What You Can't Do---
All of you that are looking for a way to cast Frostbolt, followed by Arcane Missles, followed by Frost Nova, followed by Blink, can just give up now. The first spell must be instant, and the next spell must be able to cast immediately following the first. There's no waiting 1 second for the global cooldown to pass allowed.

---What You Can Do---
There are a few spells, usually a couple per class, that fit the rules for chaining spells. They're usually spells that affect the next casted spell, or abilities that affect the next used ability. This means things like Nature's Swiftness, Presence of Mind, Heroic Strike, Raptor Strike, etc. They have no casting time (instant) and they do not activate the global cooldown.

---How Do You Do It---
The script for doing it is relatively simple. Make a macro to cast the first spell that fits the above rules. After that, you need to call the script function SpellStopCasting(). This is the key. After that, you can cast whatever you want that isn't on cooldown. For example:

/cast Nature's Swiftness
/script SpellStopCasting();
/cast Healing Wave

That gives you a single button press to cast an instant Healing Wave. Another example:

/cast Presence of Mind
/script SpellStopCasting();
/cast Pyroblast

That gives you an instant Pyroblast. Here's a nice one for Rogues with First Aid:

/cast Gouge
/script SpellStopCasting()
/script UseContainerItem(0,1) --Bandage


There is an exception to this. Spell that are 'On next Attack', like Heroic Strike or Raptor Strike should not have the SpellStopCasting(), as it will cancel the spell from happening. Hunters should like this one:

/cast Raptor Strike
/cast Wing Clip

That's will do a Wing Clip immediately, and a Raptor Strike on the next attack (which might be immediately following the Wing Clip, if the weapon speed timer is up). Warriors could do the same thing with Heroic Strike and Hamstring, though that's quite alot of rage to burn through in their case.

---Items Can Be Used As Well---
Most items aren't hit by the global cooldown, which means that spells that activate the global cooldown, can still be chained with many items. Druids could make an emergency self heal that chained Rejuvenation with using a healing potion. I like to have my Lightning Shield up at all times, so I chain that before using my mount. Some trinkets can be used and immediately followed by casting spells (such as the fire trinket from the new lvl50 Mage quest).

---Tips for Effective Use---
This functionality is best used to enhance your existing play style, not totally change it. For example, a warrior (especially one who has the talents to reduce their bloodrage damage) could chain bloodrage before some/all attacks (Bloodrage+Execute would be useful), to make sure they're using it whenever possible. You could add logic so that it only uses the bloodrage if you have more than half health or something. You could make sure you're making the most of your Elemental Mastery/Presence of Mind by attempting to cast it with every Chain Lightning/Pyroblast you cast. Explore the many possabilities!

Many of these macros are best used in emergency situations, especially the NS+Heal ones. If you were to already have a spell casting when you hit the emergency heal button, it would being casting the heal without NS. To get around this, if you have the room in the macro (macros can only be 255 characters long, remember), add another '/script SpellStopCasting()' line at the top of your macro. That will make it abort whatever spell you might already have been casting, and do the NS+Heal. Note that this doesn't just apply to NS+Heal; I use it for my EM+ChainLightning.

Please note that the examples here are just examples of how to chain spells together. In order to be very useful, some of them (ie the healing ones) will require some other addon or script to handle their targeting, so that your heal targets yourself if you don't have another friendly unit targeted, or automatically targets a certain party member, or whatever target you want.

---Chaining More Than 2 Spells---
Though even more rarely useful, it is possible to chain more than just 2 spells/items. For example, we could enhance that druid emergency heal even further:

/cast Nature's Swiftness
/script SpellStopCasting()
/cast Healing Touch
/script SpellStopCasting()
/script UseContainerItem(0,1) --Potion


---Exceptions---
One thing to note about this is that if you chain Nature's Swiftness or Presence of Mind together with a spell with a cast time, it won't work while moving, whereas it would if you casted them seperately. I don't know why, or of any fix.

This functionality also doesn't work with form or stance switches. It seems that this is because you when you attempt to switch stances/forms, your client doesn't actually acknoledge you switching stances/forms until it gets the response to that action from the server. In effect, stance/form switches have a hidden cooldown of whatever your ping time is. I really wanted a 'switch-back-to-caster-form-and-start-healing' macro, but it doesn't look like that's possible. If anyone has any way to get it to work, I'd love to know.

---Is This An Exploit?---
Nope. Slouken has confirmed that this is an allowed practice. It doesn't get around cooldowns in any way. Have fun!

[janzi9]

Whoa.. thats rather interesting..

[Kalen24]

Yeah, I have a new favorite hunter macro.

[hannible]

Is there a site i can go to that can teach me about macros. (that dosent confuse me)

[Matt]

Is there a site i can go to that can teach me about macros. (that dosent confuse me)

take a look at the official world of warcraft forums for 3rd party macros and user interface customizations.. chill there for about 1+ hours, and you'll know what you'll grasp the idea of how they work and what their good for.

[thpthpthp]

is there a way i can cast a 3 secont casting time spell then do a emote but after i casted the spell?

[triXXa]

the last post was 03-21-2006, 09:03 PM

[Dragonshadow]

What if you used supermacro and it's /in command?

Like

/cast FrostBolt
/script SpellStopCasting();
/in 5 /cast Frostbolt
/in 5 /script SpellStopCasting();
/cast FrostBolt

Would that work?

[xkisses]

Sure, lets bump a year old post hooray!

[[SpNiz]]

What if you used supermacro and it's /in command?

Like

/cast FrostBolt
/script SpellStopCasting();
/in 5 /cast Frostbolt
/in 5 /script SpellStopCasting();
/cast FrostBolt

Would that work?

That macro wouldn't work :/

[Equ1N0X]

cant you just use /stopcasting? that typically works for me.
i have a whole load of warrior rage consuming attk power+dmg buffs linked in a amcro for tight situations.

[Verye]

/stopcasting is the same thing.

[Equ1N0X]

yay... much more simple to my eyes. take sless space

[Lollerskates]

This macro doesn't work anymore.

[iaretehfunny?]

WOW, never in my life would i have ever thot of that, THX matt! sounds plausible.