DRK Macros

[ScytheSniper]

Gotta love these people saying "Hurr durr, macro's make you bad bro!"

No... no they dont...

For instance, I have Reprisal attached to every combo skill on my bar (Hard Slash, Spinning Slash, Power Slash, Syphon Strike, Souleater) This allows me to use reprisal immediately every time its up without wasting a slot on my bar for it. Since its off GCD and doesn't break combo's there is literally no reason for every DRK to not do this.

I also have Dark Arts attached to both Dark Mind and Dark Dance, since neither of these skills should really ever be used without the Dark Arts augment.

[Falgern]

Gotta love these people saying "Hurr durr, macro's make you bad bro!"

No... no they dont...

For instance, I have Reprisal attached to every combo skill on my bar (Hard Slash, Spinning Slash, Power Slash, Syphon Strike, Souleater) This allows me to use reprisal immediately every time its up without wasting a slot on my bar for it. Since its off GCD and doesn't break combo's there is literally no reason for every DRK to not do this.

I also have Dark Arts attached to both Dark Mind and Dark Dance, since neither of these skills should really ever be used without the Dark Arts augment.

Macroing spells together makes them unable to queue up, meaning you're losing potential DPS.

Using Dark Dance and Dark Mind without Dark Arts happens a lot
Also, what if you're late on a tank buster, really need that dark mind off now, and 15% will be enough to keep you alive. No wait, Dark arts -> Slapped/possibly dead -> Dark Mind

Macros make you less effective than pressing the buttons on your own. The extra delay on macro abilities gets noticeable very quick in higher content.

Also, you generally want to try to time your reprisal somewhat right to get it off to cover for heavy aoe or tank busters, you're essentially wasting reprisal by using macros.

[Giantbane]

Power Combo Reprisal(I put Reprisal on every part of the combo, so I'll list just one and you can assume it's the same for the rest of it, just switch with the other skills)

/ft
/ac "Reprisal" <t>
/ac "Hard Slash" <t>

I find it very useful since I would like to use Reprisal once it`s available, also freeing 1 slot on my hotbar.

Gotta love these people saying "Hurr durr, macro's make you bad bro!"

No... no they dont...

For instance, I have Reprisal attached to every combo skill on my bar (Hard Slash, Spinning Slash, Power Slash, Syphon Strike, Souleater) This allows me to use reprisal immediately every time its up without wasting a slot on my bar for it. Since its off GCD and doesn't break combo's there is literally no reason for every DRK to not do this.

Actually, yes, this is a bad thing to do if you care about your damage at all.

With normal skills, you can press the button when there's only about 20% of the GCD left, it will queue up the action send it to the server, and then as soon as the GCD is up on the server it will immediately execute the action.

However, macros do not let you do this. So what happens with your macros is you need to wait until the GCD is completely up. Then you press the button, and then when the server gets the message it will actually execute the ability. This slows how fast you execute skills in unison.

As a simple test, you can go hit a practice dummy and note how long your TP lasts. Now try just using the skills directly (no macro). You should notice that your TP drops quite a bit faster.

So sure, you can keep it that way, but I wouldn't be surprised if you're losing 15%+ of your potential DPS (and threat).

[ScytheSniper]

With normal skills, you can press the button when there's only about 20% of the GCD left, it will queue up the action send it to the server, and then as soon as the GCD is up on the server it will immediately execute the action.

However, macros do not let you do this. So what happens with your macros is you need to wait until the GCD is completely up. Then you press the button, and then when the server gets the message it will actually execute the ability. This slows how fast you execute skills in unison.

I will test this when I get in game. But in all honesty, I do not think that Reprisal falls into this category because it is not on the GCD so the macro forcing the action to wait for the GCD to completely end is wrong, and I have seen it work in my favor every time because I can literally mash the ability (or just simply press the button again during the GCD) and Reprisal is cast immediately, no delay at all.

[Gardes]

I will test this when I get in game. But in all honesty, I do not think that Reprisal falls into this category because it is not on the GCD so the macro forcing the action to wait for the GCD to completely end is wrong, and I have seen it work in my favor every time because I can literally mash the ability (or just simply press the button again during the GCD) and Reprisal is cast immediately, no delay at all.

The issue of the delay is not your OGCD. Yes, both OGCD and GCD can be queued but the fact is, GCD is very important and should never be delayed. In an OT scenario your priority is DPS until you have to tank. In that scenario you will only be using delirium and soul eater. Having them on macro on with reprisal will make them unqueueable and add gaps to your GCDs making you have less actions total in a given time span compared to non macrod GCDs. PLUS, when OTing your reprisal won't proc, making the macro pointless.

However, in MT scenario, even if you think that not putting out maximum DPS (that you can possibly squeeze) is fine as long you're holding hate and mitigating fine. So maybe you think reprisal macro on all your combos would be fine but do remember that as a drk you dont need to use power slash all the time. Most drks can do just fine with one powered power slash at the start and rotate between DE and SE for a long long time until you see the need to power slash. Putting reprisal macro on SE/DE would eventually hamper you when you eventually have to switch to OT in 8 man boss fights and just putting reprisal on power slash combo defeats the point of having the macro at all (since you wanted auto reprisal but you only have it on the least used combo).

On the mitigation side, stacking them into one macro sounds fine..until you get to fight serious bosses that needs specific mitigation depending on the timing of the attack and the 'heaviness' of the attack. Some attacks MUST be countered with a heavy mitigation, some attacks have to be mitigated by a lower one. Sometimes the order should be swapped around (think of alternating heavy and medium strength tank killers every minute, attacks that keep increasing in damage such as akh morn and vulnerability stacks). There's also the chance due to latency that even if you order your /ac, the macro decides to pick which mitigation to activate randomly (trust me, this happens). Mitigation at harder content is one of the most important part of being a tank and you can't leave it to chance.

I'm not against macros and even use it when I can (mostly /chotbar change) but you have to make sure that the macro works on all situations and settings and does not fumble on its own at critical moments.

[Giantbane]

I will test this when I get in game. But in all honesty, I do not think that Reprisal falls into this category because it is not on the GCD so the macro forcing the action to wait for the GCD to completely end is wrong, and I have seen it work in my favor every time because I can literally mash the ability (or just simply press the button again during the GCD) and Reprisal is cast immediately, no delay at all.

As Gardes said, the issue isn't that Reprisal is going to get delayed (it will slightly due to animation lock and what not, but that's not that big a deal). The problem is that all your combo skills (Hard Slash, Power Slash, etc, etc, etc) will be slightly delayed. Those are the skills that will have to wait till the end of the GCD to activate.

Another note:
Foresight is getting to the point where it's not bad to use for physical fights, it is better than Dark Dance for any physical tank buster. I did tests before alexander on normal mobs and then went into alexander and looked at the numbers there too. For me foresight provides a 16% damage reduction on physical attacks. So foresight is not an ability you just pop because you were bored anymore, it's actually not bad.

O.o ... srs?

[Falgern]

O.o ... srs?

You're free to try it out yourself, check numbers with and without foresight and you'll see it's actually not bad with this high ilvl

[LurcherReno]

Maybe im playing wrong but sometimes If i have a big pull ill put reprisal on another target seeing as theres no point putting it on a target thats dieing fairly quick...... That could be a reason not to..

[Sephiren]

Maybe im playing wrong but sometimes If i have a big pull ill put reprisal on another target seeing as theres no point putting it on a target thats dieing fairly quick...... That could be a reason not to..

Not quite...If you have a big pull you will most likely focus on AoE Enmity, and in the case you`re targeting a mob that is dying fairly quick you`ll just change target...That really depends on what kind of play you like.

[DWolfwood]

I have a pull macro. I find it's essential so that people know we're starting and can get their huton and whatever the heck they want up.

That said, I can justify having a voke macro, but I come from a school of players that had more raid awareness and I kind of expect players to be on that level still. Tank swaps are generally part of a strategy and come at specific times, so they shouldn't be a surprise. The same kind of holds true for Living Dead. The sound it makes is *very* distinguishable, and my healers immediately know it when they hear it. Like I said, I can justify the use of macros for these abilities, but I don't think they're necessary.

Aside from that, I'll make macros for fights to show PUGs how certain mechanics should be done for the group, like purple AoEs in Ravana EX. I used to use a lot of macros in FFXI and 1.0, but they were different games. This game's controls are much more streamlined, and as a tank I simply haven't had the need for them yet.