The Warcraft Hunter

A Pet Care macro can save you a bunch of time dealing with various pet care activities, such as healing, feeding, rezzing, summoning, etc. I deal with some of these with single buttons, but there is a nice macro that you can start with and tweak as you see fit that will let you do any of the above with one button. Not only is it convenient to reduce the total number of buttons on your action bars, but it also serves as an example of some other options that you can use in macros.

I am going to do the reverse of what I normally do, and display the entire macro, and then explain each line afterwards.

#showtooltip Mend Pet
/cast [nopet, modifier:ctrl] Tame Beast
/cast [combat] Heart of the Phoenix
/cast [nopet] Call Pet; [target=pet,dead] Revive Pet
/castsequence [pet,nomodifier,button:1] reset=15 Mend Pet, null
/cast [button:2] Dismiss Pet

So there are a few things in this macro that we did not see in any of the others. The first line is the usual one where we choose what the button is going to look like. In this example I have chosen to make it look like the Mend Pet button. Keeping the button looking familiar is important, because you may end up looking for this button in the middle of a fight and it will be easier to find.

Line 2 is one that I remove from my macro simply because I rarely ever tame beasts. I think on my current main, which is now 80, I only used Tame Beast twice. Anyway, this particular line will only work on the conditions specified, which are “nopet”, and “modifier:ctrl”. This means that you don’t have a pet currently controlled (that much is obvious), and that you are hitting the Control key (Ctrl) on your keyboard at the same time as you click on the macro button. I find doing that a little awkward, especially since some of my action bar buttons are keybound with some ctrl+letter combos. However, if normally click on a button rather than using keybinds, this will work for you.

The third line is my favorite, and it has saved me numerous times. Once you have enough Talent points spent in the Ferocity tree you can get Heart of the Phoenix, which is an instant rez on your pet with full health and focus. It has a ten minute cooldown, so you are likely only get to use it once in any battle unless you are on a particularly tough Boss fight. This line will only work if you are in combat, but that makes sense as you would rather use the normal Revive Pet if you are out of combat since time is not a factor then.

The fourth line has two possible actions. You will attempt first to Call Pet if you currently don’t have your pet out (such as when you dismissed him or lost control due to distance); or you will cast Revive Pet if your pet is dead. Oftentimes in the heat of the battle I don’t know whether I died first or my pet did. This will cast the appropriate spell afterwards based on whether the pet is dead or not. Convenient.

Line 5 is rather clever, as it prevents you from wasting Mana when casting Mend Pet. If you click the button with a normal click (Left click, or Button 1) you will cast Mend Pet, but only if you have not done so already in the previous 15 seconds, otherwise it does nothing (null). For myself, I usually remove this line because I use keybinds, and because I want to control when I cast the Mend Pet, even if I “waste” Mana. Sometimes it is more important to me to have the Mend start at the beginning of an AOE attack by a boss, or if a healer goes down and I am trying to keep my pet up at all costs. If that happens I usually switch to Aspect of Viper anyway to keep my threat down and Mana up.

The last line is one that every Hunter should know how to do in a Raid. There are times when you simply cannot have a pet around, either because of aggro or chain attacks, and you need a way to dismiss your pet quickly so the group does not have to wait for you to fumble through your spells. This line will dismiss your pet if you Right-click on the button. Even though I prefer to keybind mymacros I leave this line in, because I know I won’t accidentally dismiss my pet by keyboard strokes.

So pick and choose which lines you want to keep, or play with the modifiers if you prefer different click or key options. If you have different ideas about what the macro should look like, please let me know in comments.

Erik Basics, Macros Basics, Hunter, Macros, Warcraft