Help a newbie Brewmaster

Classes Monk
1

I’m only level 35 on my lil’ tank…
…but my action bars are so full it’s crazy.

Are there any abilities that are safe to remove from my bars to clear up some space?

An addon would be optimal, I know. I’m working with the base UI for the time being.

Thank you for any help I may receive.

2

My suggestion is get a 12 button numberpad gaming mouse, bind all it’s keys to and extra action bar, and then bind shift + it’s keys to an additional action bar. I have 27 abilities I press regularly before even touching macros, and dragonflight is only adding more buttons to push.

3 Likes
3

The unwritten law of playing any monk spec, we take octopus arms to play well or custom mouse/keyboards.

DH’s though can just 4 button top dps still. Looking at all the glave toss builds in the beta right now.

4

i think im speeding up my eventual carpal tunnel with monk play

1 Like
5

I have one in a package, actually. Just need to learn how to use it!

Thank you for your suggestion! Do you recommend any certain abilities to clump together?

6

My keybind set up is a little weird, and ultimately you should do what feels smoothest for you, but with that being said my keybinds are something like:

‘A’ & ‘D’ are rebound to strafe left and right, I only turn using right click in the mouse.

‘1’ - ‘6’ I can reach with my fingers so they are kept as action keys, I personally keep chi wave, expel harm, purifying brew, celestial brew, niuzao, and touch of death on those keys in that order.

‘7’ & ‘8’ on the main action bar are rebound to middle mouse click and shift + middle mouse click, and are roll & tigers lust

‘9’ & ‘0’ on main action bar are rebound to ‘Q’ & shift +‘Q’, and are AoE control leg sweep and ring of peace

‘-’ & ‘=’ on main action bar are rebound to ‘E’ & shift + ‘E’ and are spear hand strike and provoke

On my twelve button gaming mouse 1-12 are bound to action bar 2, and shift + 1-12 are bound to action bar 3

‘1’-‘6’ on action bar 2 are my primary offensive abilities, black out kick, keg smash, breath of fire, tiger palm, spinning crane kick, & rushing jade wind in that order

‘7’-‘9’ on action bar 2 are trinkets and offensive cds, trinket 1, weapons of order, trinket 2

‘10’-‘12’ on action bar 2 & on action bar 3 are defensive cooldowns, heals, potions, and health stones

‘1’-‘9’ on action bar 3 are less frequently used abilities like clash & transcendence, some macros, and mount for easy fast mounting

Hope this helps!

2 Likes
7

My general “button bloat” list of fixes! Any of these could be useful for your situation.

  1. Rebind keys. ‘6’ through ‘=’ are too hard to reach. 1-5 are easy. I keep QWEASD for default movement, but Z X C V F R are used for abilities. Dont worry about menus, the clickables are more than good enough to get to character pane, etc. Toggling nameplates and RP sitting can find homes on the other side of the keyboard for when you want to use them. I use ‘-’ for enemy nameplates, ‘=’ for friendly nameplates, ‘;’ for sheath/unsheathe weapon, ‘.’ for sitting, ‘,’ for toggle walk/run, ‘shift /’ for hide UI. that sort of thing. non combat means its fine if it’s hard to reach.

Shift 1-5 are mapped to the extra action bar above the abilities, used for throughput cooldowns. Ctrl 1-5 are mapped next to those, used for major (2min+) defensive or utility cooldowns. Shift + QWEASD are mapped to more extra action bar, for short utility or throughput cooldowns (racial, pvp trinket, ~45s cooldowns).

As a general rule, the shorter the cooldown and the less time i can plan ahead to use something, the easier i want to reach the button. Spell interrupt is always F since it’s so easy to press at a moment’s notice.

  1. Overload your easy to reach buttons with context sensitive macros. Tiger Palm is a spammable ability, so i put a spammable heal (vivify) on the same button using the following macro:

    #showtooltip
    /cast [mod:alt, @player][help]Vivify; Tiger Palm[/quote]

I use a form of this macro on 2, 3, 4, and 5, to splice four support abilities on top of my dps abilities, and based on my target (or alt key held for self cast) the correct ability will be used.

The other macro I use is something like:
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift]Crackling Jade Lightning; Spear Hand Strike

Hold shift to ranged poke (usually just to break cc or chain pull), otherwise interrupt. Again, this sort of overlap takes some getting used to, but it translates very well to multiple classes (e.g. Heroic Throw + interrupt, glaive toss + interrupt). Beware: this macro wont work if “Shift 1” is keybound to miss the macro entirely. Also, you wont be able to see the remaining cooldowns of spells temporarily hidden in this way, so it helps to hide the spells that are always available, and leave things with cooldowns in plain view.

  1. Choose passive talents. Straightforward, but a passive talent will be more helpful than an acitve one you never activate. Every passive talent is one fewer ability to bind, which can sometimes be a bigger benefit than trying to re-learn your keybinds for a situational ability. This is a crutch in the long run, but if your goals in WoW don’t demand flawless play, this is a perfectly viable option.

“4”. Avoid throwing abilities back into the spellbook and never letting yourself use them ever. There are a handful of abilities in this game that deserve to be condemned (im looking at you, Primal Strike on resto shamans) but as far as i know everything in monk as a use.

1 Like
8

Welcome to the brewclub! We are definitely not lacking in abilities, but a lot of them are niche, and you don’t need them on the regular. My usual bindings are like this:
1-6: rotational abilities like keg smash, kicks, jade wind, and purifying brew
7-=: stuff that is necessary but situational like clash, paralysis, etc.
Shift+1-5: cleanse, AoE, interrupt
Alt+1-4: vivify, longish cool downs
,Shift+, Alt+`: movement abilities like roll, transcend return, tiger rush
F1-F5: taunt plus short cooldowns
Shift+F1-F5: long cooldowns and utility

First two bars at the bottom, the F key bar at the top, puts everything in reach. You will need that utility, but at least you won’t need to be an octopus to use it this way. Best of luck, and may your brews be ever cold!

9

Rebind A and D to strafe left/right.

The keybinds I use are Q, E, R, F, T, Z, X, C, and 1-5. Plus the Shift, Ctrl, and Alt modifiers for these.

I use Q, E, R, and F for abilities I press often since they’re right next to WASD movement keys. For BrM this means Keg Smash, Tiger Palm, Blackout Kick, Breath of Fire, etc.

When you run out of buttons, start binding with the modifiers - Shift is usually easiest to start.

Ctrl and Alt keybinds are a bit trickier to get used to, but I don’t have enough active abilities to completely fill out all Ctrl and Alt modified keybinds. I personally only use Ctrl+E/R/F/C and Alt+Q/E/R

Hope that helps, good luck!

10

Reading all these binds and macros. I am a clicker. lol