So how do you guys map all your various abilities to the keyboard? I'm curious.
Over the years I've hotkeyed various parts of my action bars in ways that make sense to me, but I'm realizing are actually pretty clunky, so I'm looking to try and streamline things to make me more effective in combat.
As a Shadow Priest, despite Legion pruning, there are still like 20+ things I want to have hotkeyed and ready in battle:
I do feel like it's good to think this kind of thing through once in a while so maybe writing it out will help me come up with some better ideas.
On my DK I currently have so many empty bar slots I dunno what to do with them, even with pet controls (I've never played a pet class before). I have some finger combinations that might seem awkward but they are muscle memory for me and faster than reaching across the keyboard. For example, across all characters in all games Alt+Q is always my 'spell interrupt' and I can't change it at this point. I'm also very used to death grip being on shift-R so I didn't change it. Shift-E is whatever disease I'm using in blood/unholy.
For a while I spoiled myself in other MMOs with a Razer Naga. But that thing died in a year so I went back to a mouse that will actually last. The G400s is no MMO mouse but it has enough buttons to live with.
Tilde is voice comms. I try to keep most of my common 'rotation' abilities bound to the two mouse side buttons and shift+side buttons. Cooldowns and/or potions also go on the mouse. Things I always want to be able to hit while moving, basically. My basic Unholy set of moves for example is mouse 4 to build festering wounds, mouse 5 to burst them and generate power, shift+mouse 4 for death coil and shift+mouse 5 for death strike. On Blood I move Death Strike to shift+mouse4 because of its role in the rotation takes up the same kind of space in my head as coil does.
I bind Q, X, R and E to other common abilities, I mentally associate them with things like Charge, Taunt, Moonfire, Healing Touch etc. I kind of forget what I have them on with my various DK specs. In Blood I have strangulate and dark command on Q and E, with gorefiend's grasp on R. I put any 'final' active talent for all specs under X, like val'kyr or bonestorm.
I use 2-4 for common things as well. 1, 5, and T for slightly less common abilities. I think right now I'm only using about half of those so I have room for change.
Shift 2-4 are for self buffs. Alt 1-3 used to be my 'stance' and 'form' buttons but I guess I don't have to worry about stances/presences anymore. Right now I'm using Alt 1-3 on my DK for pet controls, with 1 and R for the abomination's extra abilities (defensive buff and hook). Mounts are alt+4 for ground mount, 5 for air mount.
Thinking about it, I should set Death and Decay to something other than 4 or come up with some kind of mouseover cast macro. It's way too important to be even slightly awkward. No idea what most people do with it.
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