Dear fellow Scholars. How do you hotbar?

[Cynfael]

As for that pish posh marco-ing Embrace and Psy together. Don't. You will undoubtedly spam that key when you are panic'd resulting in your fairy getting queue spammed and then you might as well have her on Sic because thats about how useful your Fairy becomes until all the embrace requests finish and she is ready to accept new commands.

Commands like that silence you should have casted....but you wiped...because Embrace + Psy is for baddies.

Queuing commands doesn't work that way; you can't accidentally force the fairy to use her next dozen GCDs Embracing the same party member because you spammed a macro. Similarly, she'll ignore your bundled Embrace command if you already have her casting on someone else, allowing you to split heal without committing her GCD unnecessarily.

If you're practiced at it, there is no appreciable difference between split healing with an Embrace combo and using an entirely different key to do it. However, I still find an additional Embrace <tt> hotkey handy since I'm in the habit of targeting mobs while DPSing so that I can more easily keep track of DoT and debuff timers.

[Traumatic]

If you're practiced at it, there is no appreciable difference between split healing with an Embrace combo and using an entirely different key to do it.

Every SCH should know this unfortunately most don't that using macros to cast spells prevents them from being added to the skill queue if you hit them early. You ever double toggle c-stance? (on --> off --> on) that is because u are hitting a direct key bound to only that spell not a macro that calls a spell.

SO when I say queue spammed I mean that if you pet is performing its default behavior on obey and casting embraces and you attempt to use your macro her next action BEFORE her spell and GCD is complete. She will flat out ignore the request because her queue is full(aka spammed)I am willing to guess about 2/3 is actually your pet having already queued to heal that player or heals going elsewhere.

Lastly <mo> over <tt> anyday

[Cynfael]

Snip

I don't care for <mo>. For some reason it feels clunky. Not opposed to experimenting more, but it didn't seem to grant any functionality beyond what I was already getting (keeping in mind that the fairy can Embrace only so often as it is due to casting time and CD, no matter how on top of micromanagement you are). Perhaps it just takes some getting used to?

EDIT: Been experimenting more with <mo>, and I think it will replace both my <tt> and combo macros when I get more accustomed to using the mouse cursor this way. Not as bad as I remember from the first time I tried it.

As for the rest, I get what you're saying now, but it never occurred to me because I keep an eye on her Obey behavior and simply keep tapping the command if I want her to be sure to Embrace a specific target when she's done with her current action. I never counted on being able to queue her next action to begin with since I prefer not to tie her GCDs up too tight in case I need to direct her next heal elsewhere.

And ty for the helpful feedback, btw.

[raecear]

I finally broke down and started using mouse keybinds. I have 4 keys on the side of my mouse that I bound to 9,0,-,=. This opened up the right half of my hotbars for combat actions.

In general, I use my left hand for attacks, buffs, and debuffs, and the right hand (mouse keys) for heals and faerie controls. Columns 7 and 8 are not easily accessible by either hand and must be clicked directly.



The second row (labelled 3) is triggered with alt-num and the top row (laballed 2) is with ctrl-num.

My attack abilities use <t><tt><f> priority, while my heal abilities use <mo><t><f><me> priority. Healing by mouseover feels really natural since I activate those abilities with my mouse hand, while my left hand targets enemies and activates attack abilities.

Not shown, I have one other bar in which the first three abilities are bound to 3 buttons on the top of my mouse, which are used for Eos' move/heel/obey commands.