Just trying to improve my overall ability in battlegrounds. Is there any addons that I should be using? This isn’t necessarily for Arena cause I dont do a lot of Arena-albeit, im sure arena addons are used a lot in bgs too. So fire away!
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- Capping
- Plater
That’s all you really need imo
How does plater make a difference for you? I use plater and theres a million settings but curious what you’ve done to think its mandatory for bgs
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It’s simply better than the default UI, it’s invaluable since it shows all the dangerous casts going off from a distance (important!) and lets you toggle pets/minions “on” or “off”.
Default UI is just a mess in epic bgs, feels like I’m playing blind I can’t see that hidden Mage casting that GPie off in the corner, also I can’t filter out all the pesky pets/minions flooding the field during teamfights. Once I went Plater I never went back, absolute must-have.
Makes sense. Also BigDebuffs works with Plater nameplates. It’s why I swapped from TidyPlates/Threat Plates to Plater.
I can’t count the number of times Plater has saved my life during the big teamfights, it’s probably in the hundreds lol
Because it shows every enemy cast bar at all times - even from a distance - you can see that deadly Gpie, Chaos Bolt, or Aimed Shot winding up before it finishes, giving you those precious 1-3 seconds to respond/take evasive action.
The default UI only shows the cast bar of your current target. It’s simply not good enough in the context of a big teamfight where there can sometimes be multiple dangerous abilities (GPie, Chaos Bolt, Aimed Shot, etc etc) winding up at the same time.
I’ve used Spy for years. I’d feel naked without it.
Have you tried Weiz? Check it out. The target takes a little getting use to but it grows on you quick. It is a godsend for mass WPvP.
Try to focus on your UI being minimalist and only conveying need-to-know information. As an average gamer you are probably overloading your processing power with an abundance of useless information.
It does no good to track kidney DR if you can’t respond to what the enemy just did to begin with, you see. That would be my suggestion to anyone.
Next, try to implement a very logical and precise keybinding layout that you could universally apply to across classes. (G/shift g/ctrl g are my defensive cd’s, for example, on all classes. R would typically be for travel, unless a rune/energy based class in which QER are either modifiers or finishers, depending on class). T is universally dispel or utility, same for mb4/mb5, etc.
You should aim to be quite comfortable with playing with next to no keybindings shown other than your cooldown information or things of that nature.
People typically don’t like this reply, but it’s the cold truth.
You probably, I would even bet, need much less instead of more.
Information does nothing if you can’t do anything with it in time. Focus on bare fundamentals and work from there! <3
Oh, allow me to suggest some binds!
`123456 qertyfghzxcvb mb1 mb2 mb3
shift all of these
control all of these
shift WASD
ctrl WASD
(based on comfort of course)
shift wasd especially underused imo — I use it for things like earth, ele, water shield, sap or distract, things like that. Shift MB1/MB2 would be apply deadly/crippling poison, as another example.
Also incorporate macros that are useful for you, but not cluttered (ie perhaps mouseover blind is better for you than focus blind, which might be better for your comfort than /target arena1 /cast blind etc.
Everything should be bound, imho. I bind mounts to shift spacebar and ctrl spacebar.
I was able to play TBC shaman with every totem bound, which is actually quite easy if people would try (using wind as cooldown totems respectively as they were at the time so it was technically in pairs of 3s), sorted by utility type (defensive offensive support etc)
a great example being q e r would be str totem, wf totem, mana spring totem, and then F would be magma. Then like shift q e r f would be stoneskin, grace of air, healing, and then let’s say searing totem. That type of thing. ctrl 1-4 would be defensive element totems.
SORRY fo rrant, just giving you mapping ideas. Add me on discord if you have any questions…
hiddens#9392
1.Bartender4
2.BattlegroundTargets3
3.REFlex
Healers Have to Die - Makes more visible both friendly and enemy healers for faster identification.
Capping - Shows timers for bases, towers/bunkers, etc. and things such as gate health in IoC and WG too.
Battleground Targets / Battleground Enemies - Displays enemy unit frames for easier targeting. Great for checking out the enemy composition before the match or seeing the EFCs route earlier and more.
Auto Release Spirit - Self-explanatory. Releasing earlier means you may rezz earlier rather than missing it and having to sit for the full 30 seconds.
RETab Binder - Modifies the tab target function to skip over pets/minions/totems while in PvP instances. Skip all the imps and jump straight to the warlock.
Nameplate Cooldowns - Track enemy CDs with icons above their nameplates. When that paladin jumps you, you want to know if his bubble and lay on hands are available or not, etc.
Weakauras 2 / TellMeWhen - Not at all specific to battlegrounds but everyone should be using one of these things to manage their rotations more peripherally rather than having to tunnel vision their action bars. You can search some premade set-ups for your spec on wago. io (for WA2, not TMW).
Enjoy. 
3 Likes
I’ll say
Battleground Enemy
Ealign
Nameplate Cooldowns
Reporter
Leatrix
And make some focus macro’s
This is super underrated advice. Get the clutter away from the middle of your screen and filter out all information that isn’t immediately necessary. It’s much easier to be situationally aware when you can see so much of the fight.
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Press alt + z and immerse your self, only way to play bgs.
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I like using REFlex, REPorter, and BattlegroundEnemies
REFlex is a history of your BGs, a serious need if you always think you lose!
REPorter, I love how I can interact with the map and give callouts. Drawback is its not useful in all BGs, for example, useless in SSM.
Battleground enemies makes it easier to identify healers, shows buffs and debuffs etc.
I would suggest adding one and using it before adding others.
As a healer I rely heavily on z-perl. I’m sure other add-ons do the same thing, but I like having the range finder, which tells me who is in range of my healing spells and who isn’t.
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I have my flag of ownership using the same key binding on all my classes.
This addon won’t help your game, but I couldn’t play without it at this point. It’s called KillingBlow_Enhanced. It plays a sound file when you get a killing blow on a player, which can be swapped with a little effort for one you might prefer – too much fun.