Help with macros?

I've been playing around with macros more recently but I'm not 100% they work well. When you mean to announce you've used an ability (say Virus), how would that work? Chat line then action? Or action then chat line? I can't recall atm what my Virus macro is, but I've noticed it's misfired more than once and I've had to hit it more than once for Virus to actually go off.

Also, what abilities should be macro'd with chat lines for each job?

The order doesn't affect what you're experiencing.
The problem you're having is with the way macros work themselves. Normal abilities can be queued to be used next while you are still casting or your GCD is still counting down. Macros cannot do this. As such, the normal 'flow' of actions you have may be severely interrupted by the use of a macro. I don't use a single macro in battle anymore because of this. A simple Provoke not working at the intended time can lead to a party wipe. The party doesn't need to know I provoked, there's many different ways of seeing that this happened.

The best possible advice I can give you to avoid using macros in battle. They only cause problems.
If you absolutely must use a macro, then use a wait before informing the party. This way you're not spamming the chat log.
An example,

/ac Action Name <t> <wait.1>
/p Obnoxious line about using Action Name goes here!

One of the issues with macros that I've noticed, and why I had to unmacro Provoke in particular, is you can hit the button and the ability can fail to go off, but the macro goes off in chat. This is particularly undesirable with vital skills like Provoke or Raise, and can be very annoying if you spam the party with your macro just to fire the skill.

I would say for the most part macros aren't necessary unless you're in a raiding environment and your party asks you to use one. My Bard asked me to macro Berserk so he knows when to apply Warden's Paean. Our summoner has E4E macro'd so our healers know when it's up and down. And everyone who can raise has a raise macro, though usually they do a verbal confirmation for who's got swiftcast up.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

The order doesn't affect what you're experiencing.
The problem you're having is with the way macros work themselves. Normal abilities can be queued to be used next while you are still casting or your GCD is still counting down. Macros cannot do this. As such, the normal 'flow' of actions you have may be severely interrupted by the use of a macro. I don't use a single macro in battle anymore because of this. A simple Provoke not working at the intended time can lead to a party wipe. The party doesn't need to know I provoked, there's many different ways of seeing that this happened.

The best possible advice I can give you to avoid using macros in battle. They only cause problems.
If you absolutely must use a macro, then use a wait before informing the party. This way you're not spamming the chat log.
An example,

/ac Action Name <t> <wait.1>
/p Obnoxious line about using Action Name goes here!

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This is what I was looking for. And I'll definitely go back over macros here in a bit. The only "important" skills I have macro'd are my Raise skills because of Swiftcast, and even at that I might see if I can rearrange my hotbar to where I can manually hit Swiftcast when I need it.

With my healers I keep swiftcase right next to raise. It's a 1-2 combo to me! I can perform the actions faster than a macro can myself, but I thank my MMO mouse for that.
I'm sure you'll find something that works!

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Originally Posted by Ninster

Chat line then action? Or action then chat line?

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If chat lines contains <t> and you use gamepad and temporary targets (without confirming a target), "action then chat line" causes a problem. Because <t> returns to the initial target after an action, two <t>s are not always the same. <t> doesn't return after chats, so "chat line then action" works.

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Originally Posted by Ninster

Also, what abilities should be macro'd with chat lines for each job?

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Bard - Songs - MB/AP
Sum/Sch - raise I guess
WHM/AST - same as above I guess.

Nothing really comes to mind that needs macros.

I have call outs for my healers (and summoner) for raises but that really is about it myself. Though as far as macros go for both WHM and AST I use a lot of <TT> macros for my attacks so I pump out the DPS and never look away from the tank.

Quote:

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/a Virus <t>
/a Virus <tt>
/a Virus <t>
/a Virus <tt>
/a Virus <t>
/a Virus <tt>
/a Virus <t>
/a Virus <tt>
/p ☆ Virus Used ☆
/merror off
/micon Virus

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Macros don't queue, but each line has read time of iirc 0.16 seconds, so spamming the action is like rapid firing the macro. Additionally, the icon also has a read time, so should always go last. I use T and TT for things like virus so its more universal depending on what I'm targeting.

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Originally Posted by Andrea

Nothing really comes to mind that needs macros.

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I would argue that any buff with a cooldown that is casted on someone else, involves three or more people, and isn't part of a rotation would be called out so that the group can make the most of the buff or coordinate buffs. Examples you didn't mention are things like :
eye for an eye
Goad
Apoctostasis
Virus
Mantra
Living dead/hallowed ground/holmgang
and to a lesser extent, silences

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Originally Posted by Itseotle

each line has read time of iirc 0.16 seconds

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I suppose 0.016 seconds is correct. More precisely read time depends on frame rates; 33.3ms/line in 30fps or 16.7ms/line in 60fps.

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Originally Posted by Mikoko_Miko

I suppose 0.016 seconds is correct. More precisely read time depends on frame rates; 33.3ms/line in 30fps or 16.7ms/line in 60fps.

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Sounds about right, so if you have 1 macro line for the icon, one for the call out, one for the error off (cuz who likes error spam?) that leaves you 12 lines for the action itself. 12 x (1/60) = 0.2 or 200 milliseconds, is a MUCH bigger window of time than it may seem to execute your macro and still have it fire even if your GCD is not ready. I personally have used both single line actions and multi-line and the multi-line is by far more reliable in most* situations.

*some times you do not want to use this though is abilities that toggle with no cooldown (Defiance/Cleric Stance), macros that use multiple different abilities per macro, and certain pet commands. As a side note, using this with ground target AoE produces a very cool trailing effect.