Can we please cool it with the macros?

[Vinta]

I really enjoy the ASCII images of Cats. At least the ones I've seen seem to do it in moderation and not spam up the chat box.



Wonder if you have spotted your ninja breathern who macro their Mudras and spam chat with Naruto quotes.
I saw it once. xD

The first thought that came to mind was "You're giving a button that already has a sketchy delay an even sketchier delay by making it a macro?!"

[Vinta]

A couple days ago I was somewhere that a SCH had a macro announce when they used Sacred Soil. Like duh the bubble may be transparent but it's not invisible.

In a Crystal Tower situation I can see this as beneficial. A lot of times I dunno if the bubble that got placed was my scholar's or another in the alliances.

[Catwho]

I have an /echo sound on certain macros so that I know that I triggered them, but others don't need to know. I've also got an /echo text warning when the macro is over. I think I used it most extensively on my WAR since I'm not able to eyeball the hotbar as much on that job as I can on DPS.

[Almalexia]

You only need a chat macro for Provoke. The animation and SFX are short and subtle, plus it takes a second for the enmity shift to register.

Everything else has instant visual feedback on the UI.

Bonus tip: Supererogatory healers are going to fix Berserk's pacification regardless of your macro. You are more likely to get a healer who spites you for 4 lines of BEEP BOOP I AM GOING TO BE MOMENTARILY INCONVENIENCED <se.6> because of how goddamn annoying it is.

[Seryl199]

You're lowering the WARs DPS because you're too lazy to press a single button. If somebody is going to die from casting Esuna, either the WAR timed his Berserk poorly, or you utterly fail at healing.

To be fair, in a lot of instances my DPS as a healer is more significant the the warrior's DPS. I'm not going to stop casting Holy and trade my GCD for theirs, because I'm going to do more damage and possibly some CC if the mobs aren't resisting stun yet. It's my job as a healer to be aware of the battlefield, I watch out for those standing in the fire, I know what CD's my tank has popped and how long they're going to last, and if your need takes precedence over mine, you'll get my attention. WAR isn't entirely helpless under pacification, they can always flash if the MP is available.

I myself only have macros for 5 minute + abilities, Hallowed Ground and Benediction, and a Raise macro to try to avoid double raising.

[matt8107t]

Personally I don't use any chat macros. Most of the time I found it can make the ability unreliable. Especially moves like provoke where if it doesn't go off correctly the other tank is dead due to tank swap mechanics.

[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).

[Drako]

One thing I think could be improved upon on the UI is how certain buffs appear. Visibility is a big issue with this UI. They could help eliminate the need for macros for certain debuffs if they were perhaps brighter or larger. Or had some other kind of appearance to make them stand out a lot more. I'm one of those tanks that use provoke and stun macros. But I only started using them because I was tired of wasting time dealing with people complaining I wasn't provoking things off them(when I was and it perhaps didn't work very well) or when they complain about me not stunning certain skills of a boss(even though I was and it either resisted or I was late). So this is just like any other thing in the game. There will people that need this sort of thing to exist because they complain due to ignorance. Or there are people that complain because of the noise. If these skills had better visibily, either animation, or on the UI people wouldn't have to worry about most of the macros that are in use. I'll agree though on those macros that are really long, or where they have a macro for every freaking thing.

[SulwynCaliope]

You are literally the worst kind of person.

Berserk is 5 seconds of pacification. Leeches is a 0.97 second cast time. Unless I'm sitting on the tank just for that debuff, it'll probably take me more time than that to actually get the debuff off. In that time, I could be mid way through my dps rotation and getting the trash down faster than what under 3 seconds of warr damage can add to the group. So yes, the pacification means nothing to me and I will continue to ignore it.

[Gyson]

As a WAR i have a macro letting healers know Convalesence is up.

Figured they want to know when their heals are 20% stronger.

I don't see how that would be useful information to the point of distracting everyone at what is likely a critical moment with a chatbox notice. All you're really doing with that notice is reminding everyone in the party that you're doing your job. If everyone in the party notified everyone else every time they used a defensive cooldown the chatbox would get very useless very quickly.

Convalescence is best saved for moments when the healers are stressed with other events, where either your health recovery has fallen behind or is in danger of falling behind, and/or where mitigating the results of incoming damage would be helpful. At these moments the heals are coming when the heals are coming, and if a healer has already prioritized some other critical task over healing you then your announcement isn't going to change that.

You already have the Convalescence buff icon sitting next to that health bar of yours (which the healer is keeping an eye on). Macro notifications in chat for this ability just seem like someone's way of trying to (very publicly) take partial credit for the success the healer is having in keeping you standing.