Keep in mind that I'm using a UI mod, so while my UI may look different from yours, the general appearance will be similar, and the instructions will be exactly the same.
First step is to hit O in-game to open your "Social" menu. Then click the "Macro" tab.
There are 10 pages of macros, with 10 macros each. That means you can create up to 100 macros!
Notice that all of the macro slots on the right side say <Click to edit>. These are macro slots that are empty, and can be used to create a new macro.
(Click the images for full size images)
Once I've clicked the <Click to edit>, a window pops up. The top of the tab says "Edit Macro #XX," where XX is the number 1-100 of the macro you've chosen. In this case, I'm editing macro #86. Honestly, the macro number doesn't matter one bit, except that it's the order your macros appear in your macro window.
You also can see that there's a space for the Macro Name. That's important, because that's how you identify your macro on the fly. Think up a good name that'll help you remember what the macro's for! You can see that on the lefthand side, I have macros named "Armor," "Crafting," "Harvesting," and "Waterbreathing." Armor, Crafting, and Harvesting all equip full gear sets of gear specifically related to those various things. Armor is my gear set for PvE (on characters I PvP on, I also have a "PvP" macro to equip PvP armor). Crafting is the gear I wear when I'm doing a lot of crafting. And Harvesting is the gear I wear when I'm going out in the world and harvesting a lot of items. Harvesting is heavily stacked towards bountiful harvests, so that I get as much bang for my buck out of every node I harvest.
Waterbreathing is a very simple macro--it equips my Hadden's Earring on the first click, and on the second click, it uses it. Poor Jazabelle doesn't have waterbreathing on her own, and I don't like to carry totems when I can just use the earring...
Back to macros!
I'm going to name this macro "Test armor macro" just so I can explain a few things about macros.
What I've done below is to name my macro, then started dragging items from my equipped items tab on my character sheet (yes, I know it looks really different from the default--I like to be able to see both my equipped items and my appearance items at the same time), and dropped them in my macro window. That automatically creates an "Equip item" line, that has the item I've dragged and dropped in it.
Something to note: If you drag and drop an item from an equipped item slot, it will appear with the "Appearance" box unchecked. If you drag and drop an item from an equipped appearance item slot, it will appear in the macro window with the "Appearance" box checked for you. And if you drag and drop an item from your bags, it will show up with the "Appearance" box unchecked. You can check and uncheck the box manually for each item.
Another thing to note: You can drag and drop items onto the box for the macro's icon! If you have a specific piece of armor that reminds you of what your gear is for, it's always helpful to drag and drop that armor piece onto the icon box, so that it copies the item's icon.
In the image below, you can see my icon is hovering over the macro icon box. EQ2 does provide some default macro icons (which you can scroll through by hitting the left or right arrows to either side of the macro icon box), but I find it easier to drag and drop one of the armor pieces from my sets into the box for ease of identification.
Additionally, you can drag and drop spell icons from your knowledge book onto the icon box if you're creating a macro for your spells.
Here's that same macro, with the sleeve item dropped onto the macro icon box. This is what it'd appear as on your hotbar when you drag the macro from the macro tab onto your hotbar.
And finally, here's what your macro page would look like once you hit the "Okay" button on the bottom of the macro edit window. Voila! You have a brand new macro!
Some of my personal macros:
This macro is my armor macro. As you can see, it has a lot of items in it--every single armor, weapon, jewelry, and charm slot, to be exact. Notice that only gear that would be visible on my character has an "Appearance" box. All of them are unchecked, as this is my combat gear, and so I want the gear to go to my combat clothing slots.
Additionally, the macro has two slash commands at the start-- "title setprefix" and "title setsuffix." These automatically set my character's prefix and suffix titles to the titles I've chosen.
For Jazabelle, prefix 74 is "Lady," while suffix 59 is "the Architect." Each character's prefix and suffix numeration are different, based on what titles they've achieved, and what their AAs are (since some AAs also grant prefix and suffix titles). To find out what titles your character has available, and what their number is, type "/title list" in-game. You should get feedback that looks something like this:
The more titles you have, the longer your list will be, of course.
To remove a title in a macro, you simply put the command "/title setprefix -1" or "/title setsuffix -1" depending on whether it's a prefix title or a suffix title you wish to remove.
For my crafting gear, I've named it "Crafting," and set the macro icon to be my Othmir Shell Armor.
The gear in my Crafting macro is geared towards success chance, progress increase, sculpting bonuses (since I'm a carpenter), and of course, the ever useful Hand of the Maker.
You'll notice in my macro that I have a slot to "Use: Earring of the Solstice." This is done by going to the dropdown "Macro Step:" and changing it from "Command" to "Use Item," then clicking the "Add Step" button.
From there, you can drag and drop an item that can be used (such as a totem, a piece of gear with a "use" feature, a charm with a "use" feature, etc) onto the button that appears.
I like to also have the "Use item" option for my Harvesting gear's harvester kit (all the items I have that have a + to harvesting of various types). That way I can ensure that I have all the harvesting bonuses possible when I go out harvesting.
Keep in mind that a macro fires off every single line instantaneously, so to get a macro to fire off properly when you equip a bunch of items and use an item (whether or not you had to equip it first), you'll have to click the macro twice.
This is because you can't use an item at the same time as you're equipping items. It will cancel the use. However, the second time you click the macro, you've already equipped all the gear, so the macro simply fires off the use.
Here's a simple example of one of my appearance armor macros. Notice that all of the gear has the "Appearance" box checked, so that it goes into my appearance tab, not my armor tab.
You'll notice at the bottom that I also have a bunch of /cancel_maintained spells listed. This is so that when I click this macro, I can also change my equipped mount to match my gear.
Mounts are an odd thing. If they're in your Mount tab, you can drag and drop them into your macro. However, that will cause them to automatically create a "Use Item" macro line for the mount. And you can't use a mount that's in the mount tab. You have to stick it in the mount slot and click the use mount button, or stick it in the mount slot and add the line /summon_mount to your macro. You cannot change what mount you are riding on the mount tab via macros. You can change the appearance of the mount you are riding, though!
What that means is, the mount you summon on your mount tab has to manually be changed. So if I want to ride my SuperUberWargOfDoom for fast ground mount speeds instead of my SuperUberSokokarOfDoom for flight, I have to manually drag and drop the mount from the mount tab to the equipped mount box on the mount tab.
You can get around that, though!
Say I want to use flight wings, as in the above macro. I have a warg equipped in my equipped mount box. I can't use a macro to switch mounts. But if I have a flying mount in my bags, I can do a Use Item macro line for the mount in my bags. I can also do an Equip Item macro line (it must be done through the dropdown box at the top--dragging and dropping the mount into the window will just try to use it), and set the mount I want to use as my appearance to the 1st Charm slot. For some reason, instead of equipping the mount in the actual charm slot, it equips the mount in the appearance mount box of the mount window.
So I can change my flying appearance to be whatever I want, and keep my SuperUberSokokarOfDoom in my inventory to cast the mount spell when I want to fly. And I can keep my SuperUberWargOfDoom equipped in my main mount slot on the mount tab at all times, and switch mounts with the single click of a button.
Which brings us to...
My mount macros.
The above image is of my ground mount. As you see, I have several /cancel_maintained spells listed in my macro. This is because sometimes I switch out my mount for various reasons (I have multiple mount macro spells, and several mounts in my bags to allow this). If I were to leave off the /cancel_maintained lines, when I tried to click my mount macro while already mounted, for the Ground Mount macro, I would need to double click the button (the first click dismounts me, and the second click summons the new mount + appearance). For the Flying Mount macro, I would instead receive the error, "Not while mounted" (as it would attempt to summon my flying mount while I was still mounted on my ground mount).
To combat that, I use /cancel_mount and the name of the mount exactly as it appears in the maintained spells window when I summon it. That way, one click first cancels the mount I'm riding, then summons the new mount.
And there you have it. Some macros to make your life easier, whether it's changing armor, changing appearance armor, or changing mounts!
This is a very useful guide. Thanks for sharing it.
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