When do you use Tidal Force?

Limited availability spells force the player into a difficult decision. Do I save it for when I really need it, or use it frequently to get the maximum return for it? How you answer that question probably says more about your psychology than the spell itself. How quickly must a spell be available again before you will use it without hesitation?

An example. I have been noticing recently that there is a Priest in my raids who uses Shadowfiend as their first action in a boss encounter. With a 5 minute cooldown in a fight that will probably last more than 5 minutes, that allows them to squeeze in 2 casts for maximum mana restoration. My Mana Tide Totem is on the same 5 minute cooldown and serves the same purpose, but I do not use it right away. My conservative use of that limited ability reduces its overall effectiveness.

For a long time I used Tidal Force like I would a 2 minute trinket. I wired it into a macro for a commonly cast spell, Chain Heal. Every time it was off cooldown, it would automatically reapply itself. In time I grew frustrated with wasting one of my few panic button spells during wipe recovery, an action that guaranteed it was not available in the first 3 minutes of a fight. I shifted it to my Nature’s Swiftness panic button and left it there.

At the time those two abilities shared a 3 minute cooldown. An instant-cast, guaranteed crit Healing Wave or Chain Heal is a pretty good rescue ability. Not as good as some, but solid. And if I only cast it maybe once a night? No big deal, right? That just meant there weren’t that many emergencies to handle.

Since then, Blizzard’s designers reduced the Nature’s Swiftness cooldown to 2 minutes. By doing so, they challenge the risk/reward curve that had me saving it for an entire night. At 2 minutes, my brain agitated, it’s okay to use it on struggling melee. It will probably still be available for the tank, when you need it.

Now Tidal Force is feeling stranded in that macro. Half the time it’s not available when I use it, which generates a harmless error. Is it time to shift its priority? Yes.

Today I restored it to my Chain Heal macro, with the tiny addition of “[combat]” to its cast. That will skip it during wipe recovery periods, and save it for when it matters more (but not most). Here is the complete macro:

/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/use [combat] Energy Siphon
/cast [combat] Tidal Force
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/run UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/cast [target=mouseover] Chain Heal

P.S. I had to share this page, found googling “tidal waves” for a picture to use with this post. A frozen tidal wave! Gorgeous!

Click-to-cast, part 2

The Clique addon is not the only way to achieve mouseover healing. The game has a built in mechanics to support it. Clique is the easiest way to set it up, but you can achieve similar results with the vanilla WoW interface.

A mouseover macro is distinguished from other macros just by its target selector. [target=mouseover] Like other selectors, it picks the recipient for the action without changing your active target. And it supports the usual set of modifiers — [target=mouseover,help] for instance, casts the spell only if the mouseover unit is friendly.

Imagine a line being drawn from the tip of your mouse cursor into the world. If you follow the path of that line, you first pass through five mostly invisible 2D interface layers before you enter the 3D world. If the line intersects a unit frame in those 2D layers, the macro will stop and select that unit as the target. If no unit frame is found, the line continues into the 3D world. If it encounters a 3D model, whether it be a player or mob, it will pick them as the target. The game does its level best to decide what you are “mousing over”.

Let’s make a very simple mouseover macro. First pick a spell. I’m going to choose Lesser Healing Wave. Open the macro editor (either from the main menu or by entering /macro in a chat line). Create a new macro, name it and give it an icon. The ‘?’ icon is easiest, because it will generally autoselect the correct spell icon.

In the macro text, enter:
/cast [target=mouseover] Lesser Healing Wave

Drag the new macro down to your action bar. It’s all set. Point your mouse over your portrait or health bar, and… hmm… I can’t click the action bar and still have my mouse over the target.

If the action bar slot you put the macro button on has a keybind, you can use it. Let me swap it for my ‘1’ action. There we go. With the mouse over my portrait, I can now hit ‘1’ on the keyboard to cast Lesser Healing Wave. If I keep it up, I can assign my whole healing repertoire to mouseover commands.

And there you have it. Dead simple. It’s not the one-stop shop that Clique is, but it will serve you well in a pinch.

Some ideas for mousemover functions for non-healers:

• Rogue Tricks of the Trade
• Hunter Misdirect/Master’s Call
• Shadow priest Power Word: Shield on friendly target
• Mage Polymorph on Mind Controlled target in Kel’Thuzad
• Warrior Intervene

Patch 3.1 has enabled a new interface feature for arenas: Enemy Unit Frames. That will likely result in a broad new set of applications for PvP mouseover macros.