Combo Action Button

[Seraphor]

Perfect, macros are not for Combat but may be appropriate for Healers? I think this is really important for all of us that are just getting into things like WHM. I've only played DPS in this game, but I'm starting to explore Healer.

Can you or anyone else recommend links to sites explaining How Macros Work and How to Create them not just for Healers but for other appropriate situations. I'm starting as WHM, but I've always wanted to try Astrologian and I fear that particular Job cannot be done without Macros. This is for anyone who has ever been confused by the Astrologian class.

Thanks!

Dont have a site to hand, but the best and simplest macros for trainee healers are probably the target of target macros for DPS spells.
This allows you to keep the Tank as your primary target for unencumbered healing.

/micon "spell name"
/macroerror off
/t "spell name"
/tt "spell name"

This means if you target an enemy you will hit that enemy, and if you target an ally you will hit that ally's target.
The only exception is if your targetted ally is also targetting an ally, then it will fail, but generally your tank is always targetting the boss.

Being a healer, your dps spells arent your top priority, and they don't combo so that dont need to worry about GCD clipping or anything like that. You'll also only be dpsing when you're not to stressed, so you wouldnt typically be queuing up DPS spells anyway, and even if you were, you'd probably waste as much time changing targets anyway.

[Nexxus]

They can totally add a combo system like in PvP and add a new panels of skillsets in PvE.
If it works like in Aion (the use of 3 buttons for alternatives skills).
In my opinion, it would be really cool to add a system like this in PvE, it would make the game less nervous, but more strategic.
Mages could have also channeling skills, where the most you stay input the more the damage/healing/etc when you release...
You could have for example; "provoke" followed by 3 choices: "Q" = stun bash | "E" = Flash Heal | "R" = AoE Provoke/flash , etc...
The actual combo system is just a "mandatory" loop... it would be great to change the way to play that could make us exit from that loop...

[Sylve]

They can totally add a combo system like in PvP and add a new panels of skillsets in PvE.
If it works like in Aion (the use of 3 buttons for alternatives skills).
In my opinion, it would be really cool to add a system like this in PvE, it would make the game less nervous, but more strategic.
Mages could have also channeling skills, where the most you stay input the more the damage/healing/etc when you release...
You could have for example; "provoke" followed by 3 choices: "Q" = stun bash | "E" = Flash Heal | "R" = AoE Provoke/flash , etc...
The actual combo system is just a "mandatory" loop... it would be great to change the way to play that could make us exit from that loop...

Its impossible to move away from a core loop for a rotation. You could have a dozen paths to take and they'd have to all achieve the exact same result (In which case it doesn't matter, you just mash keys to win) or the best path gets simmed and becomes the only path.

The weaponskill combos are fine, they just need to condense them into one key pressed multiple times as opposed to multiple keys pressed once.

[Derio]

Honestly I would like for the option to use the combo action to be there in PVE. Doesn't have to be mandatory but at least give us the option. Would certainly clean up my hotbars a lot.

[Fland]

I think the consolidated one button might affect people like myself who tend to mash button to queue skills to minimize latency effect.
So for example I'm in the middle of DRG rotation ....-FAC-SSD-TT-J-VT-...., usually I will mash the TT button after weaving SSD to queue it.
But if TT and VT are one button, then if I accidentally mash that button then the VT will get queued, and it'll become TT-VT-J instead of TT-J-VT and mess up the rotation.

For people with high ping like myself, pressing a button once and waiting for the GCD to pass before pressing another button instead of mashing them will significantly affect my DPS. Which is why I don't raid as NIN because I can't mash buttons the mudras especially during TCJ and have to press 6 times one by one slowly to avoid the bunny >.<

I don't really play PVP, so I'm not sure how it works there for melees.

[Ash_]

To this day I can't comprehend why summoners have an enkindle button for regular egi's, and then another enkindle button for bahamut. Sure the one for bahamut is on a shorter CD, but it's as simple as adding something like 'CD reduced to 7 seconds while Bahamut is summoned' to the existing enkindle.

[Shurrikhan]

A trend I've noticed whenever we start to near a new expansion is hot bar bloat. It's something I've noticed to be a problem with some classes right now as they've allowed all ten Role Actions to be utilized at once. We have a solution already in the game and I'm not entirely sure why it hasn't been extended to regular game play. I am referring to the Combo button we have access to while in PvP. If that was added to regular game play it would make things a lot cleaner for our hot bars. Looking at Dragoon for example, you would reduce 8 buttons to 2. Paladin and a number of other jobs would reduce 6-7 buttons down to 3. No more would we (maybe it's just me) fat finger our Red Mage enchanted combo if those three buttons were neatly sorted into one! Is there any chance we could see this added to regular game play by the time Shadowbringers rolls in? Sometime after? Does anyone else think this would be great? If not, please elaborate why you think otherwise. Thanks for your time reading this!

But, does that really solve anything?

The core issue is that we have more buttons than we have choices in a given moment, but consolidation into combo-keys wouldn't solve that. It would just give us as many buttons as we have choices in and only in the GCD of decision between paths. Beyond those points, until the combo is completed, you only get one choice. Short of one button, then, we'll never see parity between viable decisions and the number of buttons to signal each.

Monk alone has a squared table of abilities available to it over its GCDs, whether broken up as Direct/Indirect/Auxiliary or Back/Flank/Omni:
Bootshine -> True Strike -> Snap Punch
Dragon Kick -> Twin Snakes -> Demolish
Destroyer -> One-Ilm -> Rockbreaker

3x3. 3 choices every GCD. On no GCD is one truly without choice. That's a table that lends itself well to consolidated keys. Dragoon, with its 1 GCD of 3 choices (only one at all viable) into 5 GCDs of 1 choice into 5 GCDs of 1 choice, repeat, does not.

There are only two ways to create one-to-one correspondence between decisions available and the buttons to mark them:
1. Use a geometric progression of choices, such as 3x3 or 4x4, with or without the inclusion of ranged abilities and other GCD utility skills outside of the melee combos (though that will mean locking out access to them whenever the maximum number of real choices exceeds the minimum, such as after Heavy Swing or Gust Blade).

2. Allow formerly "combo" actions to be used separately, rather than solely through "combos".

Edit: To be clear, I think consolidation would, for particular jobs, be quite useful. I just feel it's far from perfect and difficult to improve from once the precedent is set.

[Gemina]

In addition, I would also like to point out the whole concept of a combo: The idea of a combo is to input a sequential set of commands where the proceeding command benefits from the previous. In early fighting game days, this resulted in the next attack being unblockable. So combined with a very strong secondary attack you create an optimal rotation. The same applies here, with potency increases being the reward.

In short, players need to be given the chance to screw up as much as the chance to be rewarded. Our combo system is probably of the last things that need adjusting in this game.

[Shurrikhan]

Except it isn't inherently bad design to have multiple buttons for combos. Some people may dislike it, however that isn't the same as it being flawed. You'll fine numerous controller and Keyboard player who have no issues whatsoever nor do they want anything changed. So, at best, it's a subjective argument.

You just reduced a complaint from someone clearly not among the "numerous controller and Keyboard player who have no issues whatsoever nor do they want anything changed" to a matter of "get better hardware, pleb". So let's not pretend there aren't people who are having issues with it. The sheer number of threads over the years from those with physical handicaps asking for advice on how comfortably bind all they need to play well onto their keyboard, the button-bloat complaint threads, and the four Combo Consolidation threads still in the New Posts pages beg to differ.

In addition, I would also like to point out the whole concept of a combo: The idea of a combo is to input a sequential set of commands where the proceeding command benefits from the previous. In early fighting game days, this resulted in the next attack being unblockable. So combined with a very strong secondary attack you create an optimal rotation. The same applies here, with potency increases being the reward.

In short, players need to be given the chance to screw up as much as the chance to be rewarded. Our combo system is probably of the last things that need adjusting in this game.

Except, the only failure our combos allow is finger slippage, which is irrelevant except to the newest players, those most easily panicked, or the physically handicapped. It is not a difficulty that the vast majority of us face except mid-hectic-mechanic when progging when over-stressed in Savage content. At most, it adds exclusion. Generally, it's a non-factor.

By your own definition, our "combos" are not combos. For a command to benefit from the previous, that following command must first actually exist outside of the given sequence. Otherwise you cannot have improvement. You can add something on to or in place of nothing, but you cannot improve on something that does not yet exist. And unless you're calling all combos skills in ubiquitous 100 potency and zero additional effects each as the actual skill, there's no improvement happening. Our "combos" are like a series of switches with electromagnetically sealed caps, each of which simply opens the next until you reach the final (read: actual) switch. You cannot viably hit C before B or B before A.

Compare that to a good fighting game. There, failure is not limited to manual mishaps; it includes more significant memory, it includes prediction, and it includes strategy. Each of in-range skills can see use in its own right and each do actually benefit others through the effects of the skill itself, rather than their merely unlocking each other in a decision-less sequence. In some, specific skills could only be accessed through specific sequences, but in every case every initially available action had course-viability and at every stage in every course you still had at least situationally viable choices. Those, therefore, are combos. XIV's are not. XIV's is a cycling system that reduces the amount of decisions one can make to every x GCDs. They are, for all intents and purposes, a way to dumb down gameplay.

Again, I'm not asking for my work to be done for me. I like having as many buttons as we do now, and merely want to see some QoL improvements (as per the ability to snapshot mod key states so that I can use my Shift/Alt/Ctrl-QWEASD without pausing movement I mentioned to Bourne earlier), but XIV's combo system as it stands now has virtually no merit to be lost regardless of whether it would come in conflict (as it inevitably will) with future additions to the game due to the bloat it causes, and makes even less sense than it has (non)merit. On principle, I'd much rather have as many buttons as there are decisions available. And in practice, I'd much rather see the availability of decision making increased rather than button count reduced.