I Need Some Help From BLMs.

--Totally serious thread for once--
I'm currently LV51 BLM (Staves <3) and cannot, for the life of me, figure out a good way to organize macros. Any BLMs out there care to give me a few tips? Not talking gear or anything. I can do that. I just don't see a logical way to organize macros.

I have my macros set like this:

Ctrl 1-9 are Gear swaps, change staves, etc.

I use full nuking gear + respective stave.
My Light staff macro uses MND+ instead of anything else.
My Dark Staff macro adds in a full set of Dark Magic gear. (Torque, AF Legs, INT+, etc).
I also have Black Cloak on a macro.

Ctrl + 0 functions as my "Recast Macro" where I keep my 6 most important spells: Sleep, Sleepga, Bind, Grav, Aspir, Drain (Could add Stun in aswell if you use Windower and don't rely on Recast plugin).

Alt+ 1-5 macro in my "live or die" spells, Stun, Sleep, Bind, Sleepga, Gravity. These macro full Enfeeb+ and their respective staves (along with spells obviously XD).

Alt+ 7-9 are Dark Arts, Parsimony and Alacrity for the times when I'm playing /SCH.

Alt+0 houses my Elemental Seal macro.

NinjaEdit: I select all spells from list other than the aforementioned 5 and just hit the appropriate Stave macro.

See, I had something like that in mind, but after thinking about it a bit, I realized casting nukes takes so long that you can actually manually equip the staves and save yourself 6 macro spaces. Then I started thinking too hard about it and got confused.

I just go down the list of elements.
So when i had all AMs I put them in order weakest to strongest then filled in the rest with the strongest i had available at the time for alt

ctrl: enfeebs buffs drain aspire stun and a HMP resting 1

The way I did it was have one macro, alt 8, be the macro for all my nuking gear. Basically, it's like "go back to default" for me.

I had my alt1-alt6 as the highest tier nukes of each element and had ctrl1-6 as one of each elemental spell (ie, for a while I used the AM's alot so they would be my AM macros).

I had each dark spell have each piece of dark gear macrod in since I had very few, and I would just hit those at will; I would also pretty much just hit the alt-8 macro before each nuke to get back to normal nuking gear.

Lastly, I just had one macro for HMP. Rather easy.

Using SE macros only or you can use windower ? As for not macro'ing staves for nuke, yeah you can do this, but be sure to have a macro for your idle set, meaning earth staff macro'ed. You don't want to keep your ice staff or whatever you used to cast your last spell on you :p 20% damage reduction will save your life :)



I plead Guilty :[

Cheater!!!!

As a mage of sorts I have a tendency to organize spells in palettes based on the magic skill type; elemental (divided between alt & ctrl through either lower/higher tiers, magic acc/mab gear, or AOE/Single target), enfeebling (divided by school of magic (white/black)), healing and enhancing typically fit in one palette, especially as BLM if you want to even bother.

I also throw job abilities, MP reports, resting macros on the edges if there is any room available for quick access. As a BLM I'd imagine it would be a good idea to sort your nukes between heavy hitting all out damage/mab power and one leaning more twords magic accuracy if you have the gear available to you. Hope this helps.

PS: Don't forget to have a panic button or two including: Warp, D2, Escape, Retrace...

Personally I am a macro intensive blm. For every spell I expect to use, I have a macro that equips the necessary gear then casts the spell. This ends up being 4 rows of macros for me, which I'm sure would be confusing for many people, but I've done this since the beginning so I am used to it.
First row of controls is my most used nukes.
Second row of controls is choke, burn, etc (which I use a lot to make life better for the melee) along with other DoTs
4 spaces on BOTH alt rows are reserved for 1)drain 2)aspir 3)resting gear and 4)general battle gear because I love drain and aspir and I like to fit in a rest whenever I can as quick as I can
The rest of my first alt row is for the Oh crap! macros: stun, cure, gravity, bind, sleep, warp
The rest of my second alt row is for enfeebs: sil, slow,blind etc
Elem seal and other personal needs are just fit in where ever my leftover space is,... somewhere in there.
With this setup I generally start battle on the second rows laying down DoTs and enfeebs so i don't get too much hate, and so i get the full duration out of these spells, then I move on to the first rows to lay down the heavy damage, by which time the tank will have decent hate on him.
That is the mayhem of my macros.

Yea blm has the most macros of all my jobs >.> 75BLM macros (left to right on macro plates)NOTE:ADD IN AS YOU LVL UP AND GET THE SPELLS AVAIL, I also use "ice" on the macro plates vs "blizzard" just to long for macros names but of course when making the macro itself use "blizzard" >.>
Crtl.1=Pro/shell combo, cure2,cure3, curaga2,erase,(blank-slot),invis,sneak,(blank-slot),reraise
Alt.1=silena, poisona ,blindna, paralyna,(blank-spot)slow, bio2, blind, silence,paralyze.(this line used mostly if /whm)
Crtl.2=fire2, ice2, aero2, water2, thunder2, stone2,(blank-spot),(blank-spot),gravity, bind (used if /rdm)
Alt.2=firaga2, icega2, aeroga2, waterga2, thundaga2, stonega2,(last 4 plates blank-spots)
Crtl.3=fire3, ice3, aero3, water3, thunder3, stone3,(blank-spot),blank-spot),sleep, sleep2
Alt.3=firaga3, icega3, aeroga3, waterga3, thundaga3, stonega3,(blank-spot) (blank-spot),sleepga, sleepga2
Crtl.4=fire4, ice4, aero4, water4, thunder4, stone4,(blank-spot), STUN, drain, aspir
Alt.4=all blank not used
Crtl.5=flare, freeze2, tornado, flood, burst2, quake, (blank-spot), stoneskin/blink combo, resting macro, nuke gear macro (before merits freeze2/burst2 was just the normal teirs)
the rest I dont use. I have it set up this way because if you notice each teir of magic is scroll up and down to find is easier for me to choose the teir lvls of each spell. Maybe this will help you out some XD

SMN has the most macros for my jobs, all 200 in book 5. But for BLM, my CTRL set is all elemental nukes, my ALT is buffs, debuffs and enfeebs, with CTRL 0 and ALT 0 being idle and resting, respectively. I play on a PS3, which doesn't allow for windower macro slots, I run with SE's 6 slots, and its a pain to try to put all the gear swaps in each macro per spell. Tinker with it, find your happy medium.

EDIT: instead of putting spell names for my macro title, i usually put the first letter and then the MP costs, such as T170 for Thunder IV costing 170 MP. It gives me a quick reference to guide myself on MP usage. I've pretty much have most of my MP costs memorized, but for newer BLMs or in times of brain farts, it can be helpful.

So yeah, i admit to using Windower before anything else here:
I use the basic Alias system to use different spells from the same macro.
CTR1 Resting Set
CTR2 Stoneskin
CTR3 Sublimation
CTR4 Penury
CTR5
CTR6 Bind
CTR7 Gravity
CTR8 Stun
CTR9 Dispel
CTR0 Sleepga II

ALT1 Tier3
ALT2 Tier4
ALT3 AM2
ALT4 Blizzard
ALT5 Thunder
ALT6 Fire > Wind > Water > Earth
ALT7
ALT8 Drain
ALT9 Aspir
ALT0 Sleep II

Alt1/2/3:
--Equip Gear set
--Equip Element set
--Cast spell
----//blm.t3

Alt 4/5:
--define spell alias
----alias blm.t3 input /ma "Blizzard III" <t>
--define element alias
----alias blm.obi input /equip waist "Hyorin Obi"
----alias blm.staff input /equip main "Aquillo's Staff"
--define Alt 6 to be Fire

Alt 6:
--on fire define wind
----alias blm.rotary exec *filepath*/wind.txt
--on wind define water
--on water define earth
--on earth define fire

ALT-Pageup Gear set Matk
ALT-Pagedown Gear set Elemental
CTR-Pageup equip elemental Obi
CTR-Pageodwn equip Int nuking belt
CTR-Home equip 5/5 yigit

I use windower. This is how I have my macros laid out:

CTRL 1Water 2Thunder 3Stone 4Aero 5Blizzard 6Fire 7Drain 8Aspir 9Stun 0Sleepga2
__________________________________________________________________
ALT 1n/a 2Gravity 3Bind 4Burst2 5Freeze2 6n/a 7Blink/Stoneskin 8HPDown 9Idle 0HMP

Each spell has an associated gearswap windower macro behind. Any other spells I need is a quick: /ma "spellname" <t> I type ~100wpm so its not an issue.

have yet to see anyone suggest using /macro macro's.. How i used to have smn macro set.

alt1-5 equips a nuking setup for the respective element(eg alt1 being thunder, equip thunder nuking gear and so forth)
alt6-0 for various "all purpose" things like stun, resting, stuns and such. each alt button equips the gear and takes you to the CTRL macro set which contains the spells used by that particual element. then at the higher end of the ctrl set has more "emergancy" stun,sleep macros and at the end of each line has a macro to take you back to the original #1.

Persoanlly I found while leveling i used very few macros.

EG, the leech camp in gustav tunnel i had the following macroed 1 attacking spell and a few defensive:
*Freeze
*Stun
*Sleep
*Sleep II
*Sleepga (II)

EG 2, the Vunkerl Inlet (S) same deal:
*Blizz III
*Areoga III
*Stun
*Sleep
*Sleep II
*Sleepga (II)

I use Spellcast, so all my gear swops are done their, so I only need 1 line/spell.

Gravity and bind are bound to keyboard keys (so dont need to macro them)

I found my self re-writing my macros every time i changed camp, and some times as i level up (at the same camp). limiting the number of macros you have will make you less likely to make mistakes. (in my experience)

Once you ding 75 it gets a little more complicated. I have a meriting set:
Blizz 4
Thunder 4
Blizz 3
Thnder 3
Gravity
Stun
Aspir
Drain
ES
Bio II

I have another set for each event I do, so a dynamis one with lots of sleeps and Tier IIIs etc. But i wont list all them

Edit

Forgot to mention layout. I use
http://www.x-keys.com/xkeys/xkdesk.php
each of the buttons are assigned to a Ctrl+# or Alt+#

My meriting set
Top row
Gravity -> Drain -> Aspir -> Stun
Second row
Bliz 3 -> Thund 3 -> Blizz 4 -> Thund 4
Third row
ES -> Bio II

My normal pudding kill is:
Thunder 4
Gravity
Stun (if required)
Bliiz 4
Aspir
Thunder 4
Drain/Blizz 3/Thunder 3 (depending on HP)

So there is a nice flow to the order in which i press the buttons.

I have 1 "row" of macros for every subjob and event I'm doing (i.e. if I'm in a LS event, I have my elemental+ gear macro'd for just for those, unless its farming, which I have my merit (meaning as much damage as possible) gear up, if I'm /whm (I'm 99% /rdm) I have special gears for that sub).

My macros are as follows:

Alt:
Thunder IV
Blizzard IV
Burst II
Freeze II
Gravity
Sleepga II
Sleep II
Drain
Aspir
Stun

Cnt:
Day Thunder (for sea obi)
Day Blizzard (same)
Day Burst (whatcha know)
Day Freeze (who would have guessed it?)
Cure (self only, I rarely use it)
Burn
Stoneskin (meaning SS/Blink/Phalanx all in one, since I only buff up after I have 100% MP, and am still wearing my Errant ***for max MND)
Bind
Latent for Sorc Ring (worthless atm cause I don't have it yet)
Heal (as in /heal with hMP gears on)

As you can tell, all my damage macros are on the left side, and all my defense macros are on the right side.

Enternius, in giving this advice i'm assuming you have windower macros.

In the scripts folder you 'could' have the following files:
blmcast.txt
blmenf.txt
blmdrk.txt
blmheal.txt

In each one you would created the input /equip etc etc and make a gearset. Remember each line has to be terminated with a ; .

Then, as an example of one spell in your palette:

Thunder IV
/ma "Thunder IV" <t>
//exec "blmcast.txt"
/equip main "Jupiter's Staff"
/equip sub "Thunder Grip/Wise Strap"

This way, any spell you cast in your palette will automatically have the correct stave & gearset. I have 'heard' (lol) that this is a very effective way to organise it.

As far as composition of your palette is concerned, I use 2 palettes altogether. The first 2 is what I sit on most of the time:

C2, C3, Stun, Sleep2, Sleepga2, Stoneskin, Blink, Phalanx, Drain, Aspir.

Resting, Grav, Bind, "Idle", Bliz3, Thun3, Bliz4, Thun4, Freeze2, Burst2.

The following 2 are extra spells that are useful to have close to hand, but I don't use so often:

Bio2, Blank, Blank, Sleep, Sleepga, Blank, Burn, Shock, Choke, Blank.

Blank, Blank, Blank, "Idle", Blank, Blank, Blzga3, Thdga3, Blank, Blank.

These are the spells I find most in demand in both meritting and party situations, and also in endgame. Although you're only 51, a similar approach may prove beneficial. But the most useful part by far was the .txt & stave equips.

Sorry for masses of replyness, hope you got something useful out of that.

I'm not a main BLM so all of my gear swaps can fit into one macro since I'm not going crazy getting every little thing for each element (Grips etc.) Anyway My macros are set up by Tiers on different pallettes. Pallette 1-4 are Tier 4-1 and pallette 5 is -ga spells. Added AM2 to Pallette 10 so I can easily switch between that and Tier 4. As far as how they are setup they go:

Ctrl1 - Stone
Ctrl2 - Water
Ctrl3 - Aero
Ctrl4 - Fire
Ctrl5 - Blizz
Ctrl6 - Thunder
Ctrl7 - SS/Blink
Ctrl8 - Random
Ctrl9 - Healing
Ctrl0 - NPC target

Alt1 - Cure 3
Alt2 - Drain
Alt3 - Aspir
Alt4 - Stun
Alt5 - Sleep 2
Alt6 - Grav
Alt7 - Random
Alt8 - Random
Alt9 - Sleepga2
Alt0 - Elemental Seal

That's the basic Template for my macros. Randoms mostly depend on what I am doing/what sub I am using at the time and switch spells in and out. Also have a set for PCC BCNM and KClub.