Gear post 72

[arkaine23]

Re: Gear post 72

QUOTE:

"I have to bargain for efficacy in my spell macros, leaving out body armor and utilizing only accessories, such neckwear, rings, and staves.

Does anyone know the third-party program that allows me to use more than six macro lines?"


One of the most wonderful things I've discovered is windower 3.2.1. This tool is great for PC gamers as you can access other programs in the background on your computer by alt + tab without craching POL. Not only that but you can make macors with windoer and bind them to keys on your keyboard... thus having additional macros without using up extra macro pallettes. Not only that but these macros do not have a limit on the number of lines you can use or the max duration of a /wait. I still prefer to use the normal macro buttons + a few extras (ctrl + f1 - f10). I can call my windower macros inside a regular ffxi macro, and I do this for gear swaps.

So I may have for example 6 gear swap macros for rdm stored in windower per lvl cap. say my lvl 70 macros set, my lvl 40 cap macro set, my lvl 40 sub ninja set, etc. These sets being- nuke gear, restmp gear, attack gear, mind enfeeble gear, int enfeeble gear, dark magic gear, and convert gear. In these sets I might swap out 8-15 items let's say... about everything bu the main weapon and sub... (which I still prefer to do as part of the ffxi macro).

ex: ffxi macro Paralyze

/ma Paralyze <stnpc>
/recast Paralyze
/equip main "Ice staff"
/console exec mind-enfeeble.txt

And my mind-enfeeble.txt file might look like this:

input /equip head "Elite Beret"
input /equip body "Warlock's Tabard";
input /equip legs "Errant Slops";
input /equip feet "Erranht Pigaches"
input /equip ring1 "Solace Ring";
input /equip ring2 "Solace Ring";
input /equip ear1 "Enfeebling Earring";
input /equip ear2 "Harvest Earring"
input /equip ammo "Phantom Talthum +1"
input /equip waist "Penitent's Rope"
input /equip back "Rainbow Cape"
input /equip neck "Enfeebling Torque"


Let me tell you... this keeps macroing very simple and saves yourself a ton of time. I might make a couple of variations on the mind-enfeeble.txt file to give more mind + and less skill +, and all I have to do is edit my ffxi paralyze macro's last line to a different file name. Also since only the main weapon is equip-swapped in the standard way, altering the macro on the fly is easy. And if I get new gear, I alter the .txt file once for however many of my regular macros might be using it.

For the spells/job abilities I want but don't have room to macro one one pallete, I can use CTRL + the Fkeys and setup keybindings with windower. So maybe there's no room for blink, phalanx, and stoneskin, but I can make them be a key combination pretty easily.




Before discovering this, I may have had macros to swap some general gear for say a mind-based spell, and then have the spell macro itself swap more specific gear, like skill +. So I'd be pressing two macros to change maybe 4-9 pieces of equip and cast a spell... assuming I got it planned out well when I made the macros that is.

While you might argue this gives an advantage (being able to swap every equipment slot), I'll point out that many high level rdm's might be pressing 2 or even 3 macros to fire a single spell (in order to do the same thing). And the main limiting factor is present: the maximium number of inventory slots for toting around gear. I still can't haul every [ossible slot's worth of attack gear, tank gear, eva gear, mind gear, int gear, dark magic gear, mp gear, rest hmp+ gear, etc in just 60 slots. So while my macros might look like they change 12 things at once, its usually only 3-8 items bc some of the stuff I might already be wearing from the last macro I used....


However, I thought that this does bear mentioning as its just way more convenient and organized IMO. It is especially useful for equip-swapping jobs like black mage and red mage. Although melee could make use of a full swap, tp-gain-accuracy set, damage set, ws-sets, and maybe the oh_crap_Im_not_the_tank set.

[WishMaster3K]

Re: Gear post 72

I may have had macros to swap some general gear for say a mind-based spell, and then have the spell macro itself swap more specific gear, like skill +. So I'd be pressing two macros to change maybe 4-9 pieces of equip and cast a spell...

Used to do that as well, and I agree, it sucks.

and maybe the oh_crap_Im_not_the_tank set.

ROFL, I have macros like that as a NIN, except they're referred to as STR and EVA gear

Unfortunately, I'm a bit conflicted with using the programs that make macro switching not as painful as usual. On one hand, I'm all for it- RDMs getting the MAX they can out of their spell casting, because a spell lost is MP wasted and a potential problem if not rectified as soon as possible- Especially against Gods, or in a tight-exp situation where you need to finish that crucial paralyze, have it land and start curing.

But then, on the other, since I have not had it, I have learned to do without. This is where knowledge of gear comes into play. It's not enough to have the best gear available, you have to know when to use it.

I've learned to mix and match errant, AF and JSE gear for the best effects at a given moment.

Due to lack of macro space, I usually leave my AF Head, JSE pants, Errant Feet and Errant Hand on.

For a while, I had a Nuking Macro that switched me to focus on Skill and Acc (IE, JSE Head, body, legs and such) then the actual spell macro, which included the stave and rings and such. It wasn't that hard to get accomidated to, especially after plinking out the same macros for 75 levels.

However, I did notice that the majority of the time I would forget to hit my Nuking macro before the spell macro, and I just got rid of it.

The macros I have for switching gear now are HP(for converting, I have to do:
/equip l.ring
/equip r.ring

to take OFF Electrums, because my MP is SOOO much higher than my HP now, due to Errant ), and MP(Just my /h macro)

With my limited resources, I've found that the best way to use gear is to just leave the AF head on. Fast Cast helps us get that MB in early, the recast on refresh is lowered and we can finish our enfeeble/healing earlier than w/o. Although the JSE head is better for Enfeebles, I feel that the AF head is better, overall. Maybe for Sky, or events where there are other healers, and the RDMs need to instead focus on landing their spells. . .but otherwise, Feather FTW ^^

Between AF Body, Errant and JSE, JSE wins on nukes, AF hands down for Enfeebling, and Errant for resting, Stoneskin and Healing. I thought I'd use the Errant for nuking, then I saved up and got the JSE, so I hardly use it, except to /h, but even that's useful

AF Legs are useless exp. Wooo, +3 MND. I get +& MND and INT from Errant legs, lol. But since Accuracy is landing the spell and INT and MND are potency, and I am nowhere NEAR cap, I stick with JSE for now. Errants could be used for Healing, possibly, but not worth macroing out for heals alone when that would require another slot

Errant Hands are +5 INT and Errant Feet are +5MND
JSE Hands are +5MND and JSE Feet are +5INT

I do not have JSE hands or feet, so I leave my Errant on. I imagine that I will look into using the endless Macro functionallity of windower when I get a laptop with a graphics card that can handle it -.-, but until then, I make do with what I have

Double Post Edited:
Oh yes, and welcome to Dreams in Vana'diel, arkaine ^^ I hope you come to appreciate the opinions of the many personalities you come across, and that you enjoy the community here. You seem fairly high level already, but even I am still learning new things all the time, so I have no doubt you'll see many things on our boards that you won't find anywhere else

And don't mind my sarcasm, when you see it. I'm usually just very bitter >.>