Level 52 shadow priest who still considers himself new here :O
I was wondering if I could get some direction or ideas on how to organize my spell tabs. Right now I have practically every spell on one spell tab and in the area above my spell tab. While I'm able to sufficiently hunt, I feel that I'm not very efficient, especially when it comes to pvp. Frequently I find myself hunting with my mouse to find a spell and then trying to relocate my target.
Additionally, though I am shadow, I still heal for instances and I feel that my spell tab is pretty scattered and I'm not doing an optimal job.
Any advice on organization and possible hotkey use would be great :D
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Welcome!
First of all, stop using your mouse for spells. Attach them to whatever keys make sense to you. It'll take a while (by which I mean an hour or two) to get used to not clicking, and then you'll never go back.
As for which keys, you'll get a billion different answers to that, but really it's a matter of experimenting until you find an arrangement you're comfortable with.
Personally, I use an external keypad and have my offensive spells in their approximate "usual" rotation all in a row: in my case, ASDZXC. My healing spells are attached to the numbers: 0 for fade, then instant casts, then the rest. Extra spells, trinkets, etc. are attached to outer keys and/or SHIFT or CTRL combos. My right vertical toolbar is for stuff I do click, because I use it out of combat: mount, professions, coordinates, that kind of thing.
I also use Healbot for healing instances. Others will recommend other add-ons or focus/mouseover macro type dealies. Again, it's a matter of finding what you're most comfortable with.
First of all, stop using your mouse for spells. Attach them to whatever keys make sense to you. It'll take a while (by which I mean an hour or two) to get used to not clicking, and then you'll never go back.
As for which keys, you'll get a billion different answers to that, but really it's a matter of experimenting until you find an arrangement you're comfortable with.
Personally, I use an external keypad and have my offensive spells in their approximate "usual" rotation all in a row: in my case, ASDZXC. My healing spells are attached to the numbers: 0 for fade, then instant casts, then the rest. Extra spells, trinkets, etc. are attached to outer keys and/or SHIFT or CTRL combos. My right vertical toolbar is for stuff I do click, because I use it out of combat: mount, professions, coordinates, that kind of thing.
I also use Healbot for healing instances. Others will recommend other add-ons or focus/mouseover macro type dealies. Again, it's a matter of finding what you're most comfortable with.
What works for me is organisation. I try to keep stuff as organised as possible; CC spells banded together, healing spells banded together, etc.
I use both hotkey bar 1 and 2 on my main hotkey bar. Both of them have (wand) shoot on 1, my PvP trinket on 2, and Power Infusion on =. I use 4 up to 9 for DPS spells in hotkey bar 1 and healing spells in hotkey bar 2.
Then there's the lower left action bar; First slot is fear, then there's an open slot. The next two slots are normal DOT and rank 1 DOT, then there's an open spot, then follows AOE and rank 1 AOE followed by another open spot. Up next are PW:shield and renew, 2 spells I use all the time, whether I'm healing or DPS'ing.
The lower right bar is mostly used for CC and random spells; it has mind vision, mind soothe, shackle undead, mind control and more of those spells in an order I don't remember by heart. These are the spells I don't use a lot and I therefore click them rather than having them hotkeyed.
My right two hotbars are filled with drinks, mounts, buffs and the party version of them.
I've bound all my keys to positions that basically make sense to me. Holy fire used to be my PvE (solo) opener, so it's bound to middle mouse. For my healing bar flash heal is bound to it. And like Teacake said; you need to bind stuff to hotkeys... It simply works better than clicking. Just go for keys that work well with you. If you (like me) are an organisation freak and a leftie you're in luck since the keys surrounding the arrow keys are generally well organised on a keyboard.
I use both hotkey bar 1 and 2 on my main hotkey bar. Both of them have (wand) shoot on 1, my PvP trinket on 2, and Power Infusion on =. I use 4 up to 9 for DPS spells in hotkey bar 1 and healing spells in hotkey bar 2.
Then there's the lower left action bar; First slot is fear, then there's an open slot. The next two slots are normal DOT and rank 1 DOT, then there's an open spot, then follows AOE and rank 1 AOE followed by another open spot. Up next are PW:shield and renew, 2 spells I use all the time, whether I'm healing or DPS'ing.
The lower right bar is mostly used for CC and random spells; it has mind vision, mind soothe, shackle undead, mind control and more of those spells in an order I don't remember by heart. These are the spells I don't use a lot and I therefore click them rather than having them hotkeyed.
My right two hotbars are filled with drinks, mounts, buffs and the party version of them.
I've bound all my keys to positions that basically make sense to me. Holy fire used to be my PvE (solo) opener, so it's bound to middle mouse. For my healing bar flash heal is bound to it. And like Teacake said; you need to bind stuff to hotkeys... It simply works better than clicking. Just go for keys that work well with you. If you (like me) are an organisation freak and a leftie you're in luck since the keys surrounding the arrow keys are generally well organised on a keyboard.
41 posts
Macros are a great help for this sort of thing too, so you can save bar space.
I personally have one macro that does Mind Blast, SW:Pain, Mind Flay (my main attack sequence when I am just grinding)...it also has a 10 second reset, and resets at the change of target. I also have a macro to auto-shield myself, so I don't have to worry about dropping my target (this avoids the problem of accidentally shielding an incorrect target, resulting in death).
You can even go a step further and use key-modifiers in your macros, where holding the ctrl/alt/shift keys when clicking the macro changes the order of events (this annoys me a bit though, because if the macro is on key 3, and has shift as a modifier, pressing shift-3 will take you to action bar 3 instead of firing the event, so you have to click or remap buttons).
Anywho, I definitely think that action bar organization while using macros is the way to go. Like the others said too, set it up in a way that is most comfortable to you.
The only thing that I can think of, off the top of my head, would be an add-on similar to DailyOMatic, but set up by class/spec...though that would be a rather large add-on if you ask me, but perhaps other add-ons could help too.
I personally have one macro that does Mind Blast, SW:Pain, Mind Flay (my main attack sequence when I am just grinding)...it also has a 10 second reset, and resets at the change of target. I also have a macro to auto-shield myself, so I don't have to worry about dropping my target (this avoids the problem of accidentally shielding an incorrect target, resulting in death).
You can even go a step further and use key-modifiers in your macros, where holding the ctrl/alt/shift keys when clicking the macro changes the order of events (this annoys me a bit though, because if the macro is on key 3, and has shift as a modifier, pressing shift-3 will take you to action bar 3 instead of firing the event, so you have to click or remap buttons).
Anywho, I definitely think that action bar organization while using macros is the way to go. Like the others said too, set it up in a way that is most comfortable to you.
The only thing that I can think of, off the top of my head, would be an add-on similar to DailyOMatic, but set up by class/spec...though that would be a rather large add-on if you ask me, but perhaps other add-ons could help too.
Scholar
20 posts
Getting Clique and a bar add on such as Bongos or Bartender can really help. For offense I set my keys up to hit in order, normally 4 3 2 as needed. This is on all characters so switching between a shadow priest and warlock is easy. When I was shadow it was hard to fit in all the healing spells on the hot bar but using Clique eliminates that problem. It allows you to just shift/control/alt click on a target and cast the spell you've mapped to that combination. This get more important when you start to raid and can't use F2-F5 to target people. Also as you get higher you have more spells than can be comfortably reached by one hand, again a problem in a raid where you have to use the mouse to target and only have one had left.
Using a bar mod you can shrink down and move out of the way buttons that are only used out of combat. I keep a small bar over on the left by the party members with all my cooldowns including mana potions. Before I did that I'd forget to use the trinkets and other cooldowns if I was busy healing.
One other touch is to map spare keyboard keys such as '~', Y, T, Z, X to an action bar. This allows you to share the same key map for all characters and just move the desired action to the button. X is fade on the priest (used to be shadowform before going holy), heal pet on the hunter and lock, bubble on the pally. H is the horse for all.
The last key mapping I do is to setup Bar 2 to work with shift and disabling the default bar shifting. This gives me 29 key mapped buttons but a lot of them aren't easily reached so they hold the less used actions.
Using a bar mod you can shrink down and move out of the way buttons that are only used out of combat. I keep a small bar over on the left by the party members with all my cooldowns including mana potions. Before I did that I'd forget to use the trinkets and other cooldowns if I was busy healing.
One other touch is to map spare keyboard keys such as '~', Y, T, Z, X to an action bar. This allows you to share the same key map for all characters and just move the desired action to the button. X is fade on the priest (used to be shadowform before going holy), heal pet on the hunter and lock, bubble on the pally. H is the horse for all.
The last key mapping I do is to setup Bar 2 to work with shift and disabling the default bar shifting. This gives me 29 key mapped buttons but a lot of them aren't easily reached so they hold the less used actions.
Everyone is going to tell you something different about the actual organizing, but the message is the same: don't click, make key bindings (whatever fits your hand the best).
Personally, I have really small hands, so the alt, shift, and ctrl combos don't work for me at all. I set up mouseover macros for my heals, use ` through 5 for my core spells (renew, various healing macros, fade, etc) and just leave stuff I don't use very often unbound (buffs, shackle, MC, Mind Vision, Mind soothe, etc) If I am in a situation that requires me to keep a target shackled or what not, I just place the shackle into a key binding slot that I won't be using for that fight.
I won't even try to explain the rest of my bindings because they don't make sense even to me. My fingers have them memorized to the point I don't have to think about it anymore.
Personally, I have really small hands, so the alt, shift, and ctrl combos don't work for me at all. I set up mouseover macros for my heals, use ` through 5 for my core spells (renew, various healing macros, fade, etc) and just leave stuff I don't use very often unbound (buffs, shackle, MC, Mind Vision, Mind soothe, etc) If I am in a situation that requires me to keep a target shackled or what not, I just place the shackle into a key binding slot that I won't be using for that fight.
I won't even try to explain the rest of my bindings because they don't make sense even to me. My fingers have them memorized to the point I don't have to think about it anymore.
Theres just too many spells to always have bound to a keypress, so I organized them by category
My damage dealing spells (runners/pvp typically) are the normal bars (1through=) including mana burn, and I also put mass dispel and dispel on there (MC also)
I have a bar above it I call the utility bar. Levitate, fade, bandages, mind soothe, physchic scream are on it (might have others)
My 'mana bar' is to to the right of this. Has mana tap, arcane torrent, all my potions, shadow fiend, consume magic, trinkets, inner focus and healthstones on that bar
The one below it has my buff's. (inner fire, PW Fort, etc..) I Usually put temporary abilities on here too since it has free slots (like the bombing dailies, or conjured stuff)
My far right bars contain all the misc stuff. Mounts, abolish desease, profession stuff, basically anything I dont use often (or at least not in a fight)
I have all my heals bound to mouse clicks on grid using clique
(Click=Flash Heal, Shift+Click= Renew, Ctrl+Click=Binding Heal, Alt+Click = focus, Middle Click=Prayer of Mending, Shift+Middle Click=Circle of Healing, Ctrl+Middle Click = Prayer of Healing, Alt+Middle Click=Dispel Magic, Right Click=Greater Heal Rank2, Shift+Right Click=PW:Shield, Ctrl+Right Click = Greater Heal Rank 7)
Despite how it sounds its fairly organized
My damage dealing spells (runners/pvp typically) are the normal bars (1through=) including mana burn, and I also put mass dispel and dispel on there (MC also)
I have a bar above it I call the utility bar. Levitate, fade, bandages, mind soothe, physchic scream are on it (might have others)
My 'mana bar' is to to the right of this. Has mana tap, arcane torrent, all my potions, shadow fiend, consume magic, trinkets, inner focus and healthstones on that bar
The one below it has my buff's. (inner fire, PW Fort, etc..) I Usually put temporary abilities on here too since it has free slots (like the bombing dailies, or conjured stuff)
My far right bars contain all the misc stuff. Mounts, abolish desease, profession stuff, basically anything I dont use often (or at least not in a fight)
I have all my heals bound to mouse clicks on grid using clique
(Click=Flash Heal, Shift+Click= Renew, Ctrl+Click=Binding Heal, Alt+Click = focus, Middle Click=Prayer of Mending, Shift+Middle Click=Circle of Healing, Ctrl+Middle Click = Prayer of Healing, Alt+Middle Click=Dispel Magic, Right Click=Greater Heal Rank2, Shift+Right Click=PW:Shield, Ctrl+Right Click = Greater Heal Rank 7)
Despite how it sounds its fairly organized
This is a screenshot of my UI. I use TrinityBars to organize my spells. Right beneath my name are self-cast macros, healing off to the side since I rarely use it, buffs are on a bar that's hidden until moused-over at the bottom of the combat log addon on the right side.
I've never been able to keybind everything with my priest, and I mostly click, but I do have keybindings set up for my dps spells, even though I usually only use them when my right hand is busy with food :p
4 - VT
sh4 - SWP
R - Mind Flay
F - Mind Blast
shF - SWD
Oh, and pet bar is vertical along the right side of the rest of my buttons in that little space. The three top buttons in my little side-bar, except for mana pots, switches depending on what I'm doing - health pots, fishing, quest items, whatever.
Edited, Aug 1st 2008 5:13pm by lsfreak
I've never been able to keybind everything with my priest, and I mostly click, but I do have keybindings set up for my dps spells, even though I usually only use them when my right hand is busy with food :p
4 - VT
sh4 - SWP
R - Mind Flay
F - Mind Blast
shF - SWD
Oh, and pet bar is vertical along the right side of the rest of my buttons in that little space. The three top buttons in my little side-bar, except for mana pots, switches depending on what I'm doing - health pots, fishing, quest items, whatever.
Edited, Aug 1st 2008 5:13pm by lsfreak
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