FFXIV Ultimate Healer Targeting Macro; or Gamepad Done Right!

[radioactive_lego]

I just changed the target filter settings. D-pad up+down for party, left and right for pets, chocobos, and non-party players. Then I just use the standard shoulder button targeting for enemies.

The standard l1/r1 for enemy targeting is how I would prefer to target party members, since you dont have to deactivate the chotbar to use them. Unfortunately, this is not an option. It has been suggested ( http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...geting-options. )

[Gardes]

You know, I actually switched around the RL1 and RL2s because I wanted to be able to keep holding the skill triggers while swapping targets around (index finger on hold while the middle fingers does the tapping seems easier to me) but won't using this targeting feature be weird for scrolling down the party list? Tapping left and right on the triggers to go up and down? If I'm getting it right, the point of your macro system in the op is to cut down on trigger pedaling. It's a novel idea, at least for me considering how I usuallly categorize my crossbars:

Gcds on face buttons, Ogcds generally on dpad (prioritizing being able to do a gcd while moving around)
Right trigger holds all the highest priority actions
Right trigger hold then left holds high priority actions with longer cooldowns
Left trigger holds low priority and situational actions (drg's aoes, blm's defensives, etc)
Left trigger hold the right holds pre-battle actions, limit break and open world actions (chocobo, maps, etc)

So I always end up holding right trigger the most (wouldn't be surprised if it's 90% of the time). That's fine on tanking and dps classes but kinda works against me when I'm healing and have to pedal the right trigger just to target around party members when I'm so used to holding right and pedaling left.

I'm curious about the system other players use to place their skills on their crossbar because most of the time when I see people posting pics with their crossbars in view, it usually doesn't make sense to me.

[radioactive_lego]

Snip

I use mixed activation for chotbars, and like you, I use the right side mostly. So once that side is turned on (as you said 90% of the time) I don't touch them much.

At the end of the day L1/R1 are useless buttons when healing, while d-pad buttons are task saturated.

[Cutie_McSnuggles]

I've seen your treads around about this before and while there's noting wrong with your play style it's not the way I want to play. It feels too... convoluted. And I don't appreciate you trying to say that doing it the default way is hard or wrong because it isn't. It just isn't right for you.

[Gardes]

At the end of the day L1/R1 are useless buttons when healing, while d-pad buttons are task saturated.

While this is probably true for the both of us, others might not feel the same way. From what I've seen, healers have different priorities. I value queue casting a lot and do not want it absent from my healing spells so I do not touch them with macros but there's someone in this thread who would prefer focused fairy healing over queue casting. Meanwhile I'm willing to give up queue casting for dpsing while on sch/whm because I'm lazy with direct targeting and would rather just have my main target cursor sitting on the main target while you apparently prefer targeting your actual target when attacking. Works well for me in trials because I can usually just dot the main boss through the main tank and bane the adds or switch to direct targeting if they're too far away from each other but not so much in dungeons when the tank is tab targeting a lot but...I never heal dungeons!

So yeah, it's about what makes sense and what's convenient when it comes to cross bar setups and different people value different things. I mean, I've seen a video of someone solo healing t9 without echo with numbered heals on the crossbar. It boggles my mind but apparently it works for that player. To me it looks about as comfortable as seeing an arrow symbol moving across the screen and pressing arrow buttons corresponding to the arrow symbol instead of the direction it came from.

[raela]

Well, you could put these macros on xbar 4 if you left it as shared amongst classes. If the crossbar set macro would slurp macros from the menu, you could do this exact thing. I tried to set this up for my SCH to change xbar 2 depending on fairy summoned. :/ Dunno why SE won't let us do that. ; ;

I have fairy summon macros that change which embrace is set to a xbar - you can place skills with macros.. or maybe I misunderstood? I have a CS/xbar swap macro that I love using.. I've just had to learn to pay attention to make sure it went through correctly. Often times, my problem is I panic when I'm in CS and someone's hp drops too fast, then I hit a heal - the xbar swaps first, and if you use a skill too soon, it kills the macro and CS isn't used. I've built muscle memory to manually swap hotbars when this happens (so I did one heal in CS, I'll use the macro again to kill CS and swap the hotbar back where I want it. keeps it to one CS per bar)

I personally love how healing is.. on another MMO, I did kb/mouse, then swapped to a controller using a third party program to map the keys (as the game was not designed for controller use). Soft targetting is awesome.

[Gardes]

Often times, my problem is I panic when I'm in CS and someone's hp drops too fast, then I hit a heal - the xbar swaps first, and if you use a skill too soon, it kills the macro and CS isn't used. I've built muscle memory to manually swap hotbars when this happens (so I did one heal in CS, I'll use the macro again to kill CS and swap the hotbar back where I want it. keeps it to one CS per bar)

You know, have you tried /macrolock? I haven't gotten around to using this. Apparently it prevent other macros from cancelling currently running macros until it finishes. I've seen switched back to non /chotbar change for stance dancing but I imagine this could possibly prevent CS not deactivating..

As for crossbar sets changing depending on pets summoned, I use /chotbar copy. For example, if I use hotbar1 for main spells, h2 for pet spells, I would have my eos spells on h3, selene on h4 (shared ticked off). The on my eos summon macro I would put (/ac summon; /chotbar copy sch 3 sch 2) and for selene summon it would be (/ac "summon II"; /chotbar copy sch 4 sch 2) and then for the final touch I would set the set selection option to enable chotbar 1 and 2 only so that when I tap the set select trigger (R1) it would only rotate between hotbar 1 and 2 (3 and 4 would be the hidden template that's never messed with during battle).

[radioactive_lego]

I've seen your treads around about this before and while there's noting wrong with your play style it's not the way I want to play. It feels too... convoluted. And I don't appreciate you trying to say that doing it the default way is hard or wrong because it isn't. It just isn't right for you.

I never said it was wrong, and in the OP I went out of my way to say it wasn't hard. If you read the hidden section of the OP, it will be clear that I find defaults flawed. =]

I value queue casting a lot and do not want it absent from my healing spells so I do not touch them with macros but there's someone in this thread who would prefer focused fairy healing over queue casting.

I agree. Watch the OP vid again; almost none of the healing spells are macroed. The only skills/spells that are macroed are:
- CS + chotbar swap + target closest enemy
- Swiftcast + Raise
- Shroud + Seal + PoM (availabe unmacroed on a different chotbar)

Macros are used extensively for targeting, but for the most part skills/spells are pure.

[Gardes]

I agree. Watch the OP vid again;

Oh I wasn't saying it was you that macros healing spells and if it works for them, it works for them.

[radioactive_lego]

Oh I wasn't saying it was you that macros healing spells and if it works for them, it works for them.

My mistake