BRD macro

[EasymodeX]

1 = ss
2 = wb
3 = vb
4 = hs
5 = oGCD macro

1 5 2 5 3 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5
1 5 2 5 3 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5
1 5 2 5 3 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5
1 5 2 5 3 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5
1 5 2 5 3 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5
1 5 2 5 3 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5
1 5 2 5 3 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5

This is how2brd.

(aside from the additional specific oGCD macro variants for mechanics)

[Drakkur]

1 = ss
2 = wb
3 = vb
4 = hs
5 = oGCD macro

1 5 2 5 3 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5
1 5 2 5 3 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5
1 5 2 5 3 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5
1 5 2 5 3 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5
1 5 2 5 3 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5
1 5 2 5 3 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5
1 5 2 5 3 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5

This is how2brd.

(aside from the additional specific oGCD macro variants for mechanics)

... I don't even know where to start why this is wrong. This style of play will only produce sub-optimum results and perpetuates the notion that BRDs employ zero thought into maximizing their damage output. Your spreadsheets provide a good starting point for BRD when understanding relative weights of stats and trying to maximize their gear, that's it.

[Pinworms]

Adding in the /wait is lazy IMO and if and when the game lags it will lower your dps and or mess the macro rotation up. An example is the coveted blm flare macro. If the blm gets lag during the macro it can mean they don't cast a transpose or convert or flare. The same thing for BRD. You lag with a wait macro, things get passed.

If you wanna use BRD macros just spam the macro without the /wait and separate your buffs from shots, and separate out your dots. It's not optimal, but it sure beats the lag potential /wait

[Satsui]

First of all, macros are fine, mashing your buttons like a maniac is not.

It takes a ton of practice and tricking your brain not to button mash, but you will become a better player and much more efficient.
I think maybe once in 100-200 GCDs I'll mess up and delay myself 1 second.

Except you are slowing down your GCD's by using macros (because you can't queue macros for attacks). Therefore it is a DPS loss to use macros.

This is easy to test. Make a macro that just contains Heavy Shot and go shoot a dummy and count how many heavy shots you fire off in 5 minutes. Do the same test with just the base ability Heavy Shot (no macro) and you will fire more shots in those 5 minutes. You should also immediately notice a difference in how fast they are firing. A bard friend and I tested extensively and noticed that around every 5-6 GCD's I would lap him and gain an entire Heavy Shot GCD when I was using the base ability and he was using a macro.

[EasymodeX]

... I don't even know where to start why this is wrong. This style of play will only produce sub-optimum results and perpetuates the notion that BRDs employ zero thought into maximizing their damage output.

Well that's in general; the only other optimization is to refresh DOTs before IR expires.

Beyond that, that's exactly what a Bard does to DPS. Straighter Shot usage is an interesting question though that would take more advanced statistical analysis to determine if it's really a benefit versus using it with static timing (e.g. when you need to refresh, only).

The only time a Bard does anything else from a DPS optimization standpoint is when they save cooldowns for specific fight mechanics -- which occurs often enough, but that's applicable to all classes (edit: which results in the Bard making 2 oGCD macros -- one with cooldowns, one with only the BL/ME so they can throttle their CD usage / saving). The other consideration is their utility which interrupts the above 5-button spam.

But that's just a variation of pewpewpew.

[Drakkur]

A bard friend and I tested extensively and noticed that around every 5-6 GCD's I would lap him and gain an entire Heavy Shot GCD when I was using the base ability and he was using a macro.

I just did 6 1 min tests (don't have time to do 6 5 minute tests), because you saying "5-6 GCDs you gain an extra" should be show in a 1 minute test. For me, the results were incredibly insignificant. At ~58-58.5 I was hitting HS #24 with the macro, at ~59.5 I was hitting HS #25 without the macro. These #s were consistent whether I used the parsers built in timer or my iphone's stop watch/timer.
The grossly exaggerated bonus you pointed out, definitely does not exist. I will give you that I gained 1.5 seconds on my GCD over 1 min, in the context of practicality in raids, its minute.
For what its worth I use a mechanical keyboard with cherry MX red switches.
Reasons why you should only do test on one BRD:
Human error and latency to the server.

[EasymodeX]

So you gained 4% DPS in a generic test where you were specifically looking for the error by doing things the right way. Gj.

[Gardes]

I played brd for kicks in darkhold today (had it at 42ish from 1.x and lvld up a bit). I feel like it shouldnt be this way but I find that it's true that macro slows down the attacks by alot. I thought a blood letter stacking on top of heavy shot macro would work but I've heard that losing time on heavy shots is bad so if the macro is reversed, heavy shot would be prioritized by the macro and blood letter would come out in between when you push it multiple times. No difference from the first macro stack order as far as I can tell. Too many heav-blood letter > heavy shot animation interrupt awkwardness that just looks odd and feels slower to come out.

So I tested separating them and..I tried it in both orders. Bloodletter first, then heavy shot and heavy shot then bloodletter. Both orders, if I press it fast enough, actually comes out almost at the same time to the point of just blending their animation. Their damage pop up even comes up almost at the same time and their cooldown and gcd starts ticking at almost the same time. This is really far from macro mashing, regardless of the speed of mashing and their order in the macro.

I never had to combine gcd and ogcd skills with my paladin but I did try stacking mnk skills and the macro screws up really bad when you mash to the point of dragon kick coming out twice (really bad). You can mash it slower to make sure that the macro doesn't...double dip but it's still pretty much flying blind when it comes to timing and server combo confirmation lag. This isn't really a ogcd and gcd combine macro (3x gcd) but it's another example of where macro is inadequate.

Another example of macro screwing up really bad is stacking flare then transpose. Kinda makes sense right? You'd always want to transpose after a flare and even if you want to double flare, you're waiting for a mana tick anyway so flare would still come out first if you press it a second time. Well, I found out that if I accidentally pressed the macro too fast, you'd cancel your flare cast so fast into transpose that the flare itself gets cancelled after taking your mana. Your mana's gone, but the damage doesnt pop up. I've tried this on a dummy and the damage really didnt come out. Doesn't happen when I press non macrod flare and transpose rapidly though.

It's just odd. Macro has some kind of inferior casting dynamics that comes with it. You can say that you can pace yourself and be confident with your timing but the fact that these kind of things can happen is pretty dangerous imo. I still use macros alot but it's mostly just stacking a couple ogcds and /chotbar change X to make things more concise for my controller (yeah). Multiple sets with similar content with slight changes and attack macros that changes sets based on skills that I will always use after the macro, flowchart style. Pld 2 pages, war 3 pages, blm 3 pages, mnk...6 pages, all containing the same skills except R2+face buttons.

[Drakkur]

So you gained 4% DPS in a generic test where you were specifically looking for the error by doing things the right way. Gj.

2% on average based on what I reported. Can't constraint 1 min to a finite amount of time where there is a discrete difference between 24 and 25. We can merely say, that based on my results, we gain on average 1.25 sec on our GCD which is roughly .5 HS which is .5/24, to calculate the gain in damage, not the 1/24 you were calculating.

This is also in as close to a vacuum as possible, many boss fights will stop you from taking full advantage of this difference because macros make it easier to manage your oGCDs and fight mechanics together.

Here is a inner conflict I have mid boss fights, when your DOTs are falling off, is it better to immediately reapply when they fall or wait that extra GCD to get BfB/IR/RS off CD and reapply (and hoping for another application as the DOT reaches expiration).

[Maxu]

Straighter Shot usage is an interesting question though that would take more advanced statistical analysis to determine if it's really a benefit versus using it with static timing (e.g. when you need to refresh, only).

I don't understand what you mean by this. You should only be using it when you need to refresh the buff anyways or did you mean only using it when you get the Straighter Shot buff?