Once you have your character set up with gear, enchants, and so on, and you’ve learned your rotation, there are a couple of ways you can really take your gameplay to the next level, and that’s with addons and macros. These tools can enhance your performance by making it easy to track and perform actions that might be much more complicated with only hotkeys and the default interface. This guide will get you started with some of the best addons and macros to use as a Restoration Shaman in Cataclysm Classic.
Addons
Addons are direct quality-of-life improvements to the existing game features. They can range from User Interface modifications to simple tools such as a Damage Meter or Threat Meter. Addons can also be used to generate text notifications or even in-game vocal notifications to keep better track of your buffs and procs. They can also be used to display boss tactics and notify you of impending threats.
- DeadlyBossMods – Allows you to track boss abilities. A must-have for raiding.
- Details – Shows you how much damage, healing, and threat everyone in your raid is doing. Flex on your friends!
- WeakAuras – Extremely versatile addon that can be used to track buffs, debuffs, or create audio notifications.
- Healbot Continued or Vuhdo – These are just two options for unit frames addons that you can use. They will help you track relevant buffs and debuffs on your teammates and have built-in mouseover macro functionality.
WeakAuras or a similar addon is strongly recommended for tracking your buffs, procs, and cooldowns as a Restoration Shaman. You may have a hard time keeping track of everything otherwise. An unit frames addon will also make your life as a healer a lot easier.
Macros
Here are a few macros that can improve your effectiveness as a Resto Shaman by combining actions so you can focus on other things.
Mouseover Healing
If you’re using one of the unit frames addons recommended above, they can handle this for you. If not, you can do this the old-fashioned way through macros, although it will be more time consuming.
These macros will allow you to cast a spell on the target you are currently mousing over rather than your actual target. This means that you can keep the boss targeted to watch for important casts while also healing your team by interacting with your unit frames. It also means you only have to click or press a key once rather than clicking on a target first and then using your keybind. If you’ve never tried this before, you may be surprised by just how much faster and smoother your healing becomes.
The macro below is a mouseover template macro, ready to be filled with whatever you want. Simply replace “SPELLNAME” with your spell of choice, for example, Riptide. This macro will attempt to cast that spell on your mouseover target if they are friendly and if they are alive. If these requirements aren’t fulfilled, it will simply try to heal your target as it would by default, without the macro.
#showtooltip SPELLNAME
/cast [@mouseover,help,nodead][] SPELLNAMEOne-Click Healing Rain
This macro will cast Healing Rain in the location of your mouse cursor, saving you an extra click.
#showtooltip
/cast [@cursor] Healing RainReincarnation Tracker
Passives can’t be dragged to your action bars, but you can use this macro to keep an eye on your Reincarnation cooldown.
#showtooltip Reincarnation
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