I keep focusing on the action bar and not the actual gameplay.
This is a big turn off for me because it makes me feel like I’m not enjoying or playing the game right because I’m not focusing on the actual action.
How do you guys keep track of everything without add ons?
Addons for me are a hard no.
I just want to play the game without having to keep looking at the bars.
To me that’s the equivalent of playing a console game and only focusing on the controller.
Am I really that bad? Or is the gameplay in this aspect not good?
The short answer is that people use addons.
However, there are some things you can do to improve without them. First of all, make sure you have enemy nameplates turned on. (I think the default keybind is shift-V.) That will let you more easily track dots and stuff on your enemies. Also, make sure you’re personal resource display is turned on. (Look in the names section of the interface menu.)
Make sure you’ve got the spell alert opacity in the Combat section of the interface menu set high enough that you can see when special things proc.
The next thing is practice. Once you’ve played a character enough, you’ll get a feel for the cooldown timing. Although a lot of this is going to depend on spec. Some specs just lots of little cooldowns to keep track of. Having other things affect those cooldowns on the fly can also complicate things.
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I’ve adjusted the settings, let’s see how things go now.
Thank you.
Unfortunately you need to be able to see when abilities are off cool down and without add-ons this means looking at your bars.
If you don’t mind me asking, what is your reason for wanting no add-ons?
I just want to keep things simple. I want to to enjoy and focus only on the game play. I don’t want to look at the “controller” while playing the game.
Your only real alternative is to only play classes with the least number of cool downs and trust your peripheral vision if you insist on not playing with Addons.
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Fair enough, was just thinking a very simple weak auras set for you class will allow you to keep looking at the centre of your screen as you fight and then go invisible once or of combat.
Without add-ons there’s no real way to make your abilities more obvious.
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Thank you for the suggestion. I may just give it a try in the future. I’ve never even used weak auras.
Two things I can suggest that have helped me greatly:
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Right click on your character’s health box and unlock it, then move it down to the left side of your character at the bottom of the screen and lock it in place. Do the same with the targeted npc window only on the right side. That way your eyes aren’t looking up at your health way away from the action, and are closer to your bars and the action more often.
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Go through the default blizzard keybinds and change them how you like. I’d you play multiple characters put similar abilities on the same keybinds (all my interrupts are on Shift+5, dps cooldowns are Shift+Q for example). The goal here is to make your buttons more comfortable and build muscle memory so you can press them without looking.
For example, I use 1-4 for my basic rotational abilities, shift 1-4 for cooldowns or AoE, Q and Shift Q for cooldowns or quick-fire abilities I use every 20 seconds or while moving, E and Shift E are movement abilities, R and Shift R are defensive cooldowns or “emergency buttons”, F and Shift F are crowd control, and C and shift C are defensive abilities.
As a hunter I know I start with Aimed Shot on 1, then when I see the buff around my character for Arcane Shot that’s 3, when my focus is low I use rapid fire on Q, etc. That makes it kinda a rythem of 1, 3, 3, 1, 3, Q, etc that you can get used to with practice.
Bellular’s video here is a great overview on this topic:
https://youtu.be/mbdWNNML6ME
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Thank you so much! I really appreciate all the advice.
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One thing you can do which sort of fills the role of addons is make macros to replace the tooltip of a rotational spell (Something you don’t need to see) with something that has a cooldown (That you do need to see).
This leads to an action bar which looks like it has 3-4 copies of multiple spells, when in reality it just still has everything once. Now it’s much easier to check the cooldown of an ability at a glance, because you aren’t looking for it in a mess of other spells, and lets you focus more on the game.
Example Macro
#showtooltip unending resolve
/cast fear
Now you have a button that casts fear, but looks like unending resolve. Change 3 of your spells to look like unending resolve and put them next to eachother, repeat for other major cooldown abilities you want to be able to see at a glance(Just fill space on your bars with multiple copies if you run out spells to hide), and you’ll be able to get useful information from your action bar without staring, and without resorting to addons.
Muscle memory - a lot of things come from muscle memory. You play enough - you get used to where everything is and you don’t need to look at the keyboard. You just know where things are.
What is the issue with addons? You can still keep things simple and use addons. If you really insist on not using any at all - well there are a lot of good suggestions already 
I actually took an additional step in the key rebinding process and mapped my movement keys to ESDF. This lets me have more bindings that don’t require a modifier key. I do this for almost every PC game now because it makes a lot more sense and I don’t have to move my left hand at all to start typing.
As for the whole addon thing, I understand your hesitancy, but the fact is there’s a lot to keep track of in WoW and addons help you do that. A “Weak Aura” can be as simple as a streak of color next to your character when a certain criteria is met such as a stacking buff requirement or any other condition necessary to cast a specific spell. You can make these yourself with a little effort, but there are plenty of set ups online that you just literally copy and paste into the game for your desired class/spec. If any of it is too invasive or you just don’t need it, you can disable individual elements. You customize what/where/when/how anything appears on the screen to indicate “You can press this button now.” Alternatively a slightly less invasive option is “Bar Tender,” which can be used to quickly remap your action bar bindings and you can drag the bars around to put them closer to the action if your goal is to minimize how far you eyes travel to check a cooldown.
I know it can put some people off, but I’ve spent a decent amount of time in game just customizing my UI and I actually enjoy doing that. Making the game comfortable for you can take some time, but it’s worth it imo. The default really is trash.
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