SCH Playstyle/Macro Help.

Been stalking the forums a bit and noticing people talking about their SCH macros. Like, putting embrace on certain skills. My playstyle is to put Eos/Selene on Obey and use the buffs when I need them. I usually leave embrace for auto because tbh, they do a pretty good job at topping people off.

I actually don't have any macros but was wondering if there was some good ones to chuck in with my playstyle (Auto Embrace).

Just wondering what everyone uses, Im also on the playstation version if that counts for anything.

I absolutely don't macro Eos/Selene heals with mine. I like to be able to heal separately; if I want us both to heal the same target I'll command her to.

I have all my attacks macroed. Here's a link to the SCH crossbar thread, I explained it in there: clicky

Hope that helps :)

Here are the macros i use, I play on PC but it's pretty much the same aside from <mo>. You can also use <f> aka focus target for PS use. I hope it helps :)

Healing Macro:
/macroicon "Physick"
/ac "Physick" <t>
/ac "Physick" <tt>
/pac "Embrace" <mo>
/pac "Embrace" <t>
/pac "Embrace" <tt>

DPS Macros:
/macroicon "Bio II"
/ac "Bio II" <t>
/pac "Embrace" <mo>
/pac "Embrace" <tt>

/macroicon "Miasma"
/ac "Miasma" <t>
/pac "Embrace" <mo>
/pac "Embrace" <tt>

/macroicon "Bio"
/ac "Bio" <t>
/pac "Embrace" <mo>
/pac "Embrace" <tt>

you can also write those DPS macros in another way using focus target,
/macroicon "Bio II"
/ac "Bio II" <f>
/pac "Embrace" <mo>
/pac "Embrace" <t>

the <mo> before the target will make me able to heal any party member nad if i don't mouse over anybody, pet will heal the tank. You can't <mo> in PS, so you can just omit that line. it just adds more micromanagement for PC.

You can also use stuff like these:

Covenant Succor Macro:
/macroicon "Succor"
/ac "Succor" <me>
/pac "Fey Covenant" <me>

Regen Succor Macro:
/macroicon "Succor"
/ac "Succor" <me>
/pac "Whispering Dawn" <me>

Resurrection Macro:
/macroicon "Swiftcast"
/ac "Swiftcast" <me>
/ac "Resurrection" <t>
/p Casting Ressurection on <t> <se.2>

Eye for an Eye Macro:
/macroicon "Eye for an Eye"
/ac "Eye for an Eye" <t>
/ac "Eye for an Eye" <tt>
/p Eye for an Eye activated on <t> <se.2> <wait.60>
/echo Eye for an Eye ready! <se.8>

Virus Macro:
/macroicon "Virus"
/ac "Virus" <t>
/ac "Virus" <tt>
/p Virus activated on <t> <se.2>

It's all up to your own style so you can change any macro around to your own liking. Have fun :)

While Macros are generally fine to use, it's often often better to ween yourself off of them, nor never use them to begin with.

For example, the popular Physick/Adlo + Embrace Macro is okay. It essentially gives you a 700 Potency heal spell at all times, which is nice. However, Eos and Selene's Embrace has a longer cooldown than your Physick or Adloquium, so if you constantly force her to cast with you, eventually your spells will fall further and further out of sync. You'll notice this if you try to use this macro immediately after you finish casting the first one, Eos or Selene won't be ready for around another half-second. Continue to spam the macro, and it'll just become even more chaotic. It's a much better to learn to Physick and Adlo while ordering your Faerie to use Physick on the same, or different target, manually. Yes, it takes practice, but will save you a headache once you master it.

Another popular set of macros is targeting (<t> <tt> <ft>) macros to your attacks. Just.. no. Don't do it. If you macro your Bios and Miasma spells, for example, you lose the ability to pre-cast those spells. You know how you cast Bio II and around say... .20 before it finishes you can hit your Miasma button and as soon as Bio II finishes the game automatically registers your Miasma cast? Well, you can't do that with macros because of the different internal sever timings used for macros. Sure, that's not THAT big of a deal, but over the duration of a battle, you will start losing significant DPS. Just learn to quickly switch between an enemy target and an allied target you need to heal and forego the use of targeting macros altogether.

At the end of the day, macros can be useful for certain situations, but you really need to do a lot of playing around with them in order to optimize them. There are many out there that seem useful, but if you really look into the mechanics, they are often a hindrance in the long run.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sandrinea

Healing Macro:
/macroicon "Physick"
/ac "Physick" <t>
/ac "Physick" <tt>
/pac "Embrace" <mo>
/pac "Embrace" <t>
/pac "Embrace" <tt>

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Does this work, I mean the <tt> part after a line with <t> ?
My only macros are virus and ress-shoutout, and as far as I remember the <tt> stuff after the <t> line does not work; instead, if a monster is targeted, you will be healing your self and not it's target.

Macroing embraces into everything is also a thing I would not recommend, especially if doing full party content. The fairy is unbeatably quick in healing a DPS that ate an AoE for example, you counter this with such excessive macro use and may keep the fairy busy without reason.

Also, you might want to work over your whsipering dawn macro. Your CDs of Rouse and Fey Illumination align really well and it's kind of a crime to use WD without at least one of them.

Last but not least, just give your DPS actions a try without macros.
Not using macros might not save a whole GCD, but depending on lag it can save a second or more and can make the difference in beeing able to get one more dot off in time or not.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spoekes

Does this work, I mean the <tt> part after a line with <t> ?
My only macros are virus and ress-shoutout, and as far as I remember the <tt> stuff after the <t> line does not work; instead, if a monster is targeted, you will be healing your self and not it's target.

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It doesn't work if the first target you tell your dear fairy is out of range or not healable she just triggers a selfheal :/
I play on PS4 I have on Healbar a

/pac "Embrace" <t>

and on DPS bar

/pac "Embrace" <tt>

I spam the button like hell to keep maintank topped off. Also on mechanics like in Pharos or WP HM where you remove a debuff with healing to top i just softtarget the one to be healed up and let the fairy handle while I stay in stance.

If your only line in this macro is
/ac "Embrace" <t>

may I ask why you even macro it then? ^^
Can you on PS4 not just assign the pet embrace spell to a button? why use a macro?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spoekes

If your only line in this macro is
/ac "Embrace" <t>

may I ask why you even macro it then? ^^
Can you on PS4 not just assign the pet embrace spell to a button? why use a macro?

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If I leave out the <t> i may trigger selfheal if target not in range, with it she goes across the room and heals the target (I used it once in our FC house to test it when the target without my knowing went upstairs and Eos stalked all through the house :p )

I don't mean leaving out the <t>, I mean not using a macro for that one-liner in the first place ^^

Why would you macro /pac embrace <t>
If I don't miss something here, its as useless as /ac physik <t>, if you can just bind physik (unmacroed!) to your hotbar

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spoekes

I don't mean leaving out the <t>, I mean not using a macro for that one-liner in the first place ^^

Why would you macro /pac embrace <t>
If I don't miss something here, its as useless as /ac physik <t>, if you can just bind physik (unmacroed!) to your hotbar

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As said only putting Embrace on my bar is indefined target and triggered too often selfheals if my wished target not in range. Hence I macroed with the <t> to make her follow up the target till she heals (unless shed get out of my range). Maybe its just me but thats how it worked for me in Coils and the Towers best.

With the <t> she wont even use the skill (besides the sub 80% hp heals on party) if no target defined.

I don't have that range problem, just using embrace without macro, I have just again tested it.
Moving to targets out of range when I push works perfectly.

The "if not target defined" thing is real, but that's totally your fault :P

I don't use any macros at all, I manually target and spam embrace on targets as needed, typically with soft targeting, with my hard target as either the MT or an enemy mob if dps'ing. During trash, I tend to use WD, combined with rouse, to put a potent regen on the tank, giving me a window to dps. If there are four or more mobs, I'll lead with fey illumination for the healing boost, then determine after WD if it's safe to dps or if the tank will require more healing on top of that. Like others have mentioned, I prefer to cast my abilities rather than have them macro'd because you cannot queue macro commands like you can spells.

I've observed a lot of SCHs (myself included) go through this progression:

1. What are macros?

2. Macros are sweet! Let's see how close I can get to "one press does everything!"

3. Macros are okay, but I think I have too many actions bundled together.

4. Macros are best for things like announcing rez and setting up mouseover skills; my gameplay is more flexible and more efficient when I don't macro too many things together.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tsurayu

While Macros are generally fine to use, it's often often better to ween yourself off of them, nor never use them to begin with.

For example, the popular Physick/Adlo + Embrace Macro is okay. It essentially gives you a 700 Potency heal spell at all times, which is nice. However, Eos and Selene's Embrace has a longer cooldown than your Physick or Adloquium, so if you constantly force her to cast with you, eventually your spells will fall further and further out of sync. You'll notice this if you try to use this macro immediately after you finish casting the first one, Eos or Selene won't be ready for around another half-second. Continue to spam the macro, and it'll just become even more chaotic. It's a much better to learn to Physick and Adlo while ordering your Faerie to use Physick on the same, or different target, manually. Yes, it takes practice, but will save you a headache once you master it.

Another popular set of macros is targeting (<t> <tt> <ft>) macros to your attacks. Just.. no. Don't do it. If you macro your Bios and Miasma spells, for example, you lose the ability to pre-cast those spells. You know how you cast Bio II and around say... .20 before it finishes you can hit your Miasma button and as soon as Bio II finishes the game automatically registers your Miasma cast? Well, you can't do that with macros because of the different internal sever timings used for macros. Sure, that's not THAT big of a deal, but over the duration of a battle, you will start losing significant DPS. Just learn to quickly switch between an enemy target and an allied target you need to heal and forego the use of targeting macros altogether.

At the end of the day, macros can be useful for certain situations, but you really need to do a lot of playing around with them in order to optimize them. There are many out there that seem useful, but if you really look into the mechanics, they are often a hindrance in the long run.

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You make a lot of good points. I agree there are a lot of sub-optimal macros out there and I have also observed many of the same issues (like faerie cooldown being different from character's). However, I have come to a different conclusion, which is to be smart about macros instead of avoiding them.

I'm gonna wager you are probably a PC user. For those of us on PS3/4, switching targets is not so easy. Max efficiency and speed on a controller for targeting is simply not as good as max efficiency and speed on a mouse. For a skilled PC player, such macros can be a loss in efficiency. For controller players, it is a gain and it severely reduces the probability of making mistakes.

I am a big proponent of <t> <f> <tt> macros for Scholar due to the unique targeting requirements of attacking and faerie healing at the same time. As others have noted, faerie auto healing is pretty on the ball under 80%. The main goal of my DPS macro setup is to be able to spam Embrace when the tank is over 80% while DPSing. As you have pointed out, the 0.5 second difference between the scholar's GCD and the faerie's GCD is a challenge. My solution is to keep the tank as main target and use macros for attacks. Keeping the tank targeted also saves precious split seconds if I need to throw out a lustrate or switch to healing.

As for Adlo+Embrace, the range on Embrace is bugged. The max range is 25y and she will only auto-cast within 21y. I have Embrace macro'd into my Physick and Adlo to ensure my Faerie is still healing at long ranges. It also comes in handy for healing people outside my range because she will fly over to heal them before I realize they are out of range.

While it's nice to combine SCH heals with the Fairy heals, always remember that Macros do NOT allow for queue casting which means if all your heals are on macros you automatically heal slower than without macros even if it gives you faster control over the fairy due to less buttons to press. This will probably never be fixed and is #1 reason why macros are bad for GCD skills.

I only use macros to inform my party of what I'm doing - the actual healing is done fully manually. I'm generally against automating my job ingame and I've seen macrofails wipe groups on occasion, which is a no-no.

Why would you macro your MDEF buff ? Use it for when its necessary not all the time.

also if you don't have your Rouse Macro'd you either 1 play on PC or 2 like flipping through hotbars because

/macroicon Rouse
/ac Rouse
/wait
/pac Fey Illumination
/wait
/pac Whispering Dawn

^^ Macro every SCH should have

also

/macroicon Resurrection
/ac swiftcast <me>
/wait
/Resurrection<t>

Aside from a macro to let party know who you are rezzing, I wouldnt suggest macroing too much on SCH.

You could make use of the <tt> command when DPSing so Eos/Selene continue to heal regardless of HP% the target of your target.

Honestly I haven't found any useful macro for SCH... yet. The Fairy complicates things in a way that you'd be playing poorer.

EG this macro, could be useful:

Quote:

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/macroicon Rouse
/ac Rouse <wait.1>
/pac "Fey Illumination" <wait.2>
/pac "Whispering Dawn"

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Is how I made that macro work. If you just have wait.1 or /wait before Whispering Dawn it never fires. YMMV 80ms ping to the server for me.


The same macro I use for Revive on WHM except changed for SCH.

Quote:

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/micon "Resurrection"
/ac "Swiftcast" <me> <wait.1>
/ac "Resurrection" <t>
/ac "Resurrection" <2>
/ac "Resurrection" <3>
/ac "Resurrection" <4>
/ac "Resurrection" <5>
/ac "Resurrection" <6>
/ac "Resurrection" <7>
/ac "Resurrection" <8>

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Macroing attacks is just bad play style. In any game. You can overlay a flavor text string for certain attacks (eg Virus) that don't stack, but otherwise you risk wiping the party because you couldn't cast healing spells while combat spells are firing.

Using macros for attacks is fine, is doesnt affect your playstyle at all.

It also helps the other healer out by not having them unnecessarily solo heal.

Fairy Complications and Macros:

You must note, that skill queueing for the fairy does only work for auto embraces.
If you macro the embrace to everything and/or spam embrace like crazy, Fey Illumination and Whispering Dawn action will not be qeued. In this case you will have to hammer on your macro and hope to trigger the pet actions right after her GCD is ready again.

I would not recommend a macro for rouse.
Rouse is a OGCD skill you can just queue in between your own casting, for Fey Illumination and Whispering Dawn it heavily depends on how you control your fairy.
The macro works fine if you do not overcontrol embrace manually.

Quote:

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Macroing attacks is just bad play style. In any game. You can overlay a flavor text string for certain attacks (eg Virus) that don't stack, but otherwise you risk wiping the party because you couldn't cast healing spells while combat spells are firing.

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Macroing is bad for reasons of skill qeueuing.
What you mean is macroing attack sequences, which is terribad, noone should ever do this outside of Fates.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

I've observed a lot of SCHs (myself included) go through this progression:

1. What are macros?

2. Macros are sweet! Let's see how close I can get to "one press does everything!"

3. Macros are okay, but I think I have too many actions bundled together.

4. Macros are best for things like announcing rez and setting up mouseover skills; my gameplay is more flexible and more efficient when I don't macro too many things together.

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This. I pretty much went through these 4 stages and feel like these supposedly 'useful' macros are more restricting if anything. Your best bet is to just spend time doing everything manually and getting comfortable with the job.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spoekes

Macroing is bad for reasons of skill qeueuing.
What you mean is macroing attack sequences, which is terribad, noone should ever do this outside of Fates.

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Yes. Attack sequences are terrible things to Macro as it eliminates any skill speed/spell speed properties when it's rounded to the closes whole second. The way games queue commands (FFXIV is not the first) trends towards "You're never supposed to Macro combat" but rather "You're supposed to macro buffs, crafting and gear/UI swaps"