BLM Macro GuideFollow

After much testing, the following macros are the ones I've been using for End Game content on BLM. I personally find them extremely useful. I will list them all first, and then focus on each one individually to explain why the abilities are in a certain order, or when the Macro is most useful.

I need to make clear from the very beginning that all of these Macros are the type that you SPAM. There is a great deal of movement required in End Game content. In fact, even as a BLM, freedom of Movement is more important than DPS for nearly every situation. Therefore, I have absolutely no Macros that include a /wait time.

The Main Fire Spam Macro:

/macroicon "Fire"
/ac "Fire" <t>

EDIT: I basically un-macroed this when I reached the final end-game fights.


The Low Mana Macro:

/macroicon "Convert"
/ac "Convert" <me>
/ac "Blizzard III" <t>


The Defense / Heal self Macro:

/macroicon "Manawall"
/ac "Manawall" <me>
/ac "Manaward" <me>
/ac "Physick" <me>


InstaSleep Macro:

/macroicon "Sleep"
/ac "Swiftcast" <me>
/ac "Sleep" <t>


Scathe++ Macro:

/macroicon "Scathe"
/ac "Scathe" <t>
/ac "Virus" <t>
/ac "Lethargy" <t>

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Macro Basics:

First some basic suggestions for your Macros:

- /macroicon "Abilty" should be the first line of every Macro. This allows you to see the actual Ability icon including MP cost, cooldown status, and even if a Proc is available (such as Firestarter or Thundercloud).

- Name your Macro something other than the primary ability. You don't want to get confused with what is a Macro and what is not on your toolbar. The mouseover will show you the Macro name you type in this field. Instead of "Fire", my main Macro is named "Fire+", just to indicate it is a Macro.

- Place a copy of your macroed abilities somewhere else on your tool bar. Macros don't show toolips when you mouseover them. Sooner or later, you are going to want to read exactly what "Fire" or "Raging Strikes" does. You need the actual plain ability somewhere to see the mouseover tooltip.

- Pick an icon for the Macro that matches the /macroicon "Ability" The /macroicon command overwrites whatever icon you pick here. The only reason you pick an icon here this is so that later you can find the specific Macro by sight in your User Macro Page. (Note that there are not currently icons for Arcanist abilities, as of 11-05-13.)

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So let's get down to it, here are the Macros, one-by-one, with an explanation of why and how they work.

The Main Fire Spam Macro:

/macroicon "Fire"
/ac "Fire" <t>

Rotation Starts off Thunder II > Fire III > Fire Macro

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Now this one is great for everyone:

The Low Mana Macro:

/macroicon "Convert"
/ac "Convert" <me>
/ac "Blizzard III" <t>

Three scenarios where you need this macro:
1.) You just cast Flare, and have 0 MP.
2.) Your fire spam put you at less than 79MP so you can't Blizzard III. (Btw, 638 + 79 = 717. Don't spam more Fire at less than 717 MP.)
3.) The enemy died while you were in Astral and you didn't press Transpose fast enough to regen MP before the next group.

Sometimes, not always, you can cast a spell and share the GCD with an Instant. (You have seen this in action by now with a Firestarter Proc. More on this later.) So every now and then you will simultaneously cast Convert and Blizzard III.



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Oh sh*t.

The Defense / Heal self Macro:

/macroicon "Manawall"
/ac "Manawall" <me>
/ac "Manaward" <me>
/ac "Physick" <me>

This one probably need little explanation. The sh*t's about to hit the fan and you just spam it. After your DEF abilities activate, you just start self-healing until the danger is past.

Nice to have this one separate from Regular "Physick" because of the <me>. Don't need to target yourself to Spam this.

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Use this all the time.

InstaSleep Macro:

/macroicon "Sleep"
/ac "Swiftcast" <me>
/ac "Sleep" <t>

There really is no situation I've seen where you don't want to cast Sleep NOW, rather than 2.5 secs from now.

What about this?

InstaFlare Macro:

/macroicon "Flare"
/ac "Swiftcast" <me>
/ac "Flare" <t>

Sure, go for it. In most situations you need either Sleep, or Flare, but not both. So you can have both of these setup and not worry about wasting Swiftcast. I personally just manually activate Swiftcast for Flare right now.

If you use either of these, it is important to have Swiftcast separately on your bar somewhere so you can see if the cooldown is up.

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This one is nuts.

Scathe++ Macro:

/macroicon "Scathe"
/ac "Scathe" <t>
/ac "Virus" <t>
/ac "Lethargy" <t>

So technically when you start a Macro with an Instant, you should never be able to cast anything after it. But not in ARR. Like I've said before, sometimes you can slide these abilities onto another ability and even share the GCD. So basically if you are on the move and casting Scathe, sometimes you will just tack on a free "Virus" or "Lethargy".

Check it out for yourself.

I generally have Virus on the mob already because it cast for free (in term if time) during the Main Fire Spam Macro. So when I see this go off it's usually "Lethargy" on a mob that's about to die. *shrug*

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Final Thoughts:

If you are already using the right abilities at the right times, then these Macros will probably not improve your DPS. But if you find yourself standing around spamming Fire while OOM, give the Main Fire Spam Macro a shot.

Even for pros, the other ones listed are pretty useful.

(I have posted this also in the BLM forum for permanent reference.)

I hope this has helped you learn something about creating Macro, or perhaps even explained some reasons you see Macros act randomly. I highly suggest trying your own combinations to see if you can improve on the functionality of these. Please offer any suggestion you have, or list the ones you use!

- Gnu


Edited, Nov 25th 2013 3:02pm by Gnu

Edited, Nov 25th 2013 3:06pm by Gnu

Edited, Nov 25th 2013 3:14pm by Gnu

Well, actually no. None of these have a wait time. But for crafting macros mine look something like this:

/ac "Inner Quiet" <me>
/wait 2.5
/ac "Steady Hands" <me>
/wait 2.5
/ac "Manipulation" <me>
/wait 2.5
/ac "Standard Synthesis" <me>
/wait 2.5
/ac "Standard Synthesis" <me>
/wait 2.5
/ac "Standard Synthesis" <me>
/wait 2.5
/ac "Standard Synthesis" <me>
/wait 2.5
/ac "Careful Synthesis" <me>

This is just for standard level mats that I want to make a bunch of while watching Netflix. For real Synths I use "Waste Not" and you just can't Macro that.

Anyway, to answer your question I typically craft right in Limsa, not far from the Market Board and Summoning Bell. These crafting Macros still go off I would say 100% of the time, correctly, even with the additional .5 seconds shaved off.

I'm curious what your crafting macros look like?

It's critical to use Careful Systhesis for Macros.

100% success rate.

Once again, for real synths where you want to HQ more often, you have to manually craft using Waste Not Tricks of the Trade and pay attention to your Condition. These Macros are a step up from the actual Quick Synthesis in terms of EXP gain and HQ rate.

So you want to make 100 cotton thread into 50 Cotton Cloth? You want to gain EXP for it?

You would use a Macro.Select your recipe and press:

Confirm > Confirm > Macro
*watch TV*
Confirm > Confirm > Macro
*watch TV*
Confirm > Confirm > Macro
*watch TV*
Confirm > Confirm > Macro

Etc., by the end of the episode you have your 50 cloth and half a level or more.




Edited, Nov 7th 2013 10:36am by Gnu

The limiting factor is the lines allowed by Macros = 15.

That is enough for 8 commands and 7 /waits. For crafting at higher levels I always need at least 10 steps.

I haven't crafted at that high level. I'm not sure Macros are appropriate. If so you would need two of them. But really, you want to HQ those ingots, so using "Waste Not" Tricks of the Trade, and actually paying attention, is probably the way to go.


Edited, Nov 7th 2013 10:37am by Gnu

If I actually used the Swiftcast + Flare Macro, I would absolutely put it in there:

/macroicon "Flare"
/ac "Quelling Strikes" <me>
/ac "Swiftcast" <me>
/ac "Flare" <t>

In fact, now that you mention it, that probably warrants a Macro. Like you say, for single target it would makes sense right before the Max Damage phase of the Fire Spam. Thanks for the great idea!

The following is for a craft that requires a total of four Careful Synthesis II to complete and has 80 total durability. Fits in the Waste Not just fine. Granted I have to adjust the number of Careful Synthesis II added depending on the complexity of the craft (sometimes its 1 or 2, sometime its 5). But with Steady Hands II, the acc of the Hasty Touch is at 80% accuracy and with Waste Not it only uses 5 durability. (the captions on the right are to display durability)

This macro requires Crp at 50 for Byregots, Ltw at 15 for waste not, Wvr at 50 for Careful Synthesis II, Cul at 37 for Hasty Touch (15) and Steady Hands II (37)

/action "Inner Quiet" <me>
/wait 3
/action "Waste Not" <me>
/wait 3
/action "Careful Synthesis II" <me> Uses 5, so 80-5 = 75
/wait 3
/action "Careful Synthesis II" <me> Uses 5, so 75-5 = 70
/wait 3
/action "Careful Synthesis II" <me> Uses 5, so 70-5 = 65
/wait 3
/action "Hasty Touch" <me> Uses 5, so 65-5 = 60
/wait 3
/action "Steady Hands II" <me>
/wait 3
/action "Waste Not" <me>
/wait 3
/action "Hasty Touch" <me> Uses 5, so 60-5 = 55
/wait 3
/action "Hasty Touch" <me> Uses 5, so 55-5 = 50
/wait 3
/action "Hasty Touch" <me> Uses 5, so 50-5 = 45
/wait 3
/action "Hasty Touch" <me> Uses 5, so 45-5 = 40
/wait 3
/action "Waste Not" <me> Note: I save for Byregot's at this point, so sometimes I can not Steady Hands II
/wait 3
/action "Hasty Touch" <me> Uses 5, so 40-5 = 35
/wait 3
/action "Hasty Touch" <me> Uses 5, so 35-5 = 30
/wait 3
/action "Hasty Touch" <me> Uses 5, so 30-5 = 25
/wait 3
/action "Hasty Touch" <me> Uses 5, so 25-5 = 20 (Sometimes I swap this with a Standard or Advanced Touch if I have the CP)
/wait 3
/action "Byregot's Blessing" <me> Uses 10, so 20-10 = 10
/wait 3
/action "Careful Synthesis II" <me> Uses 10, so 10-10 = 0

Edited, Nov 6th 2013 9:02am by Valkayree

Hey Gnu. Another excellent guide.

Do you mind if I link it in my sticky?

Thanks!

Right on thanks.

Yeah after that Transpose is pretty much all you have... But wow, 4 flares in a row... Are you doing them with Astral Fire III up? If not give it a shot. It also appears that the more mana you have when you cast flare, the higher the damage. Could be wrong on that, but Astral Fire III definitely helps a lot.

Do you just put these in more than one Macro?

After I got Tricks of the Trade (which is what I meant to say earlier) I didn't want to use Macros for important synths anymore. With some luck you can really, really get some amazing results (above your average capability) using Tricks of the Trade on challenging synths.

Tricks of the Trade = Restores 20 CP. Can only be used when material condition is good.

Update 11-25-13:

I removed the extra Blizzard III from my Convert macro. I need that Convert to go off reliably even when Blizzard III is castable. This is for extending the Fire 1 spam time while Raging Strikes is up.


The Main Fire Spam Macro:

/macroicon "Fire"
/ac "Fire" <t>

I also removed Raging Strikes form this macro. You have to use Raging Strikes at the correct time for many important battles. For fighting trash, the timing does't matter. But it HAS to be available during critical encounters. It turns out, losing damage from forgetfulness during trash fights is far outweighed by having Raging Strikes available when you REALLY need it.

I removed the Virus, need that at specific times.

I removed the auto-Blizzard III. Don't be forgetful is really the only way to maximize DPS. Casting Blizzard III at the wrong time, even 1% of the time, is not acceptable, depending on when exactly that 1% occurs.

Not much of a macro anymore.

Edited, Nov 25th 2013 3:12pm by Gnu