Tue Sep 17, 2013 8:47 am by Meshuggenah
Something else I've noticed - the macros in this game behave like scripts. Meaning you can use wait commands and a single keystroke will cycle through every ability on the list. Not only this, but macros interrupt each other, making recasting DoT's & debuffs extremely simple.
Testing with a low level Arcanist, for example -
Macro 1 -
/wait 2.5
/ac "Miasma" <t>
/wait 2.5
/ac "Bio" <t>
Macro 2 -
/ac "Ruin" <t>
/wait 2.5
/ac "Ruin" <t>
/wait 2.5
/ac "Ruin" <t>
/wait 2.5
/ac "Ruin" <t>
/wait 2.5
/ac "Ruin" <t>
/wait 2.5
/ac "Ruin" <t>
You press 2, it spams your filler nuke. Whenever you want to refresh DoT's, tap 1. It stops your Ruin spam and then refreshes all DoT's. The reason I have a /wait command at the start of the DoT macro is so that it waits out the GCD before attempting to begin a new action. This way, if you press your DoT key during a Ruin cast, it won't attempt to cast Miasma while on GCD.
In ISBoxer, I have DoT macro on it's own keymap with a blank second step and 15 second wait time (do not advance for 15 sec). In another keymap, I call the DoT keymap in step 1, with the Ruin macro called in step 2. This way it only fires step 1 every 15 seconds and spams step 2 (Ruin) the rest of the time. I also have my tab key set to reset the keymap to step 1 - for when I switch targets and want to cast DoT's immediately.
You could manage this entirely with ISBoxer and not worry about the in-game macros. The problem I find with this is that ISBoxer doesn't know whether the keys its sending are triggering effectively in-game. Often if you send delayed keystrokes via ISBoxer or a programmable keyboard it will send the keystroke, but because you're already casting or on GCD, the ability won't fire. Using in-game macros instead fixes that issue.
Also, with regards to gnetcham's mark-targeting idea, I prefer using separate hotkeys to mark and target marks rather than building that into my abilities. The reason being, you're not always going to be the leader of your party - particularly when they introduce PvP & 24man content. If you lose the ability to place marks, it will mess with your targeting.
I still haven't found a way to make healing feel comfortable. Tried click bars, mouseover macros & repeater windows, etc. They all feel really sluggish. Going to mess around with using /focustarget next and see if that does it.