My Favorite QoL Macro

So I love healing in this game, but something that has always bothered me has been annoying targeting mechanics.

I've tried everything.

I first started with click targeting, but that just felt clunky, slow, and bad for so many reasons. Then I wrote standard mouseover macros, but those can fail and worst of all cannot be qued. So then I wrote more complicated mouseover macros that didn't fail and could be qued (requires two buttons, but I had a hand position where mechanically a second button would get pressed a fraction of a second earlier by a different part of my hand when I pressed any hotkey... It worked really well, but it was needlessly complex to set up). Those worked for a while but I wanted freedom of mouse movement back.

Other games have a "cast skill on focus target" modifier key which would have been perfect but this game doesn't (which blows my mind since they have SO many targeting options in keybinds). So I tried the soft targeting thing like a controller can do. That was OK, but it got annoying to have to press the button twice between every cast especially when trying to weave oGCDs (The boss gets more casts per encounter than the tank so the boss is primary and tank is focus).

But then a simple macro fixed it all.
/macroicon "Duty Action II" (I just like the icon for it)
/merror off
/target <f>
/wait 2
/target <lt>

Press it and you get just under a GCD of "tank selected" and then it goes back to your previous target. Need more time? Press it again. Every press extends the time by 2 seconds from the time you press it. Need to end it early? Just press the "Target Last Target" button (though I have never needed to do this). I still use soft targeting sometimes, but 95% of the time I just need to press this before I want to heal the tank and I'm good to go. (edit) Sorry, forgot to say that I have a cancel macro command bundled into my target last target button.

Just thought I'd share if others are having the same annoyance I was.

Personally I think it's really weird that anyone would ever focus target anything but the boss. Some mechanics have no reliable indicator other than the focus target cast bar for an off screen, untargetable boss. But you do you.

If what you want is to target the tank, the easiest thing to do is almost always to press the awkwardly named Target the Target of Your Current Target (Assist Target) button. Then when you're done, either that button or the Target Current Focus Target button or the Target Nerest Enemy button will put you back on the boss. All of these buttons, along with Target Nearest NPC or Object are important enough buttons that they should be mapped to things close to home position, for example:

G - Target Nearest Enemy
T - Target the Target of Your Current Target (Assist Target)
V - Target Nearest NPC or Object
F - Target Current Focus Target

I find that I can cover almost everything with T (target of target, not sure if this is the default mapping) and the F1-8 keys.

I have the boss targeted >95% of the time. The only person who requires spot healing with regularity is the MT, and that's accessed using T. To play cards on party members I use [Fx > Play > T] to target an ally, play the card, and return to the boss. There are very few times that I need to spot heal individuals other than the tank, so infrequently using Fx keys for that isn't too difficult. In the rare instance that my target is not targeting the boss I can generally use Tab to return to the boss.

I generally never have pre-made groups with organized people, most of my group play is Duty and Raid Finder so I have to heal other party members often enough. Using "Target of Target" works well on boss fights, but not very well in dungeons clearing trash packs since situations where the tank doesn't have full Aggro aren't uncommon.

For phases where bosses are un-targetable, I have a macro that swaps my focus target and my current/previous target. I just press it when the boss goes away/cant be targeted and it becomes my focus while the MT becomes my primary. I can just hit it again when they are back and the two swap again. If the game had a "Cast on Focus" modifier... like every other MMO that has focus targets... I would keep the boss as focus all the time and just cast my dps abilities like that. Since it doesn't though and most of my GCDs go to the boss I find it more comfortable to have them as the main target.

My hotkey'd target buttons that I use regularly are:
Target Focus for 2 Seconds before swapping back to previous target (Macro in first Post)
Swap Current/Previous (if no target selected) target and Focus Target (Macro)
Tab Target Enemy
Cycle Through Party List Top to Bottom (Soft Target Ally)
Cycle Through Enmity List Top to Bottom (Soft Target Enemy)