Is it a DPS loss to use macros?

[Skavian]

So I was trying to clean up my action bars a bit and made some macros. I made a nice one for Raging + IR + Hawk's Eye..

Then I made one that does Venomous Bite > Windbite with a delay of 2.5.. but it feels SO SLOW compared to hitting it normally.

Is it just me or is this a DPS loss when you macros abilities together with the 2.5 delay? When I try 2.4 I get the "too soon" error so I know it doesn't round the decimal - but it doesn't work with 2.49 either.

[Norack]

It is definitely a loss.

Hmm it is odd since 1.0 had much higher latency problems than ARR has, and in 1.0 i could get away with using a /wait 1. It could probably be just due to congestion, cause again in 1.0 a /wait 1 worked for me after maintenance (if it works) I would suggest trying to change your macro to /wait 1 and see if it works, theoretically you should be able to do less than /wait 1, but i think 1 second is fast enough for this game.

[Dixa]

macro'ng abilities that are off the gcd - like bloodletter and misery's end - is a dps gain

macro'ng abilities in a castsequence as you have is a dps loss

[Prismatic]

1. The game does not accept decimals for /wait. When you type /wait 2.5 the game rounds this number up to 3 which is why it seems so slow to you. When you type /wait 2.4 the game rounds down to 2 and because macros cannot be queued up you get the "too soon" error. Because of this putting multiple on-GCD abilities into a macro will lower your DPS.

2. The game has the one of the worst gameplay mechanics ever: Animation Lag. Even if you use an ability off the GCD you cannot use another ability immediately afterwards (some abilities may not have enough animation lag to be noticeable but others most definitely do). For example, a BLM macro like this:

/ac "Swiftcast" <me>
/ac "Raging Strikes" <me>
/ac Fire III

will not work with one key press. That being said, spamming this macro will probably be slightly faster than spamming each separate ability so there is a small advantage to a macro like this.

[Fori]

2. The game has the one of the worst gameplay mechanics ever: Animation Lag. Even if you use an ability off the GCD you cannot use another ability immediately afterwards (some abilities may not have enough animation lag to be noticeable but others most definitely do). For example, a BLM macro like this:

This pisses me off so bad. One of the only things that makes me not want to play THM. There's nothing more annoying than using thinking you've used Transpose, using a Blizzard 1, only to realise Transpose never went off and you just dispelled your Astral Fire buff, leaving you with no mana and no buff to regen...

[Slirith]

I use a macro to put up my DoTs as SMN as it's a pain to cast them one by one(kills my wrists after awhile). Also macro my buffs that don't use the GCD together(Raging Strikes, Rouse, Spur)

[Reiterpallasch]

2. The game has the one of the worst gameplay mechanics ever: Animation Lag. Even if you use an ability off the GCD you cannot use another ability immediately afterwards (some abilities may not have enough animation lag to be noticeable but others most definitely do).

There is no "animation lag". You simply cannot use an ability for a short time after specific ones, such as offensive CDs. You can be in the middle of the longest animation in the game and still fire off something like bloodletter in the middle of it with no issues.

[HoroBoro]

Yea - it's funny how cast time doesn't really match the cast. When you're about 80% done, you're done. You can move, cast another spell, whatever. And the instant stuff (like transpose) seems to use different code or is transferred faster to the server.

So you can literally: Start with nothing -> cast ice -> transpose -> and still have Umbral Ice.

Makes for interesting combos...

[Scarzi]

I use a macro to put up my DoTs as SMN as it's a pain to cast them one by one(kills my wrists after awhile). Also macro my buffs that don't use the GCD together(Raging Strikes, Rouse, Spur)

whats the macro, because I have to hit the macro more then once to even get it to cast everything.

[Caduceus]

whats the macro, because I have to hit the macro more then once to even get it to cast everything.

i also was told it's a "dps loss"; however what people don't get about macros is they can't be "queued up" is the problem, and the intervals are in .5 segments so 2.4 is rounded down to 2.0; however 2.5 IS NOT rounded up to 3.0 the combination of "animation lag" and inability to queue up a macro skill (as all macro skills are automatically on the set GCD of 2.5) makes some think it's rounded up, but it isn't (also if it was rounded up you couldn't prequeue a non macro ability while casting abilities you have macro-ed)

/macroicon"bio II"
/facetarget
/action"bio II"
/wait 2.5
/action"miasma"
/wait 2.5
/action"bio"