Scholar oGCDs and queuing questions.

[NoSK]

I'm aware there are tons of help threads but a couple things are bugging me.

Firstly. I started noticing the oGCD thing right away, but am a bit confused on some of the descriptions. One guide I read claimed there is a noticeable difference between the combos Ruin->EnergyDrain->Ruin vs Ruin II->EnergyDrain->Ruin. It says that on the first combo, the second use of Ruin is delayed. This just doesn't seem to be the case when trying it myself... It has something to do with Ruin II being "instant cast" but it still seems to have the same GCD.

Secondly. Does the pet have its own queuing? Macro'ing embrace to everything seems to be frowned upon. So pet actions behind a regular action in a macro will still hinder queuing my own actions?

[Rongway]

Cast -> oGCD -> Anything
is slower because for most spells, the cast time is equal to or longer than the GCD. It takes 2.5s to cast the spell, and by the time you're done casting, you're ready to start casting again. That means you won't use the oGCD until everything is already cooled down anyway.

Instant -> oGCD -> Anything
is faster because the instant ability only takes 0.5-1.0 seconds to activate, leaving another 1.0-1.5 seconds where you can use an oGCD while everything is cooling down. By the time you're ready to cast again, you've inserted an extra action into that space where you couldn't cast anything.

[Taika]

To the second question, the pet has different cooldown from yours (Embrace 3 seconds), so fairy abilities aren't available at the same time with your abilities. And yes, tying the pet actions to your own in a macro means you're macroing your own abilities, making yourself unable to queue then. I personally just have Embrace separately on my action bar. That way I can use it while I'm casting something else, which again is something you're unable to do with macros, since you can only execute one macro at a time.

[Spiroglyph]

Regarding your first concern - ruin -> ED -> ruin does indeed make it so the second ruin is slightly delayed, because even though ED is an instant cast oGCD ability, it still has an animation, and the animation has to be finished before you're able to use another skill. Now, this is very small time window that the animation takes up, imagine about .5 seconds, but it's STILL a delay on the second ruin casted, and the more you add up throughout the fight, the more those half seconds add up.

The second option however (ruin II -> ED -> ruin) does not have any delay on ruin, because ruin II is an instant cast - this means that, supposing your average cast time is 2.5s, you fire off a ruin II, and in the 2.5s GCD that follows you have the time to use an Energy Drain (and let its animation play out) and even avoid mechs if necessary, and you'll be casting ruin at the end of the GCD with NO delay or clipping.

As for the second thing you mentioned, I would advise against mixing fairy spells with your own. Firstly, they're on different cast timers, so on top of them ot always firing off as they're supposed to, the <t> command sometimes goes strange if the target goes out of range or if you click too fast, and you'll end up casting physick on yourself unnecessarily. It's generally better to macro only fairy abilities, for example you can make Embrace spam macros so that for a period of time your fairy will be locked onto a specific target (in this situation it's important to place it first, because on heel fairy will prioritize following you over healing). Not linking your healing spells with your fairie's has another benefit, which would be that you can selectively heal multiple targets at a time

tl;dr whereas in the first case you'll be using 2 full GCDs PLUS the half second used up by the animation, in the second situation you'll be using only 2 GCDs, at the cost of a little extra MP. If you have aetherflow stacks to burn through, and you're particular about maxing your DPS output, weaving EDs after R2s is slightly better do NOT macro your skills with your fairy's - cast yours manually and if you feel you NEED a macro, make it so that it's only with your fairy's skills, like an embrace macro locked onto a specific target

[NoSK]

Thanks everyone! The concepts are much clearer.
I was following a youtube video on PS4 scholar macros. It seemed to work well macro'ing embrace to everything with <tt> or <f> but the more macros I started making the more jammed up and flustered my pet (and I) would get.

[giantslayer]

The answer to your second question is more complicated than anyone would assume. In my signature is a link to a guide I wrote about that which also goes into great length about Scholar macros.

[NoSK]

Yeah. Yours was one of the main couple I went off of. I've changed my macro and cross hot bar settings a few times now and I started about a month ago.

Because the cd time of embrace is so different I've just been manually casting a queue for that with <tt> on my dmg bar and a queue of embrace with <t> on healing bar. Otherwise only using macros for interrupt.