日本語版: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/2663931/blog/4078225/I have been asked by so many people to teach macros that I finally decided to give a class. To start, there are 3 different macro styles. The first I will call Wait Style. The goal of this style is to be as lazy as possible. It combines many skills together with wait commands so you can perform your entire rotation with one button press. For NIN, it looks something like this:
/ac “Spinning Edge” <wait.3>
/ac “Gust Slash” <wait.3>
/ac “Aeolian Edge”
While this style seems theoretically useful, it has problems in real combat situations. If you move to dodge or get interrupted, you cannot resume where you left off but must start all the way back at the beginning, severely lowering your DPS. Additionally, if you press a 2nd macro while another is still active, the first one gets cancelled, so you cannot use any instant skill macros in between your attacks, cutting your skills per cycle in half. Unfortunately, this is the only style of macro many people are aware of and so they choose not to use any macros at all. This misunderstanding is so pervasive that, if I suggest to a player who comes from a WoW background to use macros, they get highly offended.
However, there is the second style, which I will call Instant Style. This style has a fundamentally different philosophy behind its creation. Its purpose is very nearly the opposite of Wait Style. To play any job well, you should be using all the skills your character has learned. Therefore, it is important to have your skills easily accessible. This style cleverly combines different skills onto the same button to save space on your hotbar so that you can use more skills than you were before. How does it do this, you ask? It takes advantage of skill types and cooldowns. Skills are classified as weaponskill, spell or ability. You don’t want to combine 2 weaponskills on the same button because they have the same recast timer. Instead, you want to combine one weaponskill and one ability. An example of this for SAM is:
/ac Ageha
/ac Hakaze
A macro in this style functions differently. In Wait Style, you press the button once and it performs many skills. But in Instant Style, each button press only performs one skill. You must press the same button multiple times if you want to use multiple skills. When a macro is executed, it starts at the top line and attempts to use that skill. If that skill is on cooldown or errors out, it drops to the next line and attempts to perform that skill instead. It continues in this way until one skill is used and then the macro ends. In the SAM example, it tries to use Ageha. If the mob’s HP is above 20%, it skips it and uses Hakaze instead. For this reason, skill order is extremely important. If we made the macro with Hakaze before Ageha, then Hakaze would be used every time and Ageha would be ignored. One of the reasons macros are so powerful is that you no longer need to keep track of cooldown timers; the macro will automatically use that skill when it is ready and use something else otherwise. Rather than concentrating on timers, you are now free to focus on the dance.
Another thing that makes macros powerful is they are ‘smart.’ They can tell what your target is and change their behavior accordingly. For example, a WHM can make this macro:
/ac Stone
/ac Cure
When targeting a player, this will heal them but, when targeting a mob, it will attack, all with the same button.
Some jobs, like SAM, are highly resistant to macros while others, like RDM, seem to have been made for them. If you play many jobs, you may notice some patterns. Jobs with 2 stances can be combine into one toggle button. It is also common to merge skills with similar uses such as PLD’s Circle of Scorn and Total Eclipse; since they perform the same AoE function, why not have them on the same button? This can even be done across jobs. I have very nearly 200 macros, so I have combined some healer buttons together to save space. An example is putting all the revive spells on the same button. You may also notice that, if a spell has multiple tiers, they are together. For example, BLM has Thunder II and Thunder on the same button. The reason for this is they both do the same job. During normal play, only the highest version is cast; however, if you enter a level synced area, the button will still work with the lower version. Some skills are put together because they have the same cooldown timers; thus, if the icon shows one is ready, then you know the other is also ready. And finally, some skills are put together simply because they are leftover and had nothing else to go with; they are not related to one another but do help keep the number of buttons on your hotbar down.
There are two notable exceptions to my macro rules. The first is MNK. I said it was a bad idea to put your whole rotation onto one button; however, since MNK has forms, it is possible to do this without using wait commands. The second exception is with SCH. I said each time you press a button, it executes only one skill; however, SCH can do two. You can order your fairy to heal while you attack at the same time! If left alone, a fairy will only heal a player after they fall below 80% health. If you want to keep your tank’s HP capped, you need to order her to use Embrace. In this way, you can actually complete an entire dungeon without casting any heal spells yourself; you can appear very OP, attacking the entire time, but actually you are lazily only pressing one button.
A macro structure has many parts. The first line is typically the icon. Most jobs have 3-part rotations. You want to see the icon for parts 2 and 3 because they light up when they proc, but part 1 is always ready so seeing it is meaningless; ergo, I often change it to something else I want to know that is perhaps not even on the button itself. The next line is ALWAYS /macroerror off. If your macro has 3 skills on it, and only one gets used, the other 2 will produce errors. /macroerror off will prevent your chat log from being spammed with these messages. You will also want to go to Menu > System > Character Configuration > Log Window Settings > General and click off “Display error messages when actions fail” and “Display recast timer error messages” to prevent error messages in the middle of your screen. However, you will still see them when you try to use special commands such as /magiaattack outside of Eureka or when you attempt to use a /petaction such as Embrace when you don’t have a fairy summoned. You will also see this error if you try to use <t> and <tt> in the same macro as a couple of my SCH macros do. The last line of a macro is the default skill, usually a weaponskill or spell, that will get used most of the time. Between the 2nd and last lines are all the abilities that have conditions on them.
I also strongly suggest you put everything into the auto-translation dictionary format. This is because it parses faster and causes fewer errors. It also means every example I’ve used up until now is incorrect. Rather than:
/ac “Aeolian Edge”
you should have everything between the green and red arrows like:
(/action
) (Aeolian Edge
)In addition to helping the parser, it also aids in communicating to players of other languages and increases readability by not requiring quotation marks.
In closing, I would like to show an example of an Instant Style macro for DRK:
(/macroicon) (Hard Slash)
(/macroerror) off
(/action) (Blood Price)
(/action) (Hard Slash)
Most of the time, pushing this button will use Hard Slash but, once every 40sec, it uses Blood Price to give MP back. This is fine and totally useable. But Blood Price works best in groups of mobs so, if you are down to only 1, it may be wiser to save it for the next pull. For reasons such as this, I invented a new style. Rewriting this macro in Laeta Style looks like:
(/macroicon) (Blood Price)
(/macroerror) off
(/action) (Hard Slash)
(/action) (Blood Price)
The icon is changed so you can see the Blood Price cooldown. Pressing this button will now always use Hard Slash. AFTER using Hard Slash, you have a small window of time during which you can quickly press the button again to get the Blood Price effect. This style gives you slightly more control about when you trigger your buffs but requires a bit more finesse since they are no longer automatically used when ready.
I have copied 100+ of my most generalized macros into a Google Doc for you to peruse. Most of the battle macros are in Instant Style with a few Laeta style where appropriate. There is also a link to crafting macros which use Wait Style. I am not an expert in every job so many macros are just for casual play; please don’t use them in end game content. They are usually recognizable because they hoard mass quantities of buffs or abilities all together, signifying I just want any buff but don’t care which one. I play on PS4 with a controller, so these macros reflect that because they all use <t> (although it is often implied). It is possible to make macros that rely on mouse or keyboard numbers to target party members, but I don’t have any of that type listed here. My macros are easily converted to this type by replacing the <t> with <mo> or <#>. However, since I have just explained how macros work, I urge you to read thru my list to get ideas and then create your own. Have fun!
https://drive.google.com/open?id=19wH7o2Nuo_nEhbFJhvFL8LHAtoqxVyryzkk5Aj8jo70
