Macro Editing for (the slightly more scholarly) Dummies

[Delvish]

As any Scholar that has played to cap and endgame knows, or at least any half-wit that made a macro set has realized, the Scholar is one of the most diverse jobs in the game. We have access to a large list of both White and Black magic, more with addenda, our exclusive list of spells, and of course all the extras that come with our support job. Seeing as how it is nigh impossible to effectively play even just one style of arts using only the in game menu, to play both effectively is ludicrous and will undoubtedly end in death. Unless you're subbing /BLM, and then you know precisely how to perform the Alacrity+Warp combo with supreme effectiveness. In which case your party dies in your stead.

/end intro and lets get down to business. Every job in the game needs macros to play well and Scholars are no exceptions. How else can one possibly go from nuking the mob to hitting the oshi button after the White Mage dies and taking over main heal duties (to the best of our non-cure V abilities)? What I am attempting to compile is a compendium of scholar macro knowledge for the less educated. A pool of everyone's macro setups to both teach to and learn from our fellow mortarboard donners.

Note: The macros in this thread are all macros described as usable with SE programming. Third party tools are a violation of SE TOS agreement.

The following is a summary of my Scholar Macro Book setup, though I wouldn't mind stealing a few ideas from my peers as I see logically fit.
Quoted for your viewing ease.

Ctrl Keys are my focus separators. On every ctrl line of each macro set lies the same string of macros. They mirror each other for rapid access of spells and abilities. This can be accomplished using the command /macro set x (good to put a /echo as well)

Alt Keys are reserved for set specific abilities such as Light Art Job Abilities under the Light Arts Ctrl set. I won't get into each specific one as equipment and spells should be self explanatory.
Alt0 on all ctrl sets is my resting button.

• Ctrl1 - Light Arts

  • Alt1-7 - Light Arts Job Abilities

  • Alt8 - Sublimation

• Ctrl2 - Dark Arts

  • Alt1-7 - Dark Arts Job Abilities

  • Alt8 - Sublimation

• Ctrl3 - Cure Spells

  • Alt1-5 - Cure spells (I have it reserved. >.>)

  • Alt6 - Regen

• Ctrl4 - Weather Effects

  • Alt1-8 - Weather spells

  • Alt9 - Klimaform

• Ctrl5 - Enfeebling Spells
• Ctrl6 - Elemental Nukes

  • Alt1-6 - Elemental Spells

  • Alt7-8 - Drain and Aspir respectively

• Ctrl7 - Helix Spells
• Ctrl8 - Sleep

  • Intentionally blank. Sleep spells are cast using Ctrl8 for immediate access.

• Ctrl9 - Tabula Rasa (JA and Spell setups exclusive to expedient TR needs)

  • Alt1 - Dark Arts Job Abilities all-in-one

  • Alt2-4 - Luminohelix -> Earth for SC -> Blizzard for MB. Options available.

  • Alt6 - Light Art Job Abilities all-in-one

  • Alt7 - Accession (as needed)

  • Alt8 - Cure IV

  • Alt0 - Tabula Rasa

• Ctrl0 - Enhancing Magic

How do you sort your macros?

[Rambus]

page 1:

level 1 spells ctrl, weather spells on alt ( the intent was making these for weather buff roatons but i never got in a party where i needed to cast more then say 2 people that wanted same weather) The space there is still reservered when it is needed though.

page 2:
ctrl : level 2 spells
Alt: level 1 spells , luminohelix, noctohelix, all with Immanance. intenet of these is weak SC starters and teaching people how scs mix, I had no reason to deleate them yet (they are more for playing around) . I used stone with immance time to time just ot see how high detonation can get on mobs where stone V > aero V wont make a sc due to mob hp.

page 3:
level 3 spells on ctrl
alt nothing

page 4:
ctrl level 4 spells and there is a button for ebullince with Svnt. bonnet in the macro

alt level 5 spells and there is a button for ebullince with Svnt. bonnet in the macro

page 5:
ctrl : elemental dots
alt: helix

page 6
ctrl :
enfeebling magic gear, dark arts ja, ES, manifestation, sleep, addendum black, sleep II, sleepaga
alt
enfeebling magic gear, dispel, para,slow, gravity, silence, poision, brake bind
page 7:
dark arts, dark magic gear, bio stun, drain aspier
ctrl and alt are the same
page 8:
Light arts ( with enchacing magic gear), accession, addendum:white, Phalanx ( with more enchacing magic gear), stoneskin (with mind gear) then a secodn button with more mind gear

page 9:
(most ctrl and alt are the same)
resting set gear, a second button for resting set gear, nuking set button 1, nuking set button 2, nuking set button 3
convert button gear, convert button 2 gear (alt has gear for sublimation in 2 buttons where ctrl is convert) Last button on page 9 is 2 hr
page 10:
ctrl:
An assist macro (used to call out elementals that where out of mp, bit out of date), idle, a start skillchain macro( line one use Immanence; line 2 /wait 1; line 3 /ma blizzard IV) line 4: /equip main aquilio's staff) next button Ebullience( if i have 5 charges at start, or 4 if i dont plan to mb. I useally do not use ebullince here for this SC since my intent is to MB with aero V doing this SC) with svnt. bonnet +2, next button( line 1: alacirty, line 2 /wait 1, line 3: immance, line 4: wait 1 line 5: /ma "water V" line 6: a pt statement i am using a reverberation for SC. next button equip main neptune's staff next button is MB macro ( a lot of times i dont mb though) line 1: ja alacrity <me>, line 2: wait 1, line 3 ma aero V, line 4 equip main auster's staff, line 5: equip R.ear static earing
alt ( same concept as above ecept the sc is stone V> aero V. When i use stone V> aero V the intent is to do most damage with aero V (so i tend to use elbullience more for this SC).

last button on the page 10 is equiping light neck and belt for Omniceience

I wrote my skillchain marcos before the wait command change and i really do not feel like changing them, and testing them to make sure they work from lag issues, that’s why i keep each spell separate ( SC 1 spell, SC 2 spell, and MB) plus if someone gets in the way of my SC after using the first spell , im not suck wasting the stratagems. I act like that on all my jobs though, like on blu I have the ws and chain affinity separate, ws separate from trick attack and so on for thf and so on.
when I hit a macro I dont want to be stuck on "auto bot" if iwant to stop or change something midway

You get used to flipping pages like that with practice:
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/9241/aerovscresize.jpg
(on screan damage is detonation the 3893)
what i had to do:
hit alt 5 from page 2 then flip to page 10 , hit ebullience(alt 5) then hit alt 6, then once aro V starts hit alt 7 for the staff change. if you can understand what I wrote for page 10, above, like i said I have a stone V> aero V SC setup, so after hitting the stone I from page 2 ( the play SC group ) i went to the aero V part on the page 10 SC macro

http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/4214/macros2.jpg
"deto" starts the SC wtih stone V , the you see "elb" thats ebullince with Svnt. bonnet in the macro, SCdeto is aero V (so the label is telling you that is the ending detonation , then hit staff button. I found out if you hit the staff button before the spell starts, the spell never casts.

It is not best organization but the idea of separating like this gear and spells, is to avoid lag maybe with the new wait change I would not need the extra staff button but w/e I been used to this setup by now, why change it
oh and i menu command casting cures.

The reason for me having marcos like is all gear releated, when i do not need strong nuke ( like i can still use an unbuffed aero III to mb the stacked detonation) The aero III macro is tied with the needed staff. If I didn't need an enchacing magic set, enfeebling magic set, dark magic set, mind set for stoneskin, general nuking , ebullince macro, each staff for specific element, resting set (though abyssea is killing the need for one), i wouldnt have macros like this.

[Krystal]

i've always been rather unorginized when it comes to my macro sets for mage classes since they have so many spells. however before i had uninstalled FFXI for a short time and then reinstalled it i had it set up as thus.
First line: All my light arts stratagems and black arts stratagems.
Second line:All my whm spells a combination of healing spells and enhancing spells
third line:All my blm spells a combination of nukes and enfeebles.
fourth line: all my weather spells.
5th line: all my helix spells

and that's how i had it set up..course it's no where near like now..need to reorganize it...

[Rambus]

i've always been rather unorginized when it comes to my macro sets for mage classes since they have so many spells. however before i had uninstalled FFXI for a short time and then reinstalled it i had it set up as thus.
First line: All my light arts stratagems and black arts stratagems.
Second line:All my whm spells a combination of healing spells and enhancing spells
third line:All my blm spells a combination of nukes and enfeebles.
fourth line: all my weather spells.
5th line: all my helix spells

and that's how i had it set up..course it's no where near like now..need to reorganize it...

and geaar changes?
I do not like the idea of enfeebles and nukes being on one page, because with the way i macro, 20 buttons is not enough

[Krystal]

and geaar changes?
I do not like the idea of enfeebles and nukes being on one page, because with the way i macro, 20 buttons is not enough

gear change? frankly i don't need gear changes to be a good player on my job...and the fact i was able to heal a full alliance plus nuke periodically without a single gear change(minus staffs for healing MP)proves that. i would say"gear changes are for noobs and make it hard as hell to heal them" but then i'd get flamed by the idiots who think"gear changing is what pros do!" so ya....i can't tell you how many times players have gotten killed becuase they switch armor so often it makes it impossible to heal them..then they scream at me"why didn't you heal me?!" and i'm like..well..gee...if you didn't switch armor so often like some noob who can't decide on which piece of armor to wear..i would have!

[TimeMage]

gear change? frankly i don't need gear changes to be a good player on my job...and the fact i was able to heal a full alliance plus nuke periodically without a single gear change(minus staffs for healing MP)proves that. i would say"gear changes are for noobs and make it hard as hell to heal them" but then i'd get flamed by the idiots who think"gear changing is what pros do!" so ya....i can't tell you how many times players have gotten killed becuase they switch armor so often it makes it impossible to heal them..then they scream at me"why didn't you heal me?!" and i'm like..well..gee...if you didn't switch armor so often like some noob who can't decide on which piece of armor to wear..i would have!

You should gear change, because that makes you better. The equipment setup that works for nuking doesn't work for healing, doesn't work for enfeebling, doesn't work for enfeebling, and doesn't work for taking as little damage as possible when doing anything.

And you shouldn't be worried about players blinking if you are healing, because you can use <stpt> or <stal> instead of <st> or <t>. The command <stpt> makes the blue pointer go to the party character list, so even if the player blinks, you won't lose the target. The command <stal> does the same, but lets you target memebers of other parties in your alliance as well.


If you didn't gear change because you didn't know the above, please give it a try now that you know. If you didn't because you don't like to blink, even if you know you will severely underperform against a player who blink, then it's ok. But please, please, don't think you will do on par to someone with sensible gear changes, or even just ok, doing no gear changes other than staff changes.

I hope you learned something new and start reconsidering your choices, I want great SCHs out there showing the world what we can do!


Edit: I'll add my own macros later, if anyone's interested.

[Krystal]

You should gear change, because that makes you better. The equipment setup that works for nuking doesn't work for healing, doesn't work for enfeebling, doesn't work for enfeebling, and doesn't work for taking as little damage as possible when doing anything.

And you shouldn't be worried about players blinking if you are healing, because you can use <stpt> or <stal> instead of <st> or <t>. The command <stpt> makes the blue pointer go to the party character list, so even if the player blinks, you won't lose the target. The command <stal> does the same, but lets you target memebers of other parties in your alliance as well.


If you didn't gear change because you didn't know the above, please give it a try now that you know. If you didn't because you don't like to blink, even if you know you will severely underperform against a player who blink, then it's ok. But please, please, don't think you will do on par to someone with sensible gear changes, or even just ok, doing no gear changes other than staff changes.

I hope you learned something new and start reconsidering your choices, I want great SCHs out there showing the world what we can do!


Edit: I'll add my own macros later, if anyone's interested.

gear changing doesn't make the player. but i suppose it can help somewhat. i have played for years without using gear changes and did more than okay under most circumstances. if i want to change gear mid battle it's usually as i said my staffs. on a rare occasion i'll switch up my gear totally. but not in mid-battle.

[Hiroshiko]

You should gear change, because that makes you better. The equipment setup that works for nuking doesn't work for healing, doesn't work for enfeebling, doesn't work for enfeebling, and doesn't work for taking as little damage as possible when doing anything.

And you shouldn't be worried about players blinking if you are healing, because you can use <stpt> or <stal> instead of <st> or <t>. The command <stpt> makes the blue pointer go to the party character list, so even if the player blinks, you won't lose the target. The command <stal> does the same, but lets you target memebers of other parties in your alliance as well.


If you didn't gear change because you didn't know the above, please give it a try now that you know. If you didn't because you don't like to blink, even if you know you will severely underperform against a player who blink, then it's ok. But please, please, don't think you will do on par to someone with sensible gear changes, or even just ok, doing no gear changes other than staff changes.

Pretty much this. A lot of our gear (AF1-3 in particular) doesn't benefit both Arts or all abilities. I probably blink like a Christmas tree, but it significantly improves my performance. When <stal> and <stpt> first came out, I was hesitant to utilize it because there were times I'd have to heal outside of a party/alliance and it made targeting people more difficult. However, those days are long gone and I don't know what I'd do without them. It's even made gear swaps a bit easier in some instances. For example, my Sublimation macros have the Sublimation enhancing gear before a <stpt> so I can swap my gear without activating/deactivating Sublimation for idle purposes, but if I need to use it I just target myself and it works like <me>). Macros take time and effort, but it makes a difference that one would not receive from full-timing gear.

[Delvish]

I highly encourage gear changes, especially for SCH over other jobs. WHM and BLM (sans elemental specifics) can get away with not, but SCH does so much that it is really hard not to. It is actually sickening how much of my AF1-3 I still use just because it is all just so useful in it's own way. SCH Gown + Argute pants for Drain/aspir, Sch pants + Argute Mortarboard for healing, Argute hands + Savant's pants for enfeebling, not to include all the ability specific pieces. It is really hard to take full advantage of the benefits our AF give you without gear swapping regularly. Not saying you're a terrible player, but if you could manage to just slip them into your macros, you might not even notice that you blink but your speed and power will probably increase notably. Worth a try if you've never done so before.

As for myself, my gear changes are all macro'd in with the rest of my spells and abilities to be used as I need them. It gets confusing sometimes though when I get one piece that replaces another one or two different pieces. I have to go hunt through all my macros for them and change them. Thankfully putting them in my Ctrl lines replicates things much more easily.

BTW, the new <wait> commands... how are those typed out to be used effectively? mine don't seem to always work quite as effectively as they used to, and my sleep macro NEVER works.
/ma "Sleep II" <t> <wait1>
/ma "Sleep" <t>
/equips
My gear changes, but Sleep I never works and I don't even get an error message.

[Jobea]

I highly encourage gear changes, especially for SCH over other jobs. WHM and BLM (sans elemental specifics) can get away with not, but SCH does so much that it is really hard not to. It is actually sickening how much of my AF1-3 I still use just because it is all just so useful in it's own way. SCH Gown + Argute pants for Drain/aspir, Sch pants + Argute Mortarboard for healing, Argute hands + Savant's pants for enfeebling, not to include all the ability specific pieces. It is really hard to take full advantage of the benefits our AF give you without gear swapping regularly. Not saying you're a terrible player, but if you could manage to just slip them into your macros, you might not even notice that you blink but your speed and power will probably increase notably. Worth a try if you've never done so before.

As for myself, my gear changes are all macro'd in with the rest of my spells and abilities to be used as I need them. It gets confusing sometimes though when I get one piece that replaces another one or two different pieces. I have to go hunt through all my macros for them and change them. Thankfully putting them in my Ctrl lines replicates things much more easily.

BTW, the new <wait> commands... how are those typed out to be used effectively? mine don't seem to always work quite as effectively as they used to, and my sleep macro NEVER works.
/ma "Sleep II" <t> <wait1>
/ma "Sleep" <t>
/equips
My gear changes, but Sleep I never works and I don't even get an error message.

i dont know why you would want to cast sleep directly after sleep 2 but just so you know the macro works right after casting starts therefore if u use wait 1 sleep is not gonna go off because after 1 sec you will still be in middle of casting sleep 2