Wrath of the Lich King Shaman Spirit Wolf Pet Macros

So while trying to L2P with my new shaman I turned to my mage and hunter friends. There are key bindings and macros and such for pet classes that help a lot in managing your PVP survivability and reduce UI confusion. I’m not saying that shaman are a pet class at all but, just like a frost mage, busting out the spirit wolves as an enhancement shaman is quite a different game altogether.

They have the following abilities:

• Bash - Your Spirit Wolves stun the target for 2 sec. (45 sec cooldown)
• Twin Howl – Your Spirit Wolves howl, forcing all enemies to attack them for 6 sec. (15 sec cooldown)
• Spirit Walk – Removes all movement impairing effects and increases the movement speed of you and your Spirit Wolves by 60% for 15 sec. (25 yd range, 32 sec cooldown)
• Spirit Hunt – Your Spirit Wolves’ attacks heal them and you for 5 sec. (10 sec cooldown)

So we have a 2 second stun that can be GLORIOUS in PVP. A snare and sprint combo move that can really help out against being kited or being snared, so it’s an escape or catch tool. Spirit Hunt seems a little trivial to be honest because of the measly damage and healing portion but still has some potential.

I found this on the shaman beta forums but I HAVE to share it here since I’m a moron when it comes to macros and the likes, this has been a major gift and I hope it’ll help any other potential enhancement shaman out there reading this.

First up the summoning macro

#showtooltip
/cast [nopet] Feral Spirit
/petpassive [modifier:shift]
/petfollow [modifier:shift]
/cast [modifier:ctrl] Twin Howl
/cast [nomodifer:ctrl] Spirit Walk

How that one works is it summons them if they are not out and if they are out it casts the command for Spirit Walk (the ability that frees you from roots and increases your movement speed by 60%). If you hold control while pressing it, it will cast their taunt.

The most important part is what I used to make as a separate “Bad Pet” macro. When you hit Shift and whatever key the macro is bound to the doggies will stop attacking and return to your side. The really important thing about that (besides making it easier to prevent them from breaking crowd-control or from moving somewhere they shouldn’t be) is that it removes their current target allowing the next macro to function really well.

Next one is the control macro.

#showtooltip
/cast Stormstrike
/startattack
/click [target=pettarget,noexists] PetActionButton1
/click PetActionButton7

What that macro will do is start your attack and cast Stormstrike. It will also instruct the Doggies to attack your target, provided they don’t already have a target of their own. That’s where the “Bad Pet” aspect of the previous macro comes in, hold the modifier and hit that other macro and they no longer have a target so the next thing you attack becomes their target and will stay their target until either they despawn/get killed or you hold the modifier and click the other macro again. The /click PetActionButton7 aspect is for the Spirit Hunt command, so whenever I hit the macro they will activate their heal. It has a short cooldown so you should want it active as often as possible anyway.

Currently there is no way to control the Bash command, while in combat. They come out with Bash active and they are in defensive (settings don’t hold between spawns) so unless you assign them to a target before you take any damage they will Bash the next thing that hits you, leaping to them if they are ranged. As such (unless they are recoded to function differently) I just don’t worry about Bash and just work on the assumption that they will just stun whatever they attack first.

Hopefully at least some of you will find this info helpful.

I know many of you don’t really like the talent and just wish they would give you something else instead. I know I felt that way when I first started using the Water Elemental on my mage back before TBC came out. However once I started using macros and being able to control the Elemental without changing any real aspect of my playstyle I quickly came to revise that opinion and to really appreciate the giant slushie. I think that many of you will find the same thing will happen with the Doggies once you learn how to control them easily and intuitively.