Why your mouseover macro's can fail to execute properly and what can be done about it

[Kallale]

My wife heals and we had to sort out some mouse-over macro issues. This is the macro we were using.

/micon "Cure"
/ac "Cure" <mo>
/ac "Cure"
/ac "Cure" <me>

This macro casts Cure on your mouse-over target, then casts Cure on your target, then casts Cure on yourself. What people think it does is this:

Cast cure on the mouse-over target
Attempt to cast cure on the target (will fail if the GCD isn't finished)
Attempt to cast cure on yourself (will fail if the GCD isn't finished)

What it actually does is this:
Attempt to cast cure on the mouse-over target (will fail if the GCD isn't finished)
Fraction of a second delay
Attempt to cast cure on the target (will fail if the GCD isn't finished)
Fraction of a second delay
Attempt to cast cure on yourself (will fail if the GCD isn't finished)

Each command is executed by either the server or your client separately (I'm not sure which, and it doesn't matter anyway for my purpose) and there is a small delay between each command. Macro's like this will cause a wipe. Do not use it unless you are willing to wait until the GCD (global cool-down) is all the way finished. Do not use it if you spam buttons. If the macro starts execution before the GCD is up but finishes sometime after the GCD is up you will end up either healing your target or yourself *seemingly* at random instead of the mouse-over target.

If you want to use <mo> and spam your buttons, you must only use:

/micon "Cure"
/ac "Cure" <mo>

This way, if the mouse-over fails because of GCD you don't burn your GCD on someone else. This means you must mouse-over your own name in the party window to heal yourself. You *cannot* heal yourself by mousing over your character in game unless you have the option "enable clicking on self" under the Character configuration / controls (red button) / mouse (gray tab).

What can SE do about this?
They can add a way for us to stop the macro from executing at all under certain conditions. There are a million ways to implement a more robust macro system, they just have to do it. For instance:
/micon "Cure"
/GCDStop (made up command to stop the macro if the global cool-down isn't finished)
/ac "Cure" <mo>
/ac "Cure"
/ac "Cure" <me>

Hopefully this helps someone.

[Timberwolf]

The other issue I ran into today (that subsequently killed my tank and half the party) is that if a mouseover target is out of range, AND you don't have someone actually targeted, you will heal yourself. This is really bad if, say, you're facing your tank, and you THINK you're in range. Turned out he was just OUT of my range. Yet, I mouse over him, click the button, see a cast bar. Cool! .... until I see the cure effect me as my tank dies. Hrmmmmm. Eventually went back to just <mo>. Now, as a healer (I use the <mo>, <tt>, <me> macro on my pally) I'm pretty much exclusively staring at health bars, mouseover alone is pretty much all I need.

[Taerra]

I never liked <mo> at all. Too many mistakes involved like Timber mentionned. I mastered the art of f1-f8 and put up my tanks in my order list as f2-f3 and the second healer as f4. Easy reach for key people of the party, no mistakes involved that way, unless I screw up lol.

[Verile]

Mouseover works great, but as has been said abouve only when you use mouseover and nothing else. As said above, adding anything else will likely make you heal yourself at a crucial time and cause a death.

WoW's macro system is so much more robust with this type of thing and I hope that somewhere down the line FF14 catches up.

[Taerra]

Even better, implement healbot in ffxiv lol

[zeehairah]

That are a better macro with if/then statements

[Slacksy]

Totally agree, mouse over healing is the most efficient way to heal. Would probably be best to force the game to prioritise in the logical way so you only need to make the macro a one liner.
I made the same macro as the OP mentioned a few months back and had all the same issues. It's unreliable so i've gone back to click targetting, which has it's own issues.

/ac "cure" <mo>
If no mouse over then heal target
If no mouseover or target heal self

Cant be that hard can it?

[jumpypuppet]

from time to time you see threads popping up with people asking why they are healing someone or something other than their designated target (usually going off on themselves). this problem confounded me too for the longest time, and i the most common reasons are these: attempting to MO target own character model when the setting is disabled; having too many lines in the macro; having <me> in the macro (seriously, it sucks); pressing the macro too fast; and finally, imo the big one, which is catching just a sliver of someone else's character model when you try to target heal. i have <mo> as first priority over <t>, so when i want to target heal i will move the cursor to a "safe spot," usually in the corner of the screen. the problem arises when a character model comes in contact with your cursor at the same time you cast your heal, causing it to go off on that person instead.

[Slacksy]

from time to time you see threads popping up with people asking why they are healing someone or something other than their designated target (usually going off on themselves). this problem confounded me too for the longest time, and i the most common reasons are these: attempting to MO target own character model when the setting is disabled; having too many lines in the macro; having <me> in the macro (seriously, it sucks); pressing the macro too fast; and finally, imo the big one, which is catching just a sliver of someone else's character model when you try to target heal. i have <mo> as first priority over <t>, so when i want to target heal i will move the cursor to a "safe spot," usually in the corner of the screen. the problem arises when a character model comes in contact with your cursor at the same time you cast your heal, causing it to go off on that person instead.

You should re-read the OP

[Slacksy]

They fixed it!!!!

one line does exactly as it should now. Prioritizes current target > mouseover target > self

/ac "cure" <mo>

One problem I found is that if you're moused over a mob (usually the huge boss on your screen) it casts a heal on you..... can be worked around, but pretty annoying