Evidence that Macros Do NOT Cause GCD Delay or Lost Casts

[LilimoLimomo]

The reason I think a fight would be a good test, is because the whole reason you'd ever macro your actions is so that you could use them in a fight, and not so you can whack a stationary dummy.

When scientists perform experiments, they do them in controlled settings that don't perfectly mirror the real world. I genuinely encourage you to think about why they do that, and perhaps to do some research on the topic. Not only is it pertinent to this specific issue, but to the field of science as a whole.

As soon as you need to move around and dodge aoes, does the macro still work just as well? What are the issues that may arise?

Macros function the same regardless of context; they run at 1-line-per-frame unless instructed to do otherwise. So your macro itself won't function differently; a valid target is a valid target. So if we're approaching this question in terms of "how do macros function", then there's no meaningful difference here.

But if you're talking about the possibility of user error, then that's actually something that can be helpful for a person to test, both on dummies and in more nuanced fights. For example, there's more going on in a fight so there's more to pay attention to, and maybe the player is also being affected by stress, etc. Under those circumstances, will the player be able to use the macro as well?

But there's no test that can give us a generalized answer to that, because it depends. It depends on the player. It depends on the macro. Every permutation will result in a distinct answer.

Nonetheless, it's good to do these tests, but just for your own personal use; this is one of the best ways to determine which macros you personally want to use during fights.

If you play optimally you will be hitting the same gcd, in the same point in the fight (granted boss rotation), every single time.
There will be no variables aside from time and uptime.

There's a lot to unpack here.

First, fight mechanics have variation, and these variations often impact how the player should respond and thus what actions they should cast. For example, I main BLM, so getting targeted by an AoE means I might need to interrupt a cast and move out of the way, but if that AoE targets someone else I can just keep casting. And you might think that means I just cast the exact same spells after I stop moving, but that's often not the case since Astral Fire needs to be fed periodically. Needing to move instead of standing still will generally result in an adjustment to the cast schedule. Add up these types of moments over the course of an entire fight and you don't just have a meaningful variation, but a prominent variation. And that's what I love about BLM: needing to actually react to what the boss and my teammates are doing keeps the game feeling fresh.

But let's imagine what it would be like if fights were static, such that a player is either never or always going to be targeted by that AoE. Well, there will still be variation, because players aren't computers. We're humans, and just by virtue of being human we introduce variation into these systems. Often the clearest way to observe that is the fact that players are making mistakes all the time. They're getting hit by stuff they didn't mean to get hit by, they're messing up their rotations, they're dying, they're wiping. And thank goodness players are capable of making mistakes and playing sub-optimally, otherwise there would be no challenge to any game, no way to fail, and thus no satisfaction to achieving success. The game industry would not exist were it not for this fundamental fact of life.

In short, there's a lot of variation in combat encounters, and that variation comes from numerous places, which makes them a poor setting for answering the question of whether macros have some manner of innate delay.