Evidence that Macros Do NOT Cause GCD Delay or Lost Casts

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Originally Posted by Espon

It's more noticeable when performing oGCD abilities as macros do not queue up if you're locked in frames of animation.

For example as Paladin, if I want to put Intervention on the other tank with a macro, I usually have to mash the button a few times for it to go off, even though the macro has the skill listed, and I'm be in the middle of using another ability, where as hitting Holy Sheltron will queue it up to use at the next available moment, making it always go off. Both of these are off the global cooldown, yet the macro is more cumbersome to use.

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Do you have /ac "Sheltron" listed multiple times in your macro? The more rows of that you have, the greater your queue window will be. With a macro like that, you shouldn't need to mash the button (in fact, mashing the button will make a macro like that perform worse) provided that you are accustomed to the rhythm of when your animation lock lifts. But if you're less in-tune with the proper timing, then non-macros can be really helpful because of their larger queue window.

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Originally Posted by Espon

There is also the fact that you cannot use the /wait command with fractions of a second, and the GCD is 2.5 so trying to use multiple skills in a row with a macro will always be a DPS loss as you can only have skills set to go off every 3s seconds.

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Yeah /wait macros are a whole can of worms. There are certainly use cases for them where they can be helpful, but most of the ways we as players would like to use them don't work great due to the limitation you mentioned!

This appears to be a major flaw in testing, or in interpretation of the original problem.

You're testing by stacking the same spell over and over into the macro. Nobody is trying to macro in this way. When players are attempting to create combat macros, they're trying to put together a whole chain of skills.

The queuing is absolutely a problem here, and you already did demonstrate that there are differences in queuing. But what you briefly noticed but failed to recognize the implications for, is the "wait" command cannot increment in fractions of a second. Any player creating any combat macro that uses a "wait" command is naturally introducing further drift into their rotation, and given how the premise of combat macros is to chain several skills, several "wait"s will naturally need implemented.

If you want to actually test this, you need to create an actual viable macro, one that unaware players would likely attempt to create to save space or make combos easier. And then there's the additional consideration of whether or not players intend to macro their entire kit, or if they're using specialized niche macros, and how those interact with GCD of non-macro'd skills.

Idk. I think you were fully aware and understand what you were looking at, but the misstep was in designing a macro for one singular spell. That's never the use case that the macro argument is up against.

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

And as I've demonstrated, the above is untrue: macroing GCD's does not add up to lost casts over time.

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You've only proved something that isn't the actual point of the warnings against macros. Why would people be making a macro to do nothing but a single GCD spell? Unless you really want your Fire/Fira/Firaga spell naming back or something, in which case I salute your dedication.

The concern with macros has always been that people think they could use macros to set up an entire sequence of attacks with a single button press, with "wait 2.5 seconds" commands in between them – which all actually turn to 3 seconds, thus the warnings that it will cause you to drift.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

You've only proved something that isn't the actual point of the warnings against macros. Why would people be making a macro to do nothing but a single GCD spell? Unless you really want your Fire/Fira/Firaga spell naming back or something, in which case I salute your dedication.

The concern with macros has always been that people think they could use macros to set up an entire sequence of attacks with a single button press, with "wait 2.5 seconds" commands in between them – which all actually turn to 3 seconds, thus the warnings that it will cause you to drift.

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with this message you have killed the hopes of OP to win a noble prize. Unfortunately it is something that had to be done.


Cloak of shame for everyone else.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

You're testing by stacking the same spell over and over into the macro. Nobody is trying to macro in this way. When players are attempting to create combat macros, they're trying to put together a whole chain of skills.

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Funnily enough macroing Sprint this way is exactly what I want to do. It's more reliable than just using the normal skill.

Can always have instead just... looked at the details as to what the warning meant and why it was given?

Combat macros seem heavily useless in this type of game since every boss has variable situations going on.

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

players say that using macros will result in lost casts because they cause your GCD to slip.

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The issue is that you can queue a GCD so that it begins casting when the previous one finishes. Macros can't queue, so if you don't press it the moment the other one finishes casting (unlikely for a human), then you lose a microscopic amount of time between casts.

The reason that macros do not queue is obvious, if you think about it. Being able to execute 15 commands in a row is meant to replace the queue. You can replicate the queue in a big way by repeating the command 15 times.

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First, the player is mashing the macro button, which you generally shouldn't do since it restarts the macro

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I agree with this point. It would probably work better to press the macro once before the previous cast finishes which repeats the command 15 times. The problem is that most people mash the next GCD button over and over again (you can see this in almost any video of people playing the game). So if they mash the macro button it will likely result in these lost casts over time (although, would have to be a lot of time I think, probably far more than the 1 minute you did and maybe even more than the duration of an average fight).

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if you put the same action multiple times in a macro, that creates a queue window for the macro you've made

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Yes, I have always done this for many actions since Heavensward, such as Provoke and Shirk. There is simply no reason not to repeat the line 15 times, because once it's been used, it can't be used again for a long time and it reduces the chance of the macro not working due to another ability being used.

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my second Scathe will be queued up if I press the standard Scathe button when my GCD cooldown is just over 3/4 complete; when the GCD cooldown completes at 4/4, the second Scathe will immediately be cast.

However, if I press my Scathe macro at 3/4 GCD cooldown, the action will not be queued.

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I didn't need to do much testing to see this. Just making a Glare macro makes this pretty obvious.

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Originally Posted by FenyxRising

You need to actually do way more than 25 casts to test the real difference, send this to the Balance theorycrafters, or are you worried that your test doesn't actually hold up under scrutiny ?

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Feel like taking up the mantle and doing more than 25 casts or would that interfere with your forum time?

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

Yeah /wait macros are a whole can of worms. There are certainly use cases for them where they can be helpful, but most of the ways we as players would like to use them don't work great due to the limitation you mentioned!

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/wait only working on whole numbers does mean a DPS loss but of course it may be the only option for certain disabilities.

There is a way to get around the issue of wait not working on fractions of a second, which is to do (assuming your GCD speed is above 2 seconds) -

/action "Combo Action 1" <wait.2>

Then repeat the second combo action lots of times

/action "Combo Action 2"
/action "Combo Action 2"
/action "Combo Action 2"
/action "Combo Action 2"
/action "Combo Action 2"
/action "Combo Action 2"

And eventually one of them works because it lands on whatever your GCD speed is at instead of losing almost a second like with a 3 second wait.

However, there are issues with this. If you press another macro, it cancels the macro. If you weave an ability or do mechanics, it can cause it to be unreliable or delay the GCD. And this is why even with this method, macroing combos is unreliable.

But I think the issue with macroing is more about combos or chains of attacks/abilities than single GCDs or abilities, because as you point out with your tests, that doesn't make much practical difference.

Why would you want to macro a single GCD? There is a reason which is that when you have /autofacetarget on, you target enemies for attacks (required), but also players for heals (not required). So you can make it disable /autofacetarget when healing but not when attacking by macroing single GCDs or abilities.