Evidence that Macros Do NOT Cause GCD Delay or Lost Casts

[Cabalabob]

What exactly are you hoping to make a macro for?

For example macroing a 1-2-3 combo (so trying to automate your combo into one button). Due to the way /wait works you WILL lose casts. /wait only works on integers. This means that each action in the combo is going off at 3 seconds instead of 2.5 or less depending on your speed stat (making your speed stat redundant in the process by the way). You may think “oh you’re only losing 0.5 seconds, it’s not that big of a deal”. But just 5 GCDs losing 0.5 seconds off their recast is an entire GCD lost. Over the course of a 10 min fight? You’d be losing about 50 GCDs over someone pressing their buttons manually.

Also, macros don’t queue, so you’d need to wait for the last combo string to end and your GCD to have completely rolled around to press the button again or the macro won’t go off, unlike pressing it manually which allows you to queue the action before the GCD has fully rolled around (meaning your next combo string goes off more accurately to when your GCD ends compared to a macro) meaning macros cause even more of a delay unless you mash them.

Finally, macros will be interrupted by any other action. If you were to use an oGCD, it will interrupt your macro. Assuming you’re using this 1-2-3 macro to free up hotbar space you’d no longer have each manual button on your hotbar, your 1-2-3 combo has been interrupted by you using an oGCD, you now have no way to continue your combo other than start over, which is a massive dps loss. Not to mention if for whatever reason (fight mechanics forcing you out of range for a second) you miss a GCD you now have your combo string going off completely out of order.

To put it simply, there’s no conspiracy here to make macros unfavourable. This has been tested by people smarter than you or I. Macros are bad and you shouldn’t use them for GCD actions.

[Katish]

If you ever make your own crafting macro, you see the issue with macros right away...sometimes they ghost the sequence and something that was supposed to happen, doesn't. You can make it wait so that it has a better chance of happening, but when you sync the wait especially where the server is concerned, those wait times start adding up.

[LilimoLimomo]

This appears to be a major flaw in testing, or in interpretation of the original problem.

Cool, let's go over your critiques piece by piece.

You're testing by stacking the same spell over and over into the macro. Nobody is trying to macro in this way.

Technically this isn't true, as I macro this way, and I know others do as well. But you are correct that not many people macro this way, and often that's because they don't understand that they should be macroing this way to actually access the queuing benefit that macros have to offer. That's part of the misinformation I'm hoping to correct.

When players are attempting to create combat macros, they're trying to put together a whole chain of skills....But what you briefly noticed but failed to recognize the implications for, is the "wait" command cannot increment in fractions of a second. Any player creating any combat macro that uses a "wait" command is naturally introducing further drift into their rotation, and given how the premise of combat macros is to chain several skills, several "wait"s will naturally need implemented.

I don't doubt that some people are trying to make these kinds of macros, but this is far from the only way to macro. Macros can do a lot of powerful things...just not this! Which is to say, you're correct that using /wait to line up several actions in sequence with the press of a single button will generally lead to lost DPS. To be clear, I do not recommend using this kind of macro. But again, that is just one kind of macro. I say this with no shade intended, but I guess when I made my initial post I wasn't aware of the extent to which people had such a misconception of what macros could be used for, so I'm grateful you're sharing this with me. Later in this post I will show you an example of a different kind of macro, one that benefits the player without a loss of DPS.

This is certainly one way to macro, but it's far from the only way to macro.

If you want to actually test this, you need to create an actual viable macro, one that unaware players would likely attempt to create to save space or make combos easier.

I'm guessing you didn't finish reading my post, because if you did you would find that I did test with a more complex macro:

/macroicon "Blizzard"
/macroerror off
/ac "Aetherial Manipulation"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Swiftcast"
/wait 0.5
/ac "Sharpcast"

This is a great macro that I actually use on my Black Mage. It does a lot of cool stuff:

• If pressed while targeting a party member, it uses Aetherial Manipulation to teleport to them.

• Otherwise, if pressed in the queue window for a GCD, it casts Blizzard (or Paradox if available). And then, if the cast was Paradox (which has an instant cast instead of a cast bar), 1 second later Sharpcast will be weaved while the GCD is still on cooldown.

• Otherwise, if pressed outside of the GCD queue window, it casts Swiftcast. And if you still haven't pressed another button 1 second later, it will also cast Sharpcast.

As I've previously mentioned in multiple posts, during combat, it's generally a poor idea to use /wait, but this is one of the use cases where I feel it works well. I never need to double-weave after Paradox (which would be the only downside of automating the oGCD after an instant-cast GCD), so this automates my single-weave so that my brain can focus on other things. And it's nice to have all of this functionality on a single button, so that depending on the context in which I press the button I get different functionality.

And this is just one of the great things you can do with macros to make your life easier without losing any DPS. Hopefully this helps clarify that macros are more than ill-fated /wait chains!

[LilimoLimomo]

You've only proved something that isn't the actual point of the warnings against macros....The concern with macros has always been that people think they could use macros to set up an entire sequence of attacks with a single button press, with "wait 2.5 seconds" commands in between them – which all actually turn to 3 seconds, thus the warnings that it will cause you to drift.

This is indeed a valid concern to have about macros, but it isn't the reason cited on the Balance Discord; their test intended to show that even macros without /wait commands resulted in lost casts. I tailored to test whether that claim was true, and the results show that it was false.

I agree that careless use of the /wait command (such as trying to get a 1-2-3 combo with a single button press) is going to result in a DPS loss and should not be done (with the exception of players who decide they need that due to accessibility concerns). But there are plenty of ways to make combat macros that don't use /wait at all, as well as some ways to use /wait that don't result in DPS loss. To say that macros shouldn't be used because it's possible to make a macro that is bad would be like saying not to use Black Mage because you might get the rotation wrong. Instead, what we should be teaching players about how to make a good macro instead of a bad one, how to use them well, and how to determine for themselves whether the benefits a macro can provide are worth the potential limitations it might come with.

Why would people be making a macro to do nothing but a single GCD spell?

In my original post I did tests with a complex macro capable of performing 4 different actions; here it is:

/macroicon "Blizzard"
/macroerror off
/ac "Aetherial Manipulation"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Swiftcast"
/wait 0.5
/ac "Sharpcast"

This is a great macro that I actually use on my Black Mage. It does a lot of cool stuff:

• If pressed while targeting a party member, it uses Aetherial Manipulation to teleport to them.

• Otherwise, if pressed in the queue window for a GCD, it casts Blizzard (or Paradox if available). And then, if the cast was Paradox (which has an instant cast instead of a cast bar), 1 second later Sharpcast will be weaved while the GCD is still on cooldown.

• Otherwise, if pressed outside of the GCD queue window, it casts Swiftcast. And if you still haven't pressed another button 1 second later, it will also cast Sharpcast.

As I've previously mentioned in multiple posts, during combat, it's generally a poor idea to use /wait, but this is one of the use cases where I feel it works well. I never need to double-weave after Paradox (which would be the only downside of automating the oGCD after an instant-cast GCD), so this automates my single-weave so that my brain can focus on other things. And it's nice to have all of this functionality on a single button, so that depending on the context in which I press the button I get different functionality.

And this is just one of the great things you can do with macros to make your life easier without losing any DPS. Hopefully this helps clarify that macros are more than ill-fated /wait chains!

[Raraka]

Correct me if im wrong, but doesnt black mage have a longer cast than GCD wich is potentially what makes your blizzard macro behave diferently from other jobs?

As far as I understand oGCDs are fine to macro as they dont need to be queued up to avoid clipping, but GCDs on macros wait for the entire GCD to roll to then start the next skill, while with manual presses it queues them as the GCD is finishing to roll. This is what people tend to bring up to the discussion because of the wait command limitation and the 2.5 standard GCD

If what I proposed above is correct then Black mage could potentially be a macro-favorable job as it may mitigate the downsides of macros with a longer cast time, but I would still refrain from using them on other jobs

Another potential candidates would be Ninja and Monk with GCDs around the 2 seconds, as they COULD work with the wait command, with further testing required of course

I still would rather do my rotation manually but I rather keep this discussion thread going, over the 10 titanmen alt threads that are popping recently <.<

[Mikey_R]

Technically this isn't true, as I macro this way, and I know others do as well. But you are correct that not many people macro this way, and often that's because they don't understand that they should be macroing this way to actually access the queuing benefit that macros have to offer. That's part of the misinformation I'm hoping to correct.

Your macro doesn't queue, it just smashes the button over and over until it goes off (assuming the macro doesn't end before), this is different to ACTUAL action queuing where it stores the action to use, then executes it when it is available. This even applies to oGCDs and them being executed as soon as the action lock from the previous action is dropped.

As for your macro example, assuming you don't have the other actions available on your bars, why would you want to restrict yourself in that way? What if you don't want to Swiftcast and Sharpcast in the same GCD window? If your answer is you have them on separate buttons so you can separate them if you want, then why not just use those buttons instead of the clunk of a macro. Also, why have you done AE in that way? You cannot guarantee it goes off if you don't properly time it and it will be much more responsive if you had it as a separate button.

Also, you can have /micon as the last line and it will still show the right icon on your macro and it won't delay the rest of your macro by however long it takes to run 1line, making it slightly more responsive. I do not believe you can do that with the /macroerror off however.

[LilimoLimomo]

For example macroing a 1-2-3 combo (so trying to automate your combo into one button). Due to the way /wait works you WILL lose casts. /wait only works on integers. This means that each action in the combo is going off at 3 seconds instead of 2.5 or less depending on your speed stat (making your speed stat redundant in the process by the way). You may think “oh you’re only losing 0.5 seconds, it’s not that big of a deal”. But just 5 GCDs losing 0.5 seconds off their recast is an entire GCD lost. Over the course of a 10 min fight? You’d be losing about 50 GCDs over someone pressing their buttons manually.

This is 100% correct. I agree that careless use of the /wait command (such as trying to get a 1-2-3 combo with a single button press) is going to result in a DPS loss and should not be done (with the exception of players who decide they need that due to accessibility concerns). But there are plenty of ways to make combat macros that don't use /wait at all, as well as some ways to use /wait that don't result in DPS loss. To say that macros shouldn't be used because it's possible to make a macro that is bad would be like saying not to use Black Mage because you might get the rotation wrong. Instead, what we should be teaching players about how to make a good macro instead of a bad one, how to use them well, and how to determine for themselves whether the benefits a macro can provide are worth the potential limitations it might come with.

Also, macros don’t queue

As I detailed in my initial post, they do queue if you make them right. And again, you generally don't want to be making macros that use /wait to do a series of actions. So yes, if you make a bad macro, it will be bad, 100%.

Finally, macros will be interrupted by any other action.

Again, this is true, but would only be an issue if you are improperly using the /wait command, which you shouldn't do anyway. But if you design a macro properly, this interruption functionality can actually be a helpful feature in some cases.

To put it simply, there’s no conspiracy here to make macros unfavourable. This has been tested by people smarter than you or I. Macros are bad and you shouldn’t use them for GCD actions.

To be clear, I don't think there's a conspiracy. Rather, I think there's a lot of misunderstandings of what macros can actually do because so many people try to use them in ways that have problems. Macros are a kind of programming language, and if you understand how it works, you can do very helpful things with them. Here's just one example of what a good macro can do:

/macroicon "Blizzard"
/macroerror off
/ac "Aetherial Manipulation"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Swiftcast"
/wait 0.5
/ac "Sharpcast"

This is a great macro that I actually use on my Black Mage. It does a lot of cool stuff:

• If pressed while targeting a party member, it uses Aetherial Manipulation to teleport to them.

• Otherwise, if pressed in the queue window for a GCD, it casts Blizzard (or Paradox if available). And then, if the cast was Paradox (which has an instant cast instead of a cast bar), 1 second later Sharpcast will be weaved while the GCD is still on cooldown.

• Otherwise, if pressed outside of the GCD queue window, it casts Swiftcast. And if you still haven't pressed another button 1 second later, it will also cast Sharpcast.

As I've previously mentioned in multiple posts, during combat, it's generally a poor idea to use /wait, but this is one of the use cases where I feel it works well. I never need to double-weave after Paradox (which would be the only downside of automating the oGCD after an instant-cast GCD), so this automates my single-weave so that my brain can focus on other things. And it's nice to have all of this functionality on a single button, so that depending on the context in which I press the button I get different functionality.

And this is just one of the great things you can do with macros to make your life easier without losing any DPS. Hopefully this helps clarify that macros are more than ill-fated /wait chains!

[LilimoLimomo]

Correct me if im wrong, but doesnt black mage have a longer cast than GCD wich is potentially what makes your blizzard macro behave diferently from other jobs?

Good questions! Blizzard's cast time is equivalent to the GCD (recast), but Blizzard III has a longer cast time than the GCD. I actually did some small tests with both of these spells and determined that they work the same. Which is to say, when you are queuing an action following a spell with a cast time, you want to time your next cast with the cast bar, not the GCD.

As far as I understand oGCDs are fine to macro as they dont need to be queued up to avoid clipping, but GCDs on macros wait for the entire GCD to roll to then start the next skill, while with manual presses it queues them as the GCD is finishing to roll.

This is a misconception. As I describe in my original mammoth of a post, both macros and non-macros allow for queuing if designed right:
A quick explanation of these macros: if you put the same action multiple times in a macro, that creates a queue window for the macro you've made. Each attempt at casting the spell takes a very short amount of time, and the more you have in a row, the larger the queue window gets. I recommend this technique for any GCD macro, and it can help oGCD's as well depending on when you like to press your buttons.

That said, when pressed macros have a shorter action queue window than non-macros by 0.295. For a person who needs that extra duration, that could be a reason to not use a macro. But for people who don't, macros can help with a lot of cool things!

This is what people tend to bring up to the discussion because of the wait command limitation and the 2.5 standard GCD

Yeah, as I've noted previously, the /wait command has limitations, and macros that were made while ignoring or misunderstanding those those limitations will underperform. My recommendation to new macro-users is to not use /wait.

I'm probably going to end up putting this snippet in half my replies today, but there are so many things you can do with macros that don't require /wait, or that do use /wait but in a way that doesn't lose DPS. Macros are a kind of programming language, and if you understand how it works, you can do very helpful things with them. Here's just one example of what a good macro can do:

/macroicon "Blizzard"
/macroerror off
/ac "Aetherial Manipulation"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Blizzard"
/ac "Swiftcast"
/wait 0.5
/ac "Sharpcast"

This is a great macro that I actually use on my Black Mage. It does a lot of cool stuff:

• If pressed while targeting a party member, it uses Aetherial Manipulation to teleport to them.

• Otherwise, if pressed in the queue window for a GCD, it casts Blizzard (or Paradox if available). And then, if the cast was Paradox (which has an instant cast instead of a cast bar), 1 second later Sharpcast will be weaved while the GCD is still on cooldown.

• Otherwise, if pressed outside of the GCD queue window, it casts Swiftcast. And if you still haven't pressed another button 1 second later, it will also cast Sharpcast.

As I've previously mentioned in multiple posts, during combat, it's generally a poor idea to use /wait, but this is one of the use cases where I feel it works well. I never need to double-weave after Paradox (which would be the only downside of automating the oGCD after an instant-cast GCD), so this automates my single-weave so that my brain can focus on other things. And it's nice to have all of this functionality on a single button, so that depending on the context in which I press the button I get different functionality.

And this is just one of the great things you can do with macros to make your life easier without losing any DPS. Hopefully this helps clarify that macros are more than ill-fated /wait chains!

[Mikey_R]

1) Correct me if im wrong, but doesnt black mage have a longer cast than GCD wich is potentially what makes your blizzard macro behave diferently from other jobs?

2) As far as I understand oGCDs are fine to macro as they dont need to be queued up to avoid clipping, but GCDs on macros wait for the entire GCD to roll to then start the next skill, while with manual presses it queues them as the GCD is finishing to roll. This is what people tend to bring up to the discussion because of the wait command limitation and the 2.5 standard GCD

3) Another potential candidates would be Ninja and Monk with GCDs around the 2 seconds, as they COULD work with the wait command, with further testing required of course

1) Only on some spells. Blizzard and Fire 1 both have cast times of 2.5 seconds and a 2.5 second recast, so the cast time for the spell equals the length of the GCD (recast). However, something like (High) Blizzard/(High) Fire 2 have a 3 second cast time and a 2.5 second recast time. This means you will still be casting 0.5 seconds after your GCD has finished coming off of cooldown, this also applies to other spells like Fire 3, Blizzard 3, Fire 4, Freeze, Flare and Despair.

There is a unique interaction when going from UI to AF, in that it halves the cast time of the opposite element. This is why, whilst Fire 3 has a cast time of 3.5 seconds and a recast of 2.5 seconds, if you are using it to swap from UI into AF, it will have a cast time of 1.75 but retain the 2.5 second recast, which does allow for a weave window.

2) Also, oGCDs do queue up, you cannot execute them asap. You can test this by making a macro that executes a GCD then immediately executes an oGCD, the oGCD will not go off, however, if you were to quickly mash a GCD and oGCD, the oGCD will still go off, albeit after a slight delay.

3) As for Monk/Ninja, they have a 2.0 s and 2.15 s base GCD with their respective speed buffs, however, as soon as you add some SS, it will throw everything out of whack. My current Monk (not BiS) has a GCD of 1.98, so you would lose out on 0.02 seconds every GCD (though the flexibility of Monk's GCD is what defines the job, macroing it would be silly) and Ninja has 2.05, so you lose even more (cannot use 2 seconds, however, you lose 0.95 over a 3 second wait). Moral, just do not macro.

[LittleImp]

Interesting read.

I definitely think the balance's bot resource regarding macro queuing should be updated for clarity's sake, as it doesn't actually contain the widely accepted reasoning for avoiding macros.

I'm no stranger to playing the game in weird ways myself; I play on standard mode, alternating between two separate keyboards mid-encounter. I move with my mouse during uptime, and WASD during downtime mechanics, heavily leveraging the slow backstep all of the legacy players like to hate on.

I don't really want to pick a side because I don't really have a horse in this race, but I will give you some advice: Getting the community to question existing dogma is incredibly difficult, but the community is also very results oriented. Your best path towards getting people to genuinely listen is to produce some results with your playstyle that will impress them, which pretty much boils down to clearing hard fights while consistently achieving near theoretical maximum potency.