Key bindings / Macros / Mods

[MongoJerry]

OK, this is getting ridiculous. Even back in the day, I always felt like I needed three hands to play WoW. There's no way I can move, target party members and select spells all with one hand like the default key bindings force you to do. So, in the old days, I would use my right hand on the key pad for movement, use my left hand for spell selection and party target selection, and then have my right hand jump to my mouse whenever I needed to interact with something, target a specific mob, or spin in a PvP battle. I made it work, but it was awkward.

Now, there are so many more useful spells that I want at my fingertips, but they won't all fit on the standard 10 hotkey slots -- and it's awkward in a pitched battle to switch hotkey bars.

So, my questions for everyone (but especially priests) are: How do you have your key bindings set up? And, are there any 3rd party mods or macros that you've found to be especially useful?

[Quark]

I've been following this in all MMO games I've played since I first set it up in WoW, as a non-healer setup. I'm still mucking around with a similar version for healers.

Cardinal rule: A and D are changed to strafe instead of turn.
1-5: common offensive abilities
Shift+1 - Shift-5: some more common offensive abilities. For some reason Shift+3 ended up as Kick and now it's always my interrupt.
6-9: rare offensive abilites
-, =: potion cooldowns. Yes, I click these. It's the only hotkeys I actually click on.
`: Dispels or Feint like abilities
Alt 1 - Alt 3: offensive cooldowns
Q, E, R: rarer (stealth, cooldown, AoE, or common buttons when a cycle changes - IE Mutilate spams Backstab below a certain health) offensive abilities
Alt Q: mount
Z, X: CCs or AoEs, depending on how it fits the character and other abilities
Shift + Q/E/R: defensive cooldowns

There's some other random ones like Alt+E that aren't really defined, but I've used depending on the class. Some of those could be moved around, but it was kind of built up as I went when I restarted WoW late TBC and now I'm used to them. The main idea is to use as many keys around my left hand as possible, and help that with Shift and Alt modifiers.

Sadly, most games save Ctrl 1-# modifiers as pet abilities, and honestly Ctrl+# makes my hand hurt in excess anyway, so I avoid Ctrl.

[Sir_Die_alot]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6826153054
Use one for a week you wonder how you ever went without.

I've actually wondered if anyone has tried to set your extra mouse buttons as shift and control. It would make mod hotkeys much less clunky and accomplish lots of binds without a naga.

[Ell_man]

This is the biggest downside to the more interesting characters and talent trees. There's like 30-40 abilities I could hotkey. It gets especially confusing when you play multiple specs or multiple characters!

Anyway, I use a setup similiar to Quark.
WASD for movement, with A and D as strafe left/right
Q, E, R, T, F, G, Z, X, C, V, B, 1,2,3,4,5,6 for hotkeys. Q, E, R, F for common hotkeys since they're so close to WASD. Then use Shift and Ctrl to multiply those hotkeys. Using Ctrl+# is too hard for me to hit though so I don't have those set. I have about 39 hotkeys available with this setup, which hits almost everything for my prot paladin.

Oh wow I just realized that I never hotkeyed Z and X. 6 more hotkeys for me!

[MongoJerry]

Quick question. I'm trying to set up some simple macros that cast power up spells and trinkets whenever they're ready when I cast some of my more common spells. e.g.

#showtooltip Flash Heal
/use Lifeblood
/cast Flash Heal

It works fine, but it keeps giving me an annoying "Spell not ready" error whenever Lifeblood or my trinket is on cooldown. Is there a way to make it so that something only casts if it's not on cooldown or to at least stop the annoying error message?

[LavCat]

Quick question. I'm trying to set up some simple macros that cast power up spells and trinkets whenever they're ready when I cast some of my more common spells. e.g.

#showtooltip Flash Heal
/use Lifeblood
/cast Flash Heal

It works fine, but it keeps giving me an annoying "Spell not ready" error whenever Lifeblood or my trinket is on cooldown. Is there a way to make it so that something only casts if it's not on cooldown or to at least stop the annoying error message?

This is what I use to suppress error messages:

...
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/use ...
/use ...
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/cast ...
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

[MongoJerry]

Worked like a charm. Thank-you!

[Klaus]

Sadly, most games save Ctrl 1-# modifiers as pet abilities, and honestly Ctrl+# makes my hand hurt in excess anyway, so I avoid Ctrl.

Ctrl makes your hand hurt because just about every keyboard made since 1992 has put the Ctrl key in the wrong (stupid) place. Prior to that, you would find Ctrl above the left-hand shift key, right next to the A. New keyboards put "Caps lock" in that easy-to-reach location for reasons I cannot fathom. Putting Ctrl below the shift key is designed to give people who use emacs or vi carpal tunnel syndrome as fast as possible.

On my main computer at home I still use a keyboard from 1990. It's finally starting to fail (the "d" key doesn't always register, and sometimes registers multiple times for one press). I need to try cleaning it, but the idea that I may need to change 'boards is making me sad.

At work, I use a Happy Hacking keyboard (lite. The regular one is too expensive), primarily because it has Ctrl where it should be.

[LavCat]

I use the caps lock key as one of my primary key bindings. For example on my hunters to mark and send in pets, and on my shaman (which is plural) to purge.

[Taelas]

I have never had trouble reaching CTRL... but then, I have relatively large hands.

[MongoJerry]

Background (feel free to skip, if you wish): After much experimentation and observation of the healing meter, I've come to realize that one of my current biggest weaknesses is healing on the run. I'm getting to the point where I can hold my own in "stand and deliver" fights like Madness, but in fights involving movement like heroic Morchok, I get my butt kicked every time by other healers.

So, it's time. Yes, after years of keyboard turning and moving, I'm going to redo my key bindings, macros, and UI's so that I can actually play with two hands -- one on the mouse and one on the keyboard.

Question: As a part of my UI adjustment, I like the idea of using mouseover macros or UI's that will let me mouse over the raid unit frames and cast renews or shields on the run without specifically clicking the target -- all while maintaining the tank as my default target so I can quickly cast PoM and CoH on the tank at the conclusion of each cooldown.

However, there's a problem I'm experiencing and I hope that someone here knows what the solution is. I like the mouseover targetting when it's over the unit frames, but unfortunately the "@mousover" targeting command also targets a player if they are moused over in the 3D playing world. This concerns me, because in a large scale raiding or PvP environment, I can see problems with accidentally casting heals on people I don't want to heal. For example, I might move off the ui frame to cast heals on the tank I have targetted, but the mouse might just happen to land over a random player and the heal might be cast on them instead.

So, how do I keep the functionality of the @mouseover targeting command when over the raid unit frames but not have it work when it's off those frames? (I was also looking at the Clique add-on, but its description seems to imply that its hovercast bindings work the same way).