is there a social macro I can write to sing three songs?
 

Is there a way I can play a bard and hit 1 button every 18seconds instead of 6 buttons every 18seconds?
what's the command look like? is it /doability? or is there /cast? then pause 6?
Sorry, I haven't played a bard before, I know there's no twist command on p99 but there is a way to sing a song off a hotkey right?


edit: also is there a way to hotkey switching weapons? like so I can switch from drum to lute to sword?

Dont do this.

Signed, any decent bard.

If you wanted to do something here are the commands

/stopsong

/cast #

/pause #

But the furthest you actually want to macro your songs is this:

/stopsong
/cast #

Even then you're fine if you don't at all.

You can do it but I do not recommend it.

-if you set the delay low (ie rapid twist) any lag will bug the macro
-if you set the delay high to avoid this you twist inefficiently
-if you miss a note you drop a song
-if you need to quickly do a thing (mez/charm/snare/whatever) you’re out of luck until macro finishes

As Legidias said, I don’t think you’ll find a good bard on this server who uses this style of macro personally or would advocate its use.

Pressing a button every 3 seconds is not exactly hard and after a while you fall into a nice rhythm. If you’re finding your life as a bard too busy or hectic I’d recommend any of (or combo of) the following:

1. Put your weapons away and stop worrying about trying to melee all the time. Bard melee dps is trash. You’ll save yourself time and keystrokes not trying to melee all the time. Furthermore, with few exceptions you will add more total power to your group using instruments.

2. Prioritize your songs. The mark of a good bard isn’t always keeping 4 songs up for the sake of keeping 4 songs up. If you’re having a hard time trying to figure out what 3rd or 4th song tonadd to the twist, it’s probably because none of those songs are worth a rats ass for the situation you’re in. Do yourself a favor and learn to be comfortable twisting 2 or 3 if the situation doesn’t absolutely call for that 3rd or 4th. More songs sometimes just means more clutter in buff boxes that might block a heal over time or actually useful buff. Good bards impress their groups by singing the RIGHT songs at the RIGHT time with the RIGHT priority all while maintaining situational awareness to timely cc, snare, slow.

3. Unless your group is hurting, give yourself a break between pulls and just regen song it up. Bards are a busy class and groups on p99 know that. If you’re doing your job well in general, you’re entitled to a relax break at times.

If all else fails and twisting manually is just too cumbersome you can always ...

4. Admit that playing a bard is just not for you. It’s laborious. It’s not for everyone.

The macro to use is

/stopsong
/cast #

Instead of 11 22 33 44 in a 4 song twist now it’s just 1 2 3 4

For what it’s worth my hotkeys 1-8 are songs 1-8. 0 is a simple /stopsong and 9 is my BoH click for when I am meleeing.

Song setup is usually
1-4 standard to do buffs
5 snare/slow
6 bonus utility
7 mez
8 charm

6 is frequently lull unless I’m not pulling or assisting pull in any capacity.

At 60 I made song 8 the 1 minute slow/dot. In a more fast paced high end group I usually just skip charm.

Frequently with the high volume of useful buffs found in high groups I have a harder time deciding on 1-4 buff songs but cantana is always there. Haste is always there if no ench/shaman present. At 60 the 10% bonus haste is there if melee worn haste + other haste buff doesn’t have all melee at least at 96% combined haste.

48 Nivs is frequently my bonus song (6 when not pulling) for regen stacking with cantana (+42 regen a tick combo with lute. This song combination has been known to put healers in the group to sleep (or make clerics pretend they’re wizards).

Tangentially, /doability is for buttons placed on your ability windows (/doa 1-6) like beg, or abilities in the combat window (/doa 7-0) such as slam. In short /doability is not linked to songs.

A problem with setting an 'autosong' button is there is no way to cancel it (afaik) and it will lock you out from using any other chat based hotkeys for the duration of the button.

If you do want to be lazy, your best bet might be to render your songs down to 2 buttons;

Button 1:
/stopsong
/pause n, /cast 1,
/stopsong
/cast 2
(where 'n' is how long you need to allow to cast a song without prematurely ending it)

Button 2:
/stopsong
/pause n, /cast 3,
/stopsong
/cast 4

This way you can make your 4 songs in 2 button presses, but the longest your will be plagued by unwanted /stopsongs from mistimed hotkeys will be 3 seconds

Seems a reasonable compromise to me.

For aggressive AoE songs you might want to make a similar concession too, in order to avoid accidently nuking things.

/stopsong
/pause n, /cast x (where x is the number of the aoe gem and n is 10 times the number of seconds you need to successfully cast)
/stopsong

Basically this will cast your AoE and then automatically stop singing it after it is cast.

Save your fingers and hands from permanent crippling damage now and skip this PITA class. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome aint worth it. Not to me anyway.

It will get you killed.

Stopsong is a game changer. As Troxx said one button every 3 seconds with the occasional miss is not bad at all. Waaaaaaaaaay less strokes than most modern games. Go watch someone play League or sc2 my wrists hurt just thinking about it.

Yup, which is why I strongly discourage any bard from ever using a twisting combination macro.

One of the interesting things about playing a bard on p99 is that there is no legal way to make it *simple*. You have to manually cast the song you want when you want it.
If bards on p99 never missed a note and had a /melody command, the class would not only be lord_of_the_afk, they'd function at 75%+ capacity while afk. On live, most people who box bards without 3rd party software just /melody 1 2 3 4 with aura up and afk tab out.

As it stands, you remember the bards you group with. The great ones stick out and always get groups/invites quickly. The bad ones? Likewise ... you earn your reputation.

Swarming (even in the modern/nerfed version) results in many bards finding themselves level 50+ with no clue how to play the class. This, paired with people still pissed at getting trained our robbed of mobs while leveling, results in a lot of the bard hate that still resonates with this server's population.

Compared to modern games, a keystroke every 3 seconds is laughably insignificant.

Bard isn't for everyone. Since more or less retiring my bard (nothing to do without sacrificing my soul to the raid scene on p99), I've run across a few great bards, several mediocre bards, and a lot of BAD BARDS who had no idea what to do in a group 50+. Those that listen to advice get better (sometimes good). Some will just always suck.

TLDR Version?

-Fuck combination macro attempts.
-Learn your song book
-Know what to sing and when to sing it
-Manually sing your songs
-Pay attention
-Bards are not an afk or 'kinda paying attention' friendly class
-Profit

The manual/technical skill of playing a bard on p99 (a click every 3 seconds) is quite low and will not give you carpal tunnel.