Evidence that Macros Do NOT Cause GCD Delay or Lost Casts

[LilimoLimomo]

I am very appreciative of this thread @Lilimo! Especially considering Japanese players have no aversion to macros, I was surprised to learn how anti-macro NA appears to be, and how little knowledge about them exists in the English-speaking corners of the web aside from "bad, do not use". I also suffer severe hand health issues from decades of being a software developer and general computer junkie, so I am always on the lookout for ways to make the play experience more comfortable for me. I had a suspicion macros might be able to help, and I'm glad to see someone else of like mind take the charge!

Thanks for the positive feedback; I genuinely hope that some of the knowledge in this thread can help you play more comfortably and effectively! ^^

I wanted to ask specifically what BLM macros you make frequent use of to save hotbar space?

Sure, I'd be glad to share some of them! First, I'll give an overview of my high-level setup that will probably work for a lot of people.

The way I have my BLM crosshotbars setup, I've got 4 different "loadout" crosshotbars in storage, each for a different purpose:

1. Fire Phase Single Target
2. Ice Phase Single Target
3. Fire Phase Multi Target
4. Ice Phase Multi Target

When I press certain macros, those macros will copy a specific "loadout" crosshotbar to my main crosshotbar. So when I press Blizzard 3 it changes to the Single-Target Ice Crosshotbar, etc. I have a different Transpose macro for each of these 4 bars, so that when I press Transpose it keeps being either Single or Multi target, but swaps to the bar of the other Element. And similarly, I have 4 macros (one for each bar) that don't do anything except swap between Single and Multi target modes.

All of that helps me reduce button bloat by making sure crosshotbar space isn't being wasted by spells I don't need. For example, if I'm doing a single-target boss fight, I won't need to press spells like Freeze or Fire 2. And when I'm in my Ice Phase, I don't need access to spells like Fire, Fire IV, Flare Star, etc. By getting rid of spells we don't need when we don't need them, we can more easily fit spells/abilities we do need into places that are comfortable and easy to access.

So for example, one of the Transposes looks like this:

/ac "Transpose"
/crosshotbar copy BLM 4 BLM 1
/ac "Transpose"
/ac "Transpose"
/ac "Transpose"
/ac "Transpose"
/ac "Transpose"
/ac "Transpose"
/ac "Transpose"
/ac "Transpose"
/ac "Transpose"
/ac "Transpose"
/ac "Transpose"
/ac "Transpose"
/macroicon "Transpose"

Most of the time I don't need much of any queue padding for abilities, but all the /ac lines are there just because if you slip it'll make things more comfy. And since we're not intentionally taking advantage of any queuing, I put the /macroicon line at the end which will result in less delay at the beginning of the macro. That said, I put the crosshotbar swap on the second line because it's important that that part of the macro not end up interrupted, and on line 2 that won't happen because I don't mash my macros.

So that's the high-level part that I think the most people will probably benefit from. As for my specific macros, they're a bit in flux right now, as I'm still in the process of iteratively adjusting them to the Dawntrail BLM changes; that's something I've been doing over time to really get a feel for what's comfy, what's not quite there, if there are any situations that cause issues, etc.

I have two other macros that might be worth sharing, but they're both pretty simple. That said, they demonstrate techniques that can be used in a lot of different circumstances!

This one combines Fire IV and Flare Star into a single button, as during standard play there will never be a situation where you could cast either Flare Star or Fire IV. By alternating them on each line, we take advantage of queuing behavior while minimizing the possible frame delay to 1 at most and 0.5 on average.

/macroicon "Flare IV"
/macroerror off
/ac "Fire IV"
/ac "Flare Star"
/ac "Fire IV"
/ac "Flare Star"
/ac "Fire IV"
/ac "Flare Star"
/ac "Fire IV"
/ac "Flare Star"
/ac "Fire IV"
/ac "Flare Star"
/ac "Fire IV"
/ac "Flare Star"
/ac "Fire IV"

I have a similar macro that combines Flare and Flare Star.

This is probably also a good time to talk about being strategic with where you place /macroicon lines. I tend to like placing this line at the beginning of a macro because it's more common to continue chaining casts than to start a new chain after not casting. This means that when starting from a scratch, there will always be a 2 frame delay before these spells start to cast, however when chaining those 2 frames will just be additional queuing time that won't result in any delay because I've pressed my button in advance.

This next one is really simple, combining Manafont and Fire 3 into a single button. When I want to combine buttons, I generally try to have a concept that they both fall under, and this is a "Begin Fire Phase" button. So if you queue this for a GCD, you'll get Fire 3, but if your GCD isn't available you'll get Manafont. I have a non-cross hotbar positioned below my actual crosshotbar, and I use it to display icons for spells/abilities that I want to know information about. That way even though the icon for this macro shows information on Fire III, I can tell what the cooldown status of Manafont is by looking slightly below it.

/macroicon "Fire III"
/macroerror off
/ac "Fire III"
/ac "Fire III"
/ac "Fire III"
/ac "Fire III"
/ac "Fire III"
/ac "Fire III"
/ac "Fire III"
/ac "Fire III"
/ac "Fire III"
/ac "Fire III"
/ac "Fire III"
/ac "Fire III"
/ac "Manafont"

I think that's most of what's worth sharing from my BLM, though if you really want to see all the rest, let me know and I can throw together a quick video for you; that'll be way easier than typing them all out since they're on my PS5! ^^

Anyway, hope this ended up being interesting, and thanks again for the positive feedback!