Setting up Macros

I've managed to set up some macro combos but the problem is it's using the abilities too slowly. Is there a way to make it so the abilities go off as soon as they're off cooldown or do the macros only work in increments of 0.5 seconds?

Where did you get the idea that maros work in increments of 0.5?
They only work in integers.
The solution to you problem is to stop using macros to execute combat actions.
Macros are bad.
If you use them for combat, you will be bad.

Weather or not I'm using the macros for combat is irrelevant. I just want to know if there's a way to make the set of abilities go off asap. The only way they work for me is if I put a wait time between the abilities starting at 0.5 seconds and scaling by 0.5 second instead of numbers like 2.38 or 0.3 or any other numbers.

macros do not do .5 or 2.38 or .3
they only work as 1,2,3 etc so if you have a ability go off with a 2.5s gcd, the next will not fire via macro on <wait 2.5> until 3s

Macros used to use decimals in their intervals back during beta. SE disabled that and made them count only in whole seconds because they don't want macros to be as efficient as playing your skills directly. (Also having the wait time cut it too close can cause errors if you get any lag while it's going off.)

I'm seeing this phenomenon more and more, newer players running macros for every GCD attack and wondering why their DPS is dropping through the floor.

Is there another MMO out there currently where you can macro every attack and receive no penalty in dps loss from doing this? That's the only thing I can think of causing this influx of players doing this.

FFXI you could but there wasnt gcd's u just needed to time it out with practice to not get animation lock and make it not fire

I mean this in the nicest way possible.
I really hope no one helps you on this.