Brand new player - question about Swiftcast and Macros - PS4

[lvillanueva5]

Hello all, I'm a new player to the game, just started over the weekend on PS4. I'm playing a healer class, soon to be WHM. I'm currently at 23 CNJ, 25 THM, and 1 ACN.

A friend of mine introduced me to the game and informed me that I needed to get Swiftcast from THM asap, hence why my levels are kind of all over the place at the moment.

I'm familiar with the healing playstyle as I usually play healers in other MMOs, however, given that this is console and not PC, I'm not quite sure how to the macros work.

So I guess my questions are:

1. Is there any other instance in which it is critical to use Swiftcast outside of raise?
2. How exactly do I set up macros?

Since this is a console version, I'm trying to get used to juggling the different tabs on the action bar and would rather keep the most important heals on Bar 1 before putting others on Bar 2, etc.

Any helpful hints or other information for a starting healer?

Thanks.

[Naria]

It depends on which healer you are going to be playing. As Whm and Ast Swiftcast is mostly used for raise, but I do use it for emergency aoe heals sometimes (this can be negated in some situations by precasting the aoe heal if you know that the damage is incoming but the timing takes a bit of practice). Sometimes swiftcast will be used with a DPS spell such as Swiftcast+Holy or Swiftcast+Aero III. Ast and Whm have there own native cooldowns to lower cast time for other spells if they need too. On Sch I use Swiftcast almost everytime it is up, mostly with Shadow Flare (a long casting aoe dot/debuff) unless I have some reason to save it. It is also great to resummon your fairy for whatever reason mid fight. Raise definitely takes priority if it is needed. As for macros most people don't use that many in this game since if you are using a macro you can't queue your actions. I use a number on Sch to help control my fairy, but I think I have only two five on Whm--a /p line attached to raise saying who I'm raising so that the other healer knows and one to make it easier to place Asylum (a ground based aoe regen), and three for the different versions of Stone.

Example of the Asylum macro:
/micon "Asylum" (makes the macro's icon Asylum)
/ac "Asylum" <t>

Example of a DPS macro:
/micon "Stone"
/ac "Stone" <t>
/ac "Stone" <tt> (<tt> is target's target so if I this macro while targeting the tank I'll cast on whatever the tank is targeting)

Hmm newbie advice:

Focus Target is your friend. It allows you to monitor what is happening with one mob/player even when you are targeting another. I normally use it on the boss. In a macro Focus Target is <f>.

/assist is a command that lets you target whatever your current target is targeting. On the controller I have it set to R3. It is great for quickly switching targets between a mob and the tank.

Soft Target is also your friend. If you select a person on your party list, but don't confirm the new target then they are "soft targeted". After you cast a spell on them the game will snap your target back to whatever you were targeting before.

Don't over use regen. It produces hate/agro in this game everytime it ticks, so precasting it will annoy your tank. Regen is awesome, but wait a few seconds after a pull before you use it.

As a console player set up your controller and target filters it will make your life 120% easier. Character Settings->Hotbar Settings and Character Settings ->Control Settings->Filters, respectively.

Which healer are you planning on leveling?

[ChameleonMS]

Welcome Eorzea.
Some things to note about macros are:
Actions can only be executed in successions of full seconds.
e.g.
/ac "Stone"
/wait 2.5
/ac "Stone"

The macro actually attempts to active the second Stone at 2 seconds. The .5 is completely ignored.
Use of macros for GCD actions are less optimal that actually pressing buttons. A GCD is action which invokes your cool down timer before the next move is allowed to be activated.
The next macro command will not invoke until the previously activated one has completed.
When using a GCD skill, such as Stone, you pre-activate about .25 seconds before the GCD timer has completed. This ensures fastest activation.
When using the macro, the activation must wait until the full GCD has completed, this waiting translates to a minor delay in casting, causing a time loss.

Off GCD (the instant actions like Swiftcast) have a "delay" of about .25 seconds. This forces your swift raise macro to be.

/micon "Raise"
/ac "Swiftcast" <wait.1>
/ac "Raise" <t>

I prefer /micon "Swiftcast" because it shows me when the Swiftcast timer has finished resetting. With your limited hot bar space using PS4 (like I do). This information is more important to me than seeing a Raise icon.

To save button space and my sanity I have the following macro for Stone. This prevents me from having to shift my hot bars around when level synced; which happens a lot. I will take the menial DPS loss (I am healer after all) for the convience factor.
/micon "Stone"
/ac "Stone III" <t>
/ac "Stone III" <tt>
/ac "Stone II" <t>
/ac "Stone II" <tt>
/ac "Stone" <t>
/ac "Stone" <tt>

[Niwashi]

Others have already mentioned anything I could offer about macros, so I'll just add some advice on hotbars.

Since this is a console version, I'm trying to get used to juggling the different tabs on the action bar and would rather keep the most important heals on Bar 1 before putting others on Bar 2, etc.

You should also set up one as an extended crossbar. You can activate that by pressing both R2 + L2 together. (It matters which you press first, so you can get 8 buttons by pressing R2 then L2 and another 8 by pressing L2 then R2.) That gives you an extra hotbar worth of space before needing to swap out your main hotbar.

There's also a new one, called W crossbar, which you can reach by double tapping either R2 or L2. The double tapping is a bit finicky, so I don't like it as well for combat actions, but put some of my out-of-combat actions there and some menu items (like inventory) that I use frequently enough to prefer them on a hotbar rather than going through the menus to reach them all the time.

Once a cross hotbar is designated as your extended or W crossbar, you can remove it from the list of hotbars you'll toggle through for your main hotbar (since you've got another way of reaching them).

For instance, I set mine up so I'll toggle between bars 1 & 2 when my weapon is drawn (but for most jobs, don't even use bar 2, so it just stays on 1). I have only bar 3 set for when my weapon is sheathed. Bar 4 is my extended crossbar and 8 is my W crossbar. (I don't currently use 5, 6, or 7 for anything.)

My combat actions are set on bars 1 (main combat bar) and 4 (extended bar), plus could extend to bar 2 (second main combat bar) if a job needs more than 32 slots. Bar 3 (out of combat bar) has stuff like teleport, mounts, sprint, and a couple emotes I like, plus the attack skill I use when first initiating a fight (just so I can start from there and have it draw my weapon and switch me to my combat bars rather than have to draw my weapon manually as a separate action). Currently, bar 8 (W crossbar) has some commonly used menu items, but there are only a few I use a lot, so I'm considering keeping just half of it, and moving the other half of my W crossbar to one of the currently unused ones, making it job specific, and placing job skills like White Mage's Protect or Ninja's Kiss of the Viper and similar stuff that are generally used ahead of the fight so don't really need mid-combat responsiveness there.

[Taika]

Hello and welcome to FFXIV!

To answer to your question about use of Swiftcast, it can be used for various things, for example for a quick AoE heal (any healer job), AoE stoneskin (WHM), or AoE damage (WHM and AST). Also, one thing to note, since you mentioned you're coming from other MMOs and are used to playing healer role in them, is that in this game healer roles aren't limited to healing other than in very specific circumstances (and maybe when you're just learning the job or new content), so don't be afraid to do some DPS between your heals.

[lvillanueva5]

Thank you all for your helpful replies. My plan is to go WHM. I've managed to get to CNJ 30 and am currently at 13 ACN. Once I get some experience on healing with that job, I may go ahead and finish leveling ACN to 30 and try out SCH.

I didn't realize there were sooooo many bars. The one mentioned above with the L2 + R2 seems like it would be easier to switch around, so I will definitely try and get everything all set up before I jump into game again.

Again, thank you all for all the helpful responses!!

[Urthdigger]

One note about swiftcast that I don't think has been mentioned thus far: I personally find it's greatest use isn't just the ability to speed up a spell (Which is mostly only useful for raise as noted), but also the ability to CAST WHILE MOVING. Any spell that lacks a cast time, like aero and regen, can be cast while moving. Swiftcast allows you to get that benefit with any spell. I personally find I mostly use swiftcast to place a medica II on my party while dodging mechanics in a boss fight, or to place Stoneskin II on the party (Or stoneskin 1 on just the tank at lower levels) while we're running to the next group of monsters.

[ADVSS]

with a 6 second cast time on battle res and raise, youll definately want swiftcast available in higher paced fights later on, as far as the extended crossbar goes, i usually have it set on my tanks for things like their ultimate level 50 skill, provoke since it needs to be hit fast, and some skills like tank stances, for my casters and healers ill keep sprint accessible as well as things like esuna, res and swiftcast, things you may not need all the time, but when you need them you need them fast. main hotbar always has the heals, and dps skills as theyre the most in use.