Up to and including the present, I've been a pretty simple hunter. Then, earlier in the week, I decided to start PVPing.
This lead me to start losing, which lead me to start researching, and eventually to this site.
I've managed to install the UI easily enough (SO CLEAN!), but I cannot fathom how folks are actively using all 5+ bars, and how you're selecting keys to bind to them for heavy use!
This may be VERY basic, but how are you guys being efficient in your control? This is coming from a basic WASD movement, 1-6 easy range for casting on my main bar, mouse-scroll to other bars for "quick" use. I've dug around on Google, and not come up with a satisfactory answer, so I'm coming to the source.
Brunost - Dragonblight
Hi Brunost,
I use my mouse for movement, with all of my actions tied to keybinds. It would be pretty difficult to use my UI if you're a clicker, as (possibly) indicated by your mention of needing to scroll through action bars.
What I'll typically do when learning a new class, etc... is to have my action bars displayed while I get used to, and comfortable with, my keybinds. Once I have everything memorized, then I hide them.
The 2 visible action bars are mainly there to display cooldown info (gobal cooldown and spell cooldowns).
My keybinds are not patterned after any recommended settings, and would probably be considered unorthodox to many, but they work for me. 🙂 Mine are mainly focused on PvP play, so I have many of my emergency buttons conveniently located. If you're more PvE oriented, then binds related to your priority may be the ones you want to reach the easiest.
My advice is to just play around and use what feels comfortable for you, along with including some macros to save space and to make you more efficient.
Hah, well, I don't *think* I'm a clicker... more that I use the shift-mousewheel to scroll between action bars, and move WASD then reach for the 1 -6 keys and a combination of alts and ctrls. Regardless, however, I'm pretty sure that the biggest gap is the movement. Going to have to spend some time playing with "mouse" movement, and get away from my love of strafing in circles (maybe?).
These are some pretty monumental changes, and I'm kind of surprised at how difficult it has been to break 10 years of MMO habit to move to what I KNOW will make me (appear to be) a better player 🙂
The worst is that I swap between PvE / PvP / fishing and farming pretty frequently throughout a normal day. I'm sure there's an easier way than what I'm doing.
Thanks for the feedback!
Apart from my hardcore-power-gaming Commodore 64 days, I really didn't get into computer games until the late nineties, when Diablo 2 came out. All movement was with the mouse, so when I started playing WoW (my first MMO experience), mouse movement felt like the natural fit to me.
Having heard from quite a few players who've made the switch from keyboard movement to mousing and keybinds, I know it can be a frustrating transition at first, but within a week or so it starts to feel "right".
If you want to try a minimalist UI like mine, just set all of your bars to visible, then start assigning keybinds using /kb (bartender's easy-peezy keybind config). You just hover your mouse over the action bar slot you want to keybind, then hit the key -- easy as that. Once things start feeling good, just hide the bars.
Thanks again, Garwulf. I paid more attention to how I was playing in the past week, and I guess that I AM among the dreaded and pitiable Clickers.
Rough road ahead!
I'd just like to say that while certain playstyles may be, in theory, better suited to optimal DPS, or specific increases in efficiency, it should still come down to what's comfortable for you and what you enjoy doing. If it's a lot of stress and work to master a system you're uncomfortable with, what's the point? It depends, ultimately, on your motivation for playing, of course.
For me, it's primarily about having fun. I've always been in favor of mouse movement, and have been able to execute while still clicking my shots on my hotbars, for the most part. I've adopted Gar's UI (love the look) and have been learning to use more keyinds and keystrokes versus clicking and with some success, meaning everything is feeling more natural and not detracting from the fun I ahve playing my Hunter (and well, if I do say so.) I wanted to try something new, as suggested by valued opinions and it's working out for me.
Don't lose sight of why you play WoW in the first place or let someone else, be it a particular Raid Leader, group member, or even Guild Leader, dictate how you play your game. Make sure the reasons for deviating from the path of your enjoyment are your own. 🙂
^ is an excellent post. Very well put Ozolin.
Couldn't agree more, thanks for the perspective, Ozolin!
Ozolin said:
I'd just like to say that while certain playstyles may be, in theory, better suited to optimal DPS, or specific increases in efficiency, it should still come down to what's comfortable for you and what you enjoy doing. If it's a lot of stress and work to master a system you're uncomfortable with, what's the point? It depends, ultimately, on your motivation for playing, of course.
For me, it's primarily about having fun. I've always been in favor of mouse movement, and have been able to execute while still clicking my shots on my hotbars, for the most part. I've adopted Gar's UI (love the look) and have been learning to use more keyinds and keystrokes versus clicking and with some success, meaning everything is feeling more natural and not detracting from the fun I ahve playing my Hunter (and well, if I do say so.) I wanted to try something new, as suggested by valued opinions and it's working out for me.
Don't lose sight of why you play WoW in the first place or let someone else, be it a particular Raid Leader, group member, or even Guild Leader, dictate how you play your game. Make sure the reasons for deviating from the path of your enjoyment are your own. 🙂
*two thumbs up*
I didn't like having to keep going into the keybindings setup to assign letter keys to action buttons, so I used Bartender4 to enable me to do it the other way round: to drop actions directly onto my keyboard keys. I've found this to be a real time saver, particularly when learning new class or spec abilities.
Using four horizontal 12-button BT4 bars, I set up an on-screen keyboard layout, mapping all the (unmodified) keyboard keys to this layout. To assign an action to a keyboard key, I just drop it onto the appropriate button in the on-screen keyboard.
I also have another BT4 bar for the NumPad keys, and a couple more without keybinds for up to 24 clickable non-combat actions such as gearsets, teleport items, professions, /mountspecial, /recount toggle, /recount poopedcatpoem, etc.
Of course, I had to change a number of the default keybinds, e.g. Ctrl-O for Social, Ctrl-U for Reputation, Ctrl-Y for Achievements, Ctrl-C for Character/Gear, etc. I generally use macros rather than direct keybinds for targeting, assisting, etc., so I don't need those keybinds any more.
I actually use a Belkin n52te gamepad physically mapped to the keyboard layout, so the *position* of the actions on the keyboard layout is important for me, not the actual letter used; but this method of dropping actions directly on to keyboard keys works fine either way.