Mouseover healing macros - some problems

Hey Bradykinn. Welcome to the community. This is about what you can expect from the forums here. You ask how to solve a problem, and half the thread will be about why you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.

That said, I don't have an answer either. The few healing macros I've used have all had a lag to them. I haven't found a solution yet, and have had to retrain for fkey targeted heals.

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Originally Posted by Isrea

Mouseover macros give two main benefits:
1. You have half as many key presses to complete an action, since you only have to press the ability instead of clicking to target then activating the ability
Depending on the player and the situation this can more than make up for the minor lag delay, especially with OCD heals.

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Except you're targeting the target of your next action while you're casting your previous one: if I have to heal someone after casting Stone, I target the healing target during Stone cast and queue the heal instead of waiting until the Stone is finished to target the healing target. You do have to make more clicks though, that is true (but since you're hovering your mouse to target anyway, it's not significant extra effort).

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Originally Posted by Isrea

2. Allows you to heal as needed while keeping something targeted. Given how important healer DPS is in FF14 and how god awful the tab targeting in this game is (had
a hard time believing you could do worse than wow...) and how finicky click targeting can be, not having to reacquire your target after each heal is amazing.

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I don't see how click targeting is more "finicky" than mouseover (I know I did more mistakes with the latter, but that's probably just me http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/i...lies/smile.png) and I don't see switching targets for different abilities as a hassle, but I can understand why someone would prefer not to do that. I still don't think it would objectively lower your healing efficiency though.

Mouseover macros improve my healing response time drastically. Maybe macros slow down some people but in my case they make a marked improvement to the speed at which I heal. They also allow me to get back to dpsing faster because I never lose my dps target by healing.

Mouseover macros are, and always have been, the optimal way to heal in any game as far as I'm concerned. But I feel everyone should go with whatever method they are most comfortable with and which works best for them.

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Originally Posted by Taika

Except you're targeting the target of your next action while you're casting your previous one: if I have to heal someone after casting Stone, I target the healing target during Stone cast and queue the heal instead of waiting until the Stone is finished to target the healing target. You do have to make more clicks though, that is true (but since you're hovering your mouse to target anyway, it's not significant extra effort).

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If you are only casting on the GCD, I agree, but when you add in OGCD abilities it makes more of a difference. For example Bio, Shadow Flare, whoops tank stood in the bad, emergency Lustrate, slightly delayed Miasma... Even without the Shadow Flare thrown in there, having to retarget multiple times in one GCD can get a bit frantic, particularly if you are trying to reaquire the right target in a multiple mob pack.

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Originally Posted by Taika

I don't see how click targeting is more "finicky" than mouseover (I know I did more mistakes with the latter, but that's probably just me http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/i...lies/smile.png) and I don't see switching targets for different abilities as a hassle, but I can understand why someone would prefer not to do that. I still don't think it would objectively lower your healing efficiency though.

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I don't find clicking party frames finicky, it's targeting mobs. I find that often mobs have deadzones where clicking on them won't target them (for example you seem to have to click on the bottom half of Susano), which makes it quite frustrating to target the right one when a pack of mobs is moving and overlapping, players are in the way, and tab targeting insists on going to everything out of range that hasn't been aggro'd yet instead of cycling through the mobs you are actually fighting.

Honestly, I agree with what has been said a couple times already. The big problem is that macros in FF14 are embarrassingly poorly implemented. The lag issues, the lack of modifier macros functions, and other basic things blow my mind. It's a real testament to the quality of the story and content in this game that I bear to play it at all with how terrible the macros and UI are.

my physick mouseover macro:

/macroicon "Physick"
/pac "Embrace" <f>
/pac "Embrace" <mo>
/autofacetarget off
/ac "Physick" <mo>
/autofacetarget on


This toggles my autoface off, so I don't turn to heal.
then forces the fairy to cast embrace on the focus target if I have one (so I can set an override target for her), otherwise she heals my mouseover target too.
I also heal my mouseover target, and turn the autoface back on, in case I use dps skills next.

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Originally Posted by Taika

It's just that I can't think of a situation in which using macros would be in any way beneficial over not using them. And I also don't see why healer jobs are any less about utilising every gcd and ocd as efficiently as possible than other jobs. This coming from a person who mained healer from 1.0 until the end of HW and healed with mouseovers through Coil 1.

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Haha that was how I healed coil 1 As well. Then I switched to controller and haven't looked back.

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Originally Posted by Isrea

I don't find clicking party frames finicky, it's targeting mobs. I find that often mobs have deadzones where clicking on them won't target them (for example you seem to have to click on the bottom half of Susano), which makes it quite frustrating to target the right one when a pack of mobs is moving and overlapping, players are in the way, and tab targeting insists on going to everything out of range that hasn't been aggro'd yet instead of cycling through the mobs you are actually fighting.

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I think the best way to target monsters is to click them from enmity list, similarly to targeting party members from party list. But I at least tend to tab target too much. With single enemy, tab targeting is not an issue of course.

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Originally Posted by Isrea

Honestly, I agree with what has been said a couple times already. The big problem is that macros in FF14 are embarrassingly poorly implemented. The lag issues, the lack of modifier macros functions, and other basic things blow my mind.

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Yup. Someone said earlier in this thread that mouseover macros would be the optimal way to heal in this game. Without all these issues, it could be, but right now they're giving more trouble than they're worth, to me at least.

I have had this exact problem since 4.0 - My <mo> macro does not target the mouse over, or the , <2> (tank) and would go to the last line <me>.

This is incredibly stressful on huge pulls with my crappy physick/adlo shields - one miss can be very bad, but this is worse than a miss, is a whole GCD wasting time and mana healing myself.

My only fix has been to remove the "healspell" <me> line and to spam my skill (it doesnt cast at all on some clicks now, but doesn't heal me at least) - it feels very wonky and I see it as a serious issue to be honest.

NEVER had this happen pre-Storm Blood

It is not "twitching" on the the player list or anything like that - this is a real problem for me only since 4.0.

I appreciate the fact not everyone has had this happen, but your post has confirmed I am not going mad.

I thought it might be something to do with line of sight now - you cant see through certain things (like Garuda's rocks now) and is somehow interfering with ranged skills?