BRD macro

[Gukster]

Assuming ME = Misery's End, that only applies post 20%. In 2.6 seconds, you get off Heavy Shot, Bloodletter, Heavy Shot. That's 450 potency as opposed to 300. Any way you slice it, with Bloodletter being off your Global and BARELY causing a delay, which I have yet to see where a heavy shot doesn't proc when my GCD completes, it's more beneficial to weave it in between your cooldown every time it is up. Not to mention, it's free TP-wise.

I've never noticed a delay from seeing my other non macroed GCD timers and the macroed ones. They shoot when I click it, and the spam makes bloodletter proc about halfway which allows another Heavy right after.

[EasymodeX]

In 2.6 seconds, you get off Heavy Shot, Bloodletter, Heavy Shot. That's 450 potency as opposed to 300. Any way you slice it,
[...]
I've never noticed a delay from seeing my other non macroed GCD timers and the macroed ones. They shoot when I click it, and the spam makes bloodletter proc about halfway which allows another Heavy right after.

I don't think you really understand the concepts being discussed.

Any way you slice it, 450 potency in 2.7 seconds is less dps than 450 potency in 2.5 seconds.


There's not really much to discuss, except for the reality of the ability queue (or lack thereof).

In which case, the discussion boils down to:

1. Roll a PGL.
2. Get your 3 abilities.
3. Write a macro for "Snap Punch, True Strike, Bootshine", and go kill something. Observe how much you now hate life compared to manually using Bootshine, True Strike, Snap Punch.

If your abilities are actually "shooting when you click it", then you are pressing the button late and I should revise the above number to "450 potency in 2.8 seconds" or something else abhorrent.

[magicninja999]

You are comparing apples and oranges there.... FOR BRD, macros are fine.... your BL should never be off CD, it is the main damage skill and when its up you should use it, but ya just macro BL and ME to everything, well your 4 damage skills, the 2 dots, HS and SS, make ME 1st, BL 2nd and 3rd is w/e skill you are macroing to... Other classes like MNK and DRG are very hard to make macros for because of their combos... BRD doesn't have any cept for the AOE crap that hardly ever procs.

[Lex_Luger]

snip

This is a bad macro and I am going to explain why, and then give you an example of the 1 macro I use on bard, which is 100% more effective than the one you just listed. The reason this macro sucks is because heavy shot is on the GCD, and BL is not. What can happen with this macro is you press it > Heavy shot fires > BL is currently off CD (was used lets say 5 seconds ago, and you have not gotten a proc yet) > Your GCD Comes up again and you fire Heavy shot, at the same time, BL Procs. Depending on timing, this can cause either A) your BL to be delayed due to the animation lock of Heavy Shot or worse, B) Blood Letter procs RIGHT before GCD comes back up and you're spamming the macro. Due to the ability to que up your next GCD ability during the last .2sec during GCD, this can cause the BL to fire before the heavy shot (thus locking out your heavy shot for a second due to blood letters animation lock).

I recommend using a different macro if you insist on using one, and I've gotten much better results in testing mine. A better HS/BL/ME Macro would look like:
/ac "Heavy Shot" <t>
/ac "Misery's End" <t>
/ac "Blood Letter" <t>
/wait
/ac "Misery's End <t>
/ac "Blood Letter" <t>

What results is a macro that FEELS a lot more responsive. Your heavy shot will ALWAYS fire assuming the GCD is up, and mashing the button will subsequently fire ME THEN BL (which is the correct priority for these skills). Should either ME/BL come off CD or proc during the GCD cool down between button presses, they will fire automatically with that 1 second wait, should you have say, moved your finger to another button to fire another skill. It's not 100% perfect, but it is better than the original macro I saw posted everywhere.

[Thailer]

So why not

/ac "misery's shot" <t>
/ac "Blood letter" <t>
/ac "Heavy shot" <t>

[Lex_Luger]

Because then mashing your heavy shot macro will cause heavy shots to be delayed by the animation of ME/BL everytime they go off, instead of being weaved inbetween GCD's. This is a DPS loss.

[Thailer]

How delayed because testing on the striking dummy it appears to cut BL animation off a little. I'm not noticing any difference

[Danko]

If you have problems keeping up with your rotations: OCDs, GCDs, DoTs, then macros will be of benefit to you. They take some of the thought process out of managing your skills, and decrease the buttons you have to press.

If you do not have problems manually keeping up your rotations with efficiency and you don't mind pressing lots of buttons, you will achieve higher DPS than with many of the "One Button Macros" you see floating around.

[Jotunhammer]

ah yes, I should have been more specific I guess... I was not very toughtful...

The reason I ask is this...
I am trying to optimise my dps.... ofc
so after I hit the 2 dots, I was thinking heavy shot and other things, and just have one button to watch while I move and wait for the dots to tick down.

so what is the "optimal" skill to use for maximum dps while waiting for the dots to tick down?
winbite is damage potency 60 so spamming that wont do
heavy shot is 150
straight shot it 140
VB is 100
and blodletter is 150

so here is my thinking and it might be wrong... Hit the SS(for the crit) -> VB -> winbiter and then spam heavy shot and straight shot? and then rinse and repeat is that it?

[Marenwynn]

There will be times that you want to save off-GCD abilities; and when managing buffs, there will be even more times that you'll want to save them or use different timings. It's better to just use every skill manually.