Trouble with Self skill chain

[Losrase]

I been farming easy prey to decent for drops recently and for some reason about 1/3 of the time I would miss a skill chain. I dont mean miss as not hitting with either the WS or CA+ BLU spell. I mean both WS and CA +BLU spell hit but I dont see/hear the animation and see the damage in the log.

The one I was using was Savage Blade -> CA + Dissmemberment

My macros are:

Macro1: CABA

/ja "Chain Affinity" <me>
/wait
/ja "Burst Affinity" <me>
/equip Hands "Pallas Bracelets"
/equip Body "Magus <something>"

Macro2: Distorion
/ws "Savage Blade" <t>
/wait 4
/ma "Dissmemberment" <t>
/wait 3
/equip Hands "Cobra Unit <something>"
/equip Body "Scorpion Harness"

I even change the wait time between the WS and the BLU spell to /wait 5 but I still have the same results. Any help would be appreciated.

[hexx]

Re: Trouble with Self skill chain

Its a possibility its because you are macroing gear in and out. The same thing tends to happen to me on my samurai when I self skill chain as well.

[Draconi]

Re: Trouble with Self skill chain

I do /equips at the end of my macros as well, and it has not caused me any problems. However, I use only a 1 second wait after casting before equipping. You don't need 3 seconds. It's possible that you're still equipping then the skillchain is supposed to go off, so change the 3 seconds to 1 second.

Also, perhaps your time is being affected by haste (refueling). I have noticed a few times that I had macros that would hit the skillchain with haste, but not without (or vise-versa), and after playing with the timing I found a /wait that worked with or without haste.

[Frobeus]

Re: Trouble with Self skill chain

It is w/o a doubt your gear swaps. When ever your character blinks when the SC animation would currently be going off it causes it to not display. The SC still happens, ie the mob takes the bonus damage and correct spells would still burst, but you just won't see the animation or see any record of it in the log.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Trouble with Self skill chain

or see any record of it in the log.

I am pretty sure that this part is false.

[Electricity Gone Human]

Re: Trouble with Self skill chain

It is w/o a doubt your gear swaps. When ever your character blinks when the SC animation would currently be going off it causes it to not display. The SC still happens, ie the mob takes the bonus damage and correct spells would still burst, but you just won't see the animation or see any record of it in the log.

^this. I agree that it's uber annoying, especially when I like to see how much I do on closing a skillchain. I have separate TP Gear and WS Gear macros for this purpose, as well as saves me a degree of macro troubles. However, this sort of macro for my Savage Blade macro is sort of an exception:

/equip neck "Thunder Gorget"
/ws "Savage Blade" <t>
/wait 4
/equip neck "Chivalrous Chain"
/ma "Disseverment" <t>

It's basically swapping in my neck piece before the WS and Spell go off.

[Taskmage]

Re: Trouble with Self skill chain

I am pretty sure that this part is false.

No, that's correct. If the animation gets skipped or aborted there won't be any log output.

[Losrase]

Re: Trouble with Self skill chain

I do /equips at the end of my macros as well, and it has not caused me any problems. However, I use only a 1 second wait after casting before equipping. You don't need 3 seconds. It's possible that you're still equipping then the skillchain is supposed to go off, so change the 3 seconds to 1 second.

Also, perhaps your time is being affected by haste (refueling). I have noticed a few times that I had macros that would hit the skillchain with haste, but not without (or vise-versa), and after playing with the timing I found a /wait that worked with or without haste.

Do I only need to be wearing the gear when I start casting the spell or do I have to keep the gear equip until the spell is complete?

[Armando]

Re: Trouble with Self skill chain

What Taskmage said. Remember that our log is stupid and tied to the animation of whatever it's reporting. Messages don't show up 'til the animation is finished.

It's kind of weird that you can skip animations for some things and have them still show up on the log (a lot faster than if you had let the animation happen to boot) yet SCs won't report when the animation vanishes, but that's just how it is. It's like with enspells. Blink out when you hit and your enspell damage won't show up.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Trouble with Self skill chain

It's like with enspells. Blink out when you hit and your enspell damage won't show up.

Actually, this might explain something that has been worrying me for a while now . . . when I weaponskill right before I'm about to perform a regular melee attack with an Enspell active, I see the weaponskill, and hear my Tarutaru cry out as if he was doing a regular attack, but I never see the attack itself. The damage from the regular attack shows up in the log, but the enspell damage does not. And here I was fretting about performing my weaponskills immediately after a normal attack, particularly with Daggers . . .

[Losrase]

Re: Trouble with Self skill chain

Sooo...Do I only need to be wearing the gear when I start casting the spell or do I have to keep the gear equip until the spell is complete?

In my macro the /wait 3 is waiting for the spell to complete.

[Ellipses]

Re: Trouble with Self skill chain

The gear needs to be equipped the moment the spell casts. Not when you start casting, not when the progress bar disappears and/or the animation ends.

[Draconi]

Re: Trouble with Self skill chain

The gear needs to be equipped the moment the spell casts. Not when you start casting, not when the progress bar disappears and/or the animation ends.

This is not correct, unless for some reason BLU is different than every other job. On my RDM, I do alot of equips immediately after the spell starts casting (but before it ends), and it's very obvious that the equip affects the spell. The gear needs to be equipped when the spell ends. There are many many threads on this in the ffxiclopedia RDM forums.

The only drawback in putting the equip lines before the /ma line is that you will usually not see your character's casting animation. If you don't mind that, then by all means do it that way.

[Ellipses]

Re: Trouble with Self skill chain

This is not correct, unless for some reason BLU is different than every other job. On my RDM, I do alot of equips immediately after the spell starts casting (but before it ends), and it's very obvious that the equip affects the spell.

If you change the equip when you start casting the spell, it's equipped the moment the spell is cast, correct?

[Draconi]

Re: Trouble with Self skill chain

If you change the equip when you start casting the spell, it's equipped the moment the spell is cast, correct?

I guess I was confused by your definition of "when the spell is cast". I thought you meant when you start casting. Sorry.

To clarify things, either of the following two macro scenarios will work:

/ma "spell" <t>
/equip xxxx
/equip xxxx
/equip xxxx


or

/equip xxxx
/equip xxxx
/equip xxxx
/ma "spell" <t>


But this scenario won't work:

/ma "spell" <t>
/wait 4
/equip xxxx
/equip xxxx
/equip xxxx