Macro question regarding swapping staves

[AricTheMage]

I have done a search on all the topics but cant find any that pertain this question particularly :)

With the limited 6 lines(i believe) for a macro set..i am having trouble swapping in Earth staff and playing Elegy and then swapping back to Light Staff...here's my macro so far:

/equip main "Earth Staff" <me>
/wait 1
/equip range "horn +1" <me>
/song "Carnage Elegy" <t>
/wait 7
/equip main "Light Staff" <me>

Problem is sometimes for some unknown reason the song starts but my staff or horn may not equip.

I want to put a WAIT statement between the equip range instrument and the song "Carnage Elegy"...but dont have enough lines... :(

I tried combining 2 lines to one:

/equip main "Earth Staff" <me>: /equip range "Horn +1" <me>

but that also causes either one of the staff or horn to not equip properly. :(

can anyone help me out?
Thank you :spin:

[Peanut_Midgard]

My suggestion would be to take the Light Staff OUT of this macro and put it in where it's needed (cure, lullaby and requiem macros).

For /equip that changes your apperance (makes you blink), you HAVE to have at least a /wait 1 in there in between equips unforutnately to make it work. Such limitation is not the case for things such as rings (those don't make you blink).

[Choup]

Originally posted by Peanut_Midgard
For /equip that changes your apperance (makes you blink), you HAVE to have at least a /wait 1 in there in between equips unforutnately to make it work. [/B]

Come on do some tests before posting such infos please.
That's wrong, no need to put a wait time, and you don't want to.
A /wait 1 just make you loose time for your debuff, it's bad.

Do your macro like that : (song 1st as you want it to be casted ASAP)
/so "Carnage Elegy" <t>
/equip main "Earth Staff"
/equip range "horn +1"

You don't ned to equip instruments before you cast the song, it just need to be equipped when the song launch (test is with minuet for exemple in jeuno, equip and cast song, then cast song and equip, you will see both duration is ~2:20 with enhanced effect).

Choup

[Vilurum]

My Elegy macro (Lightning Threnody is similar):

/so "Carnage Elegy" <t>
/equip Range "Horn +1"
/equip Neck "Wind Torque"
/equip Main "Earth Staff"
/wait 4
/equip Main "Light Staff"

I am probably able to get away with /wait 3, haven't tested. I just have to avoid hitting another macro until I blink back to Light Staff or else I end up leaving the Earth Staff equipped. (The other macro would cancel the stuff after the /wait in the first.)

I throw the torques in there because I have a String Torque too which I swap in for string songs (minne, etude, paeon and finale, though normally only finale gets used and paeon doesn't really benefit from it anyway). So all my song macros just have /equip Neck "Wind/String Torque" as appropriate. Since I'm usually using wind instruments, that line usually doesn't change anything since I already have the Wind Torque equipped.

[Faranim]

I suggest not having macros change instruments back at the end.

Instead, any macro that benefits from a staff should equip it. Don't worry about changing the staff back again.

/ma "Carnage Elegy" <t>
/equip main "Earth Staff"
/equip range "Horn +1"

then:

/ma "Cure III" <stpc>
/equip main "Light Staff"

/ma "Ice Threnody" <t>
/equip range "Piccolo +1"
/equip main "Monster Signa"

There's no need to use /wait in any bard macros.

[Peanut_Midgard]

Originally posted by Choup
Come on do some tests before posting such infos please.
That's wrong, no need to put a wait time, and you don't want to.
A /wait 1 just make you loose time for your debuff, it's bad.

Do your macro like that : (song 1st as you want it to be casted ASAP)
/so "Carnage Elegy" <t>
/equip main "Earth Staff"
/equip range "horn +1"

You don't ned to equip instruments before you cast the song, it just need to be equipped when the song launch (test is with minuet for exemple in jeuno, equip and cast song, then cast song and equip, you will see both duration is ~2:20 with enhanced effect).

Choup I HAVE done research and the above macro is not-reliable. Sometimes it works, and maybe even due to different connection speed or computer speed it might even work okay for some people. But it doesn't work for ME. The effect is even more apparent if you equip 3 or more pieces of items that changes your apperance. It's apparent from the first post that the poster suffers from the same problem. I have tried it to the extreme as changing five pieces of appearance changing items (I was trying to make a macro that will swap out my fishing armor with combat equip when fishing). It doesn't work reliably and most of the time I ended up with only 2-3 pieces changed. This is a problem with the /equip command.

Losing casting time is bad, yes. So what I have to do to get around my /equip problem is have a /wait 1 in between my appearance changing /equips after the song cast line.

/so "Carnage Elegy" <bt>
/equip main "Earth Staff"
/wait 1
/equip range "Horn +1"

This is the macro that works 100% of the time for me.

I know the equip doesn't need to be at the beginning of song cast, that's common bard knowledge. I am only talking about the /equip command problem when changing multiple items that will change your apperance. Do not assume I don't do research.

[Faranim]

Are you sure that the items aren't equipping?

Changing equipments is one of the glitchy parts of this game.

If you do something to change appearance at the same time as receiving an effect (somebody curing you, having a song cast on you, monsters casting spells on you), you get "Frozen" (identical to when engaging or disengaging a monster and the above are happening) and do not move until the effects finish.

Are you sure that this isn't your problem?

[Peanut_Midgard]

Yes I am sure, as I was testing it in city and no effects were thrown at me. It works sometimes, I don't deny that. What I find is that if I am only changing two appearance changing items like the macro I had above, one in about seven or eight times one of the items won't be equipped. I believe it's almost always the second /equip line. It seems to relate to how long I am "blinked" out. If I am blinked out for too long, the second /equip line is not registered. Although that should be a client graphical issue, but that's just what I observed.

The effect is compounded when I was trying to do my fishing equip swapping macro. Again I tested it in city when I wasn't in combat, fishing, or have spell effects casted on me (basically I just stood there). The earlier one, two or sometimes three pieces of apperance changing items will be equipped, but I have never gotten the fourth and fifth piece to equip.

Another bit of info is that if I have other /equip lines in between the apperance changing ones, like if I equip two rings between the staff and the instrument, then it works 99.9% of the times (I don't think I have seen it not working but I am not sure). It seems like again, it needed time to "finish" the first appearance changing /equip line before it would execute the second one, and the extra non-appearance changing /equip lines served as invisible /wait.

[Teffie]

Or... do like how I used to do it;

Macro 1:
/equip Main "Earth Staff"
/echo Earth Staff equipped.

Macro 2:
/equip Range "Horn +1"
/ma "Carnage Elegy" <t>

Macro 3:
/equip Main "Light Staff"
/echo Light Staff equipped.

Macro 4:
/recast "Cure III"
/ma "Cure III" <stpc>

ALOT of people would disagree to my form of macro's obviously.
I just got really used to it. Having a seperate macro to equip Traversiere+1, Cornette+1, Mary's Horn, Ebony Harp+1, Dagger/Genbu Shield.

I guess the main reason I did it is because I disliked having my character just stand there during the casting time of the song. (For those who don't know, if you change equipment during a song, your character will fade away, and when he fades back he will just be standing with no music notes/flute animation). I also sort of like it that way, because I guess it keeps me awake? o_o. On the positive side, sometimes I want to play a song with a Flute, sometimes I want to play it with a Harp (for range purposes) so having seperate instrument macro's helps.

Say I wanted to cast Madrigal and Minuet with their respective instruments.
1. Hit Traversiere+1 Instrument macro
2. Hit the Madrigal Song Macro during the fade out
(You will fade in with the Traversiere, and the whole animation/music)
3. As the Visual effects for Madrigal happen, hit the Cornette+1 Instrument macro
(The visual effects will disappear when you fade out)
4. Hit the Minuet Song Macro during your fade out, and you will fade in with the music notes/animation.

Probably the most inefficient use of macro's, but I like it :handsdown

[Rekiem]

This is what I do:

/equip Range "Traversiere +1"
/so "Blade Madrigal" <me>
/wait 12
/equip Range "Cornette +1"
/so "Valor Minuet IV" <me>

I never had any problem with my songs effect. At early level, I placed a /wait 1 in the macro (when I had the space) so I could watch my character sing. Not too long after, I stopped because the singing music is just too anoying for me.

Teffie, just by curiousity, can you fit all your macro in one bar or you have to change macro bar for different stuff?

[Peanut_Midgard]

I also had /wait 1 at early levels (I think pre-30) just so I could see the animation, but more importantly so other people in my party won't think I am not doing anything. But as levels grew people start to know what bards do I took it out because I didn't have to worry about other party members anymore.

On a side note, I personally don't like to have two songs in one macro because I find myself switching song orders sometimes. For example, if we are opening with SA/TA with VB I would normally play Minuet first to have the biggest hate effect. I don't do that with normal SA/TA though since that can miss more easily so I do Madrigal first. Also if the Paladin don't want stacked ballads I would do Minuet first so Ballad would replace it instead of Madrigal.

Rekiem, do you have a separate macro for single versions?

And Teffie, I tried that before a while back but I just find that I don't have enough macro space :D (I have 2-3 bars of stuff as it is)

[Rekiem]

I don't have any single version in my macro beside Mazurka and Virelai I think. All of my macro for singing have two songs or more in them I think.

I don't put any single songs in my macro simply because when you're in a PT for 3 hours or more, everyday, doing the same thing over and over, having to press on 8+ macro at every single fight, without even counting the healing, its just too anoying for me. So basicaly, with my method, I end up only having to press 3 button each fight (debuff, melee and mage songs) and the rest is just healing :)

Another reason is because Im used to play with my left hands on the WASD key and my right hand on the mouse, kinda like FPS gaming, Im just used to it. So because of that, Im not easily able to reach the Alt or Ctrl +7,8,9,0 key macro. So I only have like 12-13 macro I can easily use :sweat:

[Teffie]

Teffie, just by curiousity, can you fit all your macro in one bar or you have to change macro bar for different stuff?

hmm lol
Well... I don't use 1 bar
I have 4 Macro Sets, don't really have a problem with em. (Maybe because I am using a PS2 Controller, it's alot quicker for me to switch between them easily)

I took some screenshots of my macro's, they should be pretty self explanitory.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/teffie/bar1.gif
Bar 1: The main Song Macro Set.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/teffie/bar3maz.gif
Bar 2: The secondary Song Macro Set.
This set contains songs that I wouldn't normally use in an exp PT, but more for different occasions. Ballista Songs, Mazurka, Weaker version of Songs (Minuet III, etc), Single Target Etudes.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/teffie/bar2carol.gif
Bar 3: Carol/Threnody Macro Set.
Nothing but Carol's and Threnodies on this Bar.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/teffie/bar4whm.gif
Bar 4: WHM Macro Set
This just contains all the WHM-type skills, Cure, -na's, Curagas, Erase, Bar Element, Bar Status, Stoneskin, etc..

I put them in the order..

Bar3
Bar1
Bar2
Bar4

I mainly have it to Bar1 default, if I want to play Carols I go up 1, if I want to play weaker ones I go down 1, if I want to cure I go down 2.

It might look weird, but I don't think I'd have it any other way

[Rones]

I HAVE done research and the above macro is not-reliable. Sometimes it works, and maybe even due to different connection speed or computer speed it might even work okay for some people.
Really strange your macro doesn't work without a wait. I use one to switch in 6 pieces of +mnd gear for enfeebles and another with 6 lines to switch back to my +mp gear. No wait line and short of mispelling the equipment names I've never had it not switch out all the equip (even while i was on 56k for a week). One occasion I was able to interrupt the swap once halfway by hitting another macro immidiatly (nearly same time) after the equip swap macro, but not something that could happen unless I was trying to cause it to mess up.

[tnt118]

I don't know if this will help you or not, but I figured it doesn't hurt to post. I've recently switched from activating macros by hitting ctrl/alt + the number key for the macro (i.e. ctrl+6) to hitting ctrl/alt, using the arrows left/right/up/down, then hitting enter to activate the macro.

Some of my macros used to have trouble firing correctly, esp in areas like Boyahda that are particularly laggy. Switching methods (which is more like playing on a ps2.. I should just get a controller, heh) eliminated all these problems. Depending on lag, it can still take a second for the macro bar to appear, but it ended up being better in the long run for me... plus that gives me an extra split second to make sure I'm on the correct macro bar (and to make sure the server recognizes that I've stopped moving, too) helping to eliminate mistakes.

I use three bars, everything is situational. All Ctrl macros are for PT/self buffs, all Alt macros are for the mob. No matter if I'm stacking Madrigals, or using both Madrigal and Minuet, it's always Ctrl-1 for me. I'll change this macro as needed to customize it for each PT. As a sidenote, I keep all the variations of macros on an unused bar, and use the in-game copy/paste function to change them quickly.

So my main bar has the normal songs that are most used in EXP situations, one up has the less used songs, one down has all the threnodies and status removals I can do.

Edit: and to help keep this on-topic... I'm sorry that the "normal" macros aren't working for you.. that's an ususual problem that, to be honest, I've never heard anyone else complain of before.

/comfort

[Peanut_Midgard]

Originally posted by Rones
Really strange your macro doesn't work without a wait. I use one to switch in 6 pieces of +mnd gear for enfeebles and another with 6 lines to switch back to my +mp gear. No wait line and short of mispelling the equipment names I've never had it not switch out all the equip (even while i was on 56k for a week). One occasion I was able to interrupt the swap once halfway by hitting another macro immidiatly (nearly same time) after the equip swap macro, but not something that could happen unless I was trying to cause it to mess up.

Like I said in my post, it doesn't have to be /wait 1 for me to get it to work, if I put some non-appearance changing /equip lines in between I can get it to work very reliably. It's only when I have two or more consecutive appearance changing /equip lines that I run into the problem. I don't know what's the problem really, but that is just my findings. It doesn't prevent me from or slow me down in doing my job so I am still okay :)