SCH Playstyle/Macro Help.

[Werhusky]

I don't mean leaving out the <t>, I mean not using a macro for that one-liner in the first place ^^

Why would you macro /pac embrace <t>
If I don't miss something here, its as useless as /ac physik <t>, if you can just bind physik (unmacroed!) to your hotbar

As said only putting Embrace on my bar is indefined target and triggered too often selfheals if my wished target not in range. Hence I macroed with the <t> to make her follow up the target till she heals (unless shed get out of my range). Maybe its just me but thats how it worked for me in Coils and the Towers best.

With the <t> she wont even use the skill (besides the sub 80% hp heals on party) if no target defined.

[Spoekes]

I don't have that range problem, just using embrace without macro, I have just again tested it.
Moving to targets out of range when I push works perfectly.

The "if not target defined" thing is real, but that's totally your fault :P

[Seryl199]

I don't use any macros at all, I manually target and spam embrace on targets as needed, typically with soft targeting, with my hard target as either the MT or an enemy mob if dps'ing. During trash, I tend to use WD, combined with rouse, to put a potent regen on the tank, giving me a window to dps. If there are four or more mobs, I'll lead with fey illumination for the healing boost, then determine after WD if it's safe to dps or if the tank will require more healing on top of that. Like others have mentioned, I prefer to cast my abilities rather than have them macro'd because you cannot queue macro commands like you can spells.

[Cynfael]

I've observed a lot of SCHs (myself included) go through this progression:

1. What are macros?

2. Macros are sweet! Let's see how close I can get to "one press does everything!"

3. Macros are okay, but I think I have too many actions bundled together.

4. Macros are best for things like announcing rez and setting up mouseover skills; my gameplay is more flexible and more efficient when I don't macro too many things together.

[Kabzy]

I've observed a lot of SCHs (myself included) go through this progression:

1. What are macros?

2. Macros are sweet! Let's see how close I can get to "one press does everything!"

3. Macros are okay, but I think I have too many actions bundled together.

4. Macros are best for things like announcing rez and setting up mouseover skills; my gameplay is more flexible and more efficient when I don't macro too many things together.

This. I pretty much went through these 4 stages and feel like these supposedly 'useful' macros are more restricting if anything. Your best bet is to just spend time doing everything manually and getting comfortable with the job.

[giantslayer]

While Macros are generally fine to use, it's often often better to ween yourself off of them, nor never use them to begin with.

For example, the popular Physick/Adlo + Embrace Macro is okay. It essentially gives you a 700 Potency heal spell at all times, which is nice. However, Eos and Selene's Embrace has a longer cooldown than your Physick or Adloquium, so if you constantly force her to cast with you, eventually your spells will fall further and further out of sync. You'll notice this if you try to use this macro immediately after you finish casting the first one, Eos or Selene won't be ready for around another half-second. Continue to spam the macro, and it'll just become even more chaotic. It's a much better to learn to Physick and Adlo while ordering your Faerie to use Physick on the same, or different target, manually. Yes, it takes practice, but will save you a headache once you master it.

Another popular set of macros is targeting (<t> <tt> <ft>) macros to your attacks. Just.. no. Don't do it. If you macro your Bios and Miasma spells, for example, you lose the ability to pre-cast those spells. You know how you cast Bio II and around say... .20 before it finishes you can hit your Miasma button and as soon as Bio II finishes the game automatically registers your Miasma cast? Well, you can't do that with macros because of the different internal sever timings used for macros. Sure, that's not THAT big of a deal, but over the duration of a battle, you will start losing significant DPS. Just learn to quickly switch between an enemy target and an allied target you need to heal and forego the use of targeting macros altogether.

At the end of the day, macros can be useful for certain situations, but you really need to do a lot of playing around with them in order to optimize them. There are many out there that seem useful, but if you really look into the mechanics, they are often a hindrance in the long run.

You make a lot of good points. I agree there are a lot of sub-optimal macros out there and I have also observed many of the same issues (like faerie cooldown being different from character's). However, I have come to a different conclusion, which is to be smart about macros instead of avoiding them.

I'm gonna wager you are probably a PC user. For those of us on PS3/4, switching targets is not so easy. Max efficiency and speed on a controller for targeting is simply not as good as max efficiency and speed on a mouse. For a skilled PC player, such macros can be a loss in efficiency. For controller players, it is a gain and it severely reduces the probability of making mistakes.

I am a big proponent of <t> <f> <tt> macros for Scholar due to the unique targeting requirements of attacking and faerie healing at the same time. As others have noted, faerie auto healing is pretty on the ball under 80%. The main goal of my DPS macro setup is to be able to spam Embrace when the tank is over 80% while DPSing. As you have pointed out, the 0.5 second difference between the scholar's GCD and the faerie's GCD is a challenge. My solution is to keep the tank as main target and use macros for attacks. Keeping the tank targeted also saves precious split seconds if I need to throw out a lustrate or switch to healing.

As for Adlo+Embrace, the range on Embrace is bugged. The max range is 25y and she will only auto-cast within 21y. I have Embrace macro'd into my Physick and Adlo to ensure my Faerie is still healing at long ranges. It also comes in handy for healing people outside my range because she will fly over to heal them before I realize they are out of range.

[desufin]

While it's nice to combine SCH heals with the Fairy heals, always remember that Macros do NOT allow for queue casting which means if all your heals are on macros you automatically heal slower than without macros even if it gives you faster control over the fairy due to less buttons to press. This will probably never be fixed and is #1 reason why macros are bad for GCD skills.

[seekified]

I only use macros to inform my party of what I'm doing - the actual healing is done fully manually. I'm generally against automating my job ingame and I've seen macrofails wipe groups on occasion, which is a no-no.

[ZhycranaDranix]

Why would you macro your MDEF buff ? Use it for when its necessary not all the time.

also if you don't have your Rouse Macro'd you either 1 play on PC or 2 like flipping through hotbars because

/macroicon Rouse
/ac Rouse
/wait
/pac Fey Illumination
/wait
/pac Whispering Dawn

^^ Macro every SCH should have

also

/macroicon Resurrection
/ac swiftcast <me>
/wait
/Resurrection<t>

[KisaiTenshi]

Honestly I haven't found any useful macro for SCH... yet. The Fairy complicates things in a way that you'd be playing poorer.

EG this macro, could be useful:

/macroicon Rouse
/ac Rouse <wait.1>
/pac "Fey Illumination" <wait.2>
/pac "Whispering Dawn"

Is how I made that macro work. If you just have wait.1 or /wait before Whispering Dawn it never fires. YMMV 80ms ping to the server for me.


The same macro I use for Revive on WHM except changed for SCH.

/micon "Resurrection"
/ac "Swiftcast" <me> <wait.1>
/ac "Resurrection" <t>
/ac "Resurrection" <2>
/ac "Resurrection" <3>
/ac "Resurrection" <4>
/ac "Resurrection" <5>
/ac "Resurrection" <6>
/ac "Resurrection" <7>
/ac "Resurrection" <8>

Macroing attacks is just bad play style. In any game. You can overlay a flavor text string for certain attacks (eg Virus) that don't stack, but otherwise you risk wiping the party because you couldn't cast healing spells while combat spells are firing.