Druid — Macro Guide

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_{original content taken from the Vanguard forums, written by Emberfire, please note this information may be out of date}

What follows is a guide to making damage macros for druids. I have played a druid for about eight months. My “Main Character” is a druid. Before I continue, I know a lot of experienced druids may read this. They will stroke their druidic beards and look at what I write with a very critical eye. They will muffle and mumble and try and pick apart my words and find mistakes! To these druids I would like to very politely tell you to go and get bent please do so! I am not precious. I welcome and will consider all feedback and correction.

The bulk of this guide is my own original research. However, in an attempt to stave off any possible accusations of plagiarism, I’d like to acknowledge that part of this guide incorporates some words and ideas from a guide written by Graye Penumbra of Veracity.

Before looking at building any Druid damage macros its worthwhile analysing the druid’s combat spells. Just what does a druid have in her or his arsenal? What are the strengths and limitations of each spell? And how can you bind them all together into some sort of useful combat macro?

The druid’s damaging abilities all fall under three damage types, Arcane, Fire and Physical. The druid has many “Dots” and many direct damage spells or “Nukes” as I think of them. The druid uses up energy or phenomenon points to cast his or her spells. Some spells are instant cast, some have no cooldown and some don’t trigger the global refresh timer, but none of them have all three of the above. So lets look at them one by one.

Starfall

Global Refresh: Yes
Ability Cooldown: Yes
Cast build time: No
Phenomenon Cost: High
Damage Type: Arcane
Damage Notes: Very Large Nuke
Sartfall is sometimes thought of as the Druid’s signature spell. The high damage yield combined with instant cast make this THE spell that young druid’s drool over. (Ew! Drood drool?). However the high phenom cost means that you cant just fire off Starfall after Startfall and the base two minute ability cooldown stops you from doing that anyway.

Ire

Global Refresh: No
Ability Cooldown: Yes
Cast build time: No
Phenomenon Cost: Small
Damage Type: Arcane
Damage Notes: Medium Nuke
So Druids have a medium nuke, yawn and big deal you say. Well yes and no - the lack of global refresh, instant cast and VERY short ability cooldown make this spell a very desirable candidate for a macro. However the phenom cost though quite small will soon eat up your phenom pool if you spam this ability.

Lightning Blast

Global Refresh: No
Ability Cooldown: No
Cast build time: Yes
Phenomenon Cost: Very Small
Damage Type: Arcane
Damage Notes: Large Nuke
The druid’s bread and butter, tediously long cast time, yet you’ll be firing this baby off again and again for its high damage yield.

Reverberate.

Global Refresh: Yes
Ability Cooldown: No
Cast build time: No
Phenomenon Cost: None
Damage Type: Arcane
Damage Notes: Large Nuke, Finisher
This is your basic nuking finisher and thus requires a crit from one of your other spells to trigger it, fire it off whenever you get it unless; a) one of the other finisher’s would be more useful, b) you are fighting a ‘no arcane’ mob or c) you really really don’t want to.

Call Lightning

Global Refresh: Yes
Ability Cooldown: No
Cast build time: Yes
Phenomenon Cost: None
Damage Type: Arcane
Damage Notes: Medium Nuke
I never use this, it’s the weak-as-water, no phenomenon, version of LB and you’ll see where that one phenomenon point goes when you compare the two. Just use LB or Solar Flare instead, certainly not worth putting in a macro. In fact do yourself a favour and take the dang thing off your taskbar.

Solar Flare

Global Refresh: Yes
Ability Cooldown: Yes
Cast build time: No
Phenomenon Cost: None
Damage Type: Fire
Damage Notes: Medium Nuke + Small Dot
A great little spell, fire damage for variety, no drain on your phenomenon and instant cast. This spell is a vital part of your toolkit against ‘No arcane’ mobs and useful for soloing. Note: Many druids are not very fond of Solar Flare as Lightning Blast provides a better yield in most circumstances. When soloing however Solar Flare is preferable as the long cast time of LB slows you down to walking speed and can mean you get interrupted a lot.

Fireseeds

Global Refresh: No
Ability Cooldown: Yes
Cast build time: No
Phenomenon Cost: None
Damage Type: Fire
Damage Notes: Small Dot
Low damage fire but still a very useful ‘spell’ Instant cast and no global refresh make fireseeds great for macros. I wish the fireseed stack was bigger than ten, fifty would be ideal in my opinion, even twenty would be a big improvement.

Wild Growth

Global Refresh: Yes
Ability Cooldown: No
Cast build time: Yes
Phenomenon Cost: None
Damage Type: Physical
Damage Notes: Small Dot
A little physical dot, very uninspiring, yet you still need to use it. It’s a low aggro generator so fire it off early in the fight and refresh when required. The dot stays on the mob a while but, meh, so what. If it was instant cast and no global refresh (similar to fireseeds) it would be worth macroing but it aint, so its not.

Superior Venomous Thorns

Global Refresh: No
Ability Cooldown: No
Cast build time: Yes
Phenomenon Cost: None
Damage Type: Physical
Damage Notes: Medium Dot
A physical dot with a better yield, not a bad one I suppose, however I always feel like I could be doing something better with my time. Apply early in the fight and keep it refreshed

Nature’s Wrath

Global Refresh: Yes
Ability Cooldown: No
Cast build time: No
Phenomenon Cost: None
Damage Type: Physical
Damage Notes: Medium Dot, Finisher
Yet another physical dot, this time a finisher, Instant cast is nice but the damage is still pretty uninspiring.

Piercing Roots

Global Refresh: Yes
Ability Cooldown: No
Cast build time: Yes
Phenomenon Cost: None
Damage Type: Physical
Damage Notes: Small Dot, Snare
Are you still awake? Well, here’s another physical dot, this time with a snare, which most end game mobs are immune to and breaks anyway if anyone lays on any damage. Pretty weak really, apply all other physical dots before this one.

Deadly Swarm

Global Refresh: Yes
Ability Cooldown: Yes
Cast build time: No
Phenomenon Cost: Medium
Damage Type: Physical
Damage Notes: Large Dot
Another physical dot, but this one is actually worth a [Removed for Content]. Its really part of your burst dps toolkit because of its phenom cost and ability cooldown.

Weapon Clickies (Example is “Ulvari Burst” from the wand from Teraxes)

Global Refresh: No
Ability Cooldown: Yes
Cast build time: No
Phenomenon Cost: Medium
Damage Type: Planar
Damage Notes: Medium Nuke
Most staffs and wands have a ‘clickie’ ability. I tend to like wands as they allow a macroable clickie and they also allow you to have something else in your off hand. This is a bit of a choice thing. Depending on what weapons you have access to. Of course depending on the nature of the clickie the above info will differ.

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Ok we have the basic druidic abilities, but this guide is all about druid macros. Because the druid deals Fire, Arcane and Physical damage. I approached macro creating with the starting point that you will want to damage mobs that are immune, resistant or even benefit from you doing these types of damage. So what follows are my basic “No physical”,”No fire” and “No arcane” Macros.

SOLOING (also can be used as ‘NO PHYSICAL’)

/cast “Star Mantle”
/itemuse “Large Mottleberry”
/cast “Ulvari Burst”
/itemuse “Fireseeds”
/cast “Reverberate”
/cast “Solar Flare”
/cast “Lightning Blast”

This macro also serves as a general damage macro for soloing. The first time you fire this off you should automatically cast Star Mantle, your weapon clickie, Fireseeds and Solar flare as well as eating a mana berry! Pretty neat huh? Your solar flare may trigger a crit and if so the next time you hit your macro you will fire off Reverberate if not it will default to Lightning Blast which may of course itself trigger a crit. Everything else in this macro will fire off again as soon as its ability cooldown timer is over. This macro has many benefits; it’s low on mana costs and very low on phenom costs. Very useful in many situations, not least of which when you are low on phenomenon or mana. (Duh!) For mobs that are not “No physical” intersperse your physical dots in between spamming this macro. A bit more on this later.

SUSTAINED GROUP DPS (also can be used as ‘NO PHYSICAL’)

/itemuse “Large Mottleberry”
/cast “Ulvari Burst”
/itemuse “Fireseeds”
/cast “Reverberate”
/cast “Lightning Blast”
/cast “Solar Flare”

Similar to the soloing macro except Solar Flare no longer has precedence over Lightning Blast. Solar Flare will only kick in when you have no phenomenon. Intersperse your physical dots as required to maximise your DPS. Except when fighting ‘No Physical’ Mobs of course!.

NO ARCANE

/itemuse “Large Mottleberry”
/cast “Ulvari Burst”
/itemuse “Fireseeds”
/cast “Solar Flare”
/cast “Nature’s Wrath”
/cast “Deadly Swarm IV”
/cast “Superior Venomous Thorns”

Ok so it sucks not being able to use your arcane spells but you are not helpless. This macro pulls in the best and brightest of your non arcane arsenal. Beware, this macro has a slight weakness. Spamming it over and over again will inevitably just reapply SVT on the mob, not very efficient. Try and avoid this. Just intersperse Wild growth or even dare I say it Piercing Roots when required and you should be ok. Note: Some druids object to putting Deadly Swarm in a general damage macro. I keep it in this macro mainly because your damaging toolkit is much limited by not being able use any arcane spells. It’s a user choice thing really. Just take it out if you like and manually click it as required.

NO FIRE

/itemuse “Large Mottleberry”
/cast “Ulvari Burst”
/cast “Nature’s Wrath”
/cast “Reverberate”
/cast “Lightning Blast”

This is similar to the other macros just taking out Fireseeds and Solar Flare and adding in Nature’s Wrath. Manually apply your other physical dots as required.

Ok now its time to look at a burst damage macro. Consider the following:

BURST DPS

/cast “Quickening jolt”
/cast “Ire”
/cast “Ulvari Burst”
/itemuse “Fireseeds”
/cast “Reverberate”
/cast “Deadly Swarm IV”
/cast “Starfall IV”
/cast “Lightning Blast”

Now the first thing to note is that this macro is not very useful against No Arcane or No physical mobs. However you are lucky because not a whole lot of raid targets are like this. (yes there are some) but overall this macro is fine on raid targets. So perhaps consider this your ‘Raid Burst DPS’ macro with many non-raid uses. This macro brings in all your best ‘Specials’, all the abilities you have been saving up till its time to let loose the smackdown, including Starfall and deadly swarm. It assumes you have been given QJ by your friendly neighbourhood BM but still works without it. It also very importantly includes Ire, the only macro I would put Ire in, see my above comments on this ability for why.

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How and when to use your macros

For fights where you are unrestricted and can use all your spells this is a basic rundown of what a druid should be doing.

Your tank aggro’s the mob
Cast “Star Mantle” on the tank
Cast “Suncaller’s Fury” on the tank
Cast “Wither”
Cast “Wild Growth”
Cast “Superior Venomous Thorns”
Cast “Nature’s Wrath” (if available)
Cast “Nature’s Tempest”
Use your “Sustained DPS” Macro and keep using it.
Refresh your physical dots as required
Cast ‘Quelling Wind” as required to reduce your hate
The mobs Health is reduced to about 60%
Do a full aggro wipe using Tranquility or Treeshape
Use your “Burst DPS” Macro
Repeat steps 9 to 11
Repeat steps 13 and 14

Remember aggro management is YOUR responsibility too, not just your tank. It’s your job to maximise the benefit of your hate reduction abilities. Do a full aggro wipe BEFORE you burst, not after and don’t forget to use quelling wind.

For fights where you are restricted to not using a certain damage type apply a similar methodology while avoiding using that damage type.

Notes on terminology and making macros

Global refresh: The second after you have cast most spells where you cannot cast anything. All your spells will be unavailable during this time, including abilities that don’t themselves trigger the global refresh. A macro will not fire off two spells with a global refresh at the same time. Druid berries, Fireseeds, weapon clickies, Ire and Quickening Jolt do not trigger the global refresh. Abilities with no global refresh usually also are instant cast which makes them very useful in macros as you can fire off many abilities with just one click.

Cast time: The time it takes to cast a spell. Can range from instant cast for example Reverberate or Solar Flare, to three or four seconds (Lightning Blast) right up to ten seconds or more. (KDQ task generator). A macro will not fire off more than one spell in a single click with a cast time longer than instant.

Ability cooldown: The time it takes for this ability or spell to be available again. It can range from no cooldown to ten seconds, two minutes or even 20 hours!

To take an ability out of a macro temporarily, simply add * before the macro text.

Remember, constructing a good macro requires a real and critical understanding of the nature of your abilities, the order you put them in the macro is very important. As is an understanding of what you are trying to achieve with the macro you are building.

I hope this guide helps at least some druids. Our class is oft derided for its lack of dps lack of functionality, lack of utility lack of whatever. But with a bit of care, you can find a place… and not just as a buff bot or berry vending machine. Don’t be afraid to use your phenomenon. Situational healing, burst DPS or just plain survivability CAN be real strong suits. Remember, a dead druid = no dps. I’ve been in raids where the AE is killing all the high powered sorcs and necro’s around me but I alone of the squishies can live through it.

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