Is there a way to do "mouseover" spell casting without a macro?

Question

I often play as a healer. My favorite way to heal is to mouse over a friendly unit frame or 3D model and press the hotkey of the spell I wish to cast. I do this via "mouseover" macros.

Example macro:

/cast [@mouseover,help][] Penance

This macro says: "Cast on a friendly target my mouse is over. If none, try to cast using the default targeting mechanism." This allows me to keep my mouse over unit frames and hit buttons rather than needing to click at all. I find it quick, easy, and intuitive.

However, doing this means I need to have a whole lot of macros. There aren't all that many macros available (18 per-character macros) so it'd be nice if I didn't have to clog up my healer macro slots with pretty much every healing spell I know.

Is there a way to do this mouseover behavior without a macro?

Answer 1

The only other way to do this without a macro is through the use of an addon.

Clique is probably the most well known such mod - it essentially allows you to bind spells conditionally based upon the frame which you're currently moused over.

It's extremely popular with healers.

Answer 2

See also @LessPop_MoreFizz's answer. What I want to do is not currently possible in the default UI without using addons. @LessPop_MoreFizz suggested the Clique addon.

Clique supports just mouseover quite easily. However, I want my buttons to cast on either my mouseover or, if I am not mousing over anyone, my target. This is a bit harder to do for some reason! (Maybe I should talk to the author or add it.)

Once again, my intention is to replace this macro:

/cast [@mouseover,help][] SPELL_NAME

Where SPELL_NAME is "Penance" or "Heal" or whatever.

Here is exactly how I set it up. I used Clique version v40000-1.3.2.

1. Install Clique and sign into WoW.
2. Open up your Spellbook.
3. Click on the "Clique binding configuration" tab on the right.
4. On the bottom of the Clique pane, click "Bind Other" -> "Run Custom Macro."
5. Set the keybinding by hovering over the button and pressing a key. For example, I use 1 for Heal.
6. In the box below, type /cast [@mouseover,help][] SPELL_NAME.
7. Save. You should see your custom macro in the list.
8. Right click on it and select "Enable/Disable binding sets" -> "Global bindings (no target)"
9. Repeat steps 3-8 for all spells you want controlled via Clique.
10. Done!

You could, if you want, leave your action bars empty at this point. Clique is totally handling the keypresses for you and you don't need the buttons. However, I replaced the buttons in my action bars with the regular spells by themselves instead of the macro versions. This allows me to see the icon art with keyboard bindings (in case I forget which button is for a spell), cooldown counts, range indicators, tooltips and such. Though, note that those action bar buttons are mainly artistic - when you press the key associated with the button, you are not actually pressing that button because Clique is intercepting the keypress and doing its own thing instead.

The downsides to this method:

• It's not easy to set up Alt+1 commands to cast a spell on yourself without another round of custom macros. Ugh. Though just hitting the key with no target and no mouseover casts on yourself by default anyway.
• It's a little hard to maintain; if I want to move a spell from one key to another, I need to update Clique and I want to update my action bars as well (though again, the action bar part is just so I can see the spell icons & keybindings, cooldowns, range indicators, and tooltips).
• Doesn't transfer to other machines automatically like macros do.

Answer 3

Macros are an intrinsic part of the game. Its expected that you use them. It will also help you understand the game.

False notions of "purity" in playing the game, without addons or macros is just needlessly disadvantaging yourself and putting a hardship on your fellow players your healing/healing.

Likely you dont need that many keys setup as macros, likely just a handful. Remember you have multiple keybinds per actionbutton as well.

http://www.macroexplain.com/

You can also statically "/click framenamehereoftank" as a fallthrough