Getting Mileage Out of Macros

Getting Mileage out of Macros

How do you create a Macro?

If you already have an ability on one of your hotbars and want to turn it into a macro, just right-click it and choose Create Macro….

If you want to create a macro from scratch, then press O, click the Macros tab, and find a blank space labeled and click it.

To add a command like a /group /raid or /tell, make sure Macro Step: is set to Command and click Add Step.

To add a combat art or spell or use a potion/scroll/item, then next to Macro Step: choose Spell/Ability from the menu and click Add Step. Now drag your CA/Spell/potion/scroll/item to the empty box on the left side.

When to Use Macros

There’s an interesting topic running at EQ2 Forums about the use of Macros in Group and Raid settings. The thread started out as a question of “What qualifies as excessive macro announcements?” and has turned out to be a quite useful discussion.

In a group or raid situation, it can be helpful when you cast a spell or buff that there is an announcement made to the target, group, or raid to let someone (or everyone) know that your spell has been cast. These announcements should be brief so that they can be quickly read. They should not be a distraction from the raid discussion.

If the target of your spells is important, you can slip %T into your announcement. For instance a tank might use:

^^^ Pulling a %T in 5 seconds. Look lively!! ^^^

Healers, Necros, and any other class that can rez people should be using:

/r Rezzing %T.

I don’t think we’ll ever get perfect agreement about what spells should or should not be announced in /tell, /group, and /raid, and the raid leaders may decide that certain ones are excessive, but right now I think we could use a few more.

CAUTION

When people discover macros, they tend to go crazy adding macros to everything. Then after a few game sessions, they realize that a lot of their macros are not really crucial to the group or raid. Just keep in mind that most of the buffs and debuffs you cast are probably not worthy of a macro.

Short term buffs that increase group dps or intelligence may seem like a good candidate for macros at first, but do they really change the behavior of your group? Will they cast different spells or change their clasting order in reaction to your buff? Usually they won’t, so a macro is not warranted.

Enchanters have mostly given up on “mezzing ” macros because folks would rather just nuke everything and not worry about mezzing and waking up mobs.

“I find that its classes that feel under appreciated that macro more and more.”

Macros have their place, but please Don’t Overdo It!!

Scouts

Brigand’s Dispatched debuff is essential to a raid force. No other class has such a powerful ability to breach the defenses of an enemy and allow the rest of the raid force’s spells and combat arts to “stick” and start doing damage. This will generally be used near the beginning of the battle.
/Raid Target has been dispatched.

Swashbucklers get a similar debuff called Swipe. This delays some enemy AoE attacks. As a result, it affects any ACT timers you may have running. It is helpful if this is announced in the raid.
/Raid Swipe

Dirges get a short term dps group buff called Chimes of Blades (abbreviated as CoB) which not only increases the attack speed and dps output of melee classes in his/her group, but also adds a chance that each attack will interrupt the casting of the target. This is helpful to prevent AoEs on certain raid mobs.
/Group CoB is up. 17 seconds

Jester’s Cap makes a lot of friends for the Troubador, as the recipient’s spells become reusable 40% faster. This single target spell can be macroed to notify the group member that their slow-to-recharge spells will refresh much sooner.
/Tell %T You have been capped for 30 seconds.

It is debatable whether Troubador’s Perfection of the Maestro deserves its own macro. It is an increase by nearly 100 points of intelligence on the group as well as a damage proc. The additional intelligence usually translates to a better chance that damage will not be resisted. Most folks learn quickly what “PotM” is if a macro is used to announce it.
Verdict? Probably doesnt need a macro.

Casters

Peace of Mind (PoM) is an Enchanter buff earned from the Shadows AA tree. Some folks like to know when it is up, as it is dealing additional damage on every single spell cast by group members. PoM is slated to have its damage amount nerfed in a future update.
Verdict? Probably doesnt need a macro.

Tanks

Most tanks have a death prevention spell such as Exploding Heart. If the tank doesn’t die, then the spell will not trigger, however if he/she does, they will be resurrected with full health and able to continue to fighting for a short time, before dying.
Verdict? Probably doesnt need a macro.

Shadowknight’s version of this is Bloodletter which actually drains the health of group members (through an involuntary simultaneous blood transfusion ) to resurrect the tank.

Shadowknights also get Death March, which has some useful effects, stun/stifle reduction, and generates a great deal of agro. It is generally macroed.
/Group Marching this one until it is dead. (thanks Boneskull)

Monks have the ability to Drag a mob, controlling the location of that mob for a short time. Afterwards, the monk generally has agro of that mob and will require healing post haste.
/Raid Drag incoming. Get ready for agro on Krackemup.

All tanks have one or more Rescue type positional or fixed amount taunt. Positional taunts boost the tank up the “hate list” by a certain number of players. Fixed amount taunts generate a specific amount of taunt which may or may not bring them to the top of the “hate list”. The slower reuse Rescue generally gets macroed in Group situations, not always in Raid situations as fighting for agro is such a common thing in raid situations that these rescues would fill up the raid chat window.
/Group Rescue is down for 10 minutes. Be careful!

Resurrecting

It is extremely helpful if all classes with the ability to resurrect, including Necromancers and of course the entire Priest archetype have announce in raid chat when they are resurrecting a person, group, or the whole raid.
/Raid Rezzing my Group in 5 seconds.
/Raid Rezzing %T.
/Raid Raidwide Rez incoming…

The point of announcing all these resurrections is that often more than one healer is trying to resurrect someone and wasting that time when they could be resurrecting someone else or healing others. If two people announce that they are resurrecting someone, then the 2nd person (or the healer if one person is a utility class) can divert their attention to other tasks.

It’s also important to note that not all resurrections are created equal. Some classes resurrect the person with very little health or power. Some can resurrect people with 40% health/40% power. Some can resurrect with no Resurrection Sickness. The responsibilities need to be divvied up and coordinated between healers as per raid leader suggestions.

Healers

The raid channel would quickly get clogged if all healing were announced, but large, slow-to-cast cast heals should be announced in group and/or the healparse channel. This way the other healers can focus on keeping tanks and dps up.
/Group Group Heal inc.
/tell bbbhps Big heal on %T inc.

Defilers and Templars get a Group Ward which takes a long time to cast. If groups are dying on initial AoEs, then this may be a valuable macro to have to notify the tank when pulling might be the safest.
/Group Group Ward 5 sec.

Originally posted by AScarlato:

“We were wiping quite often if both the MT Defiler and myself as MT Templar were casting our long group-ward or reactives at the same time. Making sure only one of us casted these at a time so that the other healer would use more versatile heals in the meantime was necessary for us to progress.”

It is debatable whether the Defiler’s canine companion is worthy of a macro. This will depend upon the group setup.

Templars should macro Sanctuary as this buff prevents the tank from being stunned/stifled on pull.
/Group Sanctuary is up.

Most healers have a “stun heal” where they are stunned, stifled, and unable to act and are doing nothing but healing. This is generally used when the healer is out of power or is out of other heal spells. This makes a useful /group announcement “Stun heal 30 sec.” This lets people know that they should not expect group heals/cures for a while.
/Group Stun Healing 30 sec.

Originally posted by Motzi:

“We did create a healer chat channel for our healers, so that they could announce to one another with things like repent, or soulward, and death saves are being used. This is data that other healers need to know, but the rest of the raid could care less about.”

Power

Summoners (Conjurors and Necromancers) can hand out power items (shards for conjy, hearts for necro) to group or raid members who are in close proximity to the summoner. The summoner chooses whether to cast the group or raid version of the spell. The raid version consumes nearly all of the caster’s power. /Group or /Raid 5 second warning for folks wanting these items to get close to the caster.
/Raid Casting Raidwide Hearts/Shards in 5 seconds. Gather round.

If you have run out of hearts or shards, you can send a tell to a summoner “shard please”. If they have one of these macros set up, then they’ll be able to autotarget you, give you a shard, and go back to the battle without having to try to find you among the crowd. /Tell

Conjuror:
/useabilityonreplytarget Scale of essence

Necromancer:
/useabilityonreplytarget Ruinous Heart

EMERGENCY!

Do you need to stop casting, like IMMEDIATELY?

You can add a macro to your hotbar with this command:
/cancel_spellcast

This will stop what you are doing immediately. You may want to add a macro to all your cure potions that starts with /cancel_spellcast and then does the cure, that way the cure will happen quickly.

Many more to come, and please don’t get carried away.