BRD macro layout question

P

Pesmerga

ugh
Adventurer
Joined
Dec 6, 2004
Messages
804
Age
41
Main Job
WhiteMage-Male
FFXIV
Pesmerga
well im lvling brd now, and i havnt been able to figure out what a good layout for macro pages

im lvl 25 right now but im looking a general idea of what macros are needed, and a solid easy macro layout. if some of the brds on here could help me out id be thankful.
 
I have a very simple (at least, simple to me) system for my bard macros.

The Ctrl row is for Party Buffs. The Alt row is for enemy debuffs.

Right now, since I had to redo all my macros from scratch just today, I have the following setup. (With descriptions for the casual reader.)

Ctrl - Party Buffs
  1. Minuet (Attack Bonus, aoe)
  2. Madrigal (Accuracy Bonus, aoe)
  3. Ballad (Crack...I mean Refresh, aoe)
  4. Learned Etude (Int+ for blms, single)
  5. Spirited Etude (Mnd+ for whm & mnk, single)
  6. Cure II (or Cure III depending on party) typically unused
  7. Mambo (evasion bonus, aoe) typically unused
  8. March (weak hastega, aoe) typically unused
  9. Prelude (ranged accuracy bonus for pullers/rangers)
  10. /map (Because all my macro sets have /map command with an /echo <pos> for the last slot)
Sometimes Ctrl+6 is replaced with an appropriate Bar-Elementra spell, especially if the whm is busy, or has her hands full elsewhere.

Alt - Enemy Debuffs
  1. Requiem (DoT, similar to Dia, single)
  2. Elegy (weak Slow, single)
  3. Ice Threnody (lowers resistence to Ice Based attacks, single)
  4. Finale (Dispel, single)
  5. Lightening Threnody (lowers resistence to Thunder Based attacks, single)
  6. blank
  7. blank
  8. Foe Lullaby (Light Based Sleep, single)
  9. Horde Lullaby (Light Based Sleepga, aoe)
  10. /map (like I implied before, I work off a 18-slot macro set, instead of a 20-slot set)
As you can see, this one has less used spots, mainly because I haven't decided concretely for myself how to set this up. Case in point, I only just noticed how helpful Lightening Threnody could have been in earlier parties, so I added it to the roster. I may fill the blank spots with the other different threnodies, but I'm not completely certain if I feel comfortable having a macro for something that at best is a situational thing. Distortion Blizzard MBs and Thunder magicks are the most popular things to use, which is why they are there. I have both Lullabies macroed separately, because sometimes you do need to use both to keep control and/or stay alive.

Most of my macros automagically equip the appropriate instrument and/or elemental staff for the song. For example: My Battlefield Elegy swaps in both an Earth Staff (for sticking power) and a Horn +1 (for duration). Likewise my Etude macros swap in my Rose Harp +1, Prelude swaps in Angel Flute, etc.

I have it set up this way mainly for haste, effieciency and ease of use. The songs I normally sing are placed in the first five slots so I can get to them quickly (though, I do use a PC, obviously, and my friends say I have long fingers...) Most of my time in exp is spent doing the following:

Start by the mages, Ballad, run to the melee, Minuet, Madrigal, Requiem, Elegy, Threnody, Int Etude, Mnd Etude, run back to mages, renew ballad if needed, sometimes toss out a Finale, lather, rinse, repeat.

Unless you party with ninja tanks alot, you'll find yourself doing the same. And even then, most of the ninja I've partied with have just stuck to the same min-mad formula. But if not, you'll want to get mambo/march on the ninja or minuet/march on the whole group of melee. The main thing to do however, is ask what people want, and if it's in reason, change your behavior to accommodate.

One thing that is important is that you do not need to put a /p in every single macro, probably not in every other macro either. Party chat doesn't need to be cluttered with you saying that you're casting cure or singing minuet. It just adds to spam and obscures more important information that the melee need, like TP% calls. If you really need to put some sort of feed back in your macros, use /echo instead, that way you're the only person who sees it. The only exception is Lullaby for controlling links. In that case you'd better make it loud and clear what mob shouldn't be struck or hit with a DoT.

If I notice that my fingers are getting tired, I'll usually just swap the rows, so that Alt becomes Ctrl and vice versa. It works so well I can do most barding duties literally half asleep without losing much efficiency. Oh yeah, I'm a Bard 51 with 4k tnl, currently. This is what I do, so your mileage may vary.
 
CTRL 1
eledgy, sleepga, sleep

Alt 1
ballad 1 2

EXP

CTRL
acc atck haste evs def Sleepga Mazurka
ballad 1 ballad 2 legy Light staff earth staff sleep
 
thanks for the replys, exactly what i was looking for. once 55 and ballad II is possible should i make just 1 macro to save space? Or is 2 macros important

EDIT: thanks Morari thats a pretty detailed post, helped alot
 
CTRL- My less used ones generaly, alt is more comfortable to use. With the exception of CTRL-3, since for some reason its a Habit macro.

1 Minuet
2 Paeon (plays 2)
3 Ballad
4 March
5 Madrigal
6 Mambo
7 Bar- (changes dependant on Mob
8 One person Spell (usualy Learned Etude or Prelude. Just put the persons name in the spell cast so i dont have to tab)
9 Mazurka (yay!)
10 Horde Lullaby

ALT- My often used macro set.

1 requiem
2 /map (every set has it since i started playing)
3 Finale
4 Melee Buffs (usualy Madrigal/Minuet, but it can easily change to what i need)
5 Threnody (changes dependant on need)
6 Light staff
7 Earth Staff
8 Pull
9 Elegy
10 Foe Lullaby

Now, i use a Gameing Keyboard, so my macros might not be layed out like a normal persons would.
 
Pesmerga said:
thanks for the replys, exactly what i was looking for. once 55 and ballad II is possible should i make just 1 macro to save space? Or is 2 macros important
Click to expand...
one macro. Since you'll almost never be casting just one.

Tho if you're going to make 2, have one with just Ballad 2 and one with both.
 
NEVER HAVE 1 MACRO FOR BALLAD1 and 2

If you do and like cast one and have /wait 1
get a stun or a sleep after singing one wake up when the first ballad u song at start is rdy u get very angry just have each ballad have its own marco
 
It is generally not a good idea to put both Ballad I and II in the same macro. A lot of things can happen during 16-18 seconds or so of singing, mobs can move, melee can get in the way, mages can move. From my experiences it is best to put ballad 1 and 2 in separate macros.

My macros look something like this

CTRL
1- Madrigal(used to be Req., but I find myself not using this at higher lvls)
2- Minuet 3(Used to be Madrigal)
3- Minuet 4
4- Ballad 1
5- Ballad 2
6- Carnage Elegy
7- March
8- Mambo
9- Horde Lullaby
0- Lullaby

ALT
1- Cure III
2- Finale
3- Threondy(Usually keep 2 slots for this and change macro according to which Threondy(s) I need)
4- Threondy
5- Stoneskin
6- Battlefield Elegy(sometimes when pulling carnage hasn't cooled down)
7- Carol
8- n/a
9- Prelude
0- Etude

Any other song that I need, I usually sing it manually and swap out the instrument manually as well.

A little tip for you. When dealing with two teir songs, for example Advancing March/Victory March I usually put the lines for both songs in the same macro and just comment out the one Im using

for example
/so "Victory March"
//so "Advancing March"

"//" is a comment. So you will sing Victory and not Advancing, BUT lets say you are in a lower cap area you can just take out the / from Advancing and put // on Victory. This saves precious macro space and you don't have to make macros for both songs.

Under the circumstances that you can to sing both tier songs, I usually go ahead and select the next manually during the time that I am singing the original song.

You can do the same with instruments as well. For example for Ballad if you want high range you use a harp and low range you use horn. Use the above to comment out the instrument that you don't want to use and adjust on the fly ^^
 
Zethren said:
It is generally not a good idea to put both Ballad I and II in the same macro. A lot of things can happen during 16-18 seconds or so of singing, mobs can move, melee can get in the way, mages can move. From my experiences it is best to put ballad 1 and 2 in separate macros.
Click to expand...
It depends on how you set it up. The way I have all of my buffs set up, I basically get 2 macros out of one macro slot.

The way I do this is:

/equip range "song instrument"
/ma "Highest tier of said song" <me>
/wait 1
/ma "Second highest tier" <me>

The second one will only go off if the first one isn't up. This allows me a little leeway in when I sing the second tier song. I can run around a little, or go pull or whatever I need to do. When you're ready to cast the second tier, you just hit the macro again and the first song won't be up so it will skip to the second part.
 
Seems I have the same logic as some people in here O.o

This is mine:

CTRL = Party Buffs
1. Minuetx2
2. Madrigalx2
3. Balladx2
4. Marchx2
5. Etude that can be changed for whatevre I'm doing.
6. Etude that can be changed for whatever I'm doing.
7. Mambox2

ALT = Enemy debuffs
1. Foe Lullaby
2. Horde Lullaby
3. Requiem
4. Finale
5. Elegy
6. Pull macro with a /party say -- includes swapping to melody earrings because I use wind/singing earrings.

I also have a different macro set where the CTRL line is all threnodies. Not many people do it, but it's not hard for me to adapt to. Seemed more convenient than typing out which threnody to play during a party when I was leveling up. I also have a macro set above my BRD set that's mainly from leveling white mage to 37. So my cures, -na, protectra/shellra, bar-ra, erase, etc are on that palette. It's more confusing working with 3 macro palettes at a time (2 now that threnody is never used in cannon parties O.o), but I'm used to it now so it seems only natural.

The way I have songx2 is because I use the same macro set up as dedalius.
So it's like:
/so "Victory March"
/equip changes-----
/wait 1
/so "Advancing March"

And just click it twice if you want both marches. It's worked fine for me.
 
Last edited:
dedalius said:
It depends on how you set it up. The way I have all of my buffs set up, I basically get 2 macros out of one macro slot.

The way I do this is:

/equip range "song instrument"
/ma "Highest tier of said song" <me>
/wait 1
/ma "Second highest tier" <me>

The second one will only go off if the first one isn't up. This allows me a little leeway in when I sing the second tier song. I can run around a little, or go pull or whatever I need to do. When you're ready to cast the second tier, you just hit the macro again and the first song won't be up so it will skip to the second part.
Click to expand...

The problem with this at higher levels is that you don't always have time to cast both ballads, so it might be longer than the recast timer of Ballad II before you have time to put Ballad I on, in which case your macro will mess you up. Do note that I currently have most of my macros setup that way (higher tier /wait 1 lower tier) but once I get a bit higher I plan to rewrite them.
 
i have all marcos /wait 1
expect ballad and sleepga and sleep different
lv 70-75 when u pull u pull before the recast is done its preety easy unless u march fighters run and have haste on thats what all ways fucks me up
 
I find it a lot better to only have 1 song per macro. Reasons for this are, sometimes due to hate the mob will move and maybe go after a mage, or some of the people in your party don't have a clue how bard works, and you will need to reposition yourself to not land ballad on the noob melees or vice versa. Also in merit pts, you'll be pulling mobs to camp and sleeping them, as well as trying to keep your entire party buffed on mobs that don't last longer than 30 secs.
 
ahh very very nice, some ideas that i hadnt even though about. such as the /wait 1 to cut down on macro space. thanks for the replies, i think i got the general idea of a good setup now. :)
 
Rayebee said:
Not one Cure macro?
Click to expand...

My cure macros are on my WHM macro palette, but not on my bard palette. (Thus I switch between those 2 palettes frequently. >.<)
 
Rayebee said:
Not one Cure macro?
Click to expand...

It's very rare where a 1 second cast time, or a 3 second cast time on my cure 3 is going to matter. I just run through my white magics manually.
 
I have Cure 2 and Cure 3 currently macroed, though when I rewrite my macros I'll probably only keep one Cure on there and replace the other with Stoneskin once I get it. I'll probably add one status macro too that I'll replace with whatever is most useful for my current pt (default is almost always paralyna, at least for when I play whm).
 
dedalius said:
It depends on how you set it up. The way I have all of my buffs set up, I basically get 2 macros out of one macro slot.

The way I do this is:

/equip range "song instrument"
/ma "Highest tier of said song" <me>
/wait 1
/ma "Second highest tier" <me>

The second one will only go off if the first one isn't up. This allows me a little leeway in when I sing the second tier song. I can run around a little, or go pull or whatever I need to do. When you're ready to cast the second tier, you just hit the macro again and the first song won't be up so it will skip to the second part.
Click to expand...

Wow I never thought of that. This sounds like a Gem at lower levels, but I will still stick to 2 different macros.Agreeing with Rapla , if you do not sing Ballad 1 within the period of Ballad2 or w/e song Cooldown it will be all screwed up.
As the OP is lower level this sounds promising.
Thanks for the tip bud ^^
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top