Keybinding and addon advice?

Community General Discussion
1

This topic can essentially be split into three sections.

  1. I’m currently using ElvUI as my only addon. Are there any addons that are recommended for use in conjunction with ElvUI? If possible I would appreciate a brief summary of what any addons do?
  2. When I downloaded ElvUI it rebound my battle pet keybinds and so far I haven’t been able to find a way to return them to normal without uninstalling ElvUI. Does anyone know anything that could work?
  3. I’m attempting to switch over to keybinds for all of my abilities, but I’ll admit that I have very little idea what I’m doing. I’m currently using a laptop with no mouse. What would you suggest for a keybind setup?
2

plugging a mouse into the laptop for starters

i prefer Dominos over elvui

it’s just a lot of setup for something i am not satisfied with but keybinds and bars are subjective/preference

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3

Keybind what is comfortable to your hand. Bind one or two abilities at a time so you can get used to it, then add more as you feel.

You really need a mouse though, keyboard turning inefficient too. Maybe get a cheap one? They’re only a few bucks.

4

Add-ons are pretty subjective. The essentials (imo) would be DBM and Recount which really only matter in end-game.

I personally only use like 5 add-ons and those are DBM, Threat Plates, Recount, Auctionator, and Big Debuffs. Everything else is just clutter to me

As for the keybinds, first you basically have to have a mouse. No idea how people play with a track pad lol, my ex-gf did the same thing for awhile until I just went and bought her a mouse and her experience improved 100x

& second, I just bind the keys around WASD, like F, C, V, Q, R, etc then I use shift and crtl modifiers. I used to use a razer naga but the tracker kept shooting up so I stopped using it and can’t be bothered to buy another mmo mouse.

5

Idk much about addons. I use Bartender, Bagnon, HHTD and DBM. You’re going to need a mouse.
At Target they sell a pretty good gaming mouse for about $20 but you can just use a standard mouse, too. They cost less.

Someone else who knows about ElvUI will have to answer your questions. Others can give you macros to add, too. GL.

6

In regards to the addons, could someone tell me what the ones mentioned actually do? I’m trying to just stick to what would be considered the bare essentials.
As for the mouse, it’s not that I don’t want to use one (have a basic wired mouse), so much as I simply don’t have room to use one anymore. I’m pretty much stuck using my laptop from the couch or my bed and neither of those surfaces are particularly well suited to using a mouse.
Also, with the keybinds are there any defaults that you recommend keeping the same or changing (targeting, chat etc.)?

7

Silly elf. Don’t you have a binder or other hard surface? even a pizza box will work.

While visiting friends in Canada for a month, I even bought a ‘couch table’ so I’d have a mousing surface.

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  1. I actually detest ElvUI, and only know of one guy who uses it and enjoys it. So I don’t have much information on this one.
  2. Nope.
  3. Ok, on this topic, I can be helpful. I apologize for the information dump.

First, ensure that you get a mouse, preferably something with gaming in mind. A Corsair Scimitar, or one of the Logitech ones can work. Razer also makes similar products, but after moving to Corsair, I wouldn’t ever go back.

Second. Keybinding is all about making sure your UI is comfortable. I’ve explained keybinding to my guys and girls before for some of the people who don’t venture into it much and the thing I repeat all the time is that the UI is home. When designing the UI (both involving keybinds and information conveyance), it’s important to know what you got, what you need, and be comfortable with performing your role.

I keybind with two concepts in mind. One being familiarity (which I’ll explain in a second), and the other with comfort. The reason the mouse is so important is because travel time is a real thing. If you have a key on keyboard-8 for example, the amount of travel time for your finger to actually hit that can impact your game play for the negative, whereas if you have a mouse, your time during GCD’s is actually much better spent because you’re moving quicker.

So, familiarity. The point behind familiarity is that you should keybind with the idea of other characters also in mind. Keyboard 4 is my kick on every character which has one. Mouse-7 is my stun on every character which has one. Mouse-6 is my AoE / Reticle based abilities on every character which has one.

To go further into it as an example: my warrior’s mouse-6 (also mapped as numpad 6) is heroic leap, and on my priest in discipline, it’s PW:Barrier. On my DK, it’s D&D. You get the idea. Keybinding with this mentality will help when learning alts and getting comfortable with their binds as well.

And on the topic of comfort, I design my keybinds from the comfortable “middle” zone and work my way out. My mouse has 12 buttons, but my thumb at rest lies on 5, and 8. So 5, and 8 are most used abilities. 4, 6, 2, 7, and 9 are abilities which are used often but not specific to a core rotation. Think stuns, CD’s that are short, etc. 1 is racial, 3 is a defensive, and 9 is a dispel (or secondary short CD). 10, 11, and 12 are all CD’s which are longer than the above mentioned. M4, and M5 are situational abilities such as purges, mass dispels, or big defensives like DBS.

So in short, my finger has to move the least amount for buttons I’mma hit all the time, and then it has to move increasingly the rarer the ability usage becomes. I also bind F1-F6, `, R, T, C, and V with the same mindset.

Edit: I get that’s a lot, but if you wanna have a chat about keybinding further, feel free to add my btag. Shad#1132. I’m happy to sit down and explain the process in voice, or through chat and assist you with UI design in any way you feel might be helpful. I enjoy tinkering.

9

Logitech g602 can be had for around 30 bucks right now. Outstanding gaming mouse, wireless, and it allows you to use a ton of mouse binds in addition to your keyboard binds. It solves multiple problems at once.

Also, a “keybind setup” doesn’t exist the way you think. Like for mine I tend to put abilities that go forward in the game on the front of the mouse, so the front side button is blink and the one under it is cone of cold.

The back upper and lower side buttons are abilities that go back, in a way, like Ice Block (self ability) and frost nova. The top extra buttons are more reactionary ones like ice barrier and mouse wheel click is my interrupt.

I had always bound proc abilities to alt+1 (like Pyro when I was fire). Aside from that, I think people use 1-5 probably, F, T and possibly some modifiers of those. Just set it up how it seems comfortable to you.

ELVui is prob fine but haven’t used it much. I use Dominos, Shadowed Unit Frames, Details, OmniCC, Quartz, KUI Nameplates, DBM, Range Display, and a bunch of others to piece my UI together.

Best thing you can do, and ELVui might do this, is to move your player and target frame undr your feet somewhere and away from the top of the screen. Especially if you are going from clicking to keybinds, this helps a lot.

10

Don’t play without a mouse. You are gimping yourself a lot by playing like this.

IMO, must have addons:

  • Advanced Interface Options - Pretty self explicative. Adds back the options Blizzard removed from the default UI.

  • DejaCharacterStats - Adds back removed stats from the character UI.

  • BugSack - Must have for debugging/identifying problematic addons.

  • Titan Panel - Additional information pane on the top of the screen, incredibly useful.

  • MoveAnything - Complete control over UI elements positioning.

  • RangeDisplay - Small indicator of enemy range (like 30-35y) etc. Really helpful.

  • Bartender - Action bar replacement with complete control over action bars.

  • Any UI addon - Subjective, but… To change the default UI which is, frankly, terrible in delivering useful information. I see you already use ElvUI, but I like Z-Perl better.

  • KUI Nameplates - Greatly improved nameplate addon.

-If you have a healer:

  • Clique - Binds clicking action with/without modifier keys to abilities. Pretty much mandatory for effective healing, together with a better raid frames/UI addon.

-If you have many alts:

  • Altoholic - Must have if you have alts. It keeps data about them, like inventory, ilvl etc. and enhances your tooltips with that information.

  • SavedInstances - Primarily for alts as well, to track your currency and World Boss kills easily.

-If you do occasional PvP:

  • Capping - Timers for BGs.

  • H.H.T.D. - Indicates the healers in the BG so you can focus on them, whether for attacking or defending.

11

I too am taking notes on the mouse stuff since it’s something I haven’t used before! Thank you :slight_smile:

As to other stuff my advice is:

I also run add ons which I consider ‘basic’:

  • DBM (Deadly boss mods) like many have said: an amazing add ons that tells you about boss mechanics live and really helps you learn them. I have later played on my laptop and nailed all the mechanics with it.

  • TomTom or Coordinates. As you delve into higher maps you’ll often have people saying 44,45 etc. it really helps to be able to relay positioning to another player.

  • Pawn: I would say this is especially important as you are levelling up because it tells you if a piece of gear is an upgrade at a glance. Once you’re 120, If you’re a geek you can even tweak the stat weights of pawn to the weights you’re given through a site like raidbots though it’s pretty accurate as is.

  • I use this because I am dumb but also want to do well : MaxDPS. Basically tells you what key to press to maximise your DPS. If you’re ever playing a class that has a high skill ceiling like Feral Druid then it’s very useful because it’ll help you get into the rotation correctly.

It seems like a lot but honestly, absolutely zero regrets.

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My offer extends to you, as well. If you want mouse help / keybind mapping to the mouse and all that, hit me up and I’ll pass on what I know. I have fifteen binds on my mouse alone.

Anyone who wants to learn how to improve through UI / hardware is worth teaching.

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13

I would search YouTube for key binding you’re specific class, there are streamers that like to show how its done and it makes good sense.

Another thing to look into is using Weakauraus and finding a setup that works good, again youtube has a lot of ideas for that.

GL!

14

I’ve had two of these and recently got my wife one. We both tried the Razer mice and they broke very quickly. Then you have to put up with their software and the laser will bug out, so you’re not able to move the camera when playing wow. I actually think it’s a software compatibility issue with WoW. Had it happen on three Razer mice.

Edit: because I wasn’t being clear, the Corsair mouse is great. The Razer mouse sucks.

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15

Best advice: get yourself a gaming mouse. a 12 key Red Dragon Perdition is like $30-$35. Takes a little getting used to if you are used to clicking, but then it’ll be like you never wanna play without it. You can set up to where you do another bar just clicking shift and the keys or CTRL and the keys. Had an Ex that was constantly just clicking as a hunter and I got her to finally break into it over a christmas break, and she still hasn’t played without it since.

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