Macros?

[Nari92]

I've never used macros before, and cant find a proper, up-to-date guide on them. I am playing a Ninja, and I understand that macros aren't always worth it, but I still want to learn..

1. How and where do I put "wait"? I've seen it these two ways:
   /ac "skill" <wait.1> (hoping this one works, as it saves space)
   /wait 1
   
   
2. Does waiting 0.5, 1.5, 2.5 sec etc work?
   I've read that it automatically rounds up or down :s kinda useless if your skill cooldown is 1.5 sec, but you gotta wait 2 sec with the macro..
   
   
3. is there a /command for walking towards your target?
   
   
4. I think this is a silly one.. If I have, lets say 6 skills on my macro, but my enemy dies after 3 skills. Then I target another enemy (maybe even accidentally), standing right next to me, and my character will automatically start attacking it, starting from the next skill in the 'queue'. Is there a way to prevent that? x) like make the macro stop after the enemy dies..

[Rawrz]

Don't macro skills in chains eg wait. Only use that for party timer notifications. If you can avoid using a macro to use a dps skill, the better off you'll be.

[Nari92]

I know, that's why I said "I understand that macros aren't always worth it". I just want to learn anyways ^^

[Niwashi]

How and where do I put "wait"? I've seen it these two ways:
/ac "skill" <wait.1> (hoping this one works, as it saves space)
/wait 1

Either way works. the two line:

/ac "skill"
/wait 1

is equivalent to:

/ac "skill" <wait.1>

but they're not recommended for combat skills, because they're not efficient. (I use it in some crafting macros, though, where time efficiency isn't as big a deal. It's pretty popular for that. A 3 second wait between each crafting action is enough to allow the next one to be ready.)

Does waiting 0.5, 1.5, 2.5 sec etc work?
I've read that it automatically rounds up or down :s kinda useless if your skill cooldown is 1.5 sec, but you gotta wait 2 sec with the macro..

Originally, when the game was still in beta testing, the /wait command used to allow tenths of a second, but SE removed that because they don't want macros to be efficient. They want people to play each individual skill. So to discourage macroing combat sequences, they removed the fractions, and made wait support whole seconds only. (If you try to add a .5 or .6 or whatever, it will be truncated off or rounded down to the full second specified.)

is there a /command for walking towards your target?

/facetarget
/automove on

would start off right, though I think you'd keep moving that direction even after passing the target unless you manually stop.

there's also:
/follow
but I'm not sure if that works for all targets. The help for it is:
→Automatically follow a targeted PC.

I think this is a silly one.. If I have, lets say 6 skills on my macro, but my enemy dies after 3 skills. Then I target another enemy (maybe even accidentally), standing right next to me, and my character will automatically start attacking it, starting from the next skill in the 'queue'. Is there a way to prevent that? x) like make the macro stop after the enemy dies..

Well, not an automatic way. But initiating any other macro will cancel the one in progress. So I suppose you could have a separate cancelling macro that just does something harmless like:
/echo cancel
and hit that if the enemy dies while your macro is still in play. But it relies on your realizing the need for it before that next skill goes off.


But really, as Rawrz said, you shouldn't be chaining attacks together like that in macros anyway. Macros can be useful for things like having a skill hit either your target or your target's target, depending on whether you're currently targeting a friend or enemy. And they can be useful if you need to notify party members when you use a particular skill. But they're (deliberately on SE's part) not well suited to chaining together a sequence of actions, at least not in combat where the timing of actions going off is so important.

I just want to learn anyways ^^

Here's a full reference, if you go through all the subcategories on the left side:

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest.../text_command/

[Nari92]

Ooh, thanks for the reply! ^^
I doubt I will actually use macros for combat skills (maybe while solo questing or something..) Though I'm kinda sad they removed the .5 wait :x I think /following the enemy would be a bad idea anyways, if it's even possible x) A lot of them have AOE, and one would have to run out of it and blah.. Oh well, thanks again. I'll take a look at the site you linked. ~

[Sida]

The follow doesn't even work for friendly NPC. Only for other player characters. Also, there is a command for stopping a macro. /macrocancel I think. However that command can't be included in a macro, and must be always executed from the chat line. There is also /macrolock, which prevents other macros interrupting the one in use. I actually found some use for it since I have macro that switches to my miner gearset, as well as activates couple cross class skills for node visibility. I kept interrupting it with my mounting macro ^^;

All in all, macros are good for utility such as switching classes and adjusting hotbars and as said, for crafting rotations, but rather bad for using combat skills, even worse for chaining them.

[Nari92]

.. macros are good for utility such as switching classes

Just wanted to make sure you know you can drag the.. class buttons or whatever I should call it to your hotbar :3
Like this:

[Sida]

Just wanted to make sure you know you can drag the.. class buttons or whatever I should call it to your hotbar :3

Of course I do, that's sort of elementary. However, say, my Botanist macro looks like this

/micon 10 gearset
/gearset change 10
/hotbar change 1 <wait.1>
/ac "Truth of Forests" <wait.1>
/ac "Truth of Mountains" <wait.1>
/action Prospect

for example, same thing for miner. I don't have macros for the classes where I just want to switch to them without anything else since that would be silly.