The three main things I wanted to say were:

-”As far as shot rotation macros go, Blizzard are keen that you shouldn’t have to macro to do the best dps – and in fact this week’s patch has this little gem: “Hunters: Using an instant ability after Steady Shot will no longer lock out auto shot.””

That happened to me all the time and my shots are 100% hand-weaved so I wouldn’t call it an anti-macro thing.

-Regardless, I do not use the infamous Shot Rotation Macro because I do find it to be boring and somewhat limiting (although I acknowledge that it does lotsa DPS), so I definitely see where you are coming from there

-There are indeed some macros that I could not live without, but they do not hinder me in anyway but because they simply take up space on my action bar that would otherwise have been unused– I still have access to the original spells if needed (but I NEVER use them… only the helpful macros I made!)

If you’re happy with tying abilities together like that, then do so; however I dislike doing things like that for the simple reason that if I get a dodge streak and find myself rage starved, macroing abilities together like that is going to cause threat issues.

Rather than have two copies of every ability on my bars to work around this I’d rather just learn to hit the buttons seperately.

It takes a little bit of getting used to, and can be an incredible tool for quick action and response to situations. I’m not familiar with the actual nitty-gritty of stance-dancing, but I’m operating under the impression that using a macro to do it minimizes the amount of time the warrior is out of defensive stance, and therefore limits the chance of getting smacked in the mouth while in berserker.

Just gotta use the macro a few times and get used to it, then it’ll all flow correctly. I know that I instinctively reach for a certain key on my keyboard whenever I get in trouble to hit Divine Shield. It used to be my button to taunt when I was tanking. Now, when I spec prot to tank, I need to put the taunt button into Divine Shield’s place or else I will shield instead of taunt. Muscle memory is powerful.

I don’t mind either way.. but I do get shirty when players try and enforce macros/mods on others. Just cause the guy doesn’t want to use macros doesn’t make them a bad player… some would suggest the opposite.

It can, and I’ll happily raid without mods. At one point I was a member of a guild that prohibited threat meters for the simple reason that they felt too much like cheating, a sentiment I still somewhat agree with. Unfortunately nowadays encounters are designed with the expectation you will have a threat meter, so the argument falls apart.

The crutch comment was perhaps a touch inflammatory, but bear in mind I’m writing from the point of view of a tank, and as such my experience is tainted in that direction. If macros are essential for certain classes to maximise their contribution, then it’s my argument that it is that that is broken.

I have no argument with the fact that macros can help good players better. Unfortunately far too often, they make bad players worse.

But as it stands, a macro’d BM Hunter *WILL* out-DPS a hand-woven one due to the way latency works. That’s all there is to it.

Macros are a tool, not a crutch. They don’t make some player magically better and they don’t make a player worse in my opinion. If someone is already bad, a macro isn’t going to alleviate the situation. The tanks you described using one button tank macros would be bad if they didn’t have a macro.

Applying your logic here can be said about mods. Throw away your crutches and raid without mods! And see how long before your DPS throws a fit because you don’t have Omen. Or your decurses have to do their job on Archimonde without a tool to assist in doing so.

I have a Misdirection macro that will misdirect my target if it is friendly, my focus if it is friendly (if my target was not), and finally my pet if neither one of those conditions are met. Does that make me bad or less of a Hunter? Hardly. It makes my job more streamlined and more efficient.

And in the expansion, Blizzard plans on saving all macro data server-side so you can switch computers at will.

I already use almost entirely keybindings around WASD for actions – the mouse ise reserved for targeting and turning only. I guess what I meant was that pressing a macro button (which, if I’m being sensible is going to be different in each fight) interrupts my normal flow of actions. Typically I have “special actions” bound to F1-F5, and this includes macros, so it isn’t as if they’re far away. F2 and F3 are usually bound to health stones and potions (and now I think about it, that is the one macro I use on a regular basis – it uses whichever biggest health stone is available), so it’s not as if it’s far away from a button I’m not already pressing.

As far as shot rotation macros go, Blizzard are keen that you shouldn’t have to macro to do the best dps – and in fact this week’s patch has this little gem: “Hunters: Using an instant ability after Steady Shot will no longer lock out auto shot.”

I’ll admit that there are lots of ways that macros can be used to good effect. But there are also, in my own experience, lots of people who are using them in ways that either make them inflexible or haven’t thought out their full implication.

In case anyone is interested, the event that got me thinking about this was a player of my acquaintance who had his trinkets macroed by slot number and had forgotten this. Once he actually needed to use a trinket (on Archimonde), he couldn’t, because he’d bound it to one of his abilities and already used it withing the first few seconds of the fight.

Examples like the above (and the warrior who had the one-button tanking macro) are why I’m wary of macros. They can be a useful tool, but far too often they can cause more problems than they solve.

On the contrary Namthe, not all macros inhibit flexibility and gameplay. You’re using a blanket definition for macro to mean the automation of several actions strung together. Sure, that covers some of them. However, there are a bunch of macros out there that are space-saving macros, for example my Consecration macro.

When activated, it casts Consecration rank 4. When activated while holding “alt,” it casts Consecration rank 6. When activated holding “control,” it casts Consecration rank 1. Each rank is used in a different situation.

In addition, you mention moving your hands away from your usual tanking positions. Efficient and accessible keybinding is essential to operating effectively, so I’d venture to say you stuck your macro in a bad spot, not that using the macro threw you off. Centering all your keybinds around your WASD movement keys and assigning abilities to mouse clicks helps in that regard. I myself unbound the “Q” and “E” keys from the strafe buttons and instead strafe using the mouse in combination with the WASD base movement keys, which makes for more precision movements anyway.

Not all macros are simple automations of skill rotations like a hunter shot macro (which, when used correctly, cuts out human error in clipping auto-shots and improves efficiency with shots). Over-automation is a bad thing, but the use of macros is not inherently a crutch. Lastly, the use of a macro does not remove all choice – many players still have the skills involved in an automation macro accessible in some way on their skill bars or in their key binds. For example, I have a macro to active my Avenging Wrath, Berserker’s Call trinket, and a Haste Potion all simultaneously to save me time. However, the cooldown of AW does not line up with the potion/trinket cooldown – I have all three elements bound to separate keys as well so that I may activate them separately if I so choose to.

The error is not in the macro, it’s in the implementation and the usage.