Can we please cool it with the macros?

[LoveableZoe]

I was in a t5 run the other day with some friends and friends of friends. Someone had a Divebomb macro that had sound. They would spam it about 15 times back to back for each divebomb. We had to ask him to stop using it because it was messing up some people who were using the sound queue for when to move. Thankfully, they stopped spamming and that really helped the group out.

[TheRogueX]

For awhile when I first got Shield Lob, I had a silly macro for it that I used, but only with friends.

/micon "Shield Lob"
/ac "Shield Lob"
/shout CAP'N 'MURCA!

It got a few giggles, but it's never been out for public consumption, lol.

[Shadray]

Once did a DD run with a monk who had Street Fighter macros for all his moves.

Was pretty funny, for about 30 seconds, after that I just wanted to kill him.

[Mahri]

/micon "Unchained"
/ac "Unchained"
/p GONNA SHOW YOU WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE!

/micon "Infuriate"
/ac "Infuriate"
/p GONNA KEEP ON LIVIN' LARGE HERE!

/micon "Berserk"
/ac "Berserk"
/p GONNA SHATTER YOUR RESOLVE HERE!

/micon "Inner Beast"
/ac "Inner Beast"
/p GONNA BITE YOUR FACES OFF HERE!

[Evangela]

I hate macro message for Raise & Resurrection.

It embarrasses people who's getting raised.

[Neuflune]

I hate macro message for Raise & Resurrection.

It embarrasses people who's getting raised.

The party would know you're dead anyway? I have a Resurrection macro, written on /say so that the healers will know that I (as a summoner) am raising the player so that the healers won't have to jump in and use up their Swiftcast/MP. It's not one of those "BY THE POWER OF CTHULHU I COMMAND YOU TO STAND UP" macros though. Just a simple [skill] => [target] one.

But yeah, really long or pointless macros, especially in party chat, are annoying.

[Zfz]

As tank, Provoke macros are useless for tank swaps. Believe it or not, tanks don't need Provoke macros. When it's time to swap, I just stop attacking. I don't have to watch for when to stop, I just stop. It's not that hard. Tank swap is a collaborative process, any tank that keeps munching their buttons when another tank is trying to take over, should go L2P.

Provoke macros are more useful to healers than to tanks, who may find it useful to get a note that someone's taking over the boss.

[Gardes]

As tank, Provoke macros are useless for tank swaps. Believe it or not, tanks don't need Provoke macros. When it's time to swap, I just stop attacking. I don't have to watch for when to stop, I just stop. It's not that hard. Tank swap is a collaborative process, any tank that keeps munching their buttons when another tank is trying to take over, should go L2P.

Provoke macros are more useful to healers than to tanks, who may find it useful to get a note that someone's taking over the boss.

It's also useful for 'proof'. Like..."I was mashing provoke and the fact that the text macro went off means that I did. If the provoke didn't happen, it's didn't not happen on my end!". It actually happened a couple times to me before. Provoke went on cooldown on my end but it didn't actually take and the boss wasn't on me when it was supposed to be and the other tank was stuck with the boss while having dangerous amount of stacks. I never had to resort to using the text as 'proof' since I mostly only do 8 man content with my fc but it's there regardless.

It's the only text macro I have IIRC and I add a <wait.1> between the /ac and the /p so that even if I mash the provoke macro, the text only comes out 1 second after I stopped pressing the button (anti spam).

[Caiera]

I can honestly say that I have NO macros at all for any of my classes
Never needed them, never wanted them
I prefer to play with skill and not announce it to the world :P

[Gyson]

In the end, the biggest problem with macros (especially when paired with sound effects) is that you're drawing the attention of every party member away from what they should actually be focusing on (health bars, telegraph warnings, cast bars, positioning, cooldowns, etc) and pulling their attention towards the chat box. Thus, whatever it is they're supposed to read had better be incredibly important. Even when it's important, it's better when it's as concise as possible so that the reader can return their attention to all the other critical things they're ignoring while looking over your message.

Macro users should ask themselves 1) "Is this message critical enough to warrant endangering everyone with a distraction?" and 2) "Have I conveyed my message in a concise manner?". I find that most macros fail on both counts.