General Macro Book Question + THF specific macro question

[sleekmotorwurkz]

Im in the process of completely re-doing my macros for all my jobs using the macro books. My plan is to use a different book for each job, and each set within that book for a different subjob. First question would be for the people who use seperate books how do you use the different books?

Second question is more thf specific. Ive been a thf for 4 years, so I know what im doing, I just dont like the way im doing it, so looking for possible variations that might work. Basically im looking for a way to streamline weaponskilling. There are so many variations of SA/TA/Hide(situational)/Dancing Edge/Shark Bite/Evisceration that im not sure how I want to set up my new macro sets.
Right now what I am doing is changing my macro manually, for each different type of weaponskill, depending on the situation, ex. Fafnir gets TA-SB, for Exp I could use SA-DE, TA-DE, on birds I can even throw in a SATA-Hide-DE if i want. On top of that for stuff like Assault I could use dusk for tp, heca for ws. Where as a farming set would have Assassin's armlets on all the time. Now my WS gear set has mostly str and dex, but if i wanted to go crazy I could even set up a Trick Attack set if I want, adding in more agi and stuff like Rogue's Armlets+1. Theres just so many situations im not sure what to do anymore. Also on exp, I could go higher acc if I go /nin with p.harpe/ridill, or more haste if I go /war with pharpe/tatami. Maybe im making it harder then it should be, but I have so much situational gear I want to use it to its fullest, without having to spend 15 minutes fixing up macro sets for everything I do.

It would still require some switching macros, but the easiest way I have found so far is this
Alt 5 - Sneak attack Weaponskill - would have to have /ws (insert weaponskill name here) and change per situation
Alt 6 - Trick Attack Weaponskill - would have to have /ws (insert weaponskill name here) and change per situation
Alt 7 - SATA Weaponskill - would have to have /ws (insert weaponskill name here) and change per situation
Alt 8 - Swap to Acc gear - would still have to change gear in the .txt for the situation
Alt 9 - Swap to WS gear - usually stays the same
*problem here is if i want to utilize hide every 5 min on birds (or any hideable mob for that matter) i have to manually select sneak attack, trick attack, hide, weaponskill from the menu.

Set 1 - THF/NIN Damage only more acc for pharpe/ridill
Set 2 - THF/NIN Treasure Hunter Assassin's armlets fulltime
Set 3 - THF/WAR Damage less acc, more haste for pharpe/tatami
Set 4 - THF/WAR Treasure Hunter Assassin's armlets fulltime
Set 5 - THF/DRK - situational usage but has macros for stun, last resort, souleater etc.
Set 6 - THF/BRD - VERY situational, sometimes for dynamis (horde lullaby to stick TH4 on all mobs ftw), also lolthfballad

Like I said this is the best configuration I can find, but for me its still a pain in the ass to switch a whole bunch of macro lines every time I farm/assault/hnm/dynamis/limbus etc etc etc etc etc. Im hoping someone has a better setup then this.

Thanks everyone :nikkei:

[Mosh]

If something needs 2 or more sets of macros (like NIN, PLD or WAR for me), then it gets it's own book.

Example:
Book 2
1: PUP and /PUP
2: SMN
6: BRD
8: RNG
10: WHM

Book 3
4: NIN Eva
5: NIN DD
6: NIN/DRK DD
7: NIN/DRK - Kite/Tank


For my THF, I set my macros up like this:

Ctrl:
Steal, Blank, Blank, Evisceration, Pull (RA), /ta <bt>, TAGear, SAGear, WSGear, /attack
Alt:
Blank, Blank, Ichi (67THF atm), Melee, Melee2, SA, TA, DE, SB, SAhide

SAhide:
/ja "Sneak Attack" <me>
/wait 2
/ja "Hide" <me>

If I want to use SATA + Hide + WS, then I hit Alts 7 + 0 + WS of choice. I've never had a problem with it. In fact I like it better then the SA+WS / TA+WS combos.


And if you need to switch macro lines depending on what you do, then you need a new whole set of macros. I used to swap macro lines depending on time of day on NIN, but then I split my macros apart. It gave me more room to have macro palettes devoted to what I am doing.

[Quixotic]

Ctrl+1 = Special occasion (picker for dynamis/pulling) or TP check
Ctrl+2 = Utsu:Ni/Berserk/Souleater
Ctrl+3 = Utsu:Ichi/Warcry/Last Resort
Ctrl+4 = Feint
Ctrl+5 = Steal
Ctrl+6 = Mug
Ctrl+7 = free for whatever
Ctrl+8 = TA only gear
Ctrl+9 = SA only gear
Ctrl+0 = Unstacked WS gear


Alt+1 = Trick Attack
Alt+2 = Sneak Attack
Alt+3 = Assassin Charge
Alt+4 = Hide
Alt+5 = Shark Bite
Alt+6 = Dancing Edge
Alt+7 = Evisceration
Alt+8 = free for whatever
Alt+9 = TP gear (using windower macros, multiple TP gear files in this macro, just // out the ones you don't need at the moment)
Alt+0 = Stacked WS gear (same as TP gear, // out the ones you don't need)

Everything in one macro book and still some space leftover if you need it.

[Slott]

Use windower macros, and never worry about the shit again.

My macro sets are as following:

ctrl
1: utsu ichi
2: ni
3: swaps in my runspeed/th gloves
4: feint
5: sleep bolt / ungur boomerang
6: steal
7: hide
8 bloody bolt / ungur boomerang
9 acid /ungur
10 accomplice

alt:
1: sa ws
2: ta ws
3: sa
4:ta
5: tonko
6: flee
7: dancing edge
8: mercy stroke
9: tp gear
10: ws gear

Windower specific shit:
my sa ws and ta ws macros are set to mercy stroke
hitting alt x changes them to dancing edge
ctrl x (standard) is mercy stroke
ctrl alt x makes then do sharkbite

hitting ctrl u sets me to standard situation of using bolts
hitting alt u changes my standard range attack to use ungur boomerang

ctrl o makes my tp gear use walahra turban
alt o makes it use opt hat
ctrl alt o makes it use denali hat

dancing edge uses a diff ws set than mercy stroke

ctrl q fully gears me incase some move makes me naked, alt q uses shadowstitch for wtf moments. Theres so much more reliability in windower macros and so much more you can do with them :/

I could go on and on, and it already seems like you use windower macros (somewhat), so instead of going on with the pain in the ass of ffxi macros, just make yourself a good set of windower macros. They're infinitely more useful and easier to adapt with (Set it once in text, and either use text in the console or set a button to change it)

For example, my normal set up is skadi legs, xbow, walahra turban
if I type duo it changes me to homam legs, ungur boomerang and denali hat
then when I hit my tp gear macro, it automatically has my hat as either denali walahra, pants as skadi/homam depending on what was last typed into console (and has my normal set up as the default)

[Phraust]

Are you using windower?

My Thief layout was settup for my hand positioning:

Ctrl: [pull] [TA+Gear] [SA+Gear] [Accomplice(stpc)] [Utsusemi Toggle] [map] [Flee+gear] [Steal+gear] [Claim] [SA+TA+Gear]

Alt:[Hide] [Evis+gear] [DE+gear] [SB+gear] [TP report] [Defensive gear] [free] [free] [Damage gear*] [TP gear]

Delete: Claim
Ctrl+Delete: Feint
End: Assassin's Charge.
Pg_up: Utsu: Ichi
Pg_Dwn: Utsu: Ni

That's pretty basic, all my jobs use kinda the same format, which makes changing jobs easy and efficient:

Ctrl: pull, Primary Job ability 1 - 4, secondary job abilities 1 - 5.
Alt: little used job ability or weaponskill, main weaponskills 1-3, TP report, Defensive action, Defensive gear, Alt Gear, Attack Gear, TP gear.

Insert: Ventrillo
Delete: Super important macro
Ctrl+Delete: Other Super important macro
Alt+Delete: 2 hour (akward hand combonation)
Home: Luxury toggle (like popping in Strider boots)
End: Important macro 3
Ctrl+End: rarely used
Pg_up & Dwn: Ustsusemi exclusively.

Setting the Ctrl 2-4 to Job abilities and Alt 2-4 to WS leaves your settup to cascade into Weaponskills. Like I can plant my thumb on Ctrl, arm TA, then SA, curl my thumb to Alt and go without moving my hand.

I found most of my mistakes were coming from an overly complicated settup, now I group my macros based on "in battle" and "out", and basically play the game almost exclusively with my right hand. Using a Gaming Keypad on my left for movement.

Idk if any of this helps you out, but if you use windower I could give you a more elaborate explaination on how to settup your macros so you can switch between Job/Subjob/weapon combinations easily and quickly. Or you can check out Windower.net's forums for tips, there's a really good pluggin called "Spellcast" that basically does all the grunt work for you, and you don't even need macros to do it. (You hit Sneak Attack, in a macro, menu, etc, it will load your gear for you and use the job ability seamlessly.) It's a little complicated to get settup (I personally can't figure it all out, and don't use it) but for a lot of people it works great.) but once you do, your game is more about playing then failed macros and SE's shortcomings on thier interface.

Again, if you got anymore questions just send me a PM, I lag though on replying sometimes.

[sleekmotorwurkz]

I have all my gearswaps in windower macros, but thats pretty much it. I havent really played with keybinds because I play with a controller (Ok so i started on ps2 ) so sometimes I like to just kick back in my chair and not have to use the keyboard. LOL@ Ctrl+2 = Utsu:Ni/Berserk/Souleater, Ctrl+3 = Utsu:Ichi/Warcry/Last Resort idea those are the EXACT macros I have right now, but I figured since I have the different books, now I have enough space to seperate them so I can throw in stuff like stun in my thf/drk macro set. I kind of like the keybind to swap weaponskills though, typically I will only be using one of the 3, so if i could have a bind to switch my SA, TA, SATA macros all to that WS, that might help a bit. I would be kind of hesitant to use a lot of binds because 1. I will probably forget what each one does, and 2. like I said sometimes I like to kick back and just use my controller. I would be very open to keybinds in the situations where I know I will be at my keyboard (times when I need to be on my A game, or typing a lot) or if I just have to hit the bind once per situation. Example I know im going to faf, so i can hit a bind to change my macros to Shark Bite, I know im going to aspid so my macros will be going to evisceration, going to xp so I know I will always be using dancing edge. Great stuff so far everyone thanks hope to see lots more thiefy macros!

[Phraust]

You can set Alias's if you want to use your Controller, and technically it's what I do so I can easily swap between macro sets.

Just name your alias's something like WeaponSkill1, JobAbility1, or Litterally SnaekAttack, Evisceration, etc... and in your macros in game, just do a "//WeaponSkill1" and it should call the requested macro; basically using the in game macro system to interface with the Windower system. Personally I like binding the keys Directly for one reason and one reason only: SE's interface fucking lags! Binding Keys direct bypasses SE's laggy bullshit interface and directly forces the calls.

On a side note, I never could stand the whole Binding all your functions onto one macro, like SA+TA+WS. Those always fail like 10% of the time, especially in high lag situations. (Not just me, from observation as well).

[shihei]

ctrl;{pull}{SA}{TA}{AC}{DE}{SB}{EVI}{HIDE}{WALKING }{2HR}
alt;{utsuni}{uichi}{haste}{acc}{dex/ws}{Feint}{Accomplice(love it plz)}{mug}{steal}{flee}

have my macro sets in Thief book set up like so, with some having gear swaps in a particular WS macro on 1 set but the /ws trigger in another set so I'm sure my specific WS gear is on before i use^^ so i dont have to make 3 diff gear sets for 3 diff WS either.

works for me !

[Zoot]

Palette 1 TP/Merit

CTRL [Flee] [DE Equip] [DE] [DEX Solo Equip] [SA] [TA Solo equip] [TA] [Assassin's Charge][Feint][Pull Macro + RA Equip]

SA and TA solo equip no Hecatomb

ALT [/Assist] [Ni and Haste Equip (Rapp Harness)] [Ichi and Haste Equip][TP Merit Equip] [Run Equip - De equips dusk, equips Striders] [SB Equip] [SB] [Accomplice Stpc] [Hide]

Palette 2 /DRK

CTRL Same

ALT [/Assist] [Souleater] [Last Resort][TP DRK Equip (Usually abit more Acc as I use this on mostly for HNM)] [Run Equip - De equips dusk, equips Striders] [SB Equip] [SB] [Accomplice Stpc] [Souleater Gear (Full Attack)]

Palette 3 /WAR

CTRL Same

ALT [/Assist] [Berserk] [Warcry][TP WAR Equip] [Run Equip - De equips dusk, equips Striders] [SB Equip] [SB] [Accomplice Stpc] [Provoke Stnpc]

Working on:

THF/BLM Dynamis Palette
THF/SAM (lol level 7 SAM for BCs/Some HNM

For my armlets, in my TP gear I keep Armlets outside of my windoer macro set. That way, pressing the button twice will equip or de-equip my armlets or my dusk gloves.

For instance:
/console exec "THF/TP.txt"
/equip Hands "Assassin's Armlets"
/echo [Merit TP]

[sleekmotorwurkz]

For my armlets, in my TP gear I keep Armlets outside of my windoer macro set. That way, pressing the button twice will equip or de-equip my armlets or my dusk gloves.

For instance:
/console exec "THF/TP.txt"
/equip Hands "Assassin's Armlets"
/echo [Merit TP]

I dont understand how this works, no matter how many times you hit the macro wouldnt you end up with the armlets on?

Ctrl: [pull] [TA+Gear] [SA+Gear] [Accomplice(stpc)] [Utsusemi Toggle] [map] [Flee+gear] [Steal+gear] [Claim] [SA+TA+Gear]
Alt:[Hide] [Evis+gear] [DE+gear] [SB+gear] [TP report] [Defensive gear] [free] [free] [Damage gear*] [TP gear]

I really like the idea of having gearswap+ability in the same macro. I was racking my brain for any situations where gearswaps + doing sa or ta or both in 1 macro would cause a problem but I really cant think of any. Also when you say [Evis+gear] [DE+gear] [SB+gear] does that mean you do the weaponskill and change to your tp gear after? If so it might seem somewhat cumbersome if you wanna do a SA-WS, followed by a TA you would go from TP gear -> SA gear -> TP Gear -> TA gear -> TP gear in a matter of 4-5 seconds.

my sa ws and ta ws macros are set to mercy stroke
hitting alt x changes them to dancing edge
ctrl x (standard) is mercy stroke
ctrl alt x makes then do sharkbite

Id like to use a little bit of this with some of the other ideas I have, I've never used binds or aliases, how would I go about doing this? (If its not too much trouble to explain)

Thanks again everyone for some great ideas
*edit, just looked on windower forums and found a guide to alias and bind, but not sure how you could get it so hitting altx, or ctrlx would change your macro.

[Zoot]

Hmm, not for me. I press it twice and get my dusk gloves, once and it equips armlets. Or I switch the positions and hit it once for dusk and twice for Assassin's. I also put the echo between the execution file and the manual swap, but it works for me. When I merit, I just leave the armlets in my mog.

I hate having gear and JA's or WS's in the same macro, mostly because lag can cause some of your items to not be equipped, or SA or WS to go off before it is, and I hate one second waits on things I want to go off immediatly (especially in dynamis when I don't even want to do too many macro swaps because of lag). If you don't have multiple lines of code in the same macro then smashing them more than once to ensure they go off is really the best way (as having just one line won't spam your chatlog) to ensure they off at the right time with the right gear. I'm sure that windower macros have alot less lag in them, but I've been doing it this way since I was 40 THF so it's kind of a habit. This also helps when I solo and want to shoot off my DE without SA or TA but with Charge, and I absolutely hate getting chatlog error messages.

However, I do find there are certain times on HNM where I want to hit off SA+TA+WS and hitting 2,5,7,9 and 3 is rather cumbersome. To each his own I guess lol. Perhaps I'll make an HNM onry palette just for that.

[Phraust]

kk what I do is the following:

1) Map the key to an alias in a file: keymap.txt

in that file it basically looks like this:

bind ^1 C01;
bind ^2 C02;
bind !1 A01;
etc....

C01, C02, A01... are all Alias's that havent been made just yet, they are just plac e holders at this time.

2) Then i make a config file: cfg.txt
that alias's jobs:

alias thfnin exec thfnin.txt;
alias sam exec samwar.txt;
etc...

this allows me to type "//thfnin" and it pops in my thfnin macros/gear/etc.

3) Then I have to make the thfnin file, Remember those alias's?:

alias C01 exec pull.txt;
alias C02 exec trick.txt;
[...]
alias A03 exec wsde.txt;
alias A04 exec wssb.txt;

4) Then each of those files are made, exaple: wssb.txt looks like this:

exec wsgear.txt;
pause 0.1;
input /ws "Sahark Bite" <t>;
pause 8.0;
exec tpgear.txt;

5) THEN you need to make your gear files: wsgear.txt

//row II
input /equip head ____;
input /equip neck____;
etc...

basically what that does, is it maps your Control+4 to swap in your gear, execute the weaponskill Shark Bite, then swap in your TP gear after. (waitign 8 seconds so the skillchain actually shows up on parsers)

The structure of my Macro sets is a little more complicated, using a file tree. (You can do that in windower) but that should give you a basic idea. Personally I organize files like this:

Scrips
keymap.txt
cfg.txt
--job
----subjob
------jobsub.txt
------equip
--------tp, ws, ja, spell equiptment txt files
------macro
--------ws, ja, spell macro txt files

So in short my wssb.txt actually looks more like this:

exec THF/nin/equip/ws.txt;
pause 0.1;
input /ws "Shark Bite" <t>;
pause 7.8;
exec THF/nin/equip/home.txt;

I hope that wasn't too confusing.
There's still shit I left out like how to initialize the txt files ad stuff, putting an alias in your init.txt file to call your cfg file and such. I do things reletively comlicated, but it works. the only issues I run into, is when I get new gear and need to change like 12 txt files in the equip directories. but that's pretty rare these days.

[Phraust]

Hmm, not for me. I press it twice and get my dusk gloves, once and it equips armlets. Or I switch the positions and hit it once for dusk and twice for Assassin's. I also put the echo between the execution file and the manual swap, but it works for me. When I merit, I just leave the armlets in my mog.

You can make toggles too:

TPGear.txt:

[...]
input /equip hands "Asn. Armlets +1";
input /equip hands "Homam Manolpolas";
[...]

is good for the following:

Since Homam are called last, they are the piece that will remain. so if you leave em in your MH for a "TH outting" it ignores that and leaves your Assassin's Armlets in priority.

If you do take em both out, when you hit the macro, it will load the Homam, but if you hit the macro again, it will load your Assassin's Armlets. toggleing back and forth between the two. It's good if you only do it to 1 or 2 slots, but anything more than that and you end up wiht wierd gear combos that conflict with other macros, like if your WS gear doesn't change your feet and you go back to your TPGear.txt that does change feet you mix up your gear. That's why i leave a hard coded home.txt in Alt+0, it' zero's out my gear for any and all macros that have toggles in them.

Edited for clarity

[sleekmotorwurkz]

Wow thats pretty awesome, so in reality I could just put //C01 in my FFXI macros, and it would execute the same way as if I pressed Ctrl-1. That way I can access it from my controller yes? Thats a pretty impressive breakdown, I guess all this time I have been taking binds and aliases for God its gonna take me forever to rewrite all these macros but once im done it looks like it will be well worth it. Thanks for the "beginners guide to awesome macros" this definitely seems like the best way to set everything up!

[Phraust]

No problem lol.

If you got any more questions just PM me.