Healing with mouseover macros?

[Makeda]

So I've started taking my healer through Stormblood finally and yesterday I tried my hand at healing with mouse-overs.

Basically standard faire to do in any MMO and what I thought was the lack of it had been my major turnoff to healing here.

I tried:

/micon Cure
/ac Cure <mo>
/ac Cure <t>
/ac Cure <tt>
/ac Cure <me>

But I found that if at any point during the casting anything moved between me and who I wanted to heal, the heal would fail... I ended up healing myself a silly amount of the time...

A little better if I constantly hovered over the party frames... but that kind of defeats some of the point.

So I tried:

/micon Cure
/ac Cure <t>
/ac Cure <tt>
/ac Cure <mo>
/ac Cure <me>

Which should be lock solid...

This is basically FFXIV's default annoying system of having to target somebody... but about 10% of the time... it would fire on me instead...

Does anyone use mouse-over macros here, and if so - what has been your strategy to avoid miscasts?

My thinking is that I should have an enemy mob always targeted, and use mouse-over to heal the party...

[Makeda]

I'm guessing my solution is going to come down to making a 'healing layoyt HUD' that just puts the party bar in the middle of the screen...

Is there a way to make that thing expand 'up' instead of down from where you place it, so it won't go 'off the screen' in a full party if I place it low for light parties?

Suspicious of this as even with:

/micon Cure
/ac Cure <mo>
/ac Cure <t>
/ac Cure <tt>
/ac Cure <me>

And my mouse right over the tank's line in the party frame... I've seen a heal hit someone else instead...

[Rongway]

If you're going to use mouseovers, it's best to use only mouseovers. Introducing multiple targets will frustrate you more often than it does what you intend, because of the way <t> works with heals -- basically any line after <t> won't matter, because once it gets to <t>, it will heal "someone", and "someone" will usually be yourself if you're not targeting a party member.

Also, avoid using models as mouseover targets. Party frames and target frames are the way to go.

[Squintina]

Generally people stay away from macros on common abilities like Cure/Cure II because macros don't have skill queuing, so you're always losing a few milliseconds.

On skills that are used every once in a while (like Benediction or Rescue), it's an acceptable loss.

But for more common things, it adds up a lot.

[Rongway]

Generally people stay away from macros on common abilities like Cure/Cure II because macros don't have skill queuing, so you're always losing a few milliseconds.

On skills that are used every once in a while (like Benediction or Rescue), it's an acceptable loss.

But for more common things, it adds up a lot.

Mouseover healing is an acceptable application of macros, as it can increase response time and situation awareness via not requiring that you target party members to heal them. You can also map heals to mouse buttons, which makes healing as easy as clicking on a target in the party list.

[Makeda]

If you're going to use mouseovers, it's best to use only mouseovers. Introducing multiple targets will frustrate you more often than it does what you intend, because of the way <t> works with heals -- basically any line after <t> won't matter, because once it gets to <t>, it will heal "someone", and "someone" will usually be yourself if you're not targeting a party member.

Also, avoid using models as mouseover targets. Party frames and target frames are the way to go.

So I tried:

/micon Cure
/ac Cure <mo>
/ac Cure <tt>
/ac Cure <t>

And it fails to ever cast on me, even if I mouse over myself

The same for both of:

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

/micon Cure
/ac Cure <mo>

BUT,

/micon Cure
/ac Cure <mo>
/ac Cure <tt>
/ac Cure <t>
/ac Cure <me>

works to get myself

/micon Cure
/ac Cure <mo>

btw, WILL work on the target bar if I target myself... but not on mousing over my unit

It DOES work on others if for example I mouseover a person adjacent to me...

As for skill queueing vs. this, that's an interesting point but I think the time loss from switching to a target is often going to be a LOT greater than the time loss of not having skill queueing. The most current info I could find on skill queueing was from topics on reddit in 2014 - so not sure here.

I know that in MMOs with heavy demand on the healers the difference in throughput from a healer using mouseovers to one targeting their heals is almost double. Skill queueing means it won't be as great here, but it's likely to be notable.

[Rongway]

<mo> on your character model will only work if you are self-clickable. The setting is in /characterconfig, Control Settings, Mouse, Enable clicking on self. I personally don't like being able to click on self, so I leave it turned off and just mouseover the party frame. <mo> will always work on the party frame.

Because of how heals redirect when the target is invalid, <mo> will target yourself if your mouse is over an NPC or enemy. When soloing, it helps to put your mouse over your target frame or the party frame and just leave it there. Doing <mo>,<t> will do what you want it to do when soloing, but will exhibit some unwanted side effects in party play if you are acting just a bit too quickly, as when the <mo> line tries to execute just before the GCD finishes, it'll skip to the <t> line and you'll heal yourself. It's best to use <mo> only.

[OcieKo]

As for skill queueing vs. this, that's an interesting point but I think the time loss from switching to a target is often going to be a LOT greater than the time loss of not having skill queueing.
I know that in MMOs with heavy demand on the healers the difference in throughput from a healer using mouseovers to one targeting their heals is almost double. Skill queueing means it won't be as great here, but it's likely to be notable.

And here i just practiced using F1-8 while healing and switching targets once the cast begins rather than between casts. Mouseover always feels unreliable to me. Was nicer in my WoW days when raid frames weren't garbage.

Mouseover was big when needing to reliably heal targets that weren't assigned to F# keys. This game doesn't even try to make you want to heal the other 16 in a 24m raid.

[EaMett]

The only viable mouseover macro is:

/micon Cure
/ac Cure <mo>

Anything after that is a random draw and may or may not work. The more you mash your buttons the worst it gets.
To target yourself you need to configure it as mentioned by someone above.

If you want to understand why stuff breaks down when you add more consecutive targets here's the explanation:
If you press the skill while still on your GCD it will still execute.

So imagine the following timeline:

GCD starts
Time goes by
you use your mo heal and it starts executing
/ac Cure <mo>            < does not execute because we're on the GCD
/ac Cure <t>              < does not execute because we're on the GCD
GCD ends
/ac Cure <tt>             < works but not at all what you were going for, potentially not even a heal-able target and you end up healing yourself

Basically anything other that a one liner is going to be a pain. Stick to the simple /ac Cure <mo>

[Makeda]

Actually I'm finding this IS working now:

/micon Cure
/ac Cure <mo>
/ac Cure <mo>
/ac Cure <tt>
/ac Cure <t>

The first:
/ac Cure <mo>

Is eaten if I press too early, but if so the second one fires reliably.

Managed to heal a trial without ever having anything but the enemy targeted.

Likewise the Ruby Tide leveling dungeon. The above as a macro across the spread of WHM spells seems to hold. Only targeting errors where human errors of me mousing over incorrectly. This was in a run where I was constant casting and weaving in as much damage as my mana could allow (I made it to 12% of group DPS, 96% of group Healing - in a run where the tank was one of those sorts that loves to take a lot of damage and not use as much mitigation as they should... the mouse-overs afforded me the ability to switch between damage and healing often. Only lost the tank "twice" from "running too far ahead while I was in mid cast" - and on the second time I was able to heal a DPS through a minute of a 3-stack pull until I Swiftcast available again and got the tank rezzed... (human error... thinking the tank would not 'stand in an explosion' I used Swiftcaft on Holy... and then the tank stood his ground as 2 of those exploding fish went off...).

- So... imperfect run... which is a perfect situation to test the macros... Lots of human errors all around the group (self and others) - but the mouse-overs held solid throughout.