Should I use party text in spell macros?

[neosoul]

For example /p Frost>> <T>

Some ppl tell me they like this, and it makes me look really busy casting all those debuffs. Some ppl think it only contributes to spam, what do you all think?

[Rones]

Its uneeded and gets annoying after the 4th hour of it (if not earlier). The only time you should have a /p line in your spell macros is iff its involves something that actually needs a reaction from others in the party, eg: when you cast sleep, add a /p line making sure everyone sees and stops hitting it. Things /p Fire <t> are completly unneeded spam, no one needs to read that you cast a nuke. Same applies for enfeebles, no one needs more reminders that you are doing what is already expected of you with a /p line.

If there is no action needed from others in the party in response to what you cast, don't use a /p line. Imagine if a ranger had a /p line everytime he used his bow for regular attacks (sadly seen it before).

[neosoul]

Well one good thing about it is that it reminds annoying mages that scream for refresh about how busy a rdm's job is, and that refreshing and dispelling is not all that we do in a party

[Suntan2]

Actually its best to put descriptive sentences about what you are casting.

E.g

/ma "Blizzard" <bt>
/p Let the freezing shards of a thosand chilled spikes come upon you!! BliZzArD!!

/ma "Curaga" <stpc>
/p Divine light shine down from the heavens and heal our wounds!! CuRaGa!!

Not only does it remind party members how busy you are, but also shows how creative you are with your macros.

[Rael B.]

Originally posted by Suntan2
Actually its best to put descriptive sentences about what you are casting.

E.g

/ma "Blizzard" <bt>
/p Let the freezing shards of a thosand chilled spikes come upon you!! BliZzArD!!

/ma "Curaga" <stpc>
/p Divine light shine down from the heavens and heal our wounds!! CuRaGa!!

Not only does it remind party members how busy you are, but also shows how creative you are with your macros.

Errr, no, I find this small corny macro quotes to be very annoying, and get old pretty fast.

[Rones]

I think Suntan2 is being sarcastic....at least I hope he is. :sweat:

There are exceptions to the rule, but generally you won't use a /p. The only ones I can think off hand are:
Sleep
Large Cure/Curaga that will most likely pull hate
Benediction or other large hate 2hour
Escape
Ancient Magic

[modnar]

I agree. Do not use /p for trivial matters. You are not communicating anything to the party. Imagine if a monk put a macro for every time he punch (if it were possible), you would be like "SO?! SHUT UP!"

But the reason I replied is to emphasize a point Rones was saying. Why not put a macro for Benediction and Escape. Those are the more important matters. How many times a white mage uses Benediction and I did not realize it until I saw the HP bars and the mob running after him. I think it should be announced!

Same thing for Escape, Protect/Shell, Curaga. These spells require the party to gather around you. You SHOULD have a /p macro for them, and have a /wait for the party to take necessary actions.

[Sukashi]

I use /p in my -ra, Convert, and Sleep macros only :o

[Digital]

I had a mnk in a PT that had a /p line for boost......I wanted to die....

[neosoul]

how are you goign to do die from reading text?

[2.0]

You should only do it with 2 hour abilities if you want to sound cool or whatever. Do it with anything else and that shit gets annoying when you're playing for like 6 hours.

[Jonnyram]

I just put stuff in /p for Escape and Convert macros.
I should probably do something for SleepII too, though.

[Zeyno]

Glad I'm not the only one annoyed by the stupid macros.

I don't bother complaining in pickup parties, since people get angry for some reason... mabe want their hard work of adding another line to be appreciated, I don't know. WHM with Cure macros are annoying. Boost is annoying. Provoke isn't so bad, since it is useful to know when the tank has just voked and regular spam covers it sometimes.

I will say things when partying with my LS, but on quest/mission/NM hunts I wan't to know what they are doing and since I have other's special attacks unfiltered so I can see the mob's buffs to dispel, its nice to know what everyone is doing when in the area of other parties.



I want a separate filter for other players and mob's special attacks!!

[Beener]

I use none for rdm, and one for blm

when i get aggro:

/p OOH YAH HIT ME MORE
/wait 1
/p CMON YE'RE MAKIN BE HAWT
/wait 1
/p WHIPS N' CHAINS BITCHES

that annoys the hell out of my LS mates...thinkin of puttin that in /s or /sh

[Yuanlung]

I used to put some /p in most of my casting macros. That soon annoyed the hell out of my team member, and amazingly, myself.


Now I only have /p messages in macros which does things that the party should really know, such as Sleep, Escape, 2HR.. Things like these.

Other then that, /p macros just clogs up the party chat and makes it harder for your team to notify each other on important events in a fight.

[Shiia]

Rdm has to keep an eye on logs, same goes with Whm or any other status curing members. When you have spammed alot with /p messages you are making the rdm and whm a hell of a time. I use P for the following ones.

Refresh: enough said to view my logs to who I refreshed last should I forget.
Sleep/sleep2/sleepga : Enough said, a warning to melees not to attack the sleeped mob (although 60% of the time they still hit them -_-;)
Dispell: So they don't have to shout at me of not dispelling. Although I think this can be taken off
CureIII~IV: I think I can ditch this off now. Been using to not have a conflict in cures with the whm.

[Deldrach]

Yah the only /p text in my macros are from

Convert
Sleep/SleepII/Sleepga
Dispel
Escape
Chainspell

[midnilux]

Yeah I was in a PT where pretty much every member had a party macro for every damn action they performed, the text was scrolling down so fast during fights I couldnt see when beetles used Rhino Guard and ended up dispeling a while after noticing everyone doing crappy damage. Also its good to know when a mob is no longer silenced, paralyzed, etc. so I can immediately recast enfeeble I cant do it with people telling me every action they do.

[Beener]

Shiaa, a bit off topic but, do you know how those marine gloves are gotten? they a drop, quest, or craft?

[MMan530]

If you want to see yourself being busy, use /echo's.

/ma "Paralyze" <stnpc>
/echo Casting Paralyze on <lastst>

That macro works pretty well if you want to keep track of what you've cast on the monster.

Convert, Sleeps, Escape, and Chainspell are really the only spells/abilities that benefit greatly from having /p macros. Other spells like Dia, Bio, Frost, Rasp, Drown, Shock, Choke, and Burn are okay to have /p macros for in the beginning. This lets the other mages know that you're casting those debuffs and they A) don't need to cast that debuff or B) shouldn't cast the opposite debuff. Of course... after a couple of fights it wouldn't hurt to remove the /p from those. A lot of times I'll add the effect to the end: /p Casting "Spell" on <lastst>. "Stat" -#. That way the macro, while you're using the party chat, is both informative to melees and mages alike. Note: In the above example, the Spell, Stat, and # is changed within the macro itself- those aren't codes like <lastst>.

Refresh doesn't make my list because your Refresh should be on a constant cycle. When Refresh wears off, the spell should be recast within a few seconds at most. If you want to get rid of unnecessary /p spam, getting rid of Refresh /p would be a good solution.

[Deodorant]

I don't use /p myself, not because it's annoying, but just because I'm too lazy to type in the macros (plus, there's no real point to it), except for escape, sleep, etc. But, I don't give a damn if others do it or not. Why is it annoying? *shrug*

[Nassa]

I remember using party text macros for enfeebles a lot more at lower levels (below 55 or so) because at those levels, other mages are still casting the same enfeebles as the rdm is, i.e. whm with slow + paralyze, etc. I hate it when the whm or blm wastes MP on an enfeeble after I've done it already, so I put a party text in to remind them. It's nothing extravagant. I just use "/p Slow --> <t>" and so forth. At higher levels (60+) the other mages will start to notice that their enfeebles get resisted a lot so the RDM ends up being the only one who casts them anyways, making party text less necessary.

I still use the text macros for haste, cure3, and cure4 now, for the same reason of not wanting the whm to waste MP double casting. Of course, a lot of times people don't pay attention to those macros and double cast anyways, but at least I tried :cool:

Things that I think should never be party-text macro'd:

Refresh, nukes. No point at all. Just spam.

Nassa

[Kilgraw]

Originally posted by Sukashi
I use /p in my -ra, Convert, and Sleep macros only :o
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[Discordian]

Escape, Convert, and Elemental Enfeebles come to mind but I hardly use Elemental Enfeebles.

If you have a /p spam macro I will get annoyed. Not only does it make a rdm's job harder with extra text, but ninjas, warriors for skillchains, and it even annoys Budda after the third chain.

If they don't think you are doing your job then they havn't looked at all the spell effects that are being throw at the mob and the fact that your MP pool is probably lower than the WHM.