Archer DPS; the Macro.

[radioactive_lego]

Hails,
I'm looking for thoughts on the following spammable macro (not macros in general).

/ac "Misery's End"
/ac "Bloodletter"
/ac "Heavy Shot"
/ac "Raging Strikes"
/ac "Hawk's Eye"
/ac "Barrage"
/ac "Internal Release"
/ac "Blood for Blood"

The top two skills pop when available, if not, Heavy Shot goes by default. All the buffs pop as available, between shots, and constantly refresh themselves as they recycle.

Should I reorder the buffs?

[DinahDemiurge]

I mean, if you are looking to just spam dungeons while watching netflix, by all means have fun. If you want to optimize dps in a raid environment like coil, I strongly urge you do not use this kind of macro because you have to weave your skills optimally which requires on-the-fly in a lot of cases.

[radioactive_lego]

I was using 2 macros:

/ac "Misery's End"
/ac "Bloodletter"
/ac "Heavy Shot"

and

/ac "Raging Strikes"
/ac "Hawk's Eye"
/ac "Barrage"
/ac "Internal Release"
/ac "Blood for Blood"

on my "every day" hotbar. But I got lazy, and stopped doing my buffs in dailies, except on bosses. So I decided to combine them.

I have a "coil" hotbar where I can choose each skill unmacroed. That's too much effort for WoD runs, but not buffing is too lazy.

[Zophar]

I used to have brd macros back when I was first learning to play the job. The dps difference when I finally dropped the macros was just... unreal. It's like one of those early episodes of DBZ where Goku takes off his training weights and is suddenly way stronger and faster. It really is THAT noticeable.

[RinchanNau]

I'd recommend not using a macro. If you feel you must I would recommend still not using a macro.

There is absolutely no reason to use macros on bard. Not even for songs or Blunt Arrow.

[m3eansean]

Don't use Macro's as DPS. It is terribly inefficient and is just poor, poor dps potential. You are an anchor to any team you join if you are doing this.

[pandabearcat]

The main problem with macro spamming in this game is that there is no guarantee that your abilities will execute in order.

The commands are not executed "simultaneously".

So if your GCD is coming up, Bloodletter just came off GCD, and you're spamming, you basically have a 1/3 chance of casting any of your abilities.

This is why you queue instead of spam. You could put it in a macro, as long as you timed it right with your ability queue it would more or less work. However, spamming will have unpredictable results.

I won't get into the whole debate about how "omg you're doing less dps" or "omg bard is so easy you can macro everything in one button" because its not productive. I will just point out the problems that you will run into with this approach, as noted above.

These types of discussions have been since day 1 lol, general consensus is its not really that useful and more of a gimmicky funny thing rather than an actual way to dps.

[lyndwyrm]

Should I reorder the buffs?

For faceroll content, I don't think the order of the buffs will really matter all that much.

[AskaRay]

Like others have said...if you don't care about maxing your DPS then go ahead I guess. I don't macro in any skills at all, except Song + BV + "warning song is up" type macro.
I even have all my songs unmacroed just in case.
That's it. I just...see no point in attack macros. If you're still learning I still don't really suggest them unless you're having a lot of trouble. I pretty much have memorized my rotation so. Yeah. Sometimes I even play without the UI (depends on if I reaaaally need that Bloodletter proc right away).

TLDR just because you theoretically can put all your skills in one button doesn't mean you should.

[ClaireAbigail]

I'll just leave this here....

/ac "Mercy Stroke" <t>
/ac "Misery's End" <t>
/ac "Haymaker" <t>
/ac "Heavy Shot" <t>
/ac "Bloodletter" <t>
/ac "Repelling Shot" <t>
/ac "Blunt Arrow" <t>
/ac "Raging Strikes" <me>
/ac "Blood for Blood" <me>
/ac "Internal Release" <me>
/ac "Barrage" <me>
/ac "Hawk's Eye" <me>
/ac "Quelling Strikes" <me>
/ac Mantra <me>
/micon "Heavy Shot"

/ac "Mercy Stroke" <t>
/ac "Misery's End" <t>
/ac "Haymaker" <t>
/ac "Straight Shot" <t>
/ac "Bloodletter" <t>
/ac "Repelling Shot" <t>
/ac "Blunt Arrow" <t>
/ac "Raging Strikes" <me>
/ac "Blood for Blood" <me>
/ac "Internal Release" <me>
/ac "Barrage" <me>
/ac "Hawk's Eye" <me>
/ac "Quelling Strikes" <me>
/ac Mantra <me>
/micon "Straight Shot"

I know some of you guys remember that thread XD