Macroing Rune Strike to abilities

[jaykaylol]

Is this a good idea? I've seen different arguments for this, such as, "What if you need to use Mind Freeze and Icebound fortitude?" and "You should have an endless flow of runic power, you might as well bind it so you don't have to think about spamming it". Now as a blood tank, I have a lot of runic power on boss fights and I try to death coil when I can. It just wouldn't seem to be such a bad thing to bind them to some or even all abilities. What is your take on this?

Also I've seen two different types of macros for rune strike;


The Basic:
#showtooltip Heart Strike
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/cast Heart Strike;
/cast Rune Strike;
/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");

Then the one with the exclamation point:
#showtooltip Heart Strike
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/cast Heart Strike;
/cast !Rune Strike;
/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");

I believe the exclamation point makes it so it doesn't turn off if you spam the abilities with rune strike bound to it, correct me if I'm wrong.

[Fini]

Is this a good idea? I've seen different arguments for this, such as, "What if you need to use Mind Freeze and Icebound fortitude?" and "You should have an endless flow of runic power, you might as well bind it so you don't have to think about spamming it". Now as a blood tank, I have a lot of runic power on boss fights and I try to death coil when I can. It just wouldn't seem to be such a bad thing to bind them to some or even all abilities. What is your take on this?

Also I've seen two different types of macros for rune strike;


The Basic:
#showtooltip Heart Strike
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/cast Heart Strike;
/cast Rune Strike;
/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");

Then the one with the exclamation point:
#showtooltip Heart Strike
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/cast Heart Strike;
/cast !Rune Strike;
/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");

I believe the exclamation point makes it so it doesn't turn off if you spam the abilities with rune strike bound to it, correct me if I'm wrong.

Either one works. You can't turn off Rune Strike once its on.

[Aenor]

Bind it to your strikes leave it off your diseases and you will find you have rune power a plenty for those awkward situations when you really must pop an ability

[Satorri]

I bind it, for my blood spec, to HS, IT, PS, DS, and BB, and I never am unable to cast IBF or Mind Freeze for lack of RP.

I also use a very simple macro form without the ! or the error frame command, and I have no problems or errors.

[Bryenne]

I have mine bound to strikes, but not to aoe abilities (HB, BB, Pest). Seems to use my power up in good fashion (rarely do I reach 100), but leaves me enough in reserve to hit abilities that call for it. But I'm frost, what do I know?

[Mecer]

I bind it to PS, OB, and BS. I find thats all I need to in order to pop it everytime its up. Also since I use the Glyph of Disease I refresh my diseases with pestilence even on single target. That minimizes my 'acidental' loss of RP and keeps me using RS everytime I can. As frost I really only get into issues if I start spamming FS.... so thats a personal error.

[Feanorr]

I always have it bound to all my abilities (exept DnD, it doesnt work since you have to click on the ground); about RP, I simply dont use DC/whatever RP dump if I am not at 90-100 RP. That way even if a RS come just after I still got 20-30 RP, enough for IBF.

[Esch]

Blood is the easiest as the RP dump of Death Coil isn't critical, especially if you're using the Glyph of Deathstrike and reserving RP. I rarely dump until I'm over 60, and even then I tend to have plenty of heartstrikes eating CDs.

Frost is similar, though instead of reserving RP for Deathstrike, you're likely using Glyph of Froststrike (32 RP ftw). In that case, RP dumps aren't going to completely drain you unless you choose to, thus you'll be ready to RS.

Unholy is where macro'ing gets tricky. I can and do drain my bar if I'm not careful when I'm renewing UB or Deathcoil'ing, as I want to maximize the dps and have no reason to reserve RP (see blood's Glyph of Deathstrike, again). If RS starts proc'ing successively, I can drain my RP, though it is uncommon.

Personally, I almost always pick up a tree's RP generation talent, such as Unholy's Dirge, to ensure when I'm spamming a rune ability I'm getting extra RP. Pre 3.1, I rarely had a protadin for BoSanc, and I did fine. The ultimate catch is managing your RP, as if you mindlessly dump, you will negate whatever macro'ing you've set up. For me, I keep 20 RP (40 in blood) where possible to avoid missing RS's. The slightly loss in DPS isn't as vital to me as ensuring the threat RS generates.