Evidence that Macros Do NOT Cause GCD Delay or Lost Casts

[Zakuyia]

It's one thing to say they are not optimal when done in certain ways. However, it's wrong to say they can never be. For example, I have intervention macros, nascent flash macros, shirk macros, rescue macros, aetherial manipulation macros, sacred soil/asylum macros, etc. It would definitely be sub-optimal to not macro them and even make me lose whole GCDs.

Where they are sub-optimal, this is often minor unless you macro a combo/combination of things, where the waits cause a whole 0.5 delay minimum or skipped casts in the macro.

For example, you can "macro two things together" to create a priority system where the macro will only actually use one based on factors such as level or if one of them is on cooldown.

Also, I think part of the point of these posts is that it's made more sub-optimal by pressing the macro more than once, restarting the macro before it can even execute.

I guess but with all pros telling you not to do that with macros it really leads me to wonder if this is a bad advice thread.

[LibitIncarne]

I guess but with all pros telling you not to do that with macros it really leads me to wonder if this is a bad advice thread.

Certain oGCDs like Jeeq mentioned are actually worth macroing since you can press the button and it'll come out on whatever <2>, <focustarget>, or <mouseover> is without having to click multiple times.

There is barely ever, if there even is, any reason to have a macro that is /action <t> or just /action instead of making it come out on a specific preset target or being a Mouseover macro.

[LilimoLimomo]

I guess but with all pros telling you not to do that with macros it really leads me to wonder if this is a bad advice thread.

This is so real, and I feel it.

From both history and life, I've learned that the greatest minds of every generation have always managed to be wrong about something — from thinking the world is flat, to thinking women are incapable of leadership, to thinking that reading books is bad for your mind. And despite standing on the shoulders of giants, our generation is no different.

That being the case, I'd recommend trying to find a balance between looking to others for guidance and thinking critically/doing your own research. Even with the best of intentions, every one of us will misjudge something or miss something sometimes, so look to others to check your work, but also do the work yourself when you genuinely want to know more.

A short anecdote:

Since I first started playing FF14, I've had a disability that has been gradually getting worse, and for that reason I had been using simple macros to play; not the kind that run a sequence of actions one-after another, but the kind that put a few different actions on the same button and let the context of the game determine which one is suitable to use. These macros really helped me to access more of my kit than I would have been able to otherwise. So after a few months when I stumbled across someone saying that macros lowered your APM by clipping your GCD, I was devastated. I tested it out, and they were right; my macros were getting clipped!

I struggled with this knowledge. On one-hand, these macros had served me really well, and I hadn't been experiencing any meaningful problems in the game because of them. But at the same time, a part of me really didn't like knowing that the techniques I was using were sub-optimal; there was a discomfort in that. I didn't know what to do, and I was feeling incredibly torn.

At some point in this turmoil, I stubbornly decided that I would try to make macros work. Part of me figured that this was hopeless, that this was nothing but the futile and final protests of a paradigm at the end of its life. But part of me desperately wanted to hope that I could do it. "I've been programming for most of my life, surely I can find some way to make it work!" I meekly tried to convince myself.

But as it turned out...I did discover something. Eventually, I tried writing the same action repeatedly in a macro, and tests showed that I could press the button a short time before my GCD was ready and that the action would cast when the GCD became available. I can't describe to you my happiness at finding a way to be able to use the macros that made my gaming possible, and without clipping the GCD!*

All of which is to say: if I had just accepted what I had been told at that time, I might not have ever learned the truth. But by getting my hands dirty, by putting in the effort, I was able to to get closer to the truth and feel confident in my knowledge because I had done the science myself.

So if you find yourself unsure of what to believe, I can't recommend a better tie-breaker than rolling up your sleeves and getting the answers yourself. It would probably only take you a few minutes to write a macro that repeats the same line a few times for queuing purposes, and then you can test it in combat and get a feel for when you need to press the button depending on how many repeated lines of queuing the macro has (you can add or remove them to get that feel). The more you play around, the more you'll learn.

And maybe you'll learn that even though macros have this queuing behavior, it's not long enough for you, or it's just not worth the hassle, or whatever. And that's entirely valid! But you'll only truly learn that by giving it a good faith effort.

I hope this helps in some way! ^^


*And over my years of playing, I've further refined my macro techniques to do all sorts of neat things and learned more about how to optimize macros depending on what results the user is after. My stubbornness and curiosity have made macros something that I've developed some level of expertise at, and I genuinely enjoy exploring new kinds of macros, learning more about them, and sharing that knowledge with others.

[ThatQEDguy]

When are you going to show this off in content? I would love to see that.

[GrizzlyTank]

Macros queue if you write them to queue. All the details of how that works are in the first post.

Macros have a different type of queue.

When you use abilities you can use an ability and then there is a period where the input for the 2nd ability will queue and trigger when possible.
With macros this is not the case. If you put the same abilities in two macros, when you use one ability, you have to spam the button for the other until it triggers. Since macros don't queue.

[Venks]

And if you read this to the end, I greatly appreciate your patience in engaging with this novel! <3

This was a super fun read and I'm glad I saw this thread. I've been noticing more Japanese players using macros recently which was super confusing to me given what I've heard from the Balance, but I see now that you can actually use macros without clipping. I'm excited to try this out.

[Banriikku]

Hiho,

Macros work only on stuff that is not GCD dependant. Period. Examples are: Rez macro - Please, oh lord WITHOUT SOUND. Stop playing DJ!; Shirk and provoke macro, Target macros, etc..

Macros are only full seconds and GCDs are NOT full seconds only. So you will loose some. This is the rule and can be tested. Put 5 skill of an roation into macro and you will loose GCDs.
Hey i have an idea put the Hypercharge + Wildfire part of the burst window of the MCH into a Macro or mudras from the ninja. Do it and you will see.

Hey i know, looking for solution is cool and all but this is not the solution for it. Also dont you think after such an long time people would figure it out if it was possible?
You can and "should" (my opinion) use things like target macros, rez macro (if you need this your orange-monkey-calculator badge is lost anyway). Things that are on full seconds or not time dependant are fine. I use greetings and the like and focus target or as a tank a reminder (with and without sound, some healers need that jingle) if i use my invuln. Thats the extent but rotations will never work because how the system works. Still, good work for thinking and making an effort but you will loose GCDs inside a rotation and outside of an rotation it does not matter and you can do what ever.

PS.:
As a test, i used my WAR and puzzeld the burst together as a macro and 2 attacks did not go off and as a result everything was botched. No probelm because WAR burst is even "macro-dumb-proof" but still i gained nothing except a headache and missing GCDs.

[Venks]

I'm sorry that you struggle with a disability. Good on you for finding something that works for you. But to say that Macros do not cause a GCD delay or lost casts, as your title suggests, is WRONG. It is a falsehood. Sometimes Macros don't fire. Sometimes you don't press it every 15 frames to make it work. There WILL be inevitable GCD losses for GCD macros. half second buffer > 1/4 second pseudo-buffer.

It isn't inevitable. It's literally down to timing. GCDs only clip if you can't continually hit the correct timing.
Like for sure this can potentially be a skill issue for some. But like personally I speedrun games that require me to consistently do frame perfect inputs over and over again to pull off certain tricks. Like when I'm warmed up I'm not going to miss a single 2/60 window, I can't personally comprehend calling a 15/60 frame window impossible to stay on top of.

[Shurrikhan]

It isn't inevitable. It's literally down to timing. GCDs only clip if you can't continually hit the correct timing.

Which means a far, far larger group will see a net loss than a net gain --and much more significantly unless unable to change between regular keybinds within a GCD's time-- from using macros on all but a few skills (those requiring specific and different targets, which would otherwise require 3 or more button-presses for that single action), as he already pointed out.

Frame-perfect button-presses themselves only gets you within 1/n frames' time of maintaining perfect uptime.

Using a regular skill, on the other hand, gets you to perfect uptime any time you hit the button within a half-second of its being ready.

[Collin_Sky]

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