- Author: Jamielolx
- Date: July 14, 2022
- Expansion: WotLK Classic
Beyond directly making your character stronger through talents, equipment, enchants, etc. there are 2 more things you can use in order to improve your performance as a player: addons & macros. It cannot be understated how much of an impact they can have on your gameplay — increasing your DPS or healing by a large percentage, preventing you from dying, etc. You will need the best addons & macros to be the best Beast Mastery Hunter you can be!
Addons
General
- DeadlyBossMods – This allows you to track boss abilities. A must-have for raiding.
- Details – Shows you how much damage, healing, etc everyone in your raid is doing. Flex on your friends!
WeakAuras
WeakAuras is a versatile add-on with almost limitless possibilities. It allows you to install mini-addons created by other players, which are confusingly also called “WeakAuras”, in order to perform specific tasks, such as tracking the cooldown of a spell, having a visual or audio notification when something procs, giving you a warning when a boss uses an ability, etc. You can find WeakAuras that suit your needs on wago.io. It’s strongly recommended that you use WeakAuras; they’re a huge quality of life boost.
I recommend making or searching for a WeakAura that tracks your cooldowns, in particular Bestial Wrath, Rapid Fire, and Call of the Wild.
But especially your trinket cooldowns, as you want to stack all your on-use cooldowns with your trinket procs for the highest damage possible.
An auto shot timer can also prove very useful if you’re not used to the auto shot timings yet
Macros
Essential
These macros will help you significantly, potentially increasing your DPS by a modest amount.
Cooldown Macro
#showtooltip
/cast Bestial Wrath
/cast Rabid
/cast rapid fire
/use berserking
/use blood fury
/cast Call of the Wild
/use [combat] 13
/use [combat] 14
/use [combat] Potion of Wild Magic
/cast kill commandDo this for every shot/ability you use.
#showtooltip steady shot
/cast steady shot
/cast kill command
#showtooltip multi shot
/cast multi shot
/cast kill command
#showtooltip arcane shot
/cast arcane shot
/cast kill command#showtooltip serpent sting
/cast serpent sting
/cast kill command#showtooltip bestial wrath
/cast bestial wrath
/cast kill commandSurvive! Macro
The macro does not use both deterrence and feign death at the same time you would have to press it twice for that – so if deterrence isn’t sufficient you use it again to Feign Death
#showtooltip
/cast Deterrence
/use [combat] Healthstone
/cast Feign DeathQoL Macro Focus MD + Pet Macro build in one
#showtooltip misdirection
/cast [@focus,help][help][@pet,exists] Misdirection
This macro makes it, so it will misdirect to whichever target you are focusing on, if you aren’t focusing on anyone it will misdirect onto your pet instead.
If you have your tank on focus however it will misdirect to him, so it is both a QoL farming macro and a raiding macro.
About the Author
one small issue, the multi-shot macro needs a –
Thanks for putting all this together!
Thanks for pointing that out, would also like to add that it’s often wise to put kill command before the shot you’re actually spamming, it decreases input time – I messed up there don’t know why it’s the opposite.
A wonderful list of macros.
A possible update to the Misdirection macro:
#showtooltip Misdirection
/cast [@focus,exists,help,nodead][@pet] Misdirection
Similar to the posted one, however this one also checks if the focus is alive. If the focus is dead, it will automatically switch to your pet. I combine this with my growl on/off macros so that if the tank dies, my pet will automatically start growling and I will automatically start Misdirecting to my pet. May be of less use during a raid, but in most standard dungeons can come in extremely handy. During single boss fights can keep the agro off the rest of the party for a couple of extra seconds.
The pet growl on/off macro being:
#showtooltip <insert power>
/changeactionbar [@focus,dead]1;[@focus,exists]2; 1
/targetenemy [noexists][dead][help]
/cast <insert power>
/petautocast<off/on> Growl
/petattack
This checks for a focus, and if the focus is alive. No focus, or focus is dead, the macro will automatically switch to action bar one. Where all my macros for that action bar are set to “/petautocaston Growl”(mainly used for questing and going solo). It also automatically targets the nearest targetable creature and attempts to fire off the assigned power. After which it automatically tells the pet to attack.
The reason for the action bar change is, on action bar 2 I have duplicates of all the macros, but with “/petautocastoff Growl”. This occurs if there is a focus and the focus is alive. Essentially automating if your pet is going to growl or not. If you’re in a group, make the tank your focus, and as soon as you start combat your pet will automatically stop auto casting growl. Unless the tank dies(god forbid, but it does happen).
“/targetenemy [noexists][dead][help]” saves a few extra seconds by making your power usage perform the same function as “target nearest enemy”. The conditionals prevent it from switching to a new target so long as the current target is alive. Good for boss fights that summon adds. Target adds, DPS till dead, automatically tries to target nearest visible enemy with next power use.
I’ve used both of these in regular dungeons and raids, and they help me squeeze out that extra little bit of DPS by removing my need to remember to hit “TAB” once a mob is down(and more than once I’ve out DPSed other Hunters regardless of spec). And a few times has saved the party from a complete wipe when my pet went into automatic off-tank mode on a boss or a particularly tough mob. Healers normally don’t pay attention to Hunter pets, but it becomes even more useful when you get one who does should the tank fall. That extra little bit of healing that normally would have gone to the tank can really help the off-tank pet in an emergency.
Just a couple of macros that I and a few other Hunters I’ve rolled with have found very useful.