One button. The right spell, every time.

1How it decides

Ten times a second, CombatAssist looks at your spells, cooldowns, buffs, the enemy's cast bar and your friends' health, then shows one action, the first that applies in this order:

The rotations were learned, not guessed. Every spec's priority list was found by playing out thousands of practice fights with the realm's real spell numbers and keeping whatever worked best: fastest for damage, fewest wipes for healers, fewest loose enemies for tanks. The old hand-written rotation stays underneath as a backup for anything the list doesn't cover. /ca learned off goes back to the old rotation to compare; /ca what says which list it used. Shamans choose whether the rotation puts totems down: /ca totems always, never or instance (dungeons and raids only).

A list for your level

The list changes by itself as you level, so you never have to set anything:

• Levelling (below 80): lists for your level range. Elemental and Enhancement Shamans, Retribution Paladins, Shadow Priests, cat Druids and Frost Mages have lists learned while questing: single mobs, the odd add, casters that stay at range, walking and resting between fights, with more specs to follow. So a level 30 Elemental shaman casts Lightning Bolt at a quest mob instead of a spell meant for a whole pack, and a frost mage uses Frostbolt and Fire Blast while the mob runs in.
• At 80: the list learned for dungeon groups, plus one for dungeon bosses and one for raid bosses (below).
• New spells join in the moment you learn them; ones you don't know yet are simply skipped.

Bosses get their own list. A boss fight is one long single-target fight, so every damage spec also has a list learned on a dungeon boss and one learned on a level 83 raid boss, where mana has to last four to six minutes and potions count. When your target is a boss (a skull, a world boss, or the encounter's boss) the rotation switches to the boss list, or to the raid list when you're in a raid group; adds, and everything else, keep the normal list. Eat & Drink Assist follows the same list's potions, so on a raid boss you may see a mana potion earlier than usual. The boss lists are for level 80; below that the normal list is used on bosses too. /ca boss off never switches, /ca boss on always uses the boss (or raid) list, /ca boss auto is the default. The same choice is in the settings window.

Other buffs, the party's buffs, food and potions have their own keys: see Buff Assist and Eat & Drink Assist.

What happens when you press the key

Pressing the key again and again is safe. A small yellow line under the icon tells you what it's waiting for.

• While you cast or the global cooldown runs: the press is held (up to about a second) and fires the moment the spell can go. Nothing ever cuts your own cast or channel short. The line says casting ... or queued.
• A spell already queued goes off first; extra presses wait for it instead of piling up (queued: Frostbolt).
• While you move: spells with a cast time are skipped for the next instant one, so you can keep pressing while you walk (moving: no Fireball). Stop, and the cast-time spells come back.
• Stunned, feared or confused: nothing is sent except the spells that work through it, like Every Man for Himself, Ice Block, Divine Shield, Berserker Rage or Dispersion (stunned).
• Forms and stealth are safe: it never casts a form, stance, presence, Prowl or Stealth you're already in, so it can't knock you out of them.
• On a mount: the key gets you off a ground mount to fight (/ca dismount turns that off).
• Out of reach: it walks you into range first (/ca walk), and never starts swinging at an enemy you can't reach.

2Fighting in a group

• It follows your friend's target: grouped, the button attacks what your party leader (or a friend you choose) is attacking. /ca assist Name picks who, and /ca assist auto goes back to the leader.
• No target? A dead one is dropped and the nearest enemy picked.
• It won't start fights: by default only enemies already fighting count, so pressing the key never pulls a new group. /ca nopull turns that off.
• Too far away? It walks you into range first, then casts (/ca walk to toggle).

Who to hit: three target modes

The round letter button left of the icon switches between them (click for the next, right-click to go back; it works mid-fight), or /ca target normal, manual or assist:

• N, normal: as above: a dead target is dropped, your friend's target followed, else the nearest enemy picked.
• M, manual: the key never picks a target for you. Only the enemy you target yourself is fought.
• A, assist: /focus your tank. You fight the tank's focus if it has one, otherwise the tank's target. On a boss the tank focuses the boss and picks up the adds; the damage dealers stay on the boss and switch to area spells on their own when the tank brings the adds over to it. (The tank needs CombatAssist too: nobody can see another player's focus, so the tank's CombatAssist tells the group.)

Kicks and taunts pick their own targets in every mode.

The three small round buttons

They sit beside the big icon, glow gold when on, and all work mid-fight. Hover one for a reminder.

3Tank mode

/ca tank turns it on. The server keeps an eye on what every enemy is hitting:

• An enemy hitting a friend gets taunted, or hit with a threat ability while your taunt is on cooldown, without changing your target.
• Enemies on another tank are left alone.
• Your rotation puts threat first, with area threat when several enemies are on you.

Where you stand is up to you; CombatAssist never moves you in a fight except to get into range.

Tank lists

Protection Paladins and Warriors, Blood Death Knights and bear Druids get a tank list learned the same way as the damage lists, with its own version for dungeon bosses. It switches on with tank mode (for a druid, in Bear Form) and knows what every enemy is doing: which one is loose, which is most dangerous to the group, how hard you're being hit.

• Taunts go to the right enemy. Taunts, Righteous Defense, Intervene and the like are cast straight at the enemy (or the friend) that needs them. Your own target never changes.
• With the aggro lock on, the list decides which loose enemy to grab first. With it off, it still taunts any enemy hitting a friend, and the list spends its time on threat and staying alive.
• It may hit the enemy that's most dangerous to the group rather than the one you're targeting, again without changing your target. In manual targeting it sticks to your target.

The tank lists were learned at 80; below that the same priorities are used with the spells you know.

4Healer mode

Holy and Discipline Priests, Holy Paladins, and Restoration Shamans and Druids heal from a learned heal list, with its own version for dungeon bosses. There's nothing to switch on: it follows your talents (a druid in caster form or Tree of Life). The key then heals whoever needs it most and keeps your shields and heals-over-time going.

• Who gets healed: the tank first while the tank is in trouble, otherwise the friend lowest on health. It finds the tank by itself (the raid's main tank, the group's tank role, or whoever the enemies keep hitting). Name one with /ca tank Name; /ca tank auto goes back to finding one. (On its own, /ca tank is still tank mode.)
• Mouseover healing: /ca healtarget mouseover heals the friend under your mouse pointer when there is one, still with the one key. /ca healtarget auto lets the list choose again.
• Damage between heals: /ca healdps auto (the default) keeps your damage spells off in dungeons and raids and on out in the world, so you can quest alone. /ca healdps on or off sets it for good.

The heal lists were learned at 80; below that the same priorities are used with the spells you know. All three choices are in the settings window too.

Every other character heals from the simple rules: /ca healer heals friends earlier and keeps heals-over-time running. Adjust when it steps in with /ca heal <you%> <friends%>, for example /ca heal 40 60. The defaults are 35% for you and 45% for friends.

5Auto talents

Every time you get a talent point, CombatAssist spends it for you, following a premade build for your class: the same builds the bots use, tuned for levelling and dungeons.

• Auto (the default) follows the tree you've already put points in. Spend your first few points yourself in the tree you like, and it carries on from there.
• Pick a build: /ca talents lists your class's builds with numbers; /ca talents 2 picks build 2 and lays your talents out for it.
• Changing tree is free: switching to a build in another tree starts your talents over at no cost.
• /ca talents auto goes back to following your tree. The same choice is in the settings window.

6Buffs (key 2)

Buff Assist is the icon left of CombatAssist's. It shows the next buff that's missing and 2 casts it: the party's Fortitude, Intellect, Mark of the Wild, Blessings and the like on everyone in range who lacks them, your own long buffs, and between fights your seal, aspect, armor or pet too. One cast per press.

• Out of a fight, a long buff with under 2 minutes left counts as missing, so it's renewed before the next pull (/ba refresh <minutes>).
• In a fight your seal, aspect, stance, presence, armor and pet are CombatAssist's (key 1 puts them up), so the two never cast the same thing; party buffs wait until the fight is over (/ba combat changes that).
• /ba party keeps it to yourself; /ba off turns it off; /ba hide hides the icon while everything is up. /ba opens its settings.
• In a hurry mid-fight? The Buff the party key (under Key Bindings > Buff Assist) casts the first missing party buff straight away.

7Food, drink, potions (key 3)

Eat & Drink Assist is the icon right of CombatAssist's; 3 uses the item it shows.

• After a fight: under 60% health it shows food, under 50% mana drink. One press and you sit down to eat (standing still and off your mount; never in a fight). Then a stat scroll whose buff you're missing.
• Scrolls, one at a time: only one scroll buff can be up at once (a second one just replaces the first), so it picks the best scroll for your class and waits until that buff wears off before offering another.
• In a fight: a healthstone or health potion under 35% health, a mana gem or mana potion under 25% mana, as soon as the potion cooldown allows.
• Potions on bosses at 80: when CombatAssist's boss or raid list for your spec uses potions, key 3 follows it: a Potion of Speed or Wild Magic at the right moment, a mana potion when that list wants one. The health potion under 35% always stays.

Its settings (/ea):

• Use scrolls: Strength, Agility, Intellect, Spirit, Stamina or Protection, whichever suits your class, never over a class buff it wouldn't stack with (Arcane Intellect, Fortitude, Horn of Winter and the like).
• Use potions: potions and healthstones in a fight.
• Prefer mage food: conjured food and water first, so the free stuff goes before what you paid for.
• Use food with buffs first: Well Fed food while you're not Well Fed, plain food otherwise.
• The limits: /ea below 60 50 (when to eat and drink), /ea potion 35 25 (when to drink a potion).

No water? Say water in party chat and your mage bot conjures some. More in the bot guide

8Keys and settings

• The key: 1 by default. /ca key F changes it, /ca key none leaves you to click the icon.
• The other two keys: 2 for buffs and 3 for food and potions. They take over action bar slots 2 and 3 while those addons are on; /ba key G or /ea key none moves or frees them.
• Extra keys under Key Bindings: Cleanse (Combat Assist) dispels the first friend with a debuff, single target only, aggro lock and target mode (Combat Assist) toggle those, Buff the party (Buff Assist) casts the first missing party buff, even mid-fight. One cast per press.
• Move or resize the icons: /ca unlock, drag it, then /ca lock. /ca scale 1.3 makes it bigger. Same with /ba and /ea.
• The settings window: /ca on its own, or Interface > AddOns > Combat Assist.

9Something not right?

If the icon shows something odd, or the key seems to do nothing, type this while it's happening:

/ca what        what it would do now, on whom, and why
/ca test        is the server answering?
/ba what        the same for Buff Assist
/ea what        the same for Eat & Drink Assist

/ca what names the spell it wants, the enemy it's aimed at, how it picked that target, and which list it's using (your level's list, the boss list, the heal or tank list). Often that's enough to spot it: manual targeting with no target, tank mode left on, the "1" button still gold.

Also check the yellow line under the icon: moving, stunned or queued means it's waiting on purpose.

10All the commands