Mouseover macros

Heal, interrupt, and cleanse whoever your cursor is over, without ever retargeting. The single most useful technique in the game.

The idea in one macro

A mouseover macro changes the unit of a cast from your current target to whatever your cursor is over. When the game evaluates [@mouseover,help,nodead], it asks one question: is a living ally under my cursor? If yes, that ally is the target of the cast that follows.

#showtooltip/cast [@mouseover,help,nodead] Flash Heal; [harm] Smite; Flash Heal

Mouse over a raid frame and press: that player gets healed, your target never moves. Hover an enemy and the same key smites it. Hover nothing and you heal yourself. This one pattern replaces most of the click-targeting a healer does in a raid night.

The two gates that do the work

  • help: the unit is friendly. Combined withnodead: [@mouseover,help,nodead] means "a living friend under my cursor". The healer gate.
  • harm: the unit is hostile. Combined withnodead: [@mouseover,harm,nodead] means "a living enemy under my cursor". The interrupter gate.

Whichever gate you put first wins when both are true at once, so order matters. Healer binds put the friendly gate first, DPS binds put the enemy gate first.

Pattern: interrupt on hover, always

The best interrupt bind in the game. It works from any target, no clicking, no swaps:

#showtooltip/stopcasting/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead] Pummel; [harm] Pummel

Swap Pummel for your spec's interrupt and any class wears this bind. Mage, rogue, shaman, paladin: same shape, different spell name.

Pattern: dispel or purify on hover

The cleanse bind that never misses a stack because it never needed to target it:

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

Classic syntax

Classic-era macro wikis write the same idea as [target=mouseover,help,nodead]. The classic client accepts the modern [@mouseover] form in current re-releases; if you play a version where old syntax is the documented one, use it, it resolves the same.

When NOT to use mouseover

  • Ground placement fine-tuning. Ground-targeted spells want[@cursor], not the unit mouseover, when you place by feel.
  • One-button-everything macros. A macro that already has three sections does not improve by also being the mouseover one. One idea per bind.
  • When your cursor is in the void. Mouseover macros need a functional fallback section for "hovering over nothing", or they silently do nothing.

Mouseover pairs naturally with modifiers (one key, three heals) and focus targeting in arena. Learn those two and a healer's raid is 90 percent bound.

Questions people ask

Do mouseover macros work on raid frames and nameplates?+
Yes. The cursor unit is whatever the game considers under your cursor: raid frame, party frame, nameplate, or portrait. That is why healers mouseover-heal off frames instead of clicking the frame to select the player.
Do mouseover macros work in Classic?+
Yes, the classic client supports mouseover targeting. Classic-era wiki syntax writes it as [target=mouseover,condition]; the modern [@mouseover,condition] form means the same thing. Both appear on this page and both work.
Do I need an addon for mouseover macros?+
No. Mouseover is native macro functionality. Addons like Vuhdo or Healbot implement the same idea with extra features like predictive heals, but the macro does the core job with zero addon overhead.
Can I combine mouseover with modifiers?+
Yes. Put the modifier section first and the mouseover section second. The result is a key that self-heals with shift held and target-heals on plain press, which is the standard healer utility bind.