SW:ToR Tanking and the Assassin

I've heard a lot of people complain "Oh my god, I have so many abilities that I don't know what to use and when!" Considering that your average spec has approximately 20-30 abilities that can be used (note that I don't say should be used), managing them can become a problem. Luckily for us, Trion included a built-in macro feature much like WoW's to help us out. At the end of the combat macros section I will post a few other useful macros that everyone should check out.

Here are a few of the basic macro commands to get you started (I am currently looking for a list of all of the supported commands):

suppressmacrofailures - no more error messages! Put this in ALL macros.
show - this is what ability will show on your macro button (i.e. what spell icon will be used)
cast - this will tell the macro what ability to cast. You can chain a good number of abilities back to back within a macro, spamming that macro repeatedly will move down the list of abilities from top to bottom. As such, you should put long cooldown or reactive abilities at the top and lesser important abilities at the bottom.
@ - this is a modifier that allows you to cast your abilities AT something of your choosing.
---ex: @focus, @targetoftarget, @mouseover

What I like to do is group all of my AP builders and reactives into one macro that I spam to build towards my finishers. Lately I have kept my finishers separate so that I can test a few things out, but you can macro these as well (and for certain specs it will probably be a dps increase as the finisher macro below will show).

Example of finished macros
I'm going to just use a few examples from my own arsenal as a dps warrior. I will annotate what the abilities do in italics after the macro sequence to give you an idea of why they are in the order that they are.

AP Generator
#show rising waterfall
suppressmacrofailures
cast Rising Waterfall follow-up, can only be used after an AP-generating ability
cast Flesh Rip reactive based on pet crit
cast Slashing Strike 10s bleed, 6s cooldown
cast Backhanded Blow 1 AP with bonuses if bleeds are up
cast Path of the Wind 1 AP procs crit chance to follow-ups (from talents) - also ranged, 4s CD
cast Fierce Strike 1 AP buffs pet damage on target
cast Frenzied Strike off-gcd following a crit
cast Inescapable Fury off-gcd following a dodge or parry

Finisher
#show Deathblow
suppressmacrofailures
cast Strike Like Iron 12s buff to all attacks that follow, double for follow-up attacks
cast Deathblow execute style ability, only usable <30% health
cast Tearing Slash damage + bleed

Situational Macro (this is from my tank spec for twin manticores)
cast @focus Spark taunt
cast @focus Discharge air damage based on # of pacts
cast @focus Catalyze ignites their mana, converts mana to fire damage over time, buffs the warrior to take 5% less damage

I don't recommend macroing ALL of your abilities since some are best used at specific times and not every time they are available; however, using macros will save you a lot of space on your ability bars and allow you to keybind more abilities within easy reach. Just remember, when using macros, to put the important abilities at the top starting with fleeting abilities (like reactives) and long cooldown abilities. If you put a spammable ability at the top, the macro will never make it past that point. As you spam the button it pretty much checks for the first available working command and uses that one.

Now for a macro set that every person should learn to use: role and equipment swaps!

The first thing you need to do is set up your equipment sets: equip any given set and assign it a number by typing /saveequip #. If you choose 1 (and as far as I know this works for any number), your equipment will be saved to slot 1. Do this for all equipment sets you may have. For example, I have a PvP set, a PvE dps set and a PvE tank set saved to 1, 2, and 3.
**Don't forget to re-save your equipment every time you gain an upgrade!

Setting up your macro is now easy:
role #
loadequip #

This will change your role to the number indicated (they go in order from left to right in your talents tab) and load the equipment number specified.

On my mage, I used mouseover macros for my 2 healing spells - this is incredibly effective in a fast-paced environment such as PvP or raiding where you might not have the time to target someone specifically - just mouse over their nameplate either in the environment or in the party/raid frame.
example:
show Bloom
cast @mouseover Bloom

Hopefully this has been informative, enjoy!