Any reason not to put all of an ability type in a macro?

[Tides]

<p>Hey guys, I have been away from EQ2 for quite some time. My interest has been piqued again, and I had a question about macros. Specifically, is there any reason not to put all Assassin dots together in a macro?</p><p>Dot Macro Example 1:</p><p>Death Mark</p><p>Bladed Opening</p><p>Quick Strike</p><p>Gushing Wound </p><p>Impale</p><p>Paralyzing Strike</p><p>Bounty</p><p>I also have macros setup for all debuffs to be on 1 hotkey, all ranged attacks on 1 hotkey, etc. Is there something I'm missing? I started to play around with this BEFORE I quit EQ2 last time, but always wondered if there's any examples as to why you wouldn't want to get all your like-wise abilities on the same key for simplicity and easy dumping of debuffs/dots onto enemies. Thanks for your insight.</p>

[-=Hoss=-]

<p>I play with like 3 buttons on a hotbar in the center of my screen.  One for concealment/FFU.  One for temp buffs.  One for all the other attacks and debuffs. </p>

[PeterJohn]

<p>One reason not to do this would be ability use order. Look at your macro, for example. I assume you think hitting this button would cast those abilities in order?</p><p>In reality, hitting the macro would cause Death Mark to cast, and would put Bounty in the queue. If you cast these 2 spells, then hit that macro again, this time Bladed Opening will cast, and Paralyzing Strike will be put in the queue.</p><p>Also, if you hit the macro button while another ability is actively still casting, only the last available spell in your list will be in the queue. All the other spells will not be affected.</p><p>Therefore, cast order will be a little more tricky to figure out, and you have to be careful knowing what effect hitting the macro will have if you hit the button before the current ability you are casting is completed.</p><p>...</p><p>The other reason not to do this is that you contribute to server lag by flooding the server with spellcasts that have to be processed, since as of right now, the processing of the macro with multiple spells in it is done on the server side, not the client side.</p>

[Dareena]

<p>As already explained above, it really doesn't help to stack more than x2 abilities into a single macro button.  While item switching macros really don't have a limitation, the que system for using spells / CA makes it troublesome to stack everything into a single button.  On top of that, SOE is slowly working to throttle people making a x10+ ability spam macro due to the extreme server lag it creates.</p><p>Now on my brigand, I do use 2 in 1 macros for some of my CA.  I put both of my self buffs have that have the same duration and recast time in a single macro.  Then I made a macro to made our scout racial strike backstab as a secondary component onto one of my other backstabs.  Or lacing a couple of debuffs together.  Etc etc.</p><p>Macro can certainly save you hotbar room.  I do this so that I only have x4 hotbars running.  But macros aren't an end all solution.</p>

[-=Hoss=-]

<p>Peter, I can see you don't really understand the macro system, so let me help.  first off, it is no issue to get things casting in the correct order.  Secondly, in the example macro he posted, paralyzing strike will never ever be queued.  Bounty will always cancel whatever else was previously queued.  And its smart he did it that way.  The most important thing is that we get paid.  If we don't get paid for killin, we're just a buncha rogues or brawlers. </p>

[-=Hoss=-]

<p>BTW, I was kidding about the 3 macros.  Its pretty much fail to do something like that, even though it is possible.  Basically, just use macros for things that are on the same recast, and don't bother putting more than 3 things ino a macro.</p><p>Bounty is instant cast, so you can put it at the beginning of a macro and hit 2 other abilities.  I have an HO macro</p><p>Masked strike/puncture blade</p><p>Stalk/stealth assault</p><p>and I have Mark macro's in with a couple of things because I don't it it often enough. </p><p>But my macros do not save any hotbar room, because I keep all of the abilities on the hotbar individually too.</p>

[Jrel]

<p>I've found that putting more than two abilities in a macro doesn't fire off the third ability every time for me. So, I just put two maximum.</p>

[-=Hoss=-]

<p>I would wager that the third ability is the only one that actually gets cast everytime dude. </p><p>When you have a macro with a lot of abilities, the game goes through and casts each one of those.  Its as if you pressed the buttons individually but did it in a split second.  The game will check if the first ability os available.  If it is, and you are allowed to cast now (meaning you are not casting or in the recovery period from the previous ability), it will be cast.  Otherwise it will be queued.  The game will check the second ability, if its available and you're allowed to cast it will cast, otherwise it will queue. </p><p>So in short, you wind up casting the first available ability and queueing the last one in the macro.  Sometimes, the first available ability will not get cast because you are still casting something else, or are still in the recovery period.  But no matter what, everytime you push that macro button, whatever the last ability is it will either get cast or queued.</p>

[Jrel]

<p>Ahh, I see. I didn't have ACT back then so I always guessed some of the extras weren't firing, but knew that a 2-ability macro always worked.  I just tried putting 3, 4 and 5 abilities in a macro, and only the 1st and last one fired.</p>

[Tides]

<p>Thanks for all the replies (didn't realize I didn't say it before). I found a nice little trick with this type of macro. If you put /autoattack at the beginning of a macro (and this is a good macro to put it in the beginning of) then it will trigger the 1st ability, then the last ability, then from there on it will trigger the 2nd 3rd 4th and 5th abilities in proper order.</p>