Cover macro

I don't play tank much normally and I never used to use cover much until they added an animation to make it clearer who was being covered. So since then I made this little macro to make life easier in certain situations.

/micon cover
/tpc
/ac Cover <t>
/tlt

Basically this will target the closest party member, cover cover and switch back to last target. It has its up and down sides. But if there is only 1 melee in range it is the fastest was of applying cover to them.

Let me know what you guys think of it.

It can work when you really need to make sure that melee stays alive. Others I'm sure will chime in on circumstances this could useful; however I don't know of any really.

But using it on a healer or other times on a tank for strategic uses has also been discussed in another thread. I personally have it macro'd to let the person know it's happening.

If you want to be able to emergency Cover a healer, what about this macro. First, set your party list to auto-sort and put healers up top. That way you know that healers will be in the 2nd slot for 4-man dungeons, and 2nd and 3rd slots for 8-man dungeons.

8-man:
/micon cover
/ac "Cover" <2>
/ac "Cover" <3>

4-man:
/micon cover
/ac "Cover" <2>

That'll try to cover the healer in a four man dungeon, and in an eight man, it'll try to cast cover on both healers. If one is in range, it'll work on that one. If both are in range, the healer sorted to the top gets it.

Alternatively, you can put in your Focus target if you want to be able to Focus a healer to watch their HP more closely. In that case, I think it's:

8-man:
/micon cover
/ac "Cover" <f>
/ac "Cover" <2>
/ac "Cover" <3>

Only downside with this method is that you can't tell the person they're being covered, as you're not entirely sure which person wound up with it.

/micon cover
/ac cover <tt>
/p (cover) (just used it) <se.##>

it what i use so i never have to click off the target, amazing for when OT as well for just in case MT drops low

There comes a point in which macro benefits stops.

No matter who's close to me because they move, not only Melee DPS, but ranged or Magic DPS, even Healers, if they are getting under 50%, I will click on that party member through my party window if I cannot click on them directly, then use Cover manually.

When more than one mob is attacking the group, and you have a focus on a main one, hard to use target of my target.

So far no problems, and the new animation is very nice to see!

Makes the one covered to suddenly stop moving too far from me, giving them a little Hallowed Ground ^^

So macros are ok to use, but not to the point of depending on it for everything.. *shrugs*

I'm with KingOfAbyss to not rely on macros for everything, i like to have control and use macros for convenience (such as swtiching between Fist of Fire and Fist of Earth on one button as a monk)

So, would something like this work?

/micon cover
/ac "Cover" <t>
/ac "Cover" <2>
/ac "Cover" <3>

The idea is that it would cast cover on the current target if it is a valid target (a player) and otherwise i'd use it on one of the healers. This way you have full control if you want to and the quick access if it has to go really fast. It wouldn't do what you want to if the target is out of range and one of the helaers is in range though.

On that matter i saw an interesting use of cover yesterday in Praetorium. The healers were struggling/dieing sometimes and the other tank used cover on me in a bind to give the healers time to recover.

My cover macro is manual select. It just lets the party know who I am hugging. Lets them know to get close and lets them know when the warm and fuzzy huggles are gone.

I like the idea of /psort before starting and having the macro with <2> instead of <t> but the heals doesn't always need the cover. It can work, but I prefer the manual selection.

Gonna give it a go though for certain runs. So more than one macro option.

Syn

people are over-reliant on macros. the only ones i use are those that apply a mark to a target or a text blob in chat. anything else imo is pointless and makes you reliant on it to where it'll eventually make you a worse player.

Disagree. It's a double edged sword. A macro can chain abilities faster than I can click them. When written correctly there is NO delay. Not everything should be macro'd, but there are some things that it comes in handy: Swiftcast >Raise, WHM buff macros, powersurge inbefore every jump, provoke>"insertskillhere", etc. Using macro's doesn't make you a worse player, if anything they can make you more efficient. Relying on macro's to do everything for you, well that is a different story.

Syn

Is it possible to specify a target's name regardless of where they are in a party list?

You can use <#> in your macro. Would have to change it each run, unless you party sort (/psort) before each run. Depending on your sort you would enter the number of the person you want in your macro.

Ex:

/micon "Cover"
/ac "Cover" <2>
/p Cover on <2>, stay close!!
/wait 11
/p Cover duration over. (or whateveryou want to put here)

In this example, the healer is the second one on the party list (<2>), if they were 7th then you would use <7> instead. I hope that makes sense.

So to answer your question you can specify who you wish to use the ability on. The number within <> is more reliable and quicker than you typing their name in there. This is also super helpful as WHM when buffing the party at the start of the duty.

Hope it helps.

Syn