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Macros

Macros matter more on Forever than they did on Classic because so many addons are gone. Healers who used VuhDo or Clique now heal on Blizzard’s raid frames with mouseover macros. Tanks who used a threat meter now watch the bar and keep a mouseover Taunt handy. The good news is that the macro language is retail’s, which is richer than vanilla’s, and almost everything below works in beta today.

Macro basics under the new API

Section titled “Macro basics under the new API”

Forever “shares Mainline WoW’s UI architecture”, so the secure macro system is retail’s. verified A beta player confirmed on the EU forums that standard secure macros and conditionals work: @mouseover, @target, @focus, exists, nodead, help, harm and mod:. verified

Rules that trip returning players:

Rule Detail Tag
Retail syntax only [@mouseover,harm,nodead], [stance:1/2/3], /startattack, /castsequence, /equip all exist. /script CastSpellByName and other vanilla-era script macros do not. verified
Ranks /cast Renew casts the highest rank you know. /cast Renew(Rank 1) pins a rank. Useful for cheap shields and Thorns snapshots. verified
New ranks stay off your bars When you train a new rank it does not replace the old one on the action bar. Cast-by-name macros fix this for free, because the macro always picks the newest rank. verified
No health math UnitHealth is secret, so no macro or addon can branch on a percentage. Blizzard’s own frames still show the number. verified
/castsequence The command exists. Whether it survives the secure restrictions in every case is untested. Test before you rely on it for a raid rotation. unverified
Stance macros Warriors report stance macros “stall” in beta (“having to wait and press again”). Not confirmed by Blizzard. unverified
On-next-attack queueing Queuing Raptor Strike disables your spell queue window. On Blizzard’s known-issues list. verified
Editing in combat Not possible. Write your macros before the pull. verified
#showtooltip Put it on line one and the button shows the icon and tooltip of whatever the macro will cast. vanilla baseline

The fallback chain

Section titled “The fallback chain”

Retail conditionals let one button do three things. Read left to right: the first bracket whose conditions are true wins, and an empty [] means “just do the normal thing”.

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,help,nodead] Flash of Light; [help,nodead] Flash of Light; [@player] Flash of Light

Mouseover friendly target first, then your current target if friendly, then yourself. The short form /cast [@mouseover,help,nodead][help,nodead][@player] Flash of Light does the same thing. verified (syntax from the Forever wiki macro guide)

Mouseover healing macros

Section titled “Mouseover healing macros”

Healing addons are the biggest casualty of the API. In beta build 69913, Grid2 errors with “attempt to perform arithmetic on a secret number value”; Grid2, VuhDo and Cell “cannot read it at all”; Clique’s click casting fails because secure snippets do not compile. Blizzard’s raid frames work. verified

So the launch setup for every healer is: Blizzard raid frames plus mouseover macros. A working example posted by a beta player: verified

#showtooltip Renew
/cast [@mouseover,help,nodead] Renew; Renew

Hover a raid frame and press the key. If nothing is under the mouse, it heals your target. Make one per healing spell. Pin a rank on cheap spells: /cast [@mouseover,help,nodead] Power Word: Shield(Rank 1); Power Word: Shield(Rank 1).

Two more from the class research, both standard patterns whose syntax is verified against the wiki guide:

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,help,nodead] Wild Growth; Wild Growth
#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast [@mouseover,help][help][@player] Holy Shock

The second one interrupts your current cast and fires an instant on whoever needs it. Dispels follow the same shape: /cast [@mouseover,help,nodead][] Cleanse.

Built-in Mouseover Cast

Section titled “Built-in Mouseover Cast”

The beta reportedly has a combat option called “Mouseover Cast” that turns every button into mouseover-else-target without any macro. unverified (wiki and EU forum snippets). If it works for you, you still want macros for the /stopcasting and rank-pinning cases.

The HoverCraft generator

Section titled “The HoverCraft generator”

HoverCraft is a GitHub addon that generates mouseover macros in game for Forever. verified From its README:

  • Fallback order: friendly mouseover, then target, then boss target, then self.
  • Dispel and resurrection variants.
  • Rank pinning.
  • It cannot edit macros in combat (nothing can).

It is on GitHub, not CurseForge, so install it by hand into your AddOns folder (see How to install) and check the README for the Forever flavor before trusting a new release. It saves the typing; it does not save you from learning the fallback chain above, because you will want to edit what it produces.

Class macro pointers

Section titled “Class macro pointers”

Each class page has a section “Addons and macros” with the full list, tested status and caveats. One example each here, all in retail syntax. Where the research says “untested in beta”, the macro is a standard pattern and nobody in the guild has confirmed it on this client yet.

Class Example Status Full list
Warrior /cast [stance:1] Charge; [stance:3] Intercept and mouseover Taunt /cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Taunt Syntax verified; stance macros reportedly stall in beta unverified Warrior
Paladin /cast [@mouseover,help,nodead][help,nodead][@player] Flash of Light Syntax verified. Seal-twist /castsequence is risky; test before raiding Paladin
Hunter #showtooltip / /targetenemy [noexists][dead][help] / /cast !Auto Shot From the forever-hunter wiki, dated 2026-09-16 verified Hunter
Rogue /cast [stealth] Cheap Shot; Sinister Strike and /cast !Stealth Vanilla baseline; [stealth] behavior on Forever untested vanilla baseline Rogue
Priest #showtooltip Renew / /cast [@mouseover,help,nodead] Renew; Renew Working in beta verified Priest
Shaman /cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead] Purge; Purge and /cast Call of the Elements Vanilla baseline; /castsequence reset=combat shock chains untested Shaman
Mage /cast [@focus,harm,nodead] Polymorph; Polymorph and /stopcasting then Ice Block, with /cancelaura Ice Block on the same key Syntax verified; specific macros unverified in Forever Mage
Warlock /cast [pet:Felhunter] Spell Lock; [pet:Voidwalker] Sacrifice and wand /cast !Shoot Pet syntax verified; wand macro verified Warlock
Druid /cast [@mouseover,help,nodead] Wild Growth; Wild Growth; form macros use [form:1], [noform:2], /cancelform Wild Growth verified (wiki example); form indices unverified in Forever Druid

Hunter extras from the same wiki, because they are the most complete tested set anyone has published: a Raptor Strike plus Mongoose Bite melee button, a pet-attack-and-Charge button, a Freezing Trap button and an aspect swap. They are reproduced in full on the Hunter page. One caution from the research: the trap macro’s [combat] Feign Death line was written for the vanilla out-of-combat trap rule; Forever lets you trap in combat, so remove that line unless you also want the threat drop.

Unknown as of 2026-09-24

Section titled “Unknown as of 2026-09-24”
  • Whether /castsequence behaves fully under the secure restrictions.
  • Whether the built-in Mouseover Cast option exists at launch and how it interacts with macros.
  • Whether stance macro stalls are a beta bug or intended.
  • Druid form indices on Forever.
  • Whether [stealth] and /startattack behave identically to Classic for Rogues.
  • Whether HoverCraft keeps pace with beta builds (it is a single-author GitHub project).

Sources

Section titled “Sources”