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1

I’m trying to run BGs and want to one day step into an arena, but I’m still learning my rotation on my pally. To do that, I got an addon called Weak Auras to show me when an ability is off cd and Hekili to tell me what is best to hit and when.

But I am finding myself looking at my buttons and not my health, enemy health, positioning, etc, etc. How do you know when abilities are available to hit if you aren’t looking at them? What is the trick here? Do you just button mash hoping the ability you want to hit is available? Isn’t that bad, don’t you always want to be hitting the right ability?

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I showed how to make simple weak auras to solve that issue in this thread useful for many skills including storm strike, lava lash, crash lightning, etc. It’s in my post that starts with “Yeah” I also have two weak auras for flame shock. One is the icon (ability section) that disappears and reappears when you can use it. The other is a horizontal bar for Flame shock in the WA debuff section that shows it draining down on enemies.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/new-player-need-helptipsadvice/783386/3

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Personally, I find using sounds to be very useful to alert me about important stuff, so building them into your WAs for important abilities can be something to try.

It also helps to make sure you’re clearing away less important information from the middle of your screen. (And make sure the important stuff is there!)

If you haven’t already, make sure you have your enemy nameplates turned on. (I think it’s Shift-V by default, but you can see what your keybind is set to under Keybinds>Targetting. (There are also some settings for them you can adust under interface > names.) That lets you keep track of enemy health and their casts while watching their position.

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Thanks, I’ll check this out! I have that mouse and love it.

5

A really useful tool that I use when learning a new class or spec is Doom_CooldownPulse. It will quickly flash your abilities across the middle of your screen when they’re off cooldown much like your WA will do, but it doesn’t require nearly as much setup or customization.

I would also recommend turning on cooldown timers as well at: Menu > Interface > ActionBars > Show Numbers for Cooldowns. This can help tremendously when you’re taking a quick glance at your action bars to see how much time is left on an ability. Instead of just seeing the grayed out button, it will tell you how many seconds remain until it is ready to go.

That being said, try your best to just take quick glances instead of focusing on your bars. I know this can be difficult when you’re still learning, but the more you play, the more muscle memory will take over as to where your abilities are on your bars which will really help in the goal of ungluing your eyeballs from that area of the screen.

One last note here, is that while something like this will be really useful when learning your class in a PvE environment, remember that addons like these are designed for PvE.

In PvP, you don’t always follow the DPS rotation because it can be so situational, and is more about out-playing the opponent rather than necessarily optimizing your dps rotation into them.

On your Pally for instance (and especially once you step into arena), you’ll also want to train your muscle memory to remember your utility and defensive cooldowns as well. Properly using abilities such as Blessing of Freedom, Sacrifice, Protection, Divine Shield, etc., are the difference between a win and a loss. Between your teammate surviving an assault or falling.

So while it is a great start to make sure you are nailing your priority rotation, it’s not all there is to it in that type of gameplay. You can get it down though! :slight_smile:

Best of luck, I look forward to meeting you in the arena when you’re ready! :smiley:

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