Blue Mage Macros.

[Jujubee]

I'm <3in Blue Mage but if there's one thing I can't stand about it is constantly swapping spells and making macros for them. Does anyone have some advice for a fledgling BLU on a convenient way to manage my blue magic. On SMN I remedy this by putting several blood pacts under a 1 button and whichever avatar I have out, it will do the one I need. Yet on BLU I never know which spell combos I may be using, and that kind of macro can cause conflicts if I try doing multiple spells at once.

[arshesney]

I prefer to keep only essential stuff macroed and pick other spells from the menu. At 75 I have the big 3, Cannonball, Actinic Burst, Blank Gaze, Magic Fruit, and of course Head Butt (and another stun Frypan/Temporal Shift).
For the usual campaign/xp/farming events I usually pick the same spell set.

In the 50 -> 60 range I just kept two spells pairable with Sneak Attack (between Sickle Slash, Manibular Bite, Jet Stream and Death Scissors) and the various JAs and gear swaps.

I guess a system like smn macros could work too, you could group similar spells like Sheep Song/Soporific or again Mandibular Bite/Sickle Slash since it's unlikely you'll set them at the same time.

Thanks to the macro books you're better plan ahead a few setups and arrange your macros accordingly. For example, asite the aforementioned "balanced" set I have an Einerjhar set with sleeps and AoE debuffs, a (lol)manaburn set with the few magical nukes worth using, a tanking set with the hate-generating spells.

I like to pick JAs and WSs "on the fly" from menus tho, and that opens up quite a few slots per palette, and I quickly gave up with self SC announcing macros while levelling, since noone ever cared about them xD

Thinking about it, level sync can be troublesome for BLUs, I can feel the pain having to macro level 30 set and maybe 50 set for the next party.
I'd try again to plan ahead and organize books for the common camps.

[Lordwafik]

Yeah this macro business turned me away from the job I do have it at 75 but it's so annoying constantly rechanging macros (and setting spells arg).

[Sevilla]

it would be nice to have some function where you can set the spells instead of going through the menus. I have been lazy in setting up macros, I have gear to do gear swaps for spells, but i just find it annoying to switch back and forth from set to set. I downgraded my blu only for campaigns and always set up the spells the same way: attack bonus, acc bonus, refresh, conserve mp.

[Kiarax]

You won't be using too many different spells in each level range. As you level and get better spells just replace stuff you don't use anymore with the new ones.
If you're already 75 just make different palettes for different events. You'll probably be using exactly the same spell setups for stuff like Dynamis, Limbus and meriting depending on your role. But you'll probably want another palette for stuff like Cannonball or Magic Damage set ups so everything's not too cluttered.

[Jujubee]

This is lame, Blue Mages cant stack spells in macro buttons but other mage jobs can. I think what I might do is just create button 'copies' and put them on different palettes. I started using one whole macro book for each of my jobs, so there's plenty of space for doing this kind of thing anyway. Just wish Square would at least make it so we don't have to keep resetting our spells when we change jobs. -.-

[Nevex]

Most spells are generally not a problem since many of them share the same gear setups (F.Rip/Disseverment/Barrage, V.Cleave/Dimensional death, Breaths, Cures).
The tricky part is for spells you rarely use, but that you can't just cast in your idle/TP gear because they'd suck if you do.

I suggest you to keep a few "basic" gear set macros (multi-hit spells, mono-hit spells, debuffs, non-breath nukes) to swap to when casting spells you almost never use but that are situationally useful.
This way you won't have to do tons of macros and you'll have good results with them when you'll find yourself actually casting said spells.

[Yugl]

I have macro sets depending on the sub. For example, one set I use for SATACA Cannonball and another I use for sub NIN. Tbh with BLU you shouldn't be going through a bunch of spells/JAs as you would with SMN or other mage types. You mostly stick to a few good ones (Head Butt, Cures, Big Three) and use others in specific situations. The rest you generally set for traits or stats.

[Arthars]

all my macro are physical blue magics
few exceptions are
1 ws macro, 1 sleep macro, 1 breath macro for flans. i do ctrl j for SA when i use cannonball

if i wanna seriously play a nuking job, i'll play BLM

i got sick of blinking big 3s, so i stick to my homam + mori body but change ring waist belt neck slots for them

[Sabishii]

all my macro are physical blue magics
few exceptions are
1 ws macro, 1 sleep macro, 1 breath macro for flans. i do ctrl j for SA when i use cannonball

if i wanna seriously play a nuking job, i'll play BLM

i got sick of blinking big 3s, so i stick to my homam + mori body but change ring waist belt neck slots for them

Your big three will suck then.

This is what I do, I got a macro set for /NIN and one for /THF. I have a bunch of slots I don't change for /NIN, CTRL+1 Frenetic Rip, CTRL +2 Savage Blade, CTRL +3 Vorpal Blade, etc.

I have a few slots I have left over from the usual spells I use, big three, head butt, Actinic burst, etc. and I use those for various other spells I don't always set. Cannonball, MP Drainkiss, Vertical Cleave, etc. I have a ton of macros for other spells which I don't use so much, but occasionally use nonetheless. I copy and paste those macroes into those slots.

Now I have a ton of gear swaps. I got enkidu's set, alky's bracelets, wivre mask, AF body, STR rings, MND rings, etc. Since I don't want to be gimp with my spells, and since I don't use windower, I have a bunch of gear set up to each spell. AF body, enkidu hands, enkidu's subligar, smiliodon's +1, and warwolf belt for what I can think of for the big three. If I just want to use one of the big three normally, I just hit the macro for it. Now if I want to use a CA spell, self-skillchain, I use my CA macro first, which equips the rest of my STR/DEX gear that aren't in my spell macros like my flame ring. Then I hit my WS macro which has some gear in (if I'm self-skillchaining) and then I hit my spell macro. I don't have as much STR/DEX in when I don't do a CA spell, but it leaves me with more accuracy to compensate for it. It's a compromise I had to make as I was getting more and more gear.

Now when I want to get back to my TP gear from just doing a regular spell, I got gear macroed into my head butt macro to put me back into TPing mode. If I did a CA spell, I hit a TP gear macro THEN my head butt macro, which, combined, gives me all my TP gear back on. So I'm cycling through big-three/v-cleave/cannonball then head butt. Also have some fast casting gear for like metallic body/diamondhide/breath spells/sleeps, the spells that take a lot of time to cast.

[leviathanertai]

I definitely found the use of a macro book for BLU to itself was helpful, with different macro sets based on different situations. Have one for just your average, run of the mill spell set, one for breaths and 1k needles along with a few magicals(used this for a while on JoL before BLM was 75), one for main healing, one for Mindblast (generally used for Faf so includes cures and diamondhide) and then one for 40 and 50 cap. I do still find myself editting the general spellset occasionally, but the main part of it always stays the same for the damage spells, and I make changes for various enfeebles depending on the situation, as well as different healing spells (between Exuviation, Healing Breeze, Magic Fruit and Wild Carrot)