Sellsword sucks at Macros

[Sellsword]

For those who don't know, I've been playing FFXI for 3 years now and only a few times have I ever tried using macros, gear swaps in particular.

In most cases, they did not work for me or were extremely unreliable in the sense that 50% of the time, 1 line would be skipped, effective screwing me up on a large basis. (Example, Third Eye going off before Seigan)

I'm sick of being told how to play my job.

Regardless, I'm going to give macros another chance, or I probably should take some people's advice I've heard over the years and just quit.

Any help, suggestions or criticism is much appreciated. Or you can tell me I'm an idiot, whatever works.

Currently, my macros are as follows:

SAM75
Crtl 4: Ichi
/recast "Utsusemi: Ichi"
/recast "Utsusemi: Ni"
/ma "Utsusemi: Ichi" <me>

Crtl 5: Ni
/recast "Utsusemi: Ichi"
/recast "Utsusemi: Ni"
/ma "Utsusemi: Ni" <me>

Alt 1: Pull
/ra <t>
/p {Rangaed Attack} [<t>]

Alt 2: Provoke
/ja "Provoke" <t>
/ja "Animated Flourish" <t>

Alt 3: RA
/ra <t>

Alt 4: SATA
/ja "Sneak Attack" <me>
/wait 1
/ja "Trick Attack" <me>

Alt 6: Seigan
/ja "Seigan" <me>
/wait 1
/ja "Third Eye" <me>

WHM51

Ctrl 2: Haste
/recast "Haste"
/ma "Haste" <stpc>

Ctrl 3: Erase
/ma "Erase" <stpc>

Ctrl 4: RG1
/ma "Regen" <stpc>

Ctrl 5: RG2
/ma "Regen II" <stpc>

Alt 1: Dia
/ma "Dia II" <t>
/wait 1
/ma "Dia" <t>

Alt 3: Paralyze
/ma "Paralyze" <t>

Alt 4: Slow
/am "Slow" <t>

Alt 5: Silence
/ma "Silence" <t>

DRG54
Ctrl 2: HB
/ma "Poison" <t>
/ma "Dia" <t>
/ma "Head Butt" <t>

Other jobs I haven't bothered for Macros, or just use some I've already created. Either that or I don't have macros for them anymore. Yes, I hate using them.

[Ikonic]

Those are all fine for the basics, but you can also swap in gear depending on the situation. Here's a couple of my macros:

Utsusemi: Ni - Equips max haste gear + ACC/EVA from hands
/equip Ear1 "Loquac. Earring"
/equip Waist "Black Belt"
/equip Feet "Fuma Kyahan"
/equip Head "Walahra Turban"
/equip Hands "Usukane Gote"
/ma "Utsusemi: Ni" <me>

Dodge - Equips gear that boosts Dodge and then goes back to melee gear.
/equip Feet "Tpl. Gaiters +1"
/ja Dodge <me>
/wait 2
/equip Feet "Usukane Sune-Ate"

Asuran Fists - Equips mod gear, announces to pt chat (used for SC+MB), and fires WS.
/equip Head "Hissho Hachimaki"
/equip Neck "Shadow Gorget"
/equip Body "Shura Togi"
/equip Legs "Shura Haidate +1"
/p Asuran Fists >>> <t>. TP: <tp>
/ws "Asuran Fists" <t>

Announce - Used to show all important timers at once.
/recast Berserk
/recast "Chi Blast"
/recast Chakra
/recast Doge
/recast Focus

Berserk - Multiple /ja macro depending on SJ.
/ja Berserk <me>
/ja Flee <me>
/ja Meditate <me>
/ma "Utsusemi: Ichi" <me>
/ja Jump <t>
/pet "Light Maneuver" <me>

Utsu - Macro I use for PUP Utsusemi, allows me to use 1 macro for both spells.
/ma "Utsusemi: Ni" <me>
/wait 1
/ma "Utsusemi: Ichi" <me>

C3 - My Cure 3 macro on BLM. I macro in haste/fast cast, MND, and healing bonus.
/ma "Cure III" <t>
/equip Main "Light Staff"
/equip Head "Walahra Turban"
/equip Ear2 "Loquac. Earring"
/equip Feet "Nashira Crackows"
/equip Body "Morrigan's Robe"

If I use a recast in a macro I usually do so after the spell is cast with a /wait. This way it'll tell me when the spell is ready to cast again after it's fired.

If the spell you're firing takes long enough to fire you only need the gear in the macro before the spell goes off for the stats to take effect. If you want the spell to recast faster you'd need haste gear before the spell is hit.

---

You can also have nested macros such that you press one and it changes pallets so you can press another. This works well for when you want to change more than 6 pieces of equipment at a time.

Example:
BLM full gear equip - Starts on macro set 10, hitting macro 3x does full equip and brings me back to 10.
/equip on lines 1-5
/macro set 7

Then I press macro again
/equip on lines 1-5
/macro set 6

Then I press macro again
/equip on lines 1-5
/macro set 10

---

I also have my Drain/Aspir macros set to give me a recast and then allow me to fire if ready and change gear or I can escape to not change gear.

Drain
/recast Drain
/ma Drain <stnpc>
/equip yada yada
/macro set 7

/equip yada yada
/macro set 6

/equip yada yada
/macro set 10

Here's a link to a really old Equipment Swapping Macros I did.

[Ayrea]

For SAM, what I'd recommend is not bothering with gearswaps for individual abilities, and instead focus on maintaining 2 sets of gear: a TP set and a WS set. Then you can hit your WS gear macros before a WS, and your TP macros after it fires.

Some relatively easy to get gear for both sets:

TP:
/equip Head "Walahra Turban"
/equip Neck "Spectacles"
/equip Body "Haubergeon"
/equip Hands "Dusk Gloves"
/equip Ring1 "Woodsman Ring"
/equip Ring2 "Woodsman Ring"
/equip Waist "Life Belt" OR /equip Waist "Swift Belt"

WS:
/equip Head "Wyvern Helm"
/equip Neck "Chivalrous Chain" or /equip Neck "Snow Gorget"
/equip Body "Kirin's Osode" OR /equip Body "Hachiman Domaru"
/equip Hands "Alkyoneus's Brc."
/equip Ring1 "Ruby Ring"
/equip Ring2 "Ruby Ring"
/equip Waist "Warwolf Belt"



Depending on your available options, this might even be able to fit into one macro slot (fulltime a rajas ring, for example). I fulltime a Rajas ring in one ring slot and fulltime hachiman feet; this gives me enough STP for a 6-hit without sacrificing the haste or str from the hand slot. It also lets my gear swaps take only one macro each, which is a bonus.

The benefit of having a separate WS and TP set is that you can stack melee stats for meleeing (accuracy, haste), and then get rid of those useless stats to stack on STR for a WS. Best of both worlds, so to speak.

And of course, a meditate macro is a necessity:
/equip Head "Myochin Kabuto"
/equip Hands "Saotome Kote"
/ja "Meditate" <me>
/wait 1
/equip Head "Walahra Turban"
/equip Hands "Dusk Gloves"

[Mnementh]

Just to clear up some misunderstanding about macro's in general, as far as them being "unreliable"....

For the specific instance of Seigan and Third Eye, where one abilities usefulness is directly effected by using the other first, I DO NOT keep them in the same macro.

Remember that macros work as if you typed the commands in yourself. If you are in the middle of doing something, like a WS, and try to use a Seigan -> TE macro mid-ws, all or part of it will not fire. Commands in FFXI are instant. If the game can't complete a command it will either give you an error or it won't complete that command. In this example if I WS and try to hit my Seigan + TE macro during the animation, it may completely miss Seigan because i was mid-animation, however when it hit the Third Eye command, it was able to process it. The result is a shitty third eye and being pounded to death for a minute. You must be patient in these situations.

Also, macros and the speed at which they are completed depend on your hardware. If you hit a macro with 6 commands, and before that one can complete, you hit another macro... it will prioritize the most recent command.

For example, say my very bad Seigan/third eye macro has a /wait 1 between seigan and third eye... Lets then say right after I hit this macro I saw that the brd is being pounded on, and out of instinct, I hit my provoke macro. The /ja "Provoke" <t> command may stop the /ja "Third Eye" <me> command altogether so I just have Seigan up.

This is usually not a problem unless you are in a particularly laggy area. If I have 2 macros with 6 equip swaps each... I hit the first, then immediately hit the second, I may interrupt 1 or 2 of the last swap commands in the first macro so I'll only get 10 pieces swapped instead of 12.

These are just few examples of why macros with multiple abilities and /wait's CAN be a bad idea. If you understand the "order of operations" of macros, a lot of these issues of reliability will make sense. Game commands in macros go faster than you can, but they still have constraints.

[Fnord]

Timing has alot to do with it too. If you ever see me casting a nuke in yigit body instead of my weskit is because I went to fast in hitting my macros (3-4 macros per spell that I hit mid-cast)

As drk I have seigan+3rd eye macro with a wait 1 in it. So long as I dont hit any other macros it will fire as programmed too. But Like mnem said, if you mash macros one after the other the game will always do the last macro hit and cut off any other macro commands in process.

I think this is where personal play style comes heavy into macros and how people use them. Which makes the game (IMO) very customizable to how you want to play it. I'm big into using the list when picking my spells (with some exceptions of course like stuns and sleeps) But any cure, haste, refresh, or nuke I cast is from the list. All my enfeebles are macro-ed with gear swaps. Thats just how I do it as rdm or blm.

As drk I only have 1 spell macro-ed and thats stun, well shadows too lmao, but everything else is list picked. But I have equip macros for all my dark and enfeeble spells as drk too. I'm sure there is way more effective ways to do this, but this style is how I like to play and makes me happy. Which is really what macros are all about. Making the things you do in game easier and enhance your fun.

As a side note back in my ballista days people would straight macro my name into their spells /target "Fnord"
/cast "Silence" <t>

and they would just spam that macro non-stop.......bastards!!!

[Tarage]

If I were a good SMN, I would have a macro set for each of my avatars.

If I were a good SMN...