How important are macros?

[HyoMinPark]

I hope this doesn't seem arrogant coming from a new player but this seems to be a large misconception within the community. Somehow the whole message about /wait gets squished down to "macros are bad m'kay?" and no one remembers why.

There's a thread here somewhere that pops up occasionally about macroing an entire monk rotation, and how it leads to a significant DPS loss. That's why macros are inefficient as means of mapping an entire rotation. I've seen it revived a couple times in the last month or so. I'd suggest reading it to see what others say.

Macros break sometimes, or don't go off properly. If your macro were to break after your Impulse Drive, you would be unable to use Disembowel and Chaos Thrust. Significant DPS loss not only for you, but for those who benefit from the piercing resistance down debuff Disembowel gives.

Sometimes in fights, a situation may change were you need to reapply your DoTs after a boss went invincible, and they fell off before you could refresh them. Queuing them in the middle of a macro not only delays the reapplication of the DoT unnecessarily so, but also results in a net DPS loss for you. For BRDs, we get a lot of damage from our DoTs. I have looked at my "crystal ball" and seen that my DoTs usually make up 30% or more of my total damage dealt. Not to mention crit DoT ticks prompt the River of Blood trait, causing me to lose out on Bloodletter/Rain of Death procs if I have to wait several GCDs to apply them because they're in a macro. Letting them fall off is a DPS loss. Queuing them in the middle of a macro with 10 other skills is a DPS loss.

I'm bringing up this next point because you did mention something about macroing for BRD, which is my main job. BRDs do not have a strict rotation in terms of most melee, where it's Heavy Thrust > Impulse Drive > Disembowl > Chaos Thrust, etc.. BRDs are more of a priority based rotation style that involves upkeep of your DoTs (including Iron Jaws refresh every 17 seconds), upkeep of the Straight Shot buff, using as many Bloodletter/Rain of Death procs as possible, using your Straighter Shot price (and in a way that doesn't waste a GCD by weaving them between oGCD skills), aligning the proper buffs (IR + RS, HE + B4B + Barrage + EA), keeping all your oGCD skills on cooldown (Blunt Arrow, Empyreal Arrow, Sidewinder, Repeling Shot, etc.), and filling in the gaps with Heavy Shot spam. Let me just use macroing Bloodletter in the middle of a macro that also applies Straight Shot, your DoTs, and weaves in a Sidewinder between some Heavy Shots. If Bloodletter were to proc anywhere in the middle of that, you would need to use it ASAP, otherwise it's a DPS loss (though sometimes Bloodletter gets carried away and procs three times in a row before you even get a chance to use one). Point being, you need those procs, and you won't be able to see them or use them efficiently in a macro.

I also macro my Flaming Arrow to make placing it easier, because it's just too much time on a controller and that just means I'm doing less DPS with my other skills. I can say that several times if I am going too fast, the macro will not queue into my rotation (because they do not queue in the same way non-macroed skills do), thereby making me have to wait longer to apply it. I align my Flaming Arrow with Internal Release, Raging Strikes, and Sidewinder because they all have similar cooldown timers. I don't like that being thrown off because the macro just didn't feel like cooperating at that particular moment.

Plus, you have your songs. What if the healer dies, is raised, but they're out of mana and need that MP song, and you have to interrupt one of your macros to sing it for them? Now you have to start that macro all over again, which is just a waste of TP and damage (example: clipping DoTs too early and not benefiting from the full potency). You need to be able to adapt to the situation (provide songs when needed) while also sinultaneously managing your damage and rotation with as little interrupt as possible. Weaving in Mage's or Army's is just one single GCD, and then you can go right back to what you were doing.

I know you main DRG, but I main BRD, and while the jobs are different in terms of play, they are on-par when it comes to DPS parses (with players that are equally geared and skilled). BRD has some of the highest potential for high DPS parses, and that relies on knowing the job well, and squeezing out every ounce of attack power you can. Something that you cannot get with macros.

I'm not sure how interested you are in Savage content or EX primals, but I can guarantee you statics will not accept a player who maps rotations with macros. Too much of a DPS loss, and this game is all about those big DPS parses now. I'm in no way trying to sound arrogant myself; just giving you examples on why macros are not optimal for full-blown rotations.