I did a little look into this addon, watched some videos, and got a sense of the strengths and weaknesses of it. My rough notes to myself are appended. I did not try to clean it up any or make it clean, but if you want to dig deeper there is some stuff there. Under each section I gave examples of the kind of things you can put there.
You can go to LazyMacros and just use stuff out of the can. Make sure you import their strings, and read their notes on how to use it, and for what talent spec it works best in. This can be problematic because people try to automate a lot of the decision making involved.
I am an intermediate level macro writer for WoW, and have a pretty basic understanding of what you can do with macros. The main thing GSE2 does is let you put in a priority queue that we used to be able to do back in the days of vanilla/Burning Crusade. You would basically put in the high priority stuff first, and it would execute it. The way macros work in the game now is if you have that priority list, if it can not do the first command in the list, WoW dumps the macro. GSE2 avoids this dump by going to the next action in the list.
Where I think this fits in is in a general framework. Any ability that you use as a proc, keep out of the GSE macro. Any ability that needs to be timed for a burst window, keep that out of the macro. Things like warlock DoTs of agony, corruption, siphon life should be out of the macro since you need to make decisions on what needs to be renewed, and not just mash them in a sequence. Anything that requires a charge/shard type currency to spend needs to be out of the loop, as when you use those matters a great deal.
The things that should be in it are any ability that you need to keep on cooldown, and a mash ability that you can use at the end. So at the top of the Sequence you will have all of your priority cooldowns as per Icy Veins, then at the bottom you have an any time thing. So something like
/cast importantCD1
/cast importantCD2
.
.
/cast importantCDN
/cast mashspell
So for Affliction warlock something like
/cast deathbolt
/cast phantom singularity
/cast shadow bolt
would be a Sequence to use to try and do those higher priority keep on CD abilities every time you mash shadowbolt. Note that deathbolt does more damage if all your dots are up, so I would make a dot macro
/castsequence agony, corruption, siphon life
mash that castsequence macro 3x to apply the 3 dots, then hit say unstable affliction, then mash the GSE macro. This is cold dotting, IE loading up a non debuffed mob with your dots. In a real situation you may have some off, some on, and you just waste GCDs mashing that. For instance if you take the infinite corruption talent, then spread corruption via seed of corruption, odds are there will be a mix of critters with and without corruption in any group, so the above sequence doesn’t make sense. As you try to create a separate macro for each and every situation, you once again return to keybind bloat, and it is better to just have separate keys for things like DoTs.
But let’s say we want to make a lazy single target kill macro for Affliction, where you just mash it until you drain each target, and you only really use it while questing and watching TV. I would think something like
Keypress
/targetenemy[noharm][dead]
/startattack
/petattack
Sequence (in sequence mode, not priority mode)
/cast [talent:6/2] Haunt
/cast Agony
/cast Corruption
/cast [talent:3/3] Siphon Life
/cast [talent:4/2] Phantom Singularity
/cast [talent:4/3] Vile Taint
/cast unstable affliction
/cast [talent:1/2] Drain Soul
/cast Shadow Bolt
What this would do is acquire a target, start your auto attack, send your pet to attack it, then depending on spec toss out those abilities in order, then load it up with unstable affliction and either drain soul or shadowbolt as your mash depending on talents. Now if it died it should kick out at the top of the order again on your next target. But if this was a boss and it did not die, then it would just renew all those DoTs mindlessly and give you crap DPS on the boss. So this is what I mean- macros that try to automate decisions are never really going to work well in GSE2. If it is a mindless no brainer mash, yeah put it in GSE2.
So for some classes where you have simple rotations that are easy to use over and over it makes sense to put more into the GSE2 macro, and other classes you are going to have very limited utility to GSE2.
I still think a prompter addon like Hekilli or WeakAuras2 is important. Let that tell you to do what is next, rather than relying upon GSE2 to not only compress keystrokes but also keep the sequence in order.
The real beauty of GSE2 is that it reduces key binding bloat. You can take all of those talents that involve using a cooldown ability every single time it is up, never put it on an action bar, and just add its usage to your mash ability via GSE2, and you will do fine.
APPENDIX: ROUGH NOTES TO SELF
notes on GSE2
- suited for a mash key with stuff with things to be used on GCD, and a mash skill at the bottom
- almost impossible to work procs into it, have to keep them outside
- can try to sequence actions in a fixed rotation, but that is complicated
-
Pages let you decide what to use in what environment. So your mash on 2 will switch for PVE, raiding etc. You will have to likely switch talents to make that meaningful.
-
Keypress
/targetenemy[noharm][dead]
/startattack
/petattack
shapeshifts
This section is non GCD stuff that you usually put in a macro
- Sequence (use priority)
/cast Rampage
/cast Execute
/cast [talent:7/3] Siegebreaker
/cast [talent:6/2] Dragon Roar
/cast [talent:6/3] Bladestorm
/cast Bloodthirst
/cast Raging Blow
/cast Whirlwind
In above it will conditionally cast the talented ability if you have it, and it is specified in the condition brackets. You can /castsequence in main sequence, and will priority down and cycle through.
Note that your anytime at the bottom works well here along with all of the stuff you want to keep on GCD. Also note that he put in talent spec conditionals for using abilities. If you make your GSE2 macros like this, you can switch specs and still have it work. In the above he has 2 abilities from the talent tier 6 for warrior, and you can only choose one, but it will attempt to do the first you can do, and hence the conditional check lets you broaden the usage to multiple talent choices.
- KeyRelease
/cast [combat] Recklessness
(use stuff non GCD here)
When you release the key it will do this, can put buffs here. Every time you release the key, it will try this. This is the highest priority action because every time you release your keypress it will try to do this. General advice is non GCD stuff here. Seems like main use is for sequence rather than priority. I think this is useless for priority Sequence.
- PreMacro
/cast Victory Rush
/cast [combat] Trueshot
Uses this once before macro is used. Note you have to have a loop function. Does Premacro, X loops of Sequence, then Postmacro. Must have a number for loops for these to work.
- PostMacro
/cast Victory Rush
/cast [nogroup] Mend Pet
uses this once after it is done
-
Options
Can use combat reset, or item slots. With the combat reset, each time you go into combat it goes to the top of the combat order. Item slots will try to use items on slots. So that gnomish death ray tinker on your helm can be used here. -
Exporting
When you are done, save, close, then look on sequence viewer. Left click your macro, then create icon. This turns book into question mark, drag it to bar and use it.