a few Tank questions

[Nyalia]

Generally speaking, macroing GCD skills is bad. If you hit a normal, unmacroed GCD skill button half a second or less before your GCD is up, the game will queue up the move and perform it the very moment you can. Macros do not have this feature, so if you hit a macro button half a second or less before your GCD is up, nothing will happen and you'll have to hit it again. This can add up to a full second to your GCD and is a huge loss of enmity per second and dps.

I don't have any WAR macros at all. The only ones I would consider using are:
1. As someone else said:

/micon "Provoke"
/ac "Provoke" <t>
/p "{Provoke} {just used it} <t>"

2. Berserk ends with a Pacification effect. Sometimes it's nice to let your healer know when it's about to fall off:
Level 35 or lower:

/micon "Berserk"
/ac "Berserk" <me> <wait.12>
/p "{Berserk} ending in 3 seconds. {esuna}/{leeches} {can I have it?}"

Level 36 or higher:

/micon "Berserk"
/ac "Berserk" <me> <wait.17>
/p "{Berserk} ending in 3 seconds. {esuna}/{leeches} {can I have it?}"

Generally speaking, whenever you use chat macros, try to keep them short and use the Auto-Translate feature wherever possible. The {} are indicating phrases you should pull from the Auto-Translate dictionary.

3. If you really want to mark targets fast, try a macro like this:

/mk attack <t>
/ac "Target Forward"

I don't use a macro like that, but I hear it works really well. It marks the first target with the first unused number, then switches you to the next target. You quickly hit the button once per enemy and everything should get a number.



EDIT: Oh yeah, and the reason to quickly return to your old position is that most enemies that use telegraphed moves don't turn while their cast bar is up, and when the cast is done, they still don't turn until the animation is over. However, moment the AoE indicator vanishes is when targets are determines. You can run right back in the second it vanishes and the attack won't hit you. If you get back to where you were before the attacker's animation finishes, the enemy won't turn at all. Since some DPS classes have positional (flank/back) abilities, and some large enemies have frontal cleaves, keeping the boss from turning can be very important.

Also, note that while the vast majority of dodgeable telegraphed moves in FFXIV have AoE indicators, not all of them do. There are a number that are dodgeable, not it isn't obvious that they are. These include:

• Haukke Manor's final boss's "Void Thunder III" attack (you can avoid it by running behind the boss during the cast)
• Garuda's "Slipstream" attack (frontal cone AoE)
• Most (all?) of Coincounter (from Aurum Vale)'s attacks ("10-Tonze Swipe" and "100-Tonze Swipe" = frontal cone, "100-Tonze Swing" = 360 AoE, "Glower" = line AoE aimed at non-tank)
• Qarn HM's final boss's "Light of Anathema" attack (frontal line AoE)