Evidence that Macros Do NOT Cause GCD Delay or Lost Casts

[Natalyah]

Thanks so much for all your helpful info

As for dots I use Iron Jaws to refresh them

[Natalyah]

I will give yours a try also. I'm not interested in high end content or anything. My raiding days are well behind me being an older player and parent.

[LilimoLimomo]

Thanks so much for all your helpful info

Happy to help! Also, I thought of a potential alternative way to adjust your buttons. I added it to the previous post, but I'll also put it here for your convenience:

Alternatively, instead of splitting the oGCD's into their own button, you could simply automate them:

/macroicon "Straight Shot"
/targetenemy
/macroerror off
/actionerror off
/ac "Straight Shot"
/ac "Straight Shot"
/ac "Straight Shot"
/ac "Straight Shot"
/ac "Straight Shot"
/ac "Heavy Shot" <wait.1>
/ac "raging strikes"
/ac "Bloodletter"
/ac "empyreal arrow"
/ac sidewinder
/ac barrage

Each press of the button will give you a GCD and then an oGCD if one is available. The upside of this is that you've still got a single button for all your single-target stuff and you only have to press it once every 2.5 or so seconds, which will still reduce the possibility of a repetitive motion injury. The downside is that if you don't want to use an oGCD, you would have to accept the fact that one would be used, or manually press another macro to cancel the follow-up action before it gets cast. So maybe this would work better for you, maybe it wouldn't.

[LilimoLimomo]

Alright, I had some free time last night that I used to look over Bard's various skills, so I've returned to provide one possible example of how someone could use macros to reduce Bard button bloat while still playing optimally.

At a high level, here's what we'll end up with:
- Our crosshotbar will keep track of whether we're doing single-target or multiple-target attacks and present us with relevant actions.
- Our crosshotbar will keep track of which of the two DoT's we used last and present us with the other one.
- We'll have a buffs button, an oGCD attack button, and a song button.
- (optional) Our GCD buttons will cast oGCD attacks when pressed outside of GCD.
- Pressing each button will result in a single action being used; there is no automated queuing in these macros.

Crosshotbars
We'll be playing on crosshotbar 1, which will be populated with actions when we copy them from other crosshotbars. We'll have 4 crosshotbars to copy from, with each representing one of the 4 permutations of "Venomous Bite or Windbite" and "single target or AoE".

Crosshotbar 2 is "single-target + Venomous Bite":
Heavy Shot V macro
Straight Shot
Iron Jaws
Quick Nock V macro
Venomous Bite S macro
Single-target oGCD macro
Song macro
Buff macro

Crosshotbar 3 is "single-target + Windbite":
Heavy Shot W macro
Straight Shot
Iron Jaws
Quick Nock W macro
Windbite S macro
Single-target oGCD macro
Song macro
Buff macro

Crosshotbar 4 is "AoE + Venomous Bite":
Heavy Shot V macro
Shadowbite
Iron Jaws
Quick Nock V macro
Venomous Bite A macro
AoE oGCD macro
Song macro
Buff macro

Crosshotbar 5 is "AoE + Windbite":
Heavy Shot W macro
Shadowbite
Iron Jaws
Quick Nock W macro
Windbite A macro
AoE oGCD macro
Song macro
Buff macro

Macros
This specific setup uses 12 macros.

Heavy Shot V macro
/macroicon "Heavy Shot"
/macroerror off
/crosshotbar copy BRD 2 BRD 1
/ac "Heavy Shot"
/ac "Heavy Shot"
/ac "Heavy Shot"
/ac "Heavy Shot"
/ac "Heavy Shot"
/ac "Heavy Shot"
/ac "Heavy Shot"
/ac "Heavy Shot"
/ac "Bloodletter"
/ac "Empyreal Arrow"
/ac "Sidewinder"
/ac "Barrage"

Heavy Shot W macro
/macroicon "Heavy Shot"
/macroerror off
/crosshotbar copy BRD 3 BRD 1
/ac "Heavy Shot"
/ac "Heavy Shot"
/ac "Heavy Shot"
/ac "Heavy Shot"
/ac "Heavy Shot"
/ac "Heavy Shot"
/ac "Heavy Shot"
/ac "Heavy Shot"
/ac "Bloodletter"
/ac "Empyreal Arrow"
/ac "Sidewinder"
/ac "Barrage"

Quick Nock V macro
/macroicon "Quick Nock"
/macroerror off
/crosshotbar copy BRD 4 BRD 1
/ac "Quick Nock"
/ac "Quick Nock"
/ac "Quick Nock"
/ac "Quick Nock"
/ac "Quick Nock"
/ac "Quick Nock"
/ac "Quick Nock"
/ac "Quick Nock"
/ac "Rain of Death"
/ac "Barrage"

Quick Nock W macro
/macroicon "Quick Nock"
/macroerror off
/crosshotbar copy BRD 5 BRD 1
/ac "Quick Nock"
/ac "Quick Nock"
/ac "Quick Nock"
/ac "Quick Nock"
/ac "Quick Nock"
/ac "Quick Nock"
/ac "Quick Nock"
/ac "Quick Nock"
/ac "Rain of Death"
/ac "Barrage"

Venomous Bite S macro
/macroicon "Venomous Bite"
/macroerror off
/crosshotbar copy BRD 3 BRD 1
/ac "Venomous Bite"
/ac "Venomous Bite"
/ac "Venomous Bite"
/ac "Venomous Bite"
/ac "Venomous Bite"
/ac "Venomous Bite"
/ac "Venomous Bite"
/ac "Venomous Bite"

Venomous Bite A macro
/macroicon "Venomous Bite"
/macroerror off
/crosshotbar copy BRD 5 BRD 1
/ac "Venomous Bite"
/ac "Venomous Bite"
/ac "Venomous Bite"
/ac "Venomous Bite"
/ac "Venomous Bite"
/ac "Venomous Bite"
/ac "Venomous Bite"
/ac "Venomous Bite"

Windbite S macro
/macroicon "Windbite"
/macroerror off
/crosshotbar copy BRD 2 BRD 1
/ac "Windbite"
/ac "Windbite"
/ac "Windbite"
/ac "Windbite"
/ac "Windbite"
/ac "Windbite"
/ac "Windbite"
/ac "Windbite"

Windbite A macro
/macroicon "Windbite"
/macroerror off
/crosshotbar copy BRD 4 BRD 1
/ac "Windbite"
/ac "Windbite"
/ac "Windbite"
/ac "Windbite"
/ac "Windbite"
/ac "Windbite"
/ac "Windbite"
/ac "Windbite"

Single-target oGCD macro
/macroicon "Bloodletter"
/macroerror off
/ac "Bloodletter"
/ac "Bloodletter"
/ac "Bloodletter"
/ac "Empyreal Arrow"
/ac "Sidewinder"
/ac "Barrage"

AoE oGCD macro
/macroicon "Rain of Death"
/macroerror off
/ac "Rain of Death"
/ac "Rain of Death"
/ac "Rain of Death"
/ac "Barrage"

Song macro
/macroicon "The Wanderer's Minuet"
/macroerror off
/ac "The Wanderer's Minuet"
/ac "The Wanderer's Minuet"
/ac "The Wanderer's Minuet"
/ac "The Wanderer's Minuet"
/ac "Army's Paeon"
/ac "Mage's Ballad"

Buff macro
/macroicon "Raging Strikes"
/macroerror off
/ac "Raging Strikes"
/ac "Raging Strikes"
/ac "Raging Strikes"
/ac "Raging Strikes"
/ac "Battle Voice"
/ac "Radiant Finale"

Notes
This takes 18 of Bard's actions and compacts them into 8 context-sensitive buttons. All the macros have "queue window padding" that can be tuned to your comfort. There's redundancy in that there are numerous ways to cast certain oGCD's, so if you prefer one method over the other you can remove the excess. Do you prefer your oGCD's in a different order, either due to personal preference or because the person who wrote this doesn't play Bard and didn't optimize them properly? I encourage you to make those improvements!

Also, it's worth mentioning that I haven't tested these macros so there's no guarantee they're bug-free (although I did give them a twice-over with my eyes, so I feel pretty confident they'll work).

As for the remaining Bard moves, I leave those as an exercise for the reader, especially since what you do with them is going to be based on personal preference. You can try to fit them into these macros, make new macros for them, or just use the normal actions. It all depends on what you prefer.

Overall, take these macros not as the way to do things, but rather as one possible way to use macros to your advantage. Hope this helps anyone who's interested!

[Mikoko_Miko]

I'm sorry for necroing last year's thread, but I'd like to share another evidence that Macros Do NOT Cause GCD Delay here. Recently I found the following video.
https://youtu.be/sns_9GhUTqU
Even if you use Macros for GCD actions, GCD delay is only 0.083 sec in 3 min. I'm certain that Macros don't lead to GCD delay as far as they are properly coded and executed.

As a healer I use many mouseover macros. For example,

/action "Adloquium" <mo>
/action "Adloquium" <mo>
/action "Adloquium" <mo>
/action "Adloquium" <mo>
/action "Adloquium" <mo>
/action "Adloquium" <mo>
/action "Adloquium" <mo>
/action "Adloquium" <mo>
/action "Adloquium" <mo>
/action "Adloquium" <mo>
/action "Adloquium" <mo>
/action "Adloquium" <mo>
/action "Adloquium" <mo>
/action "Adloquium" <mo>
/macroicon "Adloquium"

Its pseudo-queueing window is about 0.23sec in 60fps, so it won't delay my GCD. My other macros are not optimal so they may cause delay, but they saves my XHB slots.

3-in-1 Sacred Soil macro

/action "Sacred Soil" gtoff
/action "Sacred Soil" <t>
/action "Sacred Soil" <mo>
/targetlasttarget
/targetlasttarget
/macroicon "Sacred Soil"

It places Sacred Soil on
| if mouse cursor is on the ground then the cursor (without switching into ground target mode)
| else if I target someone then the target
| else mouseover target

4-in-1 Place/Heel macro

/petaction "Place" <mo>
/petaction "Place" <t>
/petaction "Place" gtoff
/targetlasttarget
/targetlasttarget
/wait 1
/petaction "Heel"
/macroicon "Place" pet

The condition is the same as the above. If another macro is executed in 1 sec then Place else Heel. If I want to Place then I execute healing macro, target assist macro, XHB change macro, etc.

[Zakuyia]

Not sure if this is a troll post or bad advice thread....do not use macros on ur ability....

[Saraide]

Not sure if this is a troll post or bad advice thread....do not use macros on ur ability....

They'll find out not every fight is a training dummy eventually.

[Xuled]

Macro user equals grey most of the time lol makes sense for this community

[AvoSturmfaust]

[QUOTE=LilimoLimomo;6333965]The video used as evidence showed a difference in only 23 casts. I did more casts in the same window, which should have shown a more pronounced effect due to the increased number of casts. However, my tests showed the opposite.


"I had never heard there were Balance theorycrafters who would be important to send this to. Tell me a way to respectfully get in touch with them and I'll be happy to."


Balance Discord, Top Channel Selection, there you can selet the Theorycraft Battle Channels, its your best place for it

[LilimoLimomo]

I'm sorry for necroing last year's thread, but I'd like to share another evidence that Macros Do NOT Cause GCD Delay here. Recently I found the following video.
https://youtu.be/sns_9GhUTqU

Oh wow, thanks for sharing this! It's interesting to see that there's someone in the Japanese community doing similar experiments to my own...and that unlike me they know how to edit videos so you can see the comparison side-by-side! It makes me smile not only that others are doing this, but that you thought to share it with me! ^^

I'm hoping to find a way to translate their whole Lodestone post, but my usual go-to (Google Translate) seems to not translate the post part of the page; I'll keep looking to see if there's another tool that can translate the page without losing the formatting.

/action "Sacred Soil" gtoff
/action "Sacred Soil" <t>
/action "Sacred Soil" <mo>
/targetlasttarget
/targetlasttarget
/macroicon "Sacred Soil"

It places Sacred Soil on
| if mouse cursor is on the ground then the cursor (without switching into ground target mode)
| else if I target someone then the target
| else mouseover target

I love seeing the macros of other macro users, it's always so interesting to see what works for different kinds of people depending on their needs!

One question I have is that I notice some of your macros have /targetlasttarget twice in a row. Can you tell me a bit more about that? I'm always interested to learn new tricks!