Some folks recently have been asking me, "How do you make a macro to…."

I figured I'd post a short macro introduction for those of you that want to be able to hit a key and fire off two abilities in succession, or to let your party know you're doing something, or mark things, or possibly just annoy your group until they kick you for harassment. So pull up a chair at the Cap'n's table, grab one of the good drinks out of the cabinet, and listen to the ramble.

Macros 101: Macros are not just for t3h 1337. (For you young'uns out there, that was leetspeak, not textspeak. Cap'n Siggy does not use textspeak.)

The first step in creating a user macro is to open up the macro menu. You will find it under System >> User macros. Once you have User Macros opened, you will see a window containing their pre-made macros, and a bunch of numbers to hold your own macros. Click on one of those numbers to begin creating your own macro.

After selecting the number, type a name for your macro in the name field. In our short example, we'll make a macro that's useful for folks that want to mark targets (like tanky types) without having to type it out or do something like, say, right-click on the thing and mark it. Anyway, we will name our macro something like "Mark Target."

Now click on the icon next to the name, and a window will open up containing all of the generic icons they have provided. (Yes, yes, there is a way to use other icons. We'll get to that later. Don't rush Cap'n Siggy.) Choose one of the admittedly sucky generic icons.

Now comes the fun part. In the big block, type /mk attack1
This will mark the target with that lovely little symbol that tanks use to signify that this is the first target to attack. There are lots of other lovely symbols you can use instead of attack1, like circle, square, bind1….

Ok, now you probably want to tell your party something to let them know that's the target to attack. (Ok, maybe you don't. This gets old really quick. But we're going to learn how, since there are times you want to do this, like if you're casting sleep on a target and you want them NOT to attack that target.)

On the next line after your mark target line in the big block, type /p Attack <t>
<t> is a variable. It will be replaced with whatever you have targeted. Other lovely variables you can use are <tt> (target of target), <ft> (focus target), and <r> (the last person to send you a tell.)

If you really want to annoy your group, you can include a sound effect. This will only play in party chat, so don't bother using it otherwise. To do this, at the end of the line include <se.1> (or whichever sound effect number you want.) Please note: If parties get sick of the window getting filled with party chat spam, that goes at least double for sound effects. If you use this, Cap'n Siggy is not responsible for the consequences.

When you're finished, drag your macro to your hotbar. Then, to use it, target something, and click the macro (or hit the hotkey for it, or whatever.) You should have the symbol appear over your target, and the message should be played in party chat.

This message is getting really long, so I shall continue my "Useful macro commands for tanks and dps types" in the next message, and hopefully I can get someone like Ali to chime in with the "Useful macro commands for healers" afterwards.

Macros 101 Part 2: Useful Macro Commands for Tanks and DPS (and maybe Healers, but we really should get a healer to do that bit)

Ok, now that you know the basics about macros, you probably want to know some more useful things, like "How do I make my macro use one of my abilities?" or "How do I make the macro show the icon for that ability?" or "How do I make a macro to use two abilities in a row?"

Macros to Use Abilities

This one is actually very easy. Instead of using /mk, we're going to use /ac "ability name"

For instance, if I'm playing as a warrior, and I want to use my Tomahawk ability, I can make a macro that says /ac "Tomahawk"
If I put it on my hotbar, when I click it, it will use my Tomahawk ability.
Why, you ask, would I want to do that? Well, I can then mark my target and attack it with one key. The macro would then look something like this:

/mk attack1
/p Attack <t>
/ac "Tomahawk"

This would mark the target as the first target to attack, tell the party to attack it, and pull it with Tomahawk, all by using one button click.

Of course, at that point we run into a minor issue - how do I know if I'm in range for Tomahawk (or if my cooldown is down for that ability, or whatever?) There's a nice solution for that - we can change the icon.

Using Ability Icons for Macros

On the top line of the macro, before the /mk, type /micon "Tomahawk"
You are now using the icon for the Tomahawk ability, which means that you will be able to see when you're in range, just like you would with the regular ability. This is especially helpful with abilities that have cooldowns, particularly if you don't want annoying error messages to pop up when you try to use them.

Using Macros to Chain Abilities

This can be useful, but if you have latency, you're going to have to play around with the numbers until it works. If you have two (or more) abilities you should always use together, you can make a macro to use one after the other. Warning: use with caution.

Say I always want to use Bloodbath before I cast Inner Beast. (Yes, I know due to gcd this is not always possible. It's just an example.) I can, in fact, use two abilities in a row on the same icon by typing:

/ac "Bloodbath"
/ac "Inner Beast"

The abilities will be executed in the order listed, so if I use the macro, I will use Bloodbath followed by Inner Beast. If you really, really don't mind error messages about abilities not being available, you can do this anyway, because any abilities that aren't usable at the time will be skipped, and the next ability will be activated. You'll just get an error message for the one you can't use.

If your abilities are not insta-cast, and you want to use them in succession, you can do that by adding a /wait in between. This is where latency comes in. Your ability timer may say a certain number, but if you have higher latency, you might have to put in a longer wait time. For instance, if I wanted to macro the Butcher's Block combo (which I wouldn't do, because sometimes I need to do something in between, but…it's just an example), I could type:

/ac "Heavy Swing"
/wait 2.5
/ac "Skull Sunder"
/wait 2.5
/ac "Butcher's Block"

If my latency was higher, I might have to use /wait 3 instead of /wait 2.5

Other useful commands for Tanks and DPS include:

/nexttarget (cycles through targets, and is good for marking provided the mobs are close enough together)

/assist <ft> (autoattacks what your focus target has targeted)

Here are a couple of nice websites that have info about macros:

http://katella.wordpress.com/katella-ffxiv-planning-page/ffxiv-macros/
http://guide-source.com/ffxiv-guide/a-guide-to-writing-ffxiv-macros

Please note that some of the info in these guides is outdated, so some of the commands have changed a little bit. It's best to test your macros out somewhere safe before trying to use them somewhere less friendly to error, like Coil.

Basic group buff macro for Protect and Stoneskin:

/micon "Stoneskin"
/ac "Protect" <1> <wait. 4>
/ac "Stoneskin" <1> <wait. 4>
/ac "Stoneskin" <2> <wait. 4>
/ac "Stoneskin" <3> <wait. 4>
/ac "Stoneskin" <4> <wait. 4>
/ac "Stoneskin" <5> <wait. 4>
/ac "Stoneskin" <6> <wait. 4>
/ac "Stoneskin" <7> <wait. 4>
/ac "Stoneskin" <8>