Macro tip #5: Castsequence (cooldowns)
February 27, 2009
This tip is from the Instance 133, at time index 1:44:42
This is probably one of the most useful elements of macros. Again, its main function is to manage the sheer volume of abilities and items most high-level characters will have, by hiding things that aren’t currently usable. It also allows simple chains of abilities to be put together, to simplify routine patterns of button mashing.
The example given – once again – focuses on healing items, because these are things that most characters will have.
#ShowToolTip
/castsequence reset=60 Frostweave bandages, resurgent healing potion
Again, obviously, people should swap in the particular items they happen to have. You can list as many things as you want; you just need to separate them with commas.
Using a bandage gives a 60-second debuff for being recently bandaged. During that time, you can’t use another bandage – and there’s not much point having bandages up on your toolbar during that time. So, this macro will keep track of time, and hide the bandages until the debuff expires. During that time it will put up something more useful instead (in this case, a potion).
Note that this isn’t necessarily the most useful macro – you might want potions up by default, for example to get you out of a tight fix in combat. It is, however, a clear example of the format of these macros, which is why I chose it for this segment. There are ways to solve this problem (having potions in combat and the castsequence at other times) using multiple conditionals, but again, that’s a more complicated kind of macro, for a later segment.
Castsequence can also be used to manage abilities – the other example from the segment illustrates this.
#ShowToolTip
/castsequence reset=10 multi-shot, steady shot, steady shot, steady shot
This uses multi-shot whenever possible, and steady shot between cooldowns. (It might be necessary to put in another steady shot or two depending on how quickly a character can get through the list.)
In fact, you can chain together abilities and items using this one command. For example, a Resto Shaman could use this line in a macro:
/castsequence reset=6 Riptide, Super Healing Potion
This would mainly be of use in keeping the Shaman alive; it would cast their instant heal spell if it was available (i.e. outside the 6 second cooldown), but if it wasn’t it would activate a potion instead.
There are other ways to reset a castsequence, making it even more useful – again, that’s something for a future segment.
WoW macros 
#ShowToolTip
/castsequence reset=10 multi-shot, steady shot, steady shot, steady shot
This doesn’t work exactly how you would think..
“Where n is the number of seconds of inactivity after which the macro should be reset. In other words, if more than n seconds pass without the macro being called, then the next time you call it the sequence will start from the first spell. Note that this is not the time since the first spell in the sequence was cast, but rather the time since the macro was last called (to cast any of the spells in the sequence). This is a very important distinction because it means you cannot use a reset timer to account for cooldown.” –taken from wowwiki
So using your multi-shot/steady shot macro, each time you cast steady shot, it resets that 10 second timer. You could be well past the multi-shot cooldown before this macro resets if you are using global cooldowns for other things in there. I figured this out trying to make a Mangle/Lacerate macro using the same concept here and it doesn’t work 😦
Yes – you’re entirely right. I’ve looked into this, and the multi-entry macros won’t work as expected. My bad, and thank you for pointing this out.
These will still work for single alternative macros (with one main cast item and one alternative that’s up during cooldown, since the timeout on the macro is the same as the cooldown) but not with anything more complicated.
…and another option, while I think of it, would be to add in a reset option for modifiers, like:
reset = 60/ctrl/shift/alt
This would reset to the start of the list either after a minute, or when a modifier button is held down. Still doesn’t allow you to map exactly onto a cooldown, but it does give some more options for managing longer sequences.