My easy controller setup for WAR

[Sapphidia]

You can certainly macro off-gcd abilities if you arent too worried about losing a bit of dps from the pushback of GCDs. Certainly if you arent at the cutting edge of content it's fine to make a class easier to play.

However.. whilst some of those cooldowns can be macroed together for ease some of them really don't make sense to combo because they have totally different applications.

By all means combo Thrill of Battle and Convalescence for instance. "I'm low on health and need some health NOW". Same cooldown too, one press for each. That's fine. But Bloodbath too? That's something you should be using as either constant sustained healing on cooldown, or tied in with big DPS cooldowns to maximise it.

Likewise, Vengeance and Foresight are similar "reduce damage on me" but vengeance is something you generally want to save for big tankbusters whereas Foresight is something you want to pop liberally on trash or just to reduce minor damage.

By all means combo some skills together into one button press if they make sense, but be careful that you dont needlessly restrict the use of some of them and force yourself to not use things when you could because they come after a different skill in a macro.

[karateorangutang]

snip

That's why I tend to put the cool down that "matters most" as the first press on a macro button. I actually rarely use the same button together with the exception of raw intuition and awareness, and i generally just do that accross 2 GCD's as awareness's timer is shorter anyway. If you look at the macro's that i wrote the cool-down with the most impact is first, followed by something that augments it, or something that I use in conjunction with a different skill. I have noticed less lag if i put them accross separate buttons then on the same button.

I won't lie though, it's highly disappointing the macros are hampered in such a way in a game with such a skill bloat issue.

Also, I'm not doing cutting edge content. I play maybe 3-4 days a week and generally get into a raid on the latter half of it's life. I probably won't be starting savage Alexander for another couple weeks because of kids, wife, job, school ( thats right kids... it never ends), gym, etc.

But, like I said above until SE finds a way to make xhotbars more visible and able to be used for vast amounts of skills. It's still the best option available for controller users.

[whiskeybravo]

That's why I tend to put the cool down that "matters most" as the first press on a macro button.

But it doesn't always execute in order. The few macros I use (foresight/awareness on tanks, bloodbath/second wind/foresight/keen flurry on drg) have that problem occasionally.

Vengeance in particular is an interesting CD. I pop it most often with Bloodbath because of the return heals (great tanking mobs), but it's an incredibly strong cd when paired with IB for big tank busters. If you aren't raiding then you don't have to worry too much about that at this point, but part of all this is finding the synergy between CDs. Foresight/Vengeance don't really have any synergy.

[karateorangutang]

But it doesn't always execute in order. The few macros I use (foresight/awareness on tanks, bloodbath/second wind/foresight/keen flurry on drg) have that problem occasionally.

Vengeance in particular is an interesting CD. I pop it most often with Bloodbath because of the return heals (great tanking mobs), but it's an incredibly strong cd when paired with IB for big tank busters. If you aren't raiding then you don't have to worry too much about that at this point, but part of all this is finding the synergy between CDs. Foresight/Vengeance don't really have any synergy.

I still pop it with bloodbath, internal release is rarely on the same cooldown as it, so i don't have issues with it. I don't have IB on a macro at all since it has such a tighter timing schedule on it. Ive also never had them pop out of order. I know i have done macros with waits so that I can easily access the second part of the macro without activating the first, but with WAR that doesnt really seem necessary. Especially since alot of the time your trying to pair a percentage down incoming type CD with some other variety of CD to get the most eHP out of your CD's.

Again I realize this isn't the most optimal, but its still better than leafing through pages.