A lot of players coming from WoW will pretty much be in a state of culture shock when transferring over to EQ2. One of the biggest problems with WoW having such a monster share of the MMO market is that other games suffer greatly when compared to WoW on information. You want to know how to do something in WoW, it's easy to find the information. Want to do something in EQ2? Good luck. Almost all the information is seriously outdated.
In keeping with Noxxy's post to try and smooth over some of the culture shock and hopefully provide some valid, current information, here's my resource for EQ2 and macros.
EQ2's macro system is not as robust as WoW's or Original EQ's. It is very simple, and somewhat limiting, but still enough to get the job done.
Macro Rules -
Macros can call up to 24 actions each. Actions include :
- Spells
- Combat Arts
- Abilities
- Commands
- Equipping items
- Using items
Macros cannot have any form of delay.
There is no wait command.
You cannot call a macro from a macro.
Macros do not auto-upgrade from level to level. They do, however, from grade to grade. That is to say, spells all get new names when you level.
- My fury gets "Minor Elixir" at level 3. It upgrades to "Elixir" at level 10. This is a whole new spell as far as the game is concerned. You will need to edit your macros to use the new spell name.
- My Fury has "Minor Elixir" at level 3. As soon as I get it, it is listed as (Apprentice I). I find a nice sage to make me an upgrade to (Apprentice IV) or (Adept III) or get a book drop to (Adept I) or even (Master I) or I upgrade this spell as a Master II choice. It is still the same spell as far as the game is concerned. You do not need to edit your macros.
Creating a Macro
- Hit "O" to open your "Socials" menu. Select the "Macros" tab.
- Hit "K" to open your "Knowledge Book". Here you will find all actions that your character knows.
Pro Tip - Not everything you learn will go in the "Spells" or "Combat Arts" sections. Some special spells and actions, such as attacks learned from AAs, will end up under your "Abilities" tab.
- Use "Sort" to organize your abilities better.
Attachment 1208- Hit <Click to Edit> in your Socials window to start a new Macro.
- Give your macro a name and select an icon.
Pro Tip - Don't like the icons listed? You can drag an icon directly from your Knowledge book and drop it on the default icon.- Add your actions.
Pro Tip - You can just drag and drop any spell or ability from your Knowledge Book, or item from your inventory, into the Macro Editor. The Macro Interface will automatically fill in the proper step type. You will still need to use the "Add Step" for commands like "follow", "pet attack" and "assist", however.
Attachment 1209
This is where you can end up diverging a bit. So let's look at the macros in a friendly vs. unfriendly setup and break down some of the options.
Friendly Spells
EQ2 has a built-in "Target=" function for certain spells. Mostly any "Friend" targetted spell will have this functionality. That would be direct heals, reactionary buffs, wards or summonable items. Once you drag a spell like this to your Edit Macro Window, a "Target" box will be added. You can either fill in a player's name so it will cast on that target no matter what you target, or you can leave it blank to make it cast on your current target.
Leaving it blank will also allow you to also pass the spell through a hostile target to a friendly target, just like the targettarget conditional in WoW. {Thanks, Noxxy.}
Attachment 1210
Hostile Spells
For spells that don't fall under the Friendly catagory, you will need to use a command line to send them off in the right direction. You'll just be using a simple assist command here. A list of current in-game slash commands, such as emotes, assists and pet commands can be found at The EQ2 Wiki.
- Select Macro Step : Command and click "Add Step".
- Add the appropriate command. In this case an assist.
- If you're a pet class, you can also add an attack command.
- Start dragging your spells in.
- Save your macro by clicking "OK" and drag the icon from your Socials window to a hotbar slot.
Equip/Use
You can also use macros to "Use" items in your bags or Equip items from your bag onto your paperdoll. Some will give you options to tell you where to put them, such as mainhand and offhand weapons. These can be set via a dropdown menu after you drag them from your inventory to your Edit Macro Window.
Attachment 1211
Queueing
EQ2 uses a Queueing system for spells and abilites. When you push a button, the game casts that spell. When you push 2 buttons, the game casts the first button and queues the second button to be cast as soon as your first spell completes casting. When you press 3 buttons, the game casts the first, queues the second and then overwrites the second with the third. This is vital when it comes to macros.
What queueing means in a macro is you push your macro button once, it uses the first spell/ability and queues the last function in the macro.
So let's look at a macro example. Here my spells are set in random order, without regard for cast time or cooldown time.
Pro Tip - This is a bad, bad macro on so many levels.
Attachment 1212
- I hit the button once and wait. Wild Salve casts immediately. Hibernation casts right after it.
- I spam the button, Wild Salve casts. Maybe Hibernation queues and casts. Maybe Nature's Elixir cancels Hibernation and casts next, and Hibernation gets queued again. Perhaps Hibernation goes off next...and on down the list.
Messy and unpredictable, yes?
This is where we need to understand how the macro is trying to work. It will always try to cast the topmost available spell and the bottom spell. Available or not, it will always "Stick" on the bottommost spell and queue to cast when it can, while moving along the line on the upper spells. The macro will never move up the list from the bottom. If the bottommost spell is on cooldown, the macro will queue it for later and go back to the topmost available spell.
Likewise, it will always start at the top of the macro. It can take a ton of spamming to get any of my spells in the middle to go off because Wild Salve has a 1 second cast and a 5 second cooldown. With seizure-inducing button spamming, I can maybe get 3 spells down the list before Wild Salve is off cooldown and the macro casts that again.
A much better way to make this an effective, if not efficient macro, is by putting your longest cooldowns at the top of the macro and your shortest one at the bottom.
Attachment 1213
This way, I can spam away and it will pretty much go through the whole list, top to bottom, using Wild Salve every time it can, without it starting over too soon or skipping spells in the middle.
When boxing, you will also want to take cast times into consideration. While that's not too vital in a normal situation, multi-boxers will want their spells to matchup somewhat otherwise you have one character all the way through a macro full of short-cast spells while the rest are still trying to get through a bunch of long cast spells. I currently break my macros up into debuffs, dots, direct damage, close range and situational. While I try to get all the debuffs into my first macro for all my toons, some debuffs have a very long casttime. In these cases, I'll drop some debuffs into my dots macro for that toon, so they can pick up where they left off while my other toons are moving on through their damage.
Pro Tip - Heroic Opportunities are huge boons to your group, you will want to use them as often as possible. Be sure to drop your various HO starters into your macros so each group member can start different ones back to back.
There is also the option to turn off spell queueing. {Options > Controls > Button Queue > Enable Ability Queue}. This will allow you to create macros that are closer to /castsequence macros, but will still stick to the first available cast order. It just prevents the end spell from ever trying to queue as a secondary cast.
Finally, you will see the option to check "Primary" in all your macro steps. This does not force a spell to be your primary cast. It only selects which spell you want to use as your cooldown marker for the macro button.
