Nostromo N52

I picked up this little beauty when all I had was my laptop for gaming as I did not want to destroy the laptop's keyboard and I did not have the space for a full sized one.

It has now become an important part to my computer gaming. I have profiles for pretty much every game I play.

Best of all it works just fine under Windows 7.

Looking at the keys you can see they are mapped in a pretty simple fashion.

I use the D-Pad for 1-4 which for the most part is where my 4(8) main spells are. Then from left to right across the top are 5,6, (up arrow), 7, 8, next row, 9, (left arrow), (down arrow), (right arrow), 0, next row, CTRL, -, =, off. I know it shows the last 3 as off, but I have changed that since I made this picture.

What this all works out to is that the Speed pad is basically mapped to the default Blizzard Bar. So anything that gets placed on it is now hot-keyed for fast use (provided I remember what is where).

A not on movement keys. I use the arrow keys for movement for one simple reason. They do not register in the chat bar when you have it open so you can move and turn while still typing.

I also mention my main 4(8) spells, as typically I have 4 macros in the 1-4 slots that are accessed with the CTRL modifier.

The button on the bottom is the space button for jumping, and the one labeled as LeftAltKey is what I use for my PPT button in vent, which explains why tanking, healing, and DPS'ing is a time when I am quite in vent. I honestly tried a few other PPT buttons, but none really worked any better and this one is simple adn out of the way for the most part.

I created a few new Signature blocks to test out:





I have also included my Paladin as she hit level 80 before my Druid

Healing Macros

My 4 main Healing Macros:

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover, help][help][target=targettarget, help][target=player]Chain Heal

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover, help][help][target=targettarget, help][target=player]Riptide

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover, help][help][target=targettarget, help][target=player]Healing Wave

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover, help][help][target=targettarget, help][target=player]Lesser Healing Wave

As you can see they are pretty much the same. I found the base on the Plus Heals Forums. A great place to get some good info.

What they do is cast your desired spell on who ever you are moused over first. If you are not moused over anyone, it will cast the spell on your target. If you have no target it will cast on you.

I have been thinking about adding a focus to it, as I have noticed that I usually heal myself by mousing over my own unit frame, and very rarely do I target myself or have no target selected.

More on this later.

Dave

UI Layout - Part 1

So here is where my UI has gone.

I have been toying with quite a few options, but I think I have finally found a layout that works well across all my toons.

I decided to kick this off with a Raid shot on Starbreaker as it was a great opportunity to highlight some of the features I really like.

Mainly the Raidframes. I use Xperl, I grew up with CTMod, moved to Perl, then tried Xperl. I have used it for the most part since. I tried Grid and Vhudoo, but they just do not seem to fit well with me. Grid can be very nice for Resto Druids, but that is about all I liked.

On the Raidframe you can see faded out players. Those are people that are out of range. This is a key strategy for me, as until I was able to do this, I was constantly clicking on people only to get the out of range error. I do not have to waste precious time not knowing anymore. It is very helpful in the fights where your raid is split into groups.

If you look at teh top right hand Unit, you can see a number 1. Xperl allows you to see how many healers are targeting which units. When I see numbers like that, I will usually pick someone else to heal assuming there is already a heal coming. I do keep an eye on them though, in case the heal does not come, I will go back and try to get them at that point as they will most likely need it then.

Looking at the Unit below that one you can see a red boarder around that unit. That means they have aggro. If my HoTs are off Cooldown at this point, I would hit them with a HoT depending on the fight. In this case on Razorscale I have noticed that people that are about to get hit with a fireball get aggro a few seconds before the fireball hits them, so I would actually start casting my big heal as soon as possible.

Under that Unit you can see the next unit has a SS Available. Not really a SS in this case, but Reincarnation. No this works really nice with all the other raid/party members that run Xperl and have the option turned on. I believe the module is HealCom which quite a few other mods use, so they can all be tied in.

You can see Raid Icons on the players that have them, which is very helpful in fights where someone gets a debuff that needs healing right now. You can find the icon addons like Deadly Boss mods assign to those players and heal away.

I have my Raidframes anchored on the left, so they go from left to right, not top to bottom, so I can stack then better. Group 1 is on top with Group 5 on the bottom.