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.

Druid Macros Part 1 of ?

As many players know, Macros can be a very powerful may to get things done with a simple key press. I do not remember what got me started on looking into macros, but I am glad I did and will continue to use as long as I can.

Druids seem to be designed to require macros, at least for those of use that cannot type or even remember where all the keys on the key on the keyboard are at.

I use a Belkin Nostromo N-52, the link will take you to Belkin support as they have a new one out called the N52te which I plan to get soon. I have all my main abilities in WOW mapped to this badboy. I mainly use the D-Pad for Shifting and main abilities, which is what I have made the follow macros for.

For a true start to understanding macros, I suggest you read over this page as a place to start, this is what got me started.

ok, here we go (All of the follow Macros should be copy/paste friendly):

#showtooltip
/cast [modifier:ctrl]Dire Bear Form(Shapeshift);[stance:1]Lacerate;[stance:3,stealth]Ravage;[stance:3,nostealth]Mangle (Cat)();[button:2, target=player]Lifebloom;[harm]Wrath(Rank 10);Lifebloom

Let me break down the above:

1: #showtooltip
2: /cast [modifier:ctrl]Dire Bear Form(Shapeshift);
3: [stance:1]Lacerate;
4: [stance:3,stealth]Ravage;
5: [stance:3,nostealth]Mangle (Cat)();
6: [button:2, target=player]Lifebloom;
7: [harm]Wrath(Rank 10);
8: Lifebloom

1: When used with the "?" icon, this will show what ability will be used when pressed.
2: I use the CTRL button as my main modifier as I am weird. When you press CTRL and the Macro, you shift into Bear.
3: Stance is a way of checking what form you are in for Druids. Stance 1 is Bear form, so here it will cast Lacerate when in Bear form.
4: Stance 3 is Cat, and we can also check for stealth or no stealth. Here is Stealthed we use Ravage.
5: Cat form still but not stealthed we Mangle
6: I got used to right clicking my heals to heal myself, but for some reason they do not work in macros, so you need to use the Button:2 and target=player condition. This causes me to heal myself when I click the macro with the right mouse button without changing targets. This on is set for Lifebloom.
7: [harm] is another conditional. If your target is one you can harm, cast this. Here it is Wrath.
8: the final default is lifebloom which will cast on my target if I can heal them, or myself if I have no target.

The key thing to remember when chaining macros is that they work off of the first true statement. This is why Shift is first, so that nothing will interfere with that. I could always add a bunch of other conditional check to ensure that it always 100% did what it is supposed to, but there is an ingame limit of 255 characters for macros, and they would be unneeded.

I have been using the above macro since around when the 2.4 patch came out.

Ok, 3 more to go.

Following the above explanation the rest should be easy to understand.

This one shifts into Cat Form:
#showtooltip
/cast [modifier:ctrl] Cat Form(Shapeshift); [stance:1]Growl;[stance:3,stealth]Pounce;[stance:3,nostealth]Ferocious Bite;[button:2,target=player]Rejuvenation;[harm,nostance]Starfire;Rejuvenation

This one shifts into Flight Form (Remove Swift if you do not have it yet):
#showtooltip
/cast [modifier:ctrl] Swift Flight Form ;[stance:1]Mangle (Bear)();[stance:3,stealth]Mangle (Cat)();[stance:3,nostealth]Rake;[button:2,target=player]Healing Touch;[harm,nostance]Moonfire;Healing Touch

This one shifts into Tree Form:
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:ctrl]Tree of Life;[stance:1]Maul;[stance:3,stealth]Dash;[stance:3,nostealth]Shred;[button:2,target=player]Regrowth;[harm,nostance]Cyclone;Regrowth

If you are a Moonkin, you could change the Tree of Life above to "Moonkin" and that would shift you into Moonkin form. Also you would need to remove the nostance from [harm,nostance] statements as they are there to prevent accidents. Meaning they are only true if you are targeting a mod you can attack and are in caster form so as to not accidently take you out of Bear or cat in the middle of combat somehow.

The above 4 Macros will cover all the main abilities you use during combat, to start combat, to heal, and while stealthed. As you might notice there are a few abilities that are on the stealthed parts that do not require stealth. Those are there for the sad times when you get caught, but are still considered in stealth yet the game wont let you use your stealth only abilities.

One final macro for today.

The often posted travel type macro:

/cast [mod:ctrl]Reins of the Black War Tiger;[swimming] Aquatic Form; [flyable,nocombat,noswimming] Swift Flight Form; [noswimming, outdoors,combat] Travel Form;[noswimming,outdoors,nocombat,noflyable] Reins of the Black War Tiger

This macro is kinda long. It is one of the first macros I started with. Slowly but surely I have been adding to it and shorting it.

1: /cast [mod:ctrl]Reins of the Black War Tiger;
2: [swimming] Aquatic Form;
3: [flyable,nocombat,noswimming] Swift Flight Form;
4: [noswimming, outdoors,combat] Travel Form;
5: [noswimming,outdoors,nocombat,noflyable] Reins of the Black War Tiger

1: Sometimes you just want your ground mount no matter where you are. Press CTRL for it
2: Your swimming go go Aquatic Form
3: You can fly, your not getting killed, your not swimming, go go Birdie
4: Your not swimming, your outside, your getting killed, go go Travel form
5: your not swimming, your outside, your not getting killed, you cant fly, Ground mount time.

Again like I said, I have been taking a few conditionals out and replacing the extra characters with useful combat stuff as I have this macro hotkeyed. Once I have it tested to my satisfaction, I will post the super new and improved version.

That is all for today.