Archer DPS; the Macro.

[Skeith-Adeline]

I would advise against macros. Having to multi-task greatly increases your situational awareness and it is invaluable.

[radioactive_lego]

When it comes to BRD, macro is fine, just don't have a long list of commands, or it messes up, this is what I have:

Heavy Shot
/micon "Bloodletter"
/ac "Misery's End"
/ac "Bloodletter"
/ac "HeavyShot"

Venomous Bite
/micon "Venomous Bite"
/ac "Misery's End"
/ac "Bloodletter"
/ac "Venomous Bite"

Straight Shot
/micon "Straight Shot"
/ac "Misery's End"
/ac "Bloodletter"
/ac "Straight Shot"

Wind Bite
/micon "Windbite"
/ac "Misery's End"
/ac "Bloodletter"
/ac "Windbite"

This is good for everything, just when it comes to other jobs the macro thing is a no no pretty much.

I like this a lot. I like keeping my buffs up too, but this seems pretty legit.

Side note: I see most of the people didn't read the OP. Thanks for saying on topic.

I would advise against macros. Having to multi-task greatly increases your situational awareness and it is invaluable.

How exactly does multi-tasking increase your situational awareness? I sometimes watch Netflix while crafting - I cant tell you how many HQ opportunities I've pissed away because Matthew Murdock is a badass.

[MrYaah]

I feel that the explanations in this thread do a poor job of explaining the pros and cons of macroing your abilities as a bard.

I'll start off by saying, I don't use macros and in my opinion you're not going to be able to reach maximum dps as a bard with your abilities macroed. The main reason for this is that skills inside of macros are not buffered by the server so you cannot activate the ability until the server has reported that the other ability has ended. Any latency between you and the server then gets added to the delay between abilities, essentially increasing the delay between every gcd and ogcd.

This video demonstrates this nicely, https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=253&v=czzLF4IfFaM

Increasing this delay decreases dps and tp usage, so if you get rid of these macros you'll notice a nice improvement in dps but more need to manage your tp.

The advantage of the macros is that it is clearly easier to use, you don't have to focus as much on watching the cd on your off gcds and you can just focus on your dots / ss buff and let your buffs and bl use themselves, in addition to this you last a lot longer between invigorates so macros are definitely beginner friendly in many ways on bard.

The question you have to ask yourself is what do you prefer, optimal dps or ease of use. If you really want to get the most dps out of your class as a bard should definitely not use macros. If you're already in the habit of using them you can slowly work your way out of macros, first get rid of all the bl / ms macros on your gcds so those can be buffered properly, practice hitting bloodletter as soon as it comes up rather than letting macro'd button mashing do it for you. You can keep the buff macro for convenience since its not as huge a loss of dps, but it still will cause delays between your gcds if you try to weave two buffs between 1 gap between gcds and it will make it very difficult to land quad barrages (which is another important / difficult skill for bard dps). It will take hard work to really get to the point where you can take advantage of the gains you get by not using macros but if you want to maximize your dps it is a necessity.

[Empty-handed]

dont use macro.

the only macro i use is for buffs. and i only press it if im moving otherwise i click my buffs in the order i want them to be.

please avoid using macros

[radioactive_lego]

I'm looking for thoughts on the following spammable macro (not macros in general).

Let me elaborate: This is a thread for the comfortable macro user. I would appreciate debates or thoughts on the viability of macros go someplace else.

Thank you,

- Lego.

[Solzan]

Ill say this again, when it comes to BRD, and when you do the macros properly, as in you keep the lines short, like the one that I have shown and not one big command line, it is fine, you will do great DPS and also you can use it anywhere. The way that BRD works its unique for that, however when it comes to other jobs, never use macros in that way. @Mr Yaah, the video you showed was that of MNK, and as I said you should never use macros that way for other jobs, also the delay thing you talk about I think does not apply to this, it more applies to macros if you do it like this /ac "abiltity" then next line /wait 1 then next line /ac "ability" which you have to do for other other jobs e.g. MNK(except BRD which you have no "/wait" line) and is wrong and does lower your dps alot, however if you are using the BRD macros they will go off immediately as if you was someone who does not use macros, also @radioactive_lego np glad to be of help.

[Dante_V]

This is why we can't have nice things. If you are going to be lazy and do crap dps just spam heavy shot over and over. No macro needed!

[Buff_Archer]

My DPS went up 30% when someone spent half an hour with me at a target practice dummy and parsed for me, based on how I was doing it at the beginning of the session using macros to try and prioritize skills, and at the end after I had removed those macros from my crossbars and was using GCD/Instant interweaving. And that 30% improvement was before I got the additional practice that made this innate so I'm sure my efficiency gain was greater than that. Also, I had the instant buffs stacked on the same button so I could spam them and save space- but I like knowing which are on CD and which aren't, since I can use all of them together, and then use Hawks Eye/Internal Release again while the rest are 1/2 way back to being available, and then use all of them again once I'm sure they're available.

Anyways, to OP's post– if you're not going to use your cooldowns at all, doing this is better than that at least. But it's not going to work the way you want with Heavy Shot anywhere but the end, since anything that comes before it would move on to the next item on the list if it's on cooldown, but Heavy Shot will never be on cooldown so the macro effectively would stop executing there. Anything that follows it will fail to execute because of Heavy Shot's GCD.

Re the /p Silence- Just used it! <se.1><se.2><se.3><se.4> type macros I'm glad to see less people using them in dungeons every 30s when Blunt Arrow comes off CD. I have a blunt arrow announcement macro that I only put on my crossbar for a few specific instances where it's important to use silence on something. Like if Trial Roulette gives me Chimera. Half the reason is because if someone else is going to fail at doing silence/stun when it's their turn and mine is on CD, I want people to know at least I did my job. Like when I say I'm going to silence Rams Voice, and then the party gets hit by one Dragon's Voice after another that no one stuns or silences, hey don't look at me. Used to use the macro for Dira in CT but now I just save Blunt Arrow for her big AOE's while the two other bards in the instance run off the pad when they see it coming, I don't need to announce it since she'll be dead well before silence is needed again based on our increased levels of damage.

[Eloah]

I use macros on my bard, but no combined skills, as others have indicated. I have the basic song macros to notify teammates and other parties when playing foes, and the usual "stun" macro if I use blunt arrow, which is rare. But the main macro I use/have is my straight shot macro. Basically i have it set up to ping after 15 seconds so that I know to use the move again, and dont have to watch the icon on screen. This way the move is always up and I do my critical damage.

[Buff_Archer]

I would consider using Blunt Arrow in between GCD skills for when you aren't saving it to silence something. It's kind of like getting an extra Bloodletter instant to use in between GCD skills every 30 seconds- which is why I usually have the nonmacro version on my crossbar since no one wants to see/hear that every 30 seconds in battle.

Basically instead of Heavy Shot -> 2.5 secs -> Heavy Shot, you'd get Heavy Shot -> 1.25 secs -> Blunt Arrow -> 1.25 secs -> Heavy Shot, so in other words every 30s when it's available you get to use 3 attacks in the same window that you'd otherwise only get to use 2. If you were close to the enemy you could even follow that second Heavy Shot with Repelling Arrow, and then Heavy Shot, meaning instead of just 3 Heavy Shots, you get 3 Heavy Shots, 1 Blunt Arrow, 1 Repelling Shot, in the exact same timeframe.