BRD macro

[Reiterpallasch]

Because any on-GCD ability in a macro disables ability queuing [or seems to, by all signs]

This is why I don't use them. Even if it was better than having each ability on it's own on the action bar (which it's not) it just feels clunky and slow. In order to make it not be a dps loss you literally have to just sit there and mash that one button as fast as physically possible to make use of it. What it does do for sure however, is give you less control over your actions and when you use them.

BRD doesn't have so many abilities that it would warrant sticking a bunch of them together into a single button.

[Bardo]

BRD doesn't have so many abilities that it would warrant sticking a bunch of them together into a single button.

What?
We have just as many as any other Job...

ON GCD			OFF GCD			Situational

Straight Shot		Misery's End		Ballad
Windbite		Bloodletter		Foe Req
Venomous Bite		Flaming Arrow		Paeon
Heavy Shot		Blunt Arrow		Battle Voice
Quick Nock		Repelling Shot		Shadowbind
Rain of Death		Raging Strikes		Invigorate
Wide Volley		Hawk's Eye		Second Wind
			Barrage			Featherfoot
			Blood for Blood		Swiftsong
			Internal Release
			Quelling Strikes

If you use no macros, you need a minimum of 27 buttons to be effective (not even counting the typical things every other class has such as potions, food, mount, sprint, limit break, etc...)
Even ignoring the situationals, 18 buttons is a LOT when you're having to make decisions 2 (or more) times per GCD about which to press.

So I agree with EasymodeX here that telling people not to macro anything is silly.
The 11 Off GCD skills can be turned into 3 or 4 with little to no detriment to your dps.

[AniCelestine]

.

26* because you can have only 4 cross-class (You had 27 abilities listed and 5 of them were cross-class)

If you're using PC, you can easily bind 1-4(5 if hands are big enough) q,e,f,z,x,(r if you take autorun off) that's 18-22 if you use ALT, and if you add CTRL, you have more than enough for 26 (27-33) + gaming mouse, Razer Naga Hex for example which gives 6 buttons more, if you're willing to sacrifice num pad's bindings, which are useless in my opnion, and with alt and ctrl you have 18 buttons more, and that'd sum up for 45-51.

You'd need hell alot of potions and foods and more than 1 mount binded to use all of those, as a bard.

And when you've played with the same keybinds enough, 1-3h for me, you'll start to get muscle memory of what is where, then it's only 'bout thinking of what you want to/should do next, and that isn't hard either, after a while.

So no. It's not silly to say not to macro anything. For PS3 it's another thing

[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

[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.