Damage dealing basic macro guide

[Silryn-pyrewood-village]

Yehloes all you fine folks out there!

Having been teaching people how to make basic macros in the game again during last couple days, figured I’d put the information here as well for everyone.
So the macro looks as follows:

#showtooltip Frostbolt
/cast [harm][@targettarget] Frostbolt

Exchange the ‘frostbolt’ to whatever harmful ability your class has.
Also remember to leave the icon of the macro as the red ? when you’re making the macro, this way the showtooltip works correctly.

So what does this do then? Let’s break it down.

#showtooltip Frostbolt

This makes it so the icon of the macro (when combined with the red question mark being the icon) mirrors the tooltip of the ability when you put it on your hotbar. It gives you the tooltip when you mouseover it, shows the cooldown and so forth.

/cast [harm][@targettarget]

This is the working bit. First it checks if you are targeting a hostile target, something you can use your harmful abilities on. If so it will use the ability on that target.
However if you’re targeting a friendly target it will try to use the ability on the target of whoever you’re targeting.

This means you can target a group’s tank, the raid’s tank (or if your raid has a set main assist for example, can just target that person) and you will be laying down the smacking on to whatever that person is targeting.

So why use this?
To put it simply it allows you to target a friendly target while beating down the enemies. Namely for targeting a group’s or raid’s tank to focus fire whatever the tank is beating on (or main assist if your raid has one, as mentioned).
Especially useful for anyone playing Classic WoW, as this means you’re attacking what the tank is attacking so you’re less likely to pull aggro onto yourself.

Hopefully this was helpful for someone out there!

[Elvenbane-kazzak]

@Silryn-pyrewood-village

#showtooltip Frostbolt
/cast [harm][@targettarget] Frostbolt

That will attempt to cast on your target’s target regardless of reaction (healer targeting an ally for instance).

You’d be better off with:

#showtooltip
/cast [harm] [@targettarget,harm,nodead] [] Frostbolt

This version will also generate the correct range finding tooltip for @targettarget mobs vs hard coding the tooltip to the spell which will only range find to your target.

If you’re after more templates:

Useful Macro Templates

Self Cast Key Bug Season of Discovery Rune Placeholder Spells General Macro Templates Ping Macro Universal Mount Macro Known Macro Helpful Mouseover Macro Harmful Mouseover Macro Reaction Neutral Mouseover Macro Help/Harm Macro Multi-modifier Mouseover Macro Reticle Macro Nochanneling Macro Stopcasting Macro Cancelaura Macro Base Healing Macro Offensive Macro for Healers Conditional Focus Cast Dynamic GetSpellInfo Macro CVar Toggle World Marker Spam Class Utility Macros Other Resources Self…

[Silryn-pyrewood-village]

@Elvenbane-kazzak

That will attempt to cast on your target’s target regardless of reaction (healer targeting an ally for instance).

Which does not matter when you have tied the spell to a harmful ability to begin with.

It seems you missed the point a bit. The point being to create a very simple macro everyone can understand that allows you to target the group’s or raid’s tank and smack the thing the tank is beating on (or main assist if raid groups use that).
Makes life easier for damage dealers in Classic because you’re less likely to draw aggro that way.

Yes you can absolutely make the macro more complex, you can add more modifiers and conditions. Those are however not necessary for vast majority of cases, and they are also confusing for people who don’t usually use macros.