BLM macros

[blackermage]

LOL @ people thinking AM is useless. This is <THE> spell that separates good and bad BLMs.

[NyneAlexander]

LOL @ people thinking AM is useless. This is <THE> spell that separates good and bad BLMs.

This all day. If you think Aetherial Manip is useless then please play another DPS job. Because chances are that blm is making the rest of us look bad.

[YanderePrincess]

Because I don't use them at all so I figure when I pop Eye for an Eye on the tank I could be protecting myself as well. Not exactly sure how a swiftcasted action reduces dps, but ok!

I never in any way said that swiftcasting an action reduces dps, though it doesn't necessarily enhance dps either (depends on the skill you're using it, for one).

However, using a Swiftcast + Spell macro is slower than using Swiftcast and the spell as separate non-macro buttons, and is also more reliable.

The only classes where I macro two things into one button are Bard, Scholar, and Summoner. For Scholar and Summoner, it's macroing pet commands onto other abilities I use, which is reliable and dosn't slow anything down because pet commands can be given at the same time as other abilities. For bard, I do it purely because with the shared cooldowns, I like to activate Raging Strikes + Quelling Strikes together and Hawk's Eye + Barrage together, but it's unreliable and does slow me down a bit since I have to wait on the second buff to activate, and it doesn't always deign to activate despite there being nothing to disrupt the macro. I could do more dps by activating each of my buffs individually, cycled between GCDs, which is what i do on monk and dragoon, but there's so many buffs for bard, and those pairings share cooldowns, so I find ti worthwhile to suffer a slight dps loss to keep things consistant and have fewer buttons to press.

Black Mage doesn't have that problem, however. There is no reason to combine macros on blm.

If you're not using Manawall and Manaward in particular, separate situations, then you're not using them properly. These defenses are both extremely valuable in the right situations, and you'll want them not on a single macro to make use of them. Combining Eye for an Eye and Pastastasis could be reasonable, though don't they have differing cooldowns? And you don't necessarily want to be using them at the same time either.

[Halloween]

agreed with others, Evian. The macros you're using now are unnecessary at best. The "defensive" one is just plain ridiculous. There's almost never a time you'll need to cast more than 2 of those spells at once.

And Swiftcast macro'd almost negates itself due to having to set a working /wait time that doesn't interfere with lag issues and just not cast. I'm sure a lot of us have been in your shoes at some point and realized the error of our ways (except for that defensive macro...still /facepalming). I had a swift-sleep macro that I kept having to adjust due to the sleep sometimes not being cast. It's best to keep it separated.

The only macros I use are the Aetherial Manipulation and the party spells on an alert macro.

[Argentt]

Setting up AM as a mouseover macro improves its usability a lot.

I would suggest setting up Apocostasis and Eye for an Eye with <tt> then <t> macros, which is pretty standard for a BLM. You should already have Virus set up the same way on WHM/SCH.

Past that I'm not sure if I'd recommend any additional macros. Maybe the thunder 3/2/1 macro mentioned earlier, though I've found that it can be unreliable in consistently casting T3 when you should have the mana for it. I'm not a big fan of macro'ing a ton of on-GCD skills anyway, as I see too many bards gimping their dps this way already.

[electricblues42]

I only use 2 macros currently, though I'm thinking about trying that fire/bliz one with the mouseovers posted on the previous page, looks promising.

/macroicon "Thunder II"
/ac "Thunder II"
/ac "Thunder"

That one will cast thunder 1 if you don't have enough mana for thunder 2. Very useful as the dots tick the same (and yes thundercloud procs from thunder 1 ticks). I don't see the need for thunder 3 because of it's extremely long cast time.

For AM I use this

/macroicon "Aetherial Manipulation"
/ac "Aetherial Manipulation" <2>

That way I always put my white mage, who I trust completely, to be my target. The mouseover one works very good as well, but I find just smacking that gets me out of where I don't want to be faster. If I Don't have that whm to play with then I would use the mouseover one. Don't put manaward and manawall in the same ones, different types of damage and you could very easily need them at different times. Say you want to give healers a break for conflags in t5 then get a few extra casts in during dive bombs, you'd need the separately. Though the one with both in with a limit break does sound nice, I'm gonna try that later.

[Umero]

As a player who rarely uses the mouse, I have 0 macros for my BLM. I play my BLM like a stick-shift jet coaster and it works like a wonder. The only thing I might try to make use of having a macro is... maybe a way to keep track of mp ticks, so I know when to get out of umbral ICE faster.

[EvianEverdeen]

LOL @ people thinking AM is useless. This is <THE> spell that separates good and bad BLMs.

That's why I was asking about it, mind explaining?

[EvianEverdeen]

This all day. If you think Aetherial Manip is useless then please play another DPS job. Because chances are that blm is making the rest of us look bad.

So instead of helping me understand the usefulness of the action, you just bring your elitism and are basically telling me to naturally understand it or GTFO. Look I didn't come out of the womb knowing all about BLM or AM, I'm learning!

[Halloween]

Evian, i have used it most often on T5+T6, but it is used to get from point A to point B in 1 second rather than 4 seconds. So rather than having to cast Scathe while running to your destination, you can just AM there and continue your rotation. That's about it.

I'd suggest start practicing with it asap. Whenever you have to move in any battle (or just want to get used to using it), use AM on the party member you want to move closest to.