Arena macros and addons

[Jeesk]

MACROS

TARGET MACRO

In 2v2 I have found the targeting macros very useful; two clicks and you can find out who you're up against the second the gates open (unless they're stealthed, or have similar names to you.

This has probably been posted before, but I'll quickly explain it. You make one macro that targets from A through to Z, like this:

/tar a
/tar b
/tar c

etc. right through to Z, and then a second macro that targets from Z back to A:

/tar z
/tar y
/tar x

Now, what you need to do is then remove the letters that you (and your partner/s) names begin with, so you don't target yourselves. If you name is Leetguy and you play with Hunterlol, then make sure you don't include /tar h and /tar l in your macros.

Then when the gate opens, quickly click both macros and you can see both of your oponents (hopefully - if they're stealthed, or they have a name beginning with H or L, you won't see em - but most of the time it works well!)

Of course, this isn't really effective in 3v3 or 5v5, it's more of a 2v2 thing.


FOCUS MACRO

The other macro I use a lot is /focus, which I've bound to a macro button.

If you don't know what the /focus command is, basically it let's you have a second target window up along with your current target. For example, as a mage if I'm sheeping the warrior and DPSing the hunter, I can hit this /focus button with the warrior targeted - he'll become my focus target, and even then if I switch to target the hunter, I'll have both targets up on my screen. Then I can easily see when the warrior's sheep breaks, to resheep him.

Even better, I can use macros for other spells which target my focus target rather than my current target, without having to actually switch targets. So if I make a macro to sheep my current target on left click, or my focus target on right click, I can resheep the warrior when he pops out, without having to even deselect the hunter as my target. Quite handy once you get used to it - good for raids, etc. as well as arena.

If you make this into a macro, you can simply target the warrior, hit the focus macro, and he'll be your focus target.



ADDONS


Proximo (download)

This is very useful. When you enter the arena, a window pops up (which you can move and customize as you please) which will display your enemy targets once someone in the group has moused over them. It will sync for all players in the team if you're all using it, which means it's very handy for quickly seeing what teams you're up against.

It also shows each enemy's class, health, mana, and what spells they're casting, and you can set it up so that you can left click on the name to target them, or right click on the name to set it as your focus target. Very useful, and everyone on the team should have it. Doesn't run at all outside of arena.


Additional (not required) addons:

Natur EnemyCastBar (download) or Quartz (download)

A couple of other enemy cast bar mods which are quite handy, but not required. Up to you if you want to install them (one or the other - I'm using NECB, but many others use Quartz).

X-Perl Unitframes (download)

Helps by showing extra information in your unitframes, such as being able to see who all your party members are targeting, party members frames glowing purple or green when they have a curse/poison etc. you can remove, and so on.

Deadly Boss Mods (download)

Displays exactly how many seconds are left until the arena game begins. If you raid you probably have this addon already anyway.

Trinity Bars (download) or Bartender (download)

Action bar mods. Let you add more action bars, move them around, etc. Basically just allows you to organize your screen better so that you can find the buttons you want easily in the middle of a fight.


You've probably heard of most of those before anyway, but I find a large number of people don't know about them / don't use them.




If you have any other macros/addons that are useful for arena, please share!