Mouseover healing macros - some problems

[Taika]

Well I mean, I'm looking at the SCH PoV of the world 4th clear of A12S here, and he seems to be fine with macros, so there must be something about using them...

I agree that macros on a DPS/Tank job are usually a bad idea because of the queuing. On a healer though, the ability to <mo> or <tt>/<f> your abilities is just really valuable.

Valuable how? What are the benefits? We already know the disadvantage is not being able to queue your heals and thus using actions slower than you would without macros, and also the possibility of lag messing up your macro by skipping steps, which I guess can cause using the action on wrong target (or not using it at all?), but I'm not 100% confident about this so please correct me if I'm wrong.

We all know you can heal with macros (while you can't really play a DPS with macros), but I don't think there's a reason why anyone should. For me, having played healer both ways, it felt much more unresponsive and clunky healing with them, and being able to queue your abilities is an obvious, objective benefit.

I agree with your sentiment re optimisation. I just cannot enjoy the alternative targeting methods, when i've spent a decade using mouseover healing. I tried them and would rather just quit the game then play like that, so i'm hoping it doesn't come down to that choice, and that i'll be able to improve upon the current macro problems.

There are many healers playing at top level healing with macros, so don't worry, you should be able to play with them just fine, if there are no other issues (such as lag messing up your macros).

Are you using mouseover from party menu or having your mouse over the actual player character you're trying to heal?

[Bradykinn]

There are many healers playing at top level healing with macros, so don't worry, you should be able to play with them just fine, if there are no other issues (such as lag messing up your macros).

Are you using mouseover from party menu or having your mouse over the actual player character you're trying to heal?

Mouse over party frames. Which, I wish were better designed ,I miss grid from WoW xD

[Tridus]

Mouse over party frames. Which, I wish were better designed ,I miss grid from WoW xD

Amen to that. WoW had the best options for healer party display of any MMO ever, mostly because they turned it over to modders to figure out.

[Bradykinn]

Mhm. I miss my addons in general, they are so great for a game like this. I hate how rigid and unchangeable the UI of final fantasy is.

[Isrea]

Valuable how? What are the benefits?

Mouseover macros give two main benefits:
1. You have half as many key presses to complete an action, since you only have to press the ability instead of clicking to target then activating the ability
Depending on the player and the situation this can more than make up for the minor lag delay, especially with OCD heals.
2. Allows you to heal as needed while keeping something targeted. Given how important healer DPS is in FF14 and how god awful the tab targeting in this game is (had
a hard time believing you could do worse than wow...) and how finicky click targeting can be, not having to reacquire your target after each heal is amazing.

[Taika]

Mouseover macros give two main benefits:
1. You have half as many key presses to complete an action, since you only have to press the ability instead of clicking to target then activating the ability
Depending on the player and the situation this can more than make up for the minor lag delay, especially with OCD heals.

Except you're targeting the target of your next action while you're casting your previous one: if I have to heal someone after casting Stone, I target the healing target during Stone cast and queue the heal instead of waiting until the Stone is finished to target the healing target. You do have to make more clicks though, that is true (but since you're hovering your mouse to target anyway, it's not significant extra effort).

2. Allows you to heal as needed while keeping something targeted. Given how important healer DPS is in FF14 and how god awful the tab targeting in this game is (had
a hard time believing you could do worse than wow...) and how finicky click targeting can be, not having to reacquire your target after each heal is amazing.

I don't see how click targeting is more "finicky" than mouseover (I know I did more mistakes with the latter, but that's probably just me ) and I don't see switching targets for different abilities as a hassle, but I can understand why someone would prefer not to do that. I still don't think it would objectively lower your healing efficiency though.

[Isrea]

Except you're targeting the target of your next action while you're casting your previous one: if I have to heal someone after casting Stone, I target the healing target during Stone cast and queue the heal instead of waiting until the Stone is finished to target the healing target. You do have to make more clicks though, that is true (but since you're hovering your mouse to target anyway, it's not significant extra effort).

If you are only casting on the GCD, I agree, but when you add in OGCD abilities it makes more of a difference. For example Bio, Shadow Flare, whoops tank stood in the bad, emergency Lustrate, slightly delayed Miasma... Even without the Shadow Flare thrown in there, having to retarget multiple times in one GCD can get a bit frantic, particularly if you are trying to reaquire the right target in a multiple mob pack.

I don't see how click targeting is more "finicky" than mouseover (I know I did more mistakes with the latter, but that's probably just me ) and I don't see switching targets for different abilities as a hassle, but I can understand why someone would prefer not to do that. I still don't think it would objectively lower your healing efficiency though.

I don't find clicking party frames finicky, it's targeting mobs. I find that often mobs have deadzones where clicking on them won't target them (for example you seem to have to click on the bottom half of Susano), which makes it quite frustrating to target the right one when a pack of mobs is moving and overlapping, players are in the way, and tab targeting insists on going to everything out of range that hasn't been aggro'd yet instead of cycling through the mobs you are actually fighting.

Honestly, I agree with what has been said a couple times already. The big problem is that macros in FF14 are embarrassingly poorly implemented. The lag issues, the lack of modifier macros functions, and other basic things blow my mind. It's a real testament to the quality of the story and content in this game that I bear to play it at all with how terrible the macros and UI are.

[Riyshn]

I promise these cases aren't human error: I'm not saying I never do that, but i've replicated this problem while spam healing afk people in town.

Not sure then. My healing macros are all this

/micon Physick
/merror off
/ac "Physick" <mo>

and I've never had an accidental self heal happen that wasn't user error from twitching my mouse.

[Rhinos]

I'm pretty sure '/ac "Physick" <mo>' has never targeted myself accidentally unless the macro had a second <me> line in it or I made a mistake. I don't think <mo> defaults to self with no target like <t> does either. There is a 'click on self' setting that enables/disables clicking or <mo> on your own character. Are you sure that is not enabled and you are not accidentally mousing your nameplate?

[Dicejss]

For some reason SE is against supporting macro users because this problem has persisted since the launch of 2.0 and also why we still don't have add-on support for the game officially.

/micon "Cure"
/ac "Cure" <mo>
/ac "Cure" <t>
/ac "Cure" <f>

Is what my macro for my heals all look like to help lower the chances of my cast healing me instead. I still end up getting heals on myself even though I'll have mouseover on the tank, have the tank focus targeted, or also my current target.