Competing with Windower Macros

[Lyall]

There was a topic on the flameboard that derailed into Spellcast macros. It was basically said that it would be impossible for someone to make a vanilla FFXI macro that would swap in fastcast gear to cast in, shield+ gear to stop interrupts, and finish in haste to maximize fastcasts.

I'm wondering if its possible to write a macro that actually can do all of that. I'll use Uts:Ichi for my source, since if you're getting interrupted casting Ni you're doing it wrong.

However, I don't have all the shield/fast/haste gear a top-tier paladin would. Can anyone suggest what pieces would go where for what? I'm thinking that with enough /equipx5 /change book lines one person could in theory change gear 3 times in 4 seconds. Gear changing is close to instant, if not instant altogether, and the book-change line makes it so you can put everything on subsequent pages and just hit control-8 to first change into fast-cast and switch to a new page, hit it again to start casting and immediately change to shield, hit it again to change to haste/recast, and hit it again to wind up back in normal gear and on the first page again.

All this talk about how limiting XI macros got me thinking about whether or not we could push those boundaries a bit further with some crafty thinking.

 

[Hexx]

well.......i have the following setup when I'm casting ichi:

/ma "Utsusemi: Ichi" <me>
/equip feet "Gallant Leggings"
/equip back "Boxer's Mantle
/equip neck "Shield Torque"
/equip ear1 "Buckler Earring"
equip head "Koenig Schaller"

ill leave in some haste and fast cast gear (homam pants, swift belt, dusk gloves) to speed up casting all the same, then right before the casting animation goes off i hit my haste/fast cast macro:

/equip ear2 "Loquacious Earring"
/equip head "Walahra Turban"
/equip feet "Homam Gambieras"

My memorry is a little shoddy atm since this tends to be easier when I'm looking at my macros LOL.

 

[Sketchzter]

The way Hexx put his Utsu: Ichi macro down basically sums it up. Unfortunately if you want your fastcast/haste set to be active during the Ichi, you have to put a /wait 1 after the initial casting since equip swaps happen instantly. So you'd be casting Utsu: Ichi w/ Shield gears timers instead of fastcast. Main bad thing is that it limits your gear swaps to 4 instead of 5.

Alternatively you can do it the way I do. I have 5 different sets of macros atm. Each macro switches out 6 different gear pieces depending on what each set is. They all switch out the same exact 6 slots though, so you're still limitting yourself somewhat. My sets compromise of "Idle". Here is where all my HP+ and Haste/FastCast gears are. Next is my "Cure-set" macro. Basically switches out/in gears so I can get a 150HP CureIII for more hate generation. After that is my "Shield" macro, which as you can guess, switches in all my shield gears. My final two are "DDset" and "Enmity" set. DDset as you can guess switches in stuff like Hauby and Acc+ items to allow me to land hits, so I can get that Atonement in. Enmity set switches in more enmity (for stuff like JA).

This is all done while using the PS3 controller. My Utsu: Ni&Ichi macros are seperate and by themselves, on the Left shoulder button of my macros. The gear swaps are by themselves as well on my Right shoulder button; in order from left to right: DDset, Shield set, Cureset, and Idle. I have a "Recast" macro next to my idle macro also. So, lets say I want to cast Utsu: Ichi. Currently my gears are in my "Idle" macro set, so I hit the Utsu: Ichi macro. As soon as I hit that, I press the Right trigger and press the "Shield set" macro. I immediatly switch to my Shield+ gears for the duration of Utsu: Ichi. Once that is done I press the Right shoulder button again and press the "Idle" set to switch back to my idle gears.

By doing it that way, you're basically using all 6 macro lines just for equipment swaps. Only bad thing is that you limit yourself to 6 gear slots, but usually thats enough. Usually you'll be switching your Head, Neck, and Feet slots regardless. That leaves 3 more slots for you to have fun with. In my case, that's Body, Ring2, and Hands. Although with a few more equipment upgrades, the slots I switch out will change. It's really dependant with the types of equipment you have right now, and which gear slots are the most effective to switch out with different types of equipment.

That basically sums it up on how I make it work. *edit* With Vanilla FFXI macros ofcourse.

*Edit*
As a sidenote, personally I prefer to be able to manually switch the gears through more than 1 macro set than having an automated macro do everything for you with the 4 seconds Utsu:Ichi does its thing. Mainly because alot can happen within those 4 seconds, and if you "micro-manage" your gear swaps, you basically prepare yourself even more for any given situation in which they'd matter.

 

[Khajit]

the macro
then /macro set X
then in the same spot have the second macro/stage you want for the animation
/macro set y
final casting gear
/macro set (whatever pallete you started on)
Make em occupy the same spot and you simply have to press the same button 3 times.
That's how you can do it without windower.

 

[Lyall]

the macro
then /macro set X
then in the same spot have the second macro/stage you want for the animation
/macro set y
final casting gear
/macro set (whatever pallete you started on)
Make em occupy the same spot and you simply have to press the same button 3 times.
That's how you can do it without windower.

That's basically what I was thinking about. Someone said it couldn't be done without Spellcast, and I wanted to find out if that was 100% true. I figured using, for example, Control 5 on 5 different macro pages would work. Switch gear, then begin casting, switch to shield, then switch to fastcast, then switch back to TP. The only issue would be if there needs to be more than 5 slots being switched. You might need 2 pages at the end to replace head/neck/legs/feet/hands/earrings/whatever.

 

[Khajit]

I'd stick to pressing a macro 4 times at most since you have only 4 seconds before you think about fast cast for ichi so it's best to assume you have 3 seconds to do what you want to..

 

[Hexx]

Yeah, the /macro X commands help out a lot, I have entire lines dedicated to one thing for the three jobs that require the most gear swaps (PLD, BLU, SCH) and to minimize jumping around between macro lines, I have the corresponding gear swaps in the same locations as the original macros the trigger the jumps. Its complicated to actually talk about >_< but it can be done, you just need practice and timing. Gotta say tho, you dont really need too much haste/fast cast for ichi since first off you are macroing in a lot of shield + gear, and should be casting ichi while the last ni shadow is still up. Thats what I do at least.