Archer/Bard Max DPS for Lazy People Macro

I am a rather lazy person in that I prefer to use as few keybinds as possible. I've designed a macro that does most of what I need to do on its own and is spammable. .

Main Macro
/ac "Misery's End" <t>
/ac "Heavy Shot" <t>
/ac "Bloodletter" <t>
/ac "blunt arrow" <t> <--if battles dont require timed interrupts
/ac "Hawk's Eye" <me>
/ac "Raging Strikes" <me>
/ac "Internal Release" <me>
/ac "Barrage" <me>
/ac "Quelling Strikes" <me>

Uses ME and BL when up, Defaults to Heavy Shot. Between GCD's you will buff yourself with HE, RS, IR, Barrage. ordered longest to shortest. QS on the end as you will almost certainly will pull aggro over 20 seconds of dmg.

Straight Shot manually when it proccs.
Blunt Arrow, VS and WB on their own buttons.

AoE
Use each as needed, macro doesn't work well with targeted ground skills.

That's what I've got for you today. I hope I've made your lives easier! :D

For fights without interrupts (read: basically every single fight), you can macro Blunt Arrow into your "big macro" (at the end, lowest priority), for SLIGHTLY more dps. Its 50 power every 30 seconds XD. You CAN safely use this on ifrit, silence is not on the same timer/DR as stun.

For your AoE macro, I haven't been able to find a way to take out 2nd click necessary for Flaming Arrow. I don't think your macro works for that (when you mash it you'll still have to click again to place flaming).

If you have dragoon to 34 you should also use Blood for Blood in the rotation (put it after Raging Strikes).

EDIT: also you don't need the <me> for cooldowns.

this is something, i made (my 1st try at making one)

/ac "Raging strikes" <me>
/wait .6
/ac "Hawk's Eye" <me>
/wait .9
/ac "Internal Release" <me>
/wait .6
/ac "Featherfoot <me>
/wait .5
/ac Quelling Strikes" <me>


mot sure if it good, but it maybe ok as it saves space on the bar

Well the problem with /wait is that...it has many problems.

I believe it cancels upon movement, also lag, and casting/spamming any other buttons, etc.

I would not use /wait in any circumstance really. Might be slightly easier, but do you really wanna sit there for 5 seconds twiddling your thumbs? =P

Furthermore, you do NOT want to sit there and just pop cooldowns. Your "main" attacks share the same GCD, and you want to always keep them up because there is no way to "speed up" the amount of GCDs you have (skill speed obv, but thats passively).

Therefore don't waste them stacking CD's. You have enough time to use your CD's in between your "gcd locked" skills, that you can still get the full 10 seconds of every buff + barrage. Thats all you really want out of your cd stacking. Aside from that losing ~5 seconds in between doesn't mean anything in the long run.

So you want to spam the macro in the first post, rather than having a wait macro.

Good call on the aoe macro, I don't have both those skills yet. didnt know it was targeted. About /wait... I use the Razer Naga mouse. I set the macro assigned button to repeat itself while held down, so it spams while I hold it down automatically. No broken Keyboard!

This Macro has made my battle life a whole lot easier. Now, instead of having to remember which quickbar everything is on, I just go through it as I need it. ;) Thanks, Omega!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ryushimojii

This Macro has made my battle life a whole lot easier. Now, instead of having to remember which quickbar everything is on, I just go through it as I need it. ;) Thanks, Omega!

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My pleasure!!

Only thing I would add is /macroicon "Heavy Shot" (or whatever other ability icon you want shown) at the very beginning of the macro.

Macroicon also works with proc and CD abilities so you would know when it is ready to be used.

I feel like you should also add a disclaimer that this is for lazy people, only. It works but is nowhere near ideal.

You will lose dps if you do not stack your cooldowns, esp for dot reapplication.

You will lose dps if you prioritize bloodletter over heavy shot instead of placing it inbetween on your rotation.

bad players flock to this kind of crap... the sad thing is they think it makes them "good"

Macros are crap nothing beats ingenuity in the middle of heated battle....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

I feel like you should also add a disclaimer that this is for lazy people, only. It works but is nowhere near ideal.

You will lose dps if you do not stack your cooldowns, esp for dot reapplication.

You will lose dps if you prioritize bloodletter over heavy shot instead of placing it inbetween on your rotation.

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Actually, if you spam it, which you should (or in my case hold down a mouse button set to spam automatically).. it will stack your cooldowns in order from longest to shortest, will always keep buffs on cooldown, and will always shoot bloodletter between cooldowns or at the same time as another shot, you don't miss the internal 1/2 CD. So I really don't think it's missing out on much dps.

OH!! and it's also in the thread title "For Lazy People"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OmegaXtc

Actually, if you spam it, which you should (or in my case hold down a mouse button set to spam automatically).. it will stack your cooldowns in order from longest to shortest, will always keep buffs on cooldown, and will always shoot bloodletter between cooldowns or at the same time as another shot, you don't miss the internal 1/2 CD. So I really don't think it's missing out on much dps.

OH!! and it's also in the thread title "For Lazy People"

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With reset procs, this macro can end up doing things like using multiple buffs and BL in the same GCD, which is a DPS loss. Is it a huge deal? No. It is, however, sub-optimal.

The only time I've ever seen a macro be actually superior to manual play was BM Hunters in TBC. In almost all other cases, macros can vary from really close, to really awful, but if you're using them appropriately (i.e.: it's farm content and I'm being intentionally lazy), then you're fine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OmegaXtc

Actually, if you spam it, which you should (or in my case hold down a mouse button set to spam automatically).. it will stack your cooldowns in order from longest to shortest, will always keep buffs on cooldown

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This is what I mean, this is not ideal. You want to wait to use Blood for blood until your other 90 sec ones are up, for example. You also want to use unleash right before you refresh your dots, and right before placing flaming arrow, etc.

Because of offsets for GCD, you also want to wait on the 2 min mark to stack all your cooldowns again.

Your macro will use Bloodletter over heavy shot if it procs right before your GCD is up. This is a bad idea, as I've said before.

Please, I am just helping =) The macro is great for spamming (esp with a programmable mouse/keyboard) but it isn't ideal. "For lazy people" I understand, but people need to know this isn't optimal.

EDIT: i doubleposted

If you want an optimal rotation w/o tons of buttons, split this macro into 3.

Heavy shot is unmacroed.
CD's (your list is fine) on one macro
Misery's End | Bloodletter on another.

Spam 2nd macro in between GCDs, until all CD's exhausted.
Spam 3rd In between GCDs (and only inbetween gcds)

This is key, delaying your GCD, either by using cooldowns or by bloodletter is a dps loss. ONLY use straighshot/dots/heavy shot on your GCDs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

EDIT: i doubleposted

If you want an optimal rotation w/o tons of buttons, split this macro into 3.

Heavy shot is unmacroed.
CD's (your list is fine) on one macro
Misery's End | Bloodletter on another.

Spam 2nd macro in between GCDs, until all CD's exhausted.
Spam 3rd In between GCDs (and only inbetween gcds)

This is key, delaying your GCD, either by using cooldowns or by bloodletter is a dps loss. ONLY use straighshot/dots/heavy shot on your GCDs.

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So what you're saying is Use GCD's for Straight / Heavy / Dots, then use buffs inbetween GCD's, and when those are down use Misery / Bloodletter inbetween other GCD's

What do you think would be a good opener?

Also would you suggest any macros for our dots? Or leave them unmacro'd?

And yet another question, as far as viable stats, where does crit / determination stand?

As far as Im concerned, Bards are prolly the best scaling job in the game currently with how they interact with critical chance. Other jobs either have complex rotations that severly punish mobility fights or have hard capped percentages for them to gain additional benefits towards spells. Bards can directly scale with crit and eventually it wont be so much RNG to get a bloodletter proc.

If I had to compare it to something, I suppose Fire Mages from wow would be a good comparison.

As far as a rotation goes, what is the priority on flaming arrow?

I wish I could quote you, but the stupid 1000 limit.

Anyway...

1. Yes. Also, you can use blunt arrow for a TINY dps boost if no interrupt is needed. Amendment to this: Misery's End/Bloodletter is HIGHER priority than cooldowns. They more than double your "dps" for that gcd.
2. I attempted a wait macro, but that sucked, so, nope!
3. No clue, attempting to theorycraft value of crit but have other work. For now, crit is safe, as is determination. If you have sockets open, use crit materia. Crit is ~14.4 crit rating = 1% crit.
4. Flaming arrow single target is lower than barrage (so, last, maybe ahead of quelling if you aren't in danger of pulling). Shares same cd as internal release, so use it after release. Also if you didn't know this, flaming arrow is also off the GCD, so use it as lowest priority (above blunt arrow) inbetween GCD dps increase IF the target is not going to move. NEVER use a gcd for this move.

am I the only one that thinks rotation macros are counterintuitive? what if I wanna weave bloodletter into other skills?

I dunno what you mean by "weave".

And if you mean "use in between gcds" then I would say, well, who cares what you're "weaving" it in between, just as long as you use it whenever its up =P

But macroing it to heavyshot will result in dps losses, not from "weaving" issues but from using it on gcd when it should only be used off gcd.

I'm not really understanding why it would [definitively] be a DPS loss to prioritize Bloodletter.
Can you give me an example?

I can see how it would be a DPS loss in some circumstances, but a DPS gain in others.
For example: what happens if River of Blood procs while you are delaying using Bloodletter because you prioritized Heavyshot?
Wouldn't it be a DPS GAIN in that circumstance to use Bloodletter first instead of wasting the River of Blood proc?

I think the potential for extra procs would pretty much even out against the "in between GCD" strategy over time.

The lazy macro is rarely the optimal rotation. Surprisingly, Bard DPS is pretty dynamic, with River of Blood procs as well as the plethora of off GCD buffs. If you are clearly trash or doing shit on farm status, the lazy macro is amazing. But if you are attempting new and difficult content, having every skill on separate buttons will allow you to ebb and flow with the fight.

Personally, I use the weave method as it gives me full control of my character. Yah, there are way more buttons to press, but it's worth it in the end.

Here's a question... Is stacking buffs really required?

Let's say you use Raging Strikes 20% dmg buff for 20 seconds and then after use Blood for Blood 20% dmg buff for 20 seconds. That would mean you received 20% dmg buff for 40 seconds.

Stacking them at the same time would be 40% dmg buff for 20 seconds.

20% buff for 40 secs and 40% buff for 20 secs are the same.

you might see bigger numbers on screen if they are stacked, but it's more important that they are never off cooldown than anything.

Internal releases 20% crit rate might make bigger numbers on screen when used the same time as damage buff, but it would be more important to use it everytime it's up than wait without buffs for one big attack.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OmegaXtc

Here's a question... Is stacking buffs really required?

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Stacking is only useful for applying Venomous Bite and Windbite because dots take a snapshot when you apply them of what buffs you have up and then even if the buffs fall off, the dots continue to get their effect for the entire duration.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bardo

Stacking is only useful for applying Venomous Bite and Windbite because dots take a snapshot when you apply them of what buffs you have up and then even if the buffs fall off, the dots continue to get their effect for the entire duration.

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So stacking buffs is only because you want optimal dot damage modification. But after the first round of Buffs, you will be losing uptime on buffs if you dont put them up as soon as they come off cooldown. One just needs to be careful to update their dot damage snap shots appropriately.

Once your buffs start to come up at different intervals, just make sure to refresh your dots whenever you buff yourself and before they fall off.

Doesn't this macro "fix" the Bloodletter consuming a gcd thing:

/macroicon "Heavy Shot"
/ac "Heavy Shot" <t>
/ac "Bloodletter" <t>
/ac "Misery's End" <t>

It's the macro I spam and I haven't ever seen it use bloodletter before my heavy shot. A case could be made for Misery's End to be above bloodletter, but that is probably beside the point. Mr. Happy uses this macro in his youtube video and I've gotten quite a bit of use out of it myself.

Also not sure why it says I'm level 20, but I am certainly a level 50 bard.

Okay, I can see it as misery's end first, then heavy shot, then bloodletter then buffs. One thing i have noticed is that after having 8 actions in the macro, I had to put a pause between presses in my automated mouse hotkey. It apparently takes about .100ms to get through the whole macro serverside so simply holding down a button that spams it automatically was skipping the last step in the macro.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bardo

I'm not really understanding why it would [definitively] be a DPS loss to prioritize Bloodletter.
Can you give me an example?

For example: what happens if River of Blood procs while you are delaying using Bloodletter because you prioritized Heavyshot?

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Of course. DoTs tick every 3 seconds, all of them do.

This is the "best" scenario for your case, prioritizing bloodletter.

[0.0 sec] - Heavyshot
[1.25 sec] - Bloodletter
[1.26 sec] - River of Blood
[2.5 sec] - Heavyshot
[3.75 sec] - Bloodletter
[4.26 sec] - River of Blood can proc again

As you can see...even if River procs IMMEDIATELY after you bloodletter, by delaying till the next inbetween you still have 0 chance of missing a river of blood.

Also there seems to be a lot of misinformation in this thread.

You stack cooldowns because it is the most efficient use of cooldowns. Refreshing dots is just a bonus.

Think about it, our cooldowns:

15% damage increase
20% damage increase
20% dex increase
15% crit increase
Triple Autoattack.

If you used them separately...thats all you'll get.

If you use them together...you get

~40% damage increase + 15% dex (can't remember conversion rate here) + 15% crit

And your autoattacks are hitting, 3 times, for almost double damage each time.

THAT is why you stack cooldowns, and the cooldown timers are stacked so you almost always can get 10 seconds (of barrage) doing the most damage possible.

That being said I still don't think you should delay cooldowns by more than 5-10 seconds, just enough to line up the "pairs" of cooldowns, but don't save a 60 sec one for a 90 sec one, etc.

Here's one thing I don't quite understand. There's a slight delay between setting off each CD (i.e. you can't set them all off simultaneously). Essentially, you are wasting some of the first CD's timers to get them all stacked if you are not doing them off-GCD. That seems wasteful. I understand there is some nice burst damage you can get out of it if you wait until they're all stacked before going, but it does not seem to be optimal for maximizing DPS.

Wouldn't it make more sense to keep Heavy Shot going while getting them stacked, and possibly saving Bloodletter/Misery's End for after as many of them are up as is realistic?

Also, slightly off-topic, but is Venomous Bite/Windbite enmity front-loaded? Are people having to pop the -enmity skill before throwing on buffs and putting on the modified DoT's at the beginning of fights?

Yes, this macro is not ideal.

If you split up the macro into a offgcd macro and a cooldown macro, it is much more effective as I've stated before.

I don't think dot enmity is front loaded. If you can wait until he actually HITS the boss (NOT shieldthrow/tomahawk) you will be fine. Remember to open with straight arrow.

If you are having trouble, just put quelling at the FRONT of your chain, not the back. Either way, never put it in the middle.

You have PLENTY of time to stack your cooldowns. I don't know why anyone would waste GCDs to stack them. By the time you get barrage out you will have a full 10 seconds even if you weave them inbetween. And the only time you'll have problems is if you get bloodletter procs, which well, thats a GOOD THING lol, means more damage for you.

Remember, though our dots are OKAY, their main purpose is to proc bloodletter, and thus the only cooldown that you MUST refresh them for is internal release.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Of course. DoTs tick every 3 seconds, all of them do.
...
As you can see...even if River procs IMMEDIATELY after you bloodletter, by delaying till the next inbetween you still have 0 chance of missing a river of blood.

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If all dots tick every 3 seconds on the same tick timer, and GCD is 2.5 seconds (or less with skill speed gear) then how is it that I've been able to [heavyshot] [bloodletter] [heavyshot] [bloodletter] .... 5+ times in a row without delaying the GCD?

Best case scenario if the 3 second "stacked" tick theory is true, your 4th bloodletter in a row would delay the next GCD by a fraction of a second, and your 5th would come up after the GCD. Right?

That's just not what I'm seeing in-game.

I've had strings of 3 or so, but never 4 or more. In every case, the proc happened very quickly after I bloodlettered, and I don't think I missed any procs.

Can you put the dots on the dummy and tell me how often they tick?

v Disregard this post, read analysis below v

Hello, Here is how it plays out!

[0.0 sec] - Heavyshot
[1.25 sec] - Bloodletter 1
[1.26 sec] - River of Blood 1
[2.5 sec] - Heavyshot
[3.75 sec] - Bloodletter 2
[4.26 sec] - River of Blood 2
[5.0 sec] - Heavyshot
[6.25 sec] - Bloodletter 3
[7.26 sec] - River of Blood 3
[7.5 sec] - Heavyshot
[8.75 sec] - Bloodletter 4
[10.0 sec] - Heavyshot
[10.26 sec] - River of Blood 4
[11.25 sec] - Bloodletter 5
[12.5 sec] - Heavyshot
[13.26 sec] - River of Blood 5
[13.75 sec] - Bloodletter 6
[15.0 sec] - Heavyshot
[16.25 sec] - FIRST POSSIBLE MISSED BLOODLETTER
[16.76 sec] - River of Blood 6
[17.5 sec] - Heavyshot
[18.75 sec] - Bloodletter 7
[19.76 sec] - NEXT RIVER OF BLOOD - Impossible to miss doubleproc

As you can see, the MAX # of bloodletters in a row is 6! Which occurs less than 0.01% of the time!

AND, as you can see, you CANNOT miss ANY bloodletters by not delaying heavyshot. Thus, NEVER delay heavyshot, or ANY other ability, for bloodletter.

v @Wyndam below v

I hit my post limit, but yes there is. Go to Character Settings -> Logs and Chat -> General Tab (or whatever tab you wish), then turn off "System Error Messages".

Is there a way to turn off the error spam from macros like this?

I'm mostly tanking (PLD) and leveling archer as something to do when I need a break from it. So for me the spam macro is a great thing. However, I get a bunch of error messages when my current target dies and I need to switch to a new target. I could stop hitting the button so much except that defeats the purpose of a spam macro, so I'd rather know if there's a way I can just stop the errors from entering into my chat box. Does anyone know how to do this?

[QUOTE=pandabearcat;1273174]Also there seems to be a lot of misinformation in this thread.

You stack cooldowns because it is the most efficient use of cooldowns. Refreshing dots is just a bonus.

Think about it, our cooldowns:

15% damage increase
20% damage increase
20% dex increase
15% crit increase
Triple Autoattack.

If you used them separately...thats all you'll get.

If you use them together...you get

~40% damage increase + 15% dex (can't remember conversion rate here) + 15% crit

And your autoattacks are hitting, 3 times, for almost double damage each time.

THAT is why you stack cooldowns, and the cooldown timers are stacked so you almost always can get 10 seconds (of barrage) doing the most damage possible.
[QUOTE]

Wouldn't a macro by deafult accomplish "weaving"? Each press will only trigger one ability, and ass off gcd abilities are after heavy shot, it will always apply buffs only in so long as it cannot use heavy shot (a gcd). Macro spam should therefore maintain the same gcd spacing of your buffs accross a fight. The only "loss" would be if a buff became available again while you were using a different gcd (dot, straight shot, etc) instead of hitting your macro. This could be avoided by looping buffs into all your gcd skills in the same order.

Also, as teh buffs (other than barrage) are all % base, it actually doesn't matter if they are stacked. +40 for 10 seconds is the same as +20 for twenty seconds. The only advantage to stacking is to up barrage damage, though I would think this reward is some what minor considering the lengthy cool down of barrage and how it will be staggered between other cds (Over a fight you'll gain more net damage by keeping them on cool down than holding them any amount of time to pair with barrage).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PiedPiper

Wouldn't a macro by deafult accomplish "weaving"? Each press will only trigger one ability, and ass off gcd abilities are after heavy shot, it will always apply buffs only in so long as it cannot use heavy shot (a gcd). Macro spam should therefore maintain the same gcd spacing of your buffs accross a fight. The only "loss" would be if a buff became available again while you were using a different gcd (dot, straight shot, etc) instead of hitting your macro. This could be avoided by looping buffs into all your gcd skills in the same order.

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No, for two reasons:
1) You can activate more than 1 buff/off-GCD skill between GCD skills by mashing it, which will cause the animation to delay your next GCD ability.
2) Macro actions are not executed simultaneously by the server. If you press the macro a few ms before your GCD is actually up, the Heavy Shot will fail, but one of the off-GCDs later on in the macro will end up firing and, again, animation lock you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wyndam

Is there a way to turn off the error spam from macros like this?

I'm mostly tanking (PLD) and leveling archer as something to do when I need a break from it. So for me the spam macro is a great thing. However, I get a bunch of error messages when my current target dies and I need to switch to a new target. I could stop hitting the button so much except that defeats the purpose of a spam macro, so I'd rather know if there's a way I can just stop the errors from entering into my chat box. Does anyone know how to do this?

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Yes, in the chat filter settings, under the last tab, turn off error messages.

I have been looking for something like this. But after reading most posts i got confused. So ;

Do i just use the macro in the original post, or should i split it up (like some of you talks about).

Sorry i am confused, can anyone sum this up please :S

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ghaaniz

I have been looking for something like this. But after reading most posts i got confused. So ;

Do i just use the macro in the original post, or should i split it up (like some of you talks about).

Sorry i am confused, can anyone sum this up please :S

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Hey, I suppose to sum up the thread..

The macro on the first page is good for one button mashing, and will get the job done.. HOWEVER.. it is not ideal and you will miss some global cooldowns. Its about 75% efficient.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OmegaXtc

Hey, I suppose to sum up the thread..

The macro on the first page is good for one button mashing, and will get the job done.. HOWEVER.. it is not ideal and you will miss some global cooldowns. Its about 75% efficient.

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Okay.. What part of it makes it to miss the GCD ?

Would it be better to make 2 macros, the dps rotation and the selfbuffs?

Why? i have no idea.. lol