Tired of getting sapped first by your enemy? Are you spamming your sap ability hard, always struggling to detect your enemy, but end up sapped when you finally find him? Are you coming from another expansion of the game and your macro doesn’t work?
Here is the macro you have been looking for.

How does the sap macro work?

Using a sap macro saves you time and improves your reaction when looking for a stealthed enemy, be it, rogue players in PvP, or humanoid NPCs.

This macro is the fastest way to Sap a stealthed unit that you don’t have in your target frame. It automatically targets the nearest enemy (out of combat) and casts Sap when it’s within range. The best part of it is that you do not have to wait to see the enemy. Sometimes your Sap will reveal the enemy right before you see him.

Since most of the rogues are using this macro, you must have it as well in your toolset to be equally prepared for what we can call a race to the opener.

The sap macro

The most popular syntax for the Sap macro on TBC is the following one :

#showtooltip Sap
/cleartarget
/targetenemyplayer
/cast Sap

If you are interested in the script of the macro itself, here is some additional information:

– /cleartarget  → action to remove the current target from your target,
– /targetenemyplayer → action to target an enemy (the nearest one)
– /cast → action to use an ability
– sap → ability to be used

You can also find Sap macros like the following one – they work the same way:

#showtooltip Sap
/console targetNearestDistance 10.000000
/targetenemy [noharm][nodead]
/console targetNearestDistance 41.000000
/cast [harm,nodead] Sap

Sap Macro optimal binding

The sap macro is one of these buttons that you may press quite often while playing:

– At the beginning of most arenas involving a Rogue player opposite,
– Rogue versus Rogue duels.
– Various PvP situations like Battlegrounds or world PvP.

For this reason, you need to get this macro bound on a button that is both comfy for you (easily spammable) and if possible silent, as experience shows intense spam can produce a lot of noise.. much to the irritation of your arena partners (or viewers, if you’re a streamer) if you don’t have proper microphone settings or a silent keyboard. 

This is why the best keybind to choose for your Sap macro could be the mouse wheel. Scrolling (down or up) could be your best option for this ability’s bind because:

– It allows being spammed a lot more times during 1 sec compared to any other button from your keyboard.
– It is way more silent than any other button of your keyboard.
– It allows you to use your second hand reactively for another ability if necessary (Distraction for example)

Other must-have Sap macros

When playing, you may need more specific Sap macros in your toolkit for different actions. The most common one is the focus macros, to sap a second enemy, with or without shadowstep. Here’s the common focus Sap macro.

/cast [target=focus] Sap

Here’s the common Shadowstep + Sap focus macro.

#showtooltip Sap
/cast [target=focus] Shadowstep
/cast [target=focus] Sap

Here’s another example that allows sapping focus with an optional Shadowstep focus if necessary by pressing Shift

#showtooltip Sap
/use [target=focus] sap
/use [target=focus,mod:shift] Shadowstep

For more rogue macros, check our Rogue macros section on Silent Shadows.