Tanking Macros

[Clarkjd2008]

A little off the beaten path from the title of this thread. I know by asking this Im sure Im going to get some a**holes that call me noob and what have you but here it goes anyways. How important are the use of macros? Been looking for the next step in prep for higher dungeons cause right now I have no problem tanking. Been reading alot trying to add to my versatility as a tank and as a player and this seems to be the next ideal step if its a must have thing. Long post short, is having macros being lazy and not wanting to hit all the buttons?, or essential to cut out human delay and basically auto run your stuff while saving room on the hotbars? Thanks for any reponse and for not being a**holes bout it

[Dhex]

!

They aren't important - it just depends on how you keep track of things. I tend to use certain actions in tandem - so putting their execution into one key you can hit repeatedly can make things easier (this is very simple macro design nothing like what I posted above). You can set up your macro so that the skills you use are on a single keystroke.

Example:
Macro
/ac "Bloodbath" <me>
/ac "Foresight" <me>
/ac "Featherfoot" <me>

Set this as 7 on your action bar - now you only need to hit 7 repeatedly to use those 3 skills rather than 3 different keys.

Downside - you can't see a cool down for those skills without adding a /wait + /echo message. You are forced to do skills in whatever order they are macro'd. You can only set /wait commands as low as /wait .1 or as high as /wait 60 also.

[PiedPiper]

!

The one I posted is the only one I use as an endgame tank. It is purely to save spacee on my hotbar and to remove a micormanagement challenge. As I said, it is best to keep those skills on cool down, so I know that they will be almost perfectly on cool down becasue I hit that button every third GCD. I am not overly comfortable stacking other cool downs together as it will be somewhat wastefull. For example, if you are putting foresight and sentinel together, if the boss frequently spikes (such as last phase titan) you'll find you don't have enough cool downs.

You'll see other macros for healers that are more ease of use as well, such as /ac "Aeor" <tt> so that healers can place the dot on the boss without having to target off the tank.