My Macro Issue and a Suggestion

[Rgho]

I've been having issues with mouseover healing, which is something I'm quite fond of doing and I'd love to fix the issues. I currently believe I have fixed this issue in game, but it's not an optimal fix and I think that a small change in the macro code could make a huge impact in how we write macros (and thus have a significant quality of life improvement for those of us that use macros).

The issue: There are times when spamming my heal key my mouseover macro heals me instead of the intended target. This is not a line of sight or range issue, this is a macro issue.

My Macro:

/micon "Cure"
/ac "Cure" <mo>
/ac "Cure" <tt>
/ac "Cure" <t>
/ac "Cure" <me>

My Workaround: I have changed my macro to only heal my mouseover target, this is suboptimal but it seems (though more experimentation is required) to fix the problem.

/micon "Cure"
/ac "Cure" <mo>

[Rgho]

This is suboptimal because it makes soloing more difficult (as I have to mouseover myself to self heal) and because I'd prefer to have one all encompassing macro as I have in other games (we all know the game, this one is superior, no trolling).

My Theory: What I think is happening is simple (and an error on my part for thinking the macro system would work any other way). I believe that the macro code is not executed in a synchronous manner, but instead each command is evaluated individually. This makes perfect sense, but it leads to suboptimal behavior in that we cannot prioritise targets in a single macro. It appears that if my cooldown completes after the macro has already executed the /ac "Cure" <mo> line but BEFORE it gets to the /ac "Cure" <me> line, then my heal will errantly hit me instead of my mouseover target.

[Rgho]

My Suggestion: Give us a syntax for putting more than one target in a single line of a macro, so that it can be executed synchronously:

/ac "Cure" <mo> <tt> <t> <me>

or

/ac "Cure" <mo,tt,t,me>

Or some other variation, which would let us say "cast cure on MO if it exists, if not then TT, if not then T then finally default to ME" on one line of a macro.

Thanks for reading, I realize it's a nit picky request and I know there are other more pressing issues, but I do believe that adding this would greatly increase the quality of life for healers!

[Naunet]

I can't like this thread enough. We need better function with our healing macros!

[Rgho]

I have faith they'll get there, we just need to make sure they know that problems exist. And my theory on what's happening may well be wrong, but I'll continue to test and update!

[amaranthe]

I agree. I would much rather see WoW-like macros that were actual scripting (with modifiers and case statements, etc) rather than clunky line commands, but any improvement would be worth it.

[Rgho]

I spent the weekend experimenting with this and I'm now confident that having more than one target for your macro, as I described above, will sometimes cause it to target you instead of your intended target. This behavior is quite detrimental to gameplay, so I hope that some solution can be found!