What macros are and how to write them: the limit of lines, dragging skills and shortcuts into a macro, the /delay command, and examples for the Olympiad, for spoil with manor, for buffing and for recharging mana.
As you all know, NCsoft terribly dislikes bots and, in general, any automation of the process in the game. But the Koreans did make one concession, and that is precisely the macros. What are macros? We go into the menu and choose "Macros", or simply press Alt+R. A window will appear in which all your macros are kept. There can be 24 of them in all, and any of them can be deleted (the icon with the bin) or changed (the icon with the hammer). A macro is a sequence of commands carried out one after another: as soon as one command has been carried out, the next one starts at once.
There are of course limits too, which do not let macros be used as on bots. First, only 11 commands can be put into a macro. Second, one macro cannot call another, in no way at all: when one has finished, the other has to be started from the panel by hand.
The lines of a macro can be typed by hand, skills can be dragged into these lines with the mouse right from the skill panel, and something can be dragged from the shortcut panel. Only mind that with the last way the macro will call whatever stands in that slot of the panel: if instead of a bottle you put the craft icon in that place on the panel, the macro will call the craft. This is convenient in this way: we write into a macro all the buffs of the warcryer (straight from the skill panel), and the last line, War Chant, not from the skills but from the shortcut panel. Now before buffing, depending on what has to be buffed, War Chant or Earth Chant, we drag the needed skill into that cell of the panel and then switch on the buff macro.
Writing skills straight into a macro is convenient when working with augmentation. When you take off an augmented weapon, the skill disappears from the skill panel, but it stays in the macro. And so as not to suffer at the Olympiad, where every second counts, we write the augmentation skill into a macro; then it is enough to take the needed weapon in hand and use the augmentation at once, without opening the skill panel. For example, I have active Might in the basalt hammer and active Vampiric Rage in the arcana, and now, as soon as the Might buff is over, I quickly press the arcana on the panel, buff vampiric and change the arcana back to the basalt.
Macros for the Olympiad
Changing sets at the Olympiad. Somewhere around the seventh panel I usually place different sets and weapon kits on the panels, to change them quickly through a macro, for example macros for putting on the Dark Crystal set and the basalt hammer with a shield. Only mind that the client does not check what you are wearing at the moment: if I have the arcana and a shield in my hands, then after the macro is started the arcana will change to the basalt and the shield will come off, since it was already in my hand. But all this is not hard, you will get used to it. In any case, before going to the Olympiad you should practise putting the sets on and off a little.
The fight too can be automated somewhat: for example, if you always begin it the same way, all of that can be put into a macro. Here I stand at the Olympiad, the fight begins, I have a pike in my hands, and I begin like this (for example; in fact every fight of mine goes its own way): I set the golem on the opponent; take off a part of the CP with a skill; Earthquake; change the pike for the basalt and the shield (2 slots of the macro); Armor Crush; Stun; attack. Eight commands that can be written at once, and further on by circumstances.
If the Olympiad lags for you, you can also try stuffing the actions into a macro, since when you press it all the commands are sent to the server, and it may turn out that the client has lagged while the character is already stunning, crushing and attacking.
The /delay command
There is one more necessary command that has to be used, the command /delay. This command says that before the next command of the macro is used a certain number of seconds has to pass: if you write /delay 1, the next command will be carried out in 1 second. Why is this needed? Well, for example, when you use one and the same skill, it has a reuse time, and if you do not write a delay, the skill will not work the second time, since it has simply not recharged. So you time the reuse and write it into the delay.
More examples
Spoil and manor in one bottle, plus picking up the drop. If you are in a calm location where nobody aggroes, the process can be automated for our spoilers, since all the actions can be written into a macro. First we sow the seed (the mob does not aggro), then spoil and hit the mob (the first macro). We pull out the manor, then pull out the spoil and then pick up the drop (the second macro). The second macro goes precisely in this sequence, because if you pull out the spoil first, the mob disappears at once. Naturally, all the seeds, the harvester and the skills Spoil and Sweep must be placed on the shortcuts (on the control panel). The whole route of a spoiler with these macros is in the article How a spoiler earns on resources: Stone of Purity from level 20 to 76.
An ordinary buff: we stuff all the buffs into a macro and buff when necessary. Recharging mana: the last lines of the macro are the word "done", so that it is visible that the recharge is over and you can run on, and /attack, so that the mana battery runs after you.
To gather your buffers into a party, write for all of them separate macros of the form /invite nickname. This is convenient if you level outside a party and once every two minutes attach to yourself the bladedancer, the swordsinger and the cat: took them into the party, they buffed, and you left the party again. So that they all run after you after the dances and songs, write /attack as the last line for all of them.
The use of macros also helped very much in the event "Trick or Transmutation", where quest chests have to be opened with quest keys: the chests have a terrible reuse, and without macros it was simply unreal to open many of them.