ZOMG raiding guide

This is a guide for all classes that should aid in bringing up overall raid dps... some classes can see more than a 30-50% improvement in dps based solely off of shot rotations, dps uptime, optimization of cooldowns, and using swing timers.... so,  without further adieu.... lets start at the beginning.

 

Quartz: http://www.wowace.com/wiki/Quartz

Quartz is a wowace addon that with simple tweaks can increase your dps / tps / hps by a HUGE margine.   However the real difficulty behind quartz is if you have BAD timing or if you're not interested in learning how to use it,  you can substantially nerf your own dps by cancelling a lot of your own casts since casters will tend to be using /stopcasting.

 

Melee classes can use 'swing' timers to see when their next melee swing is going to happen,  allowing yourself to finish a white damage attack before resetting the swing timer can VASTLY improve melee dps/tps,  esp on classes that use slow weps (warriors, ret pallies, etc.).  Melee classes get a small white bar with a pulse on it that should indicate when your next melee swing is coming.

 

Okay,  now to post a picture that should show you what I mean...

http://img369.imageshack.us/img369/4349/wowscrnshot051608145622ey6.jpg

It might be a LITTLE tricky to see in that picture but on my spellcast bar you should see a little red bar at the end of it that says in tiny little number 283ms,   that red area means the spell is actually finished and the remaining 283 ms is just server latency.   Sometimes this will spike up to 500-600 ms that you can shave off each spellcast... but how?

 

Macros:

Well since I breached the topic above I figure that I should go a little in depth with macros..  Macros are a lot like ms-dos to windows,   you can do literally anything in macros that you can do with the pretty little icons blizzard gives you,  sometimes you can just do it a lot better.  Lets start with an example macro and I'll tell you what it does:

#showtooltip Shadow Bolt
/stopcasting
/use 13
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear();
/Cast Shadow bolt

The showtooltip line is just so when i mouseover it on my bars it says Shadowbolt and displays the info rather than just saying 'sb spam' which is the macro name.

 

/stopcasting that is the real meat and potatoes of this.  /stopcasting will stop the cast you are presently doing and leave you character 'idle' afterwards regardless of channeling, casting, etc.   Using this when your castbar hits 'red' (lag) will stop the cast which has already executed server side.

 

/use 13 uses the trinket in the top slot automatically

 

/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); simply makes it so if I turn on my sound my character won't say 'that item isn't ready yet' and spam the middle of my screen notifying me of that.

 

and lastly /Cast shadowbolt,   it automatically uses max rank unless otherwise instructed,  Using the macro above and modifying it for your class will ensure MAXIMUM dps uptime / Hps uptime and TPS uptime.  Granted tanks / healers may need to save their trinkets for certain situations,  however on almost every fight shy kalecgos these macros will vastly improve your overall performance.

 

Below I will list a lot of class specific macros,  but what you CAN do is double up on your trinkets if you have 2 'use' ability trinkets

/use 13
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear();

/use 14
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear();

/cast flash heal

for example, etc, etc, etc.

 

Class specific macros:

Hunter:   BM

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/cast !Auto shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command
/cast Steady shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

3:2 / 1:1 Auto macro (it'll convert when you get enough haste)

Auto-feed:

/cast [combat] Mend Pet; [nocombat] Feed Pet
/use [pet:Scorpid] Smoked Talbuk Venison; [pet:Cat] Smoked Talbuk Venison; [pet:Ravager] Smoked Talbuk Venison; [pet:Wind Serpent] Conjured Manna Biscuit; [pet:Wind Serpent] Garadar Sharp;

 

 

Warlock: (god theres a lot...I'll just stick to the easy ones)

Focus target curse of doom (target something and type or macro /focus)

/Cast [Target=Focus] Curse Of Doom

this also works with

/Cast [Target=Focus] Curse Of Tongues

 

Most importantly is the macro above for Sbolt with max trinket uptime, ESP. on bosses.

 

Mage:

Arcane Spec:

(Safe spam arcane blast without interrupting missles)

#Showtooltip Arcane Blast
/use [nochanneling:Arcane Missiles] 13
/cast [nochanneling:Arcane Missiles] Arcane Blast

and

Spammable A.missles (if you're already casting it it won't restart the channel until the present one finishes.  This is not optimal for dps since you're not using quartz and stopcast,  but its still better than missing the last tick or 2.

#Showtooltip Arcane Missiles
/cast [nochanneling:Arcane Missiles] Arcane Missiles

 

Druids:

Feral-

Bear mangle / maul if cooldown / rage is enough, with auto-trinket in the 'top' trinket slot

 

/use 13
/stopcasting
/cast Mangle (bear)()
/cast maul
/startattack

 

Bear Pot (you never have the excuse 'I'm a bear I can't pot' ever again.

uses the following items in order: Master healthstone, Bottled nethergon vapor, Red ogre brew, Volatile healing pot,and super healing pot (in that order) remove / replace them as you see fit

/script local gcd=GetSpellCooldown("Dire Bear Form"); if gcd==0 then CancelPlayerBuff("Dire Bear Form") end;
/stopmacro [stance:1]
/use Master Healthstone
/use item:32905
/use item:32784
/use item:28100
/use item:22829
/cast Dire Bear Form

 

Resto druid:

/cast [target=mouseover,help,nodead][help][target=player]Healing Touch

Healing touch your mouseover target (also nice with rejuv)

 

Instant cast 'emergency' healing touch (tank at 1%,  fear not!)

/stopcasting
/cast Nature's Swiftness
/cast [target=player] Healing Touch

 

Warrior:

Bloodrage + berserker rage in 1 button press:

/cast Bloodrage
/stopcasting
/cast Berserker Rage

Auto-cancel Salv and sunder / shield block:

/script CancelPlayerBuff("Blessing of Salvation")
/cast [stance:2] Sunder Armor
/stopcasting
/cast Shield Block

 

The 'perfect' Ros rage burn macro (all the casts on /castrandom are on 1.5 sec gcd's whereas heroic strike / shield block aren't) also great for FAST rage gen.

/castrandom [target=mouseover, exists, harm, nodead] Sunder Armor; Devastate, Devastate, Revenge
/cast Shield Block
/stopcasting
/cast Heroic Strike

 

1 button Dps warrioring:

/castrandom [stance:1] Overpower,Devastate; [stance:2] Revenge,Devastate; [stance:3] Whirlwind,Devastate
/cast Bloodrage
/stopcasting
/cast Heroic Strike #only desirable if plenty rage or low dmg Devastates
/startattack

 

Thats it for macro's that I use personally,  I have a few for kick and such on my rogue,  but they won't really keep dps up... just keep up a 1 pt snd / ruptures.

 

 

 

Lastly comes survivability.

Now that we've covered raid dps improvements I should touch on the fact that none of this will help you whatsoever if you can't keep yourself alive.  Melting a bosses face for 30 seconds will never, ever, ever equate to being dead for the other 9 minutes of the fight.   It sounds so basic.... but honestly,  you'd be surprised.

 

Well,  I'll update the formatting on this soon and get more into depth on some topics but I think thats a good start and addresses a few issues that have come up in the past.

 

<3's,  DemonSkye.

 

p.s. add your input, macros, specs, ideas, etc here.