Dragoon Macros

So I've been reading the Rotation Reborn thread. Fascinating stuff, but I've been having the issue of simply having too many actions to use -- I usually find that the most easily accessible buttons on the hotbar are buttons 1-6, and I figured I would try to save both space and my fingers.

What are your thoughts on macros, or do you have an efficient layout?

My main macro is the True Thrust combo:

/action "True Thrust" <t>
/wait 2.5
/action "Vorpal Thrust" <t>
/wait 2.5
/action "Full Thrust" <t>

And I sprinkle the off-global-cooldown skills during the /wait sections.

I know the macro can slow down DPS, so I just wanted an idea how most of the top DRGs do it (handle all the button mashing without destroying their keyboard/fingers).

You can't make macros that wait 2.5 seconds.

Any macros for GCD skills/rotations will always result in a significant dps loss.

Some people rework their UI to fit the basic keyboard/mouse combo. (e.g. have keys like Q,E,R,T remapped or have another set of shortcut abilities like alt+1, alt+2, etc).

Other people use MMO mice (Logitech G600(?) or the Razer Naga) and map abilities to the mouse for easier accessibility.

Some people can manage moving, hitting abilities on keyboard, & manually mouse clicking cooldowns at the same time.

Macros for a Dragoon are a terrible idea. As mentioned you can't set a macro to wait 2.5 seconds, and it also means you wouldn't be able to weave any off-GLC skills between you TTT combo hits (as it would cancel your macro). It's just generally a very bad idea.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by siverstorm

You can't make macros that wait 2.5 seconds.

Any macros for GCD skills/rotations will always result in a significant dps loss.

Some people rework their UI to fit the basic keyboard/mouse combo. (e.g. have keys like Q,E,R,T remapped or have another set of shortcut abilities like alt+1, alt+2, etc).

Other people use MMO mice (Logitech G600(?) or the Razer Naga) and map abilities to the mouse for easier accessibility.

Some people can manage moving, hitting abilities on keyboard, & manually mouse clicking cooldowns at the same time.

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Right, which is why I was asking how you guys do it. Maybe you have a layout that's more efficient; even with a mouse with numbers on the side it's usually fairly straining to reach past the button for 6.

And no, using off global cooldown skills doesn't cancel the macro. I've tested; you just have to use the skill fairly quickly so that the next step in the macro doesn't trigger while your OGC skill is activating.

Personally? My setup isn't the most optimal but it's the most comfortable for me (everyone's different in this regard).

I use the logitech mmo mouse for my cooldowns, I have a couple of defensive cooldowns (bloodbath, keen flurry) and LB on a separate hotbar that I click manually.

I use 1-7 on the standard 2 hotbars (so that's 1-7 and ctrl1-ctrl7). Sometimes I'll mouse click the ctrl7 ability if I'm not dodging a mechanic at the same time. My hands aren't that big but I usually don't have problems hitting the abilities via keyboard.

1-7 is TTT, IDC, P
ctrl1-ctrl7 is invig,HT, leg, jump, spine, DF, power surge

I have no problems hitting abilities down to 6/7.

If I was on my desktop I would look for a screenshot or make one, but my UI is also super messy so it would probably do more harm than good XD

A lot of people with customized remapped hotbars (alt1-alt7, q,e,r,t,y mappings, etc) usually play around a LOT until they get used to it.

If you are serious about being a dragoon - ditch the macros and press all the buttons. Find something comfortable for you. Razer Naga does the trick for me.

Macros are going to kill your DPS for a number of reasons. Most plain reason, is that it only considers whole integers in wait times and it rounds up. So your 2.5 wait time you put in is actually 3.0 and you are losing .5 seconds on every single GCD you use, which adds up quickly.

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Originally Posted by siverstorm

Personally? My setup isn't the most optimal but it's the most comfortable for me (everyone's different in this regard).

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I really like this answer; I'm mainly just trying to get an idea of optimal setups on the hotbars if I'm going to ditch the macros. Anything beyond 6 I have a bit of difficulty hitting with any accuracy on the logitech mouse, so I usually try to keep anything important on 1-6.

Right now I have TTT on 1-3, 4 is Leg Sweep (comfortable for thumb to hit on impulse for an emergency stun or as part of a combo), 5 is Phlebotomize and 6 is Heavy Thrust.

I was toying around with the idea of putting all GC skills on the normal hotbar and all OFC skills on the CTRL hotbar, but your layout gave me some ideas to try to get things flowing better and more comfortably.

@m3eansean: I didn't realize the macros would round up or down. Interesting to know, thanks for the info!

Macros don't round down, Syfer22, only up. This is why they are inefficient if you are even remotely serious about your damage output. Also if you spam a macro with multiple GCDs it starts from the top and works its way down adding more time, and it also removes the ability to queue a GCD action (very important in this game).

Unfortunately no one can tell you what's optimal for you, but just what's optimal for them. I personally only use 1-5 and then I have my two side mouse buttons bound to alt and shift (you can use ctrl as well, but it's my push to talk). I also use F, R, G, T. So I can have 1-5, shift+1-5, alt+1-5 and three variations of F, R, G, T. My mouse has a few other buttons that I use for cooldowns as well. In other games I've also used other keys Q, E, V, B. Don't be afraid to unmap and remap things. You just need to test out which of those keys is comfortable for you to hit, but modifier keys are going to give you a fairly large selection. Some people also remap movement keys to ESDF instead of WASD to get more buttons on the left side.

I'm using G600 for all my abilities. For reference, it has a 12-button numpad for your thumb, perfect for a hotbar. I have no trouble hitting any of the buttons on the mouse so I just use them for everything.

Hotbar1: 1234567890+- (generally all GCD combos and abilities)
Hotbar2: alt+1234567890+- (offensive cooldowns, jumps and such)
Hotbar3: shift+1234567890+- (defensive cooldowns, call macros, items)

Mouse is basically bound to a number bar and I use modifiers from the keyboard like alt, shift, ctrl for other hotbars.

I don't use macros.

My key setup is fairly simple

Numbers (1,2,3..etc.)
Ctrl+numbers (ctrl+1, ctrl+2, ctrl+3..etc.)
Shift+numbers (shift+1, shift+2, shift+3..etc.)
R & F
2 Mouse Side Buttons (Simple forward/back buttons that can be found on many mice)
I use Q&E to strafe

Here's my UI if you're curious

http://i.imgur.com/crP7f5M.jpg

I don't use macros either. For one, it's inefficient and produces terrible DPS, but I'm pretty sure I'd find it to detract from the fun of the job. I play with a controller (on PC though) and I have all the Lancer skills on the main crossbar in the order they were unlocked while levelling up, with the jumps and crossclass skills on a second bar. Perhaps not the best setup, but it's become so firmly ingrained in muscle memory between closed beta and present day that changing anything for me would mean performing like crap for a week. :p

I'm actually hoping we get more off-GCD attacks in 3.0, there's not enough stuff to do inbetween the GCD for the second and fourth TTT combos. I'll also redo my crossbar setup once I hit 60 and figure out what to do with the new skills.

I use 1-5 for TTT, HT and Phle
QER for CT combo
CTRL+Shift 1-5 QERT for oGCD skills like jump and BfB. I feel that anything further than 5 is too much och a stretch.
But it is all depending on what you personally feel is comfortable as you can see that most people have different setups

Thrust rotation on 234, heavy on 5.

Chaos Thrust rotation on shift + 234, phlebotomy on shift + 5

OGCDs and jumps on F1-F4 and shift combinations thereof. Other stuff scattered around depending on how much you use it.

Really you just need to play around and find a setup that works for you, then practise like crazy until it becomes a matter of muscle memory.

I use the NUM Keypad (NUM1-9, /, *, -)

1,2,3: TT, VT, FT
4,5,6: HT, Ph, empty
7,8,9: ID, Dis, CT
/,*,-: RoT, PT, Sweep

Ctrl+numlock: buffs and jumps
alt+numlock: only has doomspike, life surge, and power surge atm.

My setup is as follows, using a gaming mouse with 6 mouse number keys. I currently set things up so that most of the oGCD skills are on the mouse for easy weaving, and main combos are in easy to access places. Jumps/Limit Breaks/AoEs are on "harder to reach" buttons because they are less common and I should have time between using them to re-position my hand.:

Main Combo
1 - True Thrust
2 - Vorpal Thrust
3 - Full Thrust

Buff/Debuff
4 - Heavy Thrust
5 - Phleb

Emergency
6 - Mercy Stroke (oGCD)
7 - Bloodbath (oGCD)

Second Combo
Q - Impulse Drive
E - Disembowel
R - Chaos Thrust

oGCDs
M1 - Leg Sweep (oGCD)
M2 - Jump (oGCD)
M3 - Blood for Blood (oGCD)
M4 - Life Surge (oGCD)
M5 - Power Surge (oGCD)
M6 - Internal Release (oGCD) (I currently have Doom Spike here)

Jumps
Ctrl+1 - Elusive Jump (oGCD)
Ctrl+2 - Spineshatter Dive (oGCD)
Ctrl+3 - Dragonfire Dive (oGCD)

Limit Break
Ctrl+5 - Limit Break

AoE
Shift+1 - Doom Spike
Shift+2 - Ring of Thorns

I like that layout, Midlander. Maybe I'll try something similar once I figure out how to re-do everything. Thanks so much for the replies so far guys, it's really helping me out!

I haven't gamed like this in quite some time, so I'm still feeling it in my thumb since I took away the macros yesterday. I know a lot of it is finding something that works for me and practicing, but picking your brains and seeing what you do is giving me some ideas to make myself more efficient.

I'll follow the trend, here's my hud!
Hud!

I basically only use 1 to 5 for TTT, HT and SSD, and you can see some M5-M4-*M5 those are my side mouse button, for CT combo and jump. Otherwise, i click everything else!

I'm a little curious, if you use the other offensive abilties between the macro cast times, how would that harm your dps?

For ex: if you have it set wait 2 seconds between abilties, and use a non macro attack that doesnt share the same cool down timer between the preset macro abilities, then you would essentially be attacking non stop.

I will say my same reply as the Nin Macro thread, macros for dps in general are a bad idea as you are gimping yourself of dps

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Originally Posted by Evantide

I'm a little curious, if you use the other offensive abilties between the macro cast times, how would that harm your dps?

For ex: if you have it set wait 2 seconds between abilties, and use a non macro attack that doesnt share the same cool down timer between the preset macro abilities, then you would essentially be attacking non stop.

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It doesn't work Evantide. For one, you dont have enough off GCD skills to fill the gaps in your rotation. For two, there is no one who has a GCD wait time of 2, if they do, they are gimping themselves with way too much skill speed. Your GCD is probably something like 2.38 - so your wait time of 2, will immediately be rounded up to 3 by the game, so you are taking 3 seconds between each skill, where a manual player can get it exactly at 2.38 everytime if they hit the buttons early, as the server is "queueing" your request for action. This queue does not happen with macros either.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spayd

I'll follow the trend, here's my hud!
Hud!

I basically only use 1 to 5 for TTT, HT and SSD, and you can see some M5-M4-*M5 those are my side mouse button, for CT combo and jump. Otherwise, i click everything else!

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Wow, that's a nice layout. How do you get your hotbars grouped like that, or only showing 1-5?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Syfer22

Wow, that's a nice layout. How do you get your hotbars grouped like that, or only showing 1-5?

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There is an option in your hotbar settings to hide unused slots.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Syfer22

So I've been reading the Rotation Reborn thread. Fascinating stuff, but I've been having the issue of simply having too many actions to use -- I usually find that the most easily accessible buttons on the hotbar are buttons 1-6, and I figured I would try to save both space and my fingers.

What are your thoughts on macros, or do you have an efficient layout?
.

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Efficent? Well it is for me but I'm a bit of an oddball. Also my Bar 2 is my Naga 2014 Mouse. It has a 12 digit number pad on the side that i have set to CTRL+Number row. For those times I decide I want to take a drink while gooning it up. Then again My layout only needs to make sense to me and no one else.

http://i.imgur.com/wTiGQ5S.jpg

Don't ask me why I have Skull sunder there, its not active or anything, its a ghost. Simply a Ghost. Also bars 4 5 and 6 are across all Jobs and classes. They don't change.