Classic Warlock Macro Guide and Compendium

Purpose of This Document

Warlocks are a class of far too many key bindings and niche spells for niche situations. Having a solid knowledge of macros will help you intelligently combine multiple actions to a single key, increase your responsiveness to emergent situations, and, to an extent, automate tedious tasks.

My goal with this document is not only to list out what I have found to be the most commonly employed warlock macros but to give you enough information so that you can begin to modify and even write your own macros going forward. For this reason, I strongly encourage you not to simply copy and paste these macros, and instead hope that you try to understand what the syntax means.

This document was originally written for the Classic Warlock Discord.

Macro Basics

The macro editing window can be brought up by typing /m in the chat window. There you can write, edit, and store macros either for your entire account (if the macro is useful for multiple characters) or for just the current character (if you have a class-specific macro, for example).

Create a new macro by clicking “New”. Then you will have to give the macro a name and an icon. Personally, I don’t like text appearing over my skill icons so I tend to name my macros “ “ which is just a press of the spacebar. For the icon, I typically suggest using the first icon, the red “?”.This icon is special, because it will adapt to the functionality of the macro. It will automatically attempt to find the appropriate icon based on the action performed by the macro.

First Macros

After you’ve chosen a name and icon for the macro, you must write the functionality of the macro – what will the macro do? In the big box at the bottom of the macro editor window (where it says “Enter Macro Commands”)you can type something as simple as:

/s Hi

Then, if you drag the icon for this macro to an action bar, and press/click it, your character should say “Hi”.

Now try something more useful. Create a macro that has the following command:

/cast Demon Armor

Now you’ve written a macro that will cast the warlock spell Demon Armor for you! You might not think this is very useful, since you could have just had the spell on your action bar in place of the macro. You’d be correct, but this macro’s functionality is more subtle and useful than you think. This macro will automatically use the highest rank of the spell! As you level, you will never need to replace Demon Armor with the new rank; just use this macro and you will automatically have the highest-rank spell available.

A More Useful Macro

Macros are only useful if they save you time, key presses, or action bar slots. Getting the most out of a macro means having a basic knowledge of what a macro can do. Here’s an example:

/cast [@player] DevourMagic

This macro will use the Felhunter’s Devour Magic spell (assuming he is the active summoned demon) on you, even if you have an enemy targeted.

Notice the “@player” inside the square brackets. This is called a conditional and it modifies the nature of the action being performed.

Actions

Most macros are meant to use and/or equip items, cast spells, announce your actions to appropriate chat channels. Here are some of the basic actions a macro can perform:

/cast

Cast a spell. Probably going to be your most-used type of macro command.

/stopcasting

Interrupts a spell cast. Useful in front of/cast or /use commands, to interrupt your cast and complete your next action faster.

/cqs

cancels the queued spell. Which instead of the spell casting asap, it casts when you press the macro AFTER the gcd / previous spell finishes resolving. The purpose of cqs is to force us into that state and allow for non-gcd items and abilities to be popped without being locked in a queued spell state for multiple casts.

/castsequence

Cast several spells in a pre-determined order. You can have the sequence reset upon special circumstances.

/use

Use an item, such as health/soul/spellstones, potions, food/water, trinkets, whatever.

/equip

‍Equip an item from your bag. Will induce a 30-second cooldown on items with a Use effect.

/say

‍Self-explanatory

/party

Self-explanatory

/raid

Self-explanatory

/r

‍Responds to a whisper. Can make a macro that says “Leave me alone I’m watching Asmongold!”

/dismount

‍Takes you off your mount. This is handy to put in front of a /cast macro for your opener spells.

/userandom‍

Uses a random item from a list you specify. The only use I can think of for this is to summon a random non-combat pet :P

/petaggressive

Set your demon to aggressive.

/petattack

‍Command your demon to attack.

/petautocasttoggle

‍One button to turn on/off autocast for a specific demon ability.

/petautocaston

‍Turns autocast on for a specific demon ability.

/petautocastoff

‍Turns autocast off for a specific demon ability.

/petfollow

‍Recalls your pet to follow you.

/petpassive

‍Set your pet to passive.

/petstay

Command your pet to stay in place.

/targetlasttarget

‍Targets your previous target, without having to find their name/unitframe/nameplate/character.

Conditionals

Here is the focus of the guide portion of this document. If you can understand this, you’ll be able to write useful macros for any situation, playing any class (though of course you only play Warlock, right?).

You can chain these together to make very nice macros. Mix and match them to suit your needs.

Here are some of the most important conditionals, with a brief description of what they do:

Targeting

Target tags can be chained together as well. For example,@targettargetpettarget will cast at your target’s target’s pet’s target.

@player

Casts the spell towards the player (you) regardless of what you have targeted. A good example is the previously shown Self-Devour macro.

@pet

Casts the spell towards your pet regardless of what you have targeted.

@targetpet

Casts the spell towards your target’s pet regardless of what you have targeted.

@mouseover

Casts the spell towards the unit your cursor is floating over. This is an extremely important modifier for pvp, for two reasons: first, it eliminates the time/hassle of clicking or tabtargeting. Second, it doesn’t show which target you are casting your spell towards. Make sure you have important curses, fear, spell lock, etc, on mouseover.

@cursor

Similar to mouseover, but this is for “aimed” abilities with reticules like Rain of Fire, Inferno, and Iron Grenade. With this modifier, you won’t have to activate the ability and then click the location – the spell will automatically cast at the location of your mouse pointer.

@targettarget

Casts at your target’s target. This is pretty useful in PVP; for example, you can fear the target of your healer.

Key Modifiers

These conditionals completely change the function of the macro when a modifier-key is held before pressing the key of the original macro. For example, you might bind the /s Hi macro to the button F. You can add another line to the macro /s [mod:shift] Bye so that when you press Shift + F you say Bye instead of Hi.

IMPORTANT: The modified key combination must be available(not taken by any other action) for these macros to work. For example, you would not be able to put a macro on the 1 slot, and then use a shiftmodifier (resulting in the keypress Shift + 1) because Shift + 1 is already bound to Action Page 1 by Blizzard Default. You must unbind the modified key combination to use these.

These are self-explanatory I think, so I won’t note them individually.

mod:shift
mod:alt
mod:ctrl

Demons

These conditionals change the function of the macro depending on which demon you currently have summoned. These are also self-explanatory.

pet:imp
pet:voidwalker
pet:succubus
pet:felhunter

Misc

These don’t fit nicely into the other sections but they are important in my opinion, so I’ve just thrown them in a pile here. You might find several useful. Several of these benefit from using the ‘no’ prefix (example: noparty, noharm, noexists).

worn:item_name_or_slot_number

Changes the behavior of the macro if a specific item is equipped (“worn”). This may be useful for Spellstone macros, or engineering trinket macros.

btn:1 or btn:2

Allows you to make a macro that performs differently depending on left-click (1) or right-click (2). Normally you don’t want to click anything, but for some things, it can be okay.

group:party_or_raid

Changes the behavior of the macro depending on whether you are in a party or a raid group.

party

Changes the behavior of the macro if your target is a party member

raid

Changes the behavior of the macro if your target is a raid member

dead

Changes the behavior of the macro if your target is dead

exists

Changes the behavior of the macro if your target exists. Sounds weird, but this is most useful for things that you don’t want to cast unless you have something targeted.

harm

Changes the behavior of the macro if your target is an enemy (someone/something you can attack and that can attack you)

help

Changes the behavior of the macro if your target is friendly (unable to attack you or be attacked by you)

channeling

Changes the behavior of the macro if you are currently channeling a spell (such as DrainSoul, Rain of Fire, etc). Works well with the ‘no’ prefix (nochanneling).

For a full list of macro conditionals, see this article (note that some of these may not work in Classic, as they are written with BfA context).

Other Things

#showtooltip spell_name‍

This should go at the start of most macros. Adds a tooltip and icon to macros (assuming you use the red ? icon). If you do not put the spell_name, the macro will attempt to figure out what the correct spell should be automatically.

/stopmacro

Stops the execution of the macro past this line. A slightly more advanced command can be combined with conditions (such as [pet:imp]) to make more complex macros.

/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()

Disables the red error messages “Out of range”, “Not in line of sight”, etc. Reduces some visual clutter for macros you are going to spam.

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Concrete Examples and Useful Classic Warlock Macros

Leveling Macros

Max Rank Spells

/cast spell_name

Casts the highest rank of spell_name. Great while leveling, so you never forget to put the new rank of the spell on your bars after training new spells.

Spammable Wand

/castsequence !Shoot,!Shoot

Starts your Shoot wand ability, and won’t cancel the wanding if you press again. Helps a lot if you like to spam your keys. Note: this will occasionally misbehave. No idea why.

Drain Soul / Delete Shards v1 (easily modifiable)

#showtooltip Drain Soul(Rank 1)
/cast Drain Soul(Rank 1)
/run local bN = GetBagName(4) if bN=="Small SoulPouch" or bN=="Soul Pouch" or bN=="Box of Souls" thenlocal nS=GetContainerNumSlots(4) PickupContainerItem(4,nS) DeleteCursorItem()end

The classic “Drain Soul” macro. Casts Rank 1 Drain Soul and deletes a Soul Shard from the last slot of your shard bag, as long as the shard bag is in the left-most slot (furthest from the Backpack). This macro does not recall the pet, since Improved Drain Soul procs from pet killing blows in Classic (on beta, at least). Does not work with the high-level shard bags, to save characters in the macro – but that shouldn’t be an issue as long as you aren’t trying to get Improved Drain Soul buff at level 60! :P Note: this version is easily modifiable to include non-soulbags, simply replace the bag names with the bag you will be using for shards.

Repair only main hand weapon or wand

/click MerchantRepairItemButton
/click CharacterMainHandSlot or /clickCharacterRangedSlot

When talking to a repair NPC, repairs only your mainhand or wand slot (with one button).

Drain Soul / Delete Shards v2 (smarter)

/use [nochanneling:drain soul]Drain Soul(Rank 1)
/run for i=1,4 do n=GetBagName(i)if n then ifn:find('[Sl][oca][ulk]') then if GetContainerNumFreeSlots(i)==0 thenPickupContainerItem(i,GetContainerNumSlots(i))DeleteCursorItem()break end end end end

The same as the previous, but you don’t have to have a shard bag in the left-most slot. This will find your shard bag for you! Again, does nothing for non-soul bags.

1-button Grinding

/castsequence reset=target Immolate, Curse of Agony, Corruption, Shoot

Converts your entire grinding rotation into one button. Modify the spells as it suits you. Can make long grinding sessions a bit similar to playing a retribution paladin. The sequence of spells will reset when you change targets.

Drain Life without canceling itself

#showtooltip Drain Life
/cast [nochanneling:Drain Life] Drain Life

Allows you to spam Drain Life without interrupting ticks, which reduces the mana efficiency of your spell. Also works for Drain Mana, Drain Soul, Rain of Fire, Hellfire, etc.

Unstuck + Hearthstone Warning

/run a,b=GetItemCooldown(6948)if a+b<GetTime()andGetItemCount(6948)>0 then message("\124cffff0000WARNING: USINGHEARTHSTONE!\124r")PlaySoundFile("Sound\creature\Voljin\VoljinAggro01.ogg")elsePlaySound(8585)end
/click HelpFrameCharacterStuckStuck

Uses your “unstuck”, and makes a popup warning if you are about to use your Hearthstone. Useful for death skips! If you don’t want the popup, you can have a chat message by changing message to print.

XP bar text

/console xpBarText 1

Enables displaying the numeric value of your XPBar progress. May need to mouse-over your bar to get it to display the first time.

Stones, Buffs, and Other Party-Support Macros

Soulstone clicking

/cast [button:1] Create Soulstone (Major)
/use [nomod,button:2] Major Soulstone; [mod:shift,@player, button:2] Major Soulstone

Creates a Major Soulstone on left-click, applies/uses the Soulstone on right-click, and soulstones yourself on shift-right-click. Modify this to suit you.

One-button Soulstone with announcement

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift] Create Soulstone (Major)
/stopmacro [mod:shift]
/use Major Soulstone
/run s="SS on " f=SendChatMessaget=UnitName("target") j=strjoinf(j("",s,"you"),"WHISPER",nil,t)f(j("",s,t),(UnitInRaid("player") and "RAID" or"PARTY"))

With shift held, it creates a Major Soulstone.Without shift held, it uses the Major Soulstone on your target, announces “SSon targetname” in party or raid chat,and whispers the target “SS on you”.

Self- and Target- Buffing

/cast [mod:shift, @player][] Detect Greater Invisibility

Casts Detect Greater Invisibility (you can replace this with Underwater Breathing) on your target, unless you press Shift, in which case it will buff yourself instead.

Summon Announcer (raid, party, whisper)

#showtooltip
/cast Ritual of Summoning
/run s="Summoning " f=SendChatMessage z=GetMinimapZoneText() t=UnitName("target") j=strjoin f(j("",s,"you to ",z),"WHISPER",nil,t)f(j("",s,t," to ",z,", please assist."),(UnitInRaid("player")and "RAID" or "PARTY"))

Summons your target and announces in raid or party chat (depending on which group type you are in) “Summoning (target) to (subzone), please assist.” and whispers the target “Summoning you to (subzone)”. Feel free to modify the message as you like.

Summon Announcer (say, whisper)

#showtooltip
/cast Ritual of Summoning
/s Summoning %t, please assist!
/run t=UnitName("target") msg=strjoin("","Summoning you to",GetMinimapZoneText(),"in",GetZoneText())SendChatMessage(msg,"WHISPER",nil,t)

Summons your target and announces it in /say and whispers the target “Summoning you to (subzone) in (zone)” Feel free to modify the message as you like.

Curse of Recklessness Rank Control

/cast [group:raid] Curse of Recklessness; Curse of Recklessness(Rank 1)

Casts maximum-rank Curse of Recklessness if you’re in a raid, Rank 1 Curse of Recklessness if you are not in a raid.

Minimap Tracking Cycler

/castsequence Sense Demons, Find Minerals, Find Herbs

Changes the currently-tracked objects on your minimap from Demons, to Ore, to Herbs, and back again

Unequip Everything

/script local t={1,3,5,6,7,8,9,10,16,17,18}; for k,v in pairs(t) do PickupInventoryItem(v); PutItemInBackpack(); end

Removes all your gear. Great for deathskips!

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PvP, Items, and Crowd-Control Macros

Use ALL the heals

/use Major Healthstone
/use Greater Healthstone
/use Healthstone
/use Major Healing Potion
/use Greater Healing Potion
/use Healing Potion
/use Furbolg Medicine Pouch

Uses as many healing items as possible, using the largest heal from each category first. Since healthstone does not share a cooldown with potions (and there are other items with their own cooldowns), this macro can look like a Lay On Hands. It’s up to you to decide which items you toss into this macro.

Use Item / Trinket without cast gap

/use Super Mana Potion
/cast Shadow Bolt
/cqs

Without cqs, you'd be hard pressed to have the mana potion resolve while spamming the macro. This is because spell queueing will "lock in" the first spell pressed 0.4s before the next available cast, effectively skipping the mana potion.

Cannibalize, Eat and Drink at the same time

#showtooltip Conjured Crystal Water
/cast Cannibalize
/use [nocombat] Conjured Crystal Water
/use [nocombat] item:8076

Uses Cannibalize while also eating and drinking at the same time to minimize downtime.

Mouseover spells

/cast [@mouseover,exists] spell_name

Casts spell_name at your current mouseover target. Does nothing if your mouse is not hovering over a target. Great candidates for this macro would be: Fear, Death Coil, Curse of Tongues, Seduction, Spell Lock, DevourMagic. You may want to add harm to the list of conditions.

Mouseover/target cast toggle

/cast [mod:shift, @mouseover][] spell_name

Casts spell_name at your current mouseover target if you are holding shift, otherwise casts it at your target. Great candidates for this macro would be: Fear, Death Coil, Curse of Tongues, Seduction, Spell Lock, Devour Magic. You may want to add harm to the list of conditions.

Infernal on cursor

/cast [@cursor] Inferno

Summons an Infernal at the location of your mouse, without having to click the location.

Rank 1 Rain of Fire on cursor

/cast [@cursor] Rain of Fire(Rank 1)

Casts Rank 1 Rain of Fire at the location.Great for unstealthing rogues/druids, and interrupting the flag in AB/AV.

Iron Grenade on cursor, with interrupt

/use [@cursor] Iron Grenade
/stopcasting

Uses an Iron Grenade at the location of the mouse cursor, and interrupts the throw upon a second press. You don’t want to spam this macro! The stopcasting command is useful because enemies will often run out of your previous target circle, and you can stop the grenade from being wasted.

Self trash-buff cycler

/castsequence [@player] Detect Greater Invisibility, Unending Breath

Casts “trash buffs” on yourself with one keypress per buff. Great for preventing dispels.

Shadow reflect downranking

/cast [mod:shift] Corruption(Rank 1); Corruption

●     Casts a Rank 1 Corruption on yourself when shift is held, very useful against Shadow Reflectors because the DoT can make you immune to CC but deal very little damage. Additionally, you can get instant Shadowbolt casts if you are specced for Nightfall. Other great candidates are Siphon Life (long duration, damage cancels itself out), Curse of recklessness(Rank 1) (make yourself immune to fear at the cost of some armor).

Totem stomping

/petattack
/petattack [@mana tide totem]
/petattack [@windfury totem]
/petattack [@tremor totem]
/petattack [@grounding totem]                                                            

Sends your pet to attack, and destroy, shaman totems of high PVP impact. If no totems are found, simply attacks your current target. The totems listed at the bottom of the macro will be attacked first. Add totems to this as you see fit.

Spellstone equip/use/switch back to offhand (need testing)

/use Major Spellstone
/equip name_of_offhand
‍/equip Major Spellstone

Equips your spellstone on the first press. Another press will use your Spellstone and immediately equips your normal offhand substitute name_of_offhand for your offhand item). NOTE: If you press this again before the 30-second timer of equipping your Spellstone, the timer will be reset!

Max camera distance

/console cameraDistanceMaxZoomFactor 3.5

Set your maximum camera zoom to as far as the game will allow, letting you see much more area around your character. This is extremely helpful while in battlegrounds or questing/grinding in areas of dense can make it helps you detect attackers sooner.

Use equipment slot (for engi gadgets, trinkets, offhands, etc)

#showtooltip
/use number

Uses the item in the slot number number. 1 = helm, 6 = belt, 8= boots, 17 = offhand, 13 = trinket1, 14 = trinket2. Feel free to add mouseover conditions and such to this!

Pet Macros

Pet-specific binds, with modifier set

#showtooltip
/cast [pet:imp,mod:shift]FireShield;[pet:imp]Firebolt;[pet:voidwalker,mod:shift]Sacrifice;[pet:voidwalker]Torment;[pet:succubus,mod:shift]Seduction;[pet:succubus]Lashof Pain;[pet:felhunter,mod:shift]Spell Lock;[pet:felhunter]Devour Magic;

Casts a different pet ability depending on which pet you have out. Changes to a second set of abilities when Shift is pressed. The tooltip should update to the correct spell. Modify this to suit your needs.

Devour Magic on mouseover, targeted ally, self

/cast [@mouseover,exists][help][@player] Devour Magic

Casts Devour Magic at your mouseover target (if there is one), casts Devour Magic at your target if your target is an ally, casts Devour Magic at yourself if you have no mouseover target and your target is not an ally (or you have no target).

Pet Attack Mouse Over,Pet Attack Target, and Pet Return in one

/petfollow
/petattack
/petfollow [@pettarget,exists]
/petattack [@mouseover]
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Commands your pet to attack your current mouse-over target. If you do not have a mouse-over target, attacks your current target. Will also command the pet to return if your pet is currently attacking and you have no mouse-over target. If you have a target and a mouse-over target, your pet will begin attacking the mouse-over target. Also, command your pet to follow if your pet is initially on “stay”. Suppresses“You don’t have a target.” errors.

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Thanks for reading! I hope you found this guide useful. If you have any issues or need further guidance, check out the Discord!

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