A handy Macro for 4.0 Healers [Protect]

Since, for whatever reason, Yoshi and the development team kept protect, exactly as it was, aside from having it cost 0 mp. (Like the drastic Weakness change wasnt enough punishment.)

https://i.redd.it/y5sjtuzc3u3z.jpg

I used to use a macro to switch between Stoneskin and Blizzard II in one click. In the removal of skill swapping penalties outside of sanctuaries, this should be a handy macro. :D

/macrolock
/macroicon Protect
/echo You are now switching to Protect.
/aaction Swiftcast off
/aaction Protect on
/ac Protect <wait.3>
/aaction Protect off
/aaction Swiftcast on
/echo Protect has been disabled. The following skill has been restored:
/recast Swiftcast


This macro should be used at the start of a dungeon or before a boss pull. It quickly disables an action (swiftcast in my macro) then enable protect. It then Casts protect. It then confirms with you that it is disabling Protect and returns your swiftcast or whatever Role skill it was. The entire macro will take about 4 seconds (which includes the time to cast protect.

I chose Swiftcast, because it should be your first or second slot at this point. I made a similar macro that switches out surecast/erase for casters for my RDM.

Enjoy your fluff skill that adds nothing to the gameplay (at least in casual dungeon runs xD.)

Cant see much of a use in this. For content where Protect actually matters you have to keep it through the fight to reaply it for dead people and for dungeons and easy content you are fine without taking it at all.

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Originally Posted by Sanghelios

Cant see much of a use in this. For content where Protect actually matters you have to keep it through the fight to reaply it for dead people and for dungeons and easy content you are fine without taking it at all.

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People, especially whiny tanks, need their protect. They will get downright shetty if they dont get it. Its a keep the peace must have. The macro takes 4 seconds 3 of the 4 seconds are you casting protect. Its as simple as already having it permanently in your cross class outside of battle. Someone dies mid dungeon? Reapply it after the pull is over. Protect is 9/10 there to make your DPS higher by making the tank take less damage.

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Originally Posted by Rawrz

People, especially whiny tanks, need their protect. They will get downright shetty if they dont get it. Its a keep the peace must have. The macro takes 4 seconds 3 of the 4 seconds are you casting protect. Its as simple as already having it permanently in your cross class outside of battle.

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True. If a Tank doesnt get his Protect at the start of a dungeon he would just stand there till the timer expires and the duty fails.^^

This seems pretty useful to me. But I have a habit of casting Protect mid fight during a Trial or something if a tank or DPS dies.

If I get out of that habit I could see myself using this.

Could you theoretically make 5 or 10 of these macros and just take all the cross-class skills with no cooldown penalty?

Not really used macros much outside of fitting pet actions on my gamepad better, and I just ripped those from a post I saw.

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Originally Posted by Metsonm

Could you theoretically make 5 or 10 of these macros and just take all the cross-class skills with no cooldown penalty?

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You could, but you'd only be able to use them out of combat. This macro is intended to be used at the start of a dungeon or possibly before a boss if people have died or are taking a really long time to do the dungeon.

Fair enough, that makes sense.

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Originally Posted by Sanghelios

[...] and for dungeons and easy content you are fine without taking it at all.

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i am a DRK and i lose nearly all my defensive abilities and my selfheals with 4.0... i think protect could be usefull for keeping me alive... ^^

This is really useful! Thanks for posting this.

I don't really see the point in this though. Healers, especially WHM, have a lot of empty space on their hotbars. Especially their Cross-Hotbar. So it literally doesn't matter either way.

That is... really useful, actually.

Thank you.

I did switch esuna for swiftcast though. Trying to decide if any other pairs make sense.

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Originally Posted by Rivxkobe

I don't really see the point in this though. Healers, especially WHM, have a lot of empty space on their hotbars. Especially their Cross-Hotbar. So it literally doesn't matter either way.

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It isn't about the hotbar, its about the role action slot.

Thanks for posting this. I now use a similar macro to use Protect without eating up a role action slot.

On that note, though, I have been developing a large number of macros to allow me to quickly swap add skills between encounters as needed. Once you memorize a dungeon, this becomes very useful, especially when tanking because of the painful lack of defensive cooldowns now. For example, I would usually keep Low Blow on my tank role actions because stuns are basic arsenal for tanks. However, by having Low Blow on my bar, I limit my defensive options. So instead, I now have a series of macros set up on one of my hotbars to quickly swap to the appropriate role actions for each upcoming encounter. Heading into a mob pull where a mob has to be stunned? Swap out a defensive for Low Blow instantly while moving. Then switch it back to a defensive after the pull is done. This makes it easy to prepare for every boss encounter too. For my DPS classes, I ended up with a sort of pairing system. When I set up my SAM, I paired Arm's Length with Crutch, and Second Wind with Bloodbath, for example. I can swap these sets of two skills on the fly as necessary. Ideally I'd want to be able to quick-swap all of my skills, but unfortunately the sheer number of pairings makes that unfeasible.

I liked this macro, but instead I will make one switching Protect with Largesse or Cleric and put a /ac swiftcast in it, so I will be able to cast protect while on the run :)

Thank you! I will definitely be using this. If I start noticing people dying in a dungeon I can just switch out protect permanently, but hopefully that won't be the case.

I might make it not swiftcast though, since on scholar the only use for it is raise (which hopefully I won't have to do) since shadowflare is an insta-cast now. But we'll see as I play more.

Great macro! Thanks!

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Originally Posted by Tint

i am a DRK and i lose nearly all my defensive abilities and my selfheals with 4.0... i think protect could be usefull for keeping me alive... ^^

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So could curative spells. Please look forward to it!

Protect won't save you if you over-pull, or your healer falls asleep.

This is a godsend for dungeons, thanks for this TC.

This is awesome. I switch protect and esuna, because I like to have esuna all the time and it has no cooldown so I can always switch to protect ooc if I need it.

I noticed something while I was playing randomly. I forgot to put Protect back up I was questing and only when I noticed it while I was killing mobs did I reapply it. And I noticed something.... Protect does jack... like... literally nothing. The enemies I was fighting were doing between 1080-1200 damage with every hit BEFORE I used Protect... and they were still doing 1080-1200 damage AFTER I reapplied it... does that seem wierd, cause it seems like Square did more than remove the MP cost...

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Originally Posted by madcat441

I noticed something while I was playing randomly. I forgot to put Protect back up I was questing and only when I noticed it while I was killing mobs did I reapply it. And I noticed something.... Protect does jack... like... literally nothing. The enemies I was fighting were doing between 1080-1200 damage with every hit BEFORE I used Protect... and they were still doing 1080-1200 damage AFTER I reapplied it... does that seem wierd, cause it seems like Square did more than remove the MP cost...

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Protect's real strength comes when on the tank. The squishies see way less benefit.