About performance...

[• Tierran]

Originally Posted by Etrigana

Peoples UI's not being set right, rotations being off, not using hotkeys and clicking abilities, not being reactive enough, computer issues, attention spans, etc...
-Etri

So, this made me think a little, maybe I need a lot of help here. UI's not being set right? I tried searching for how I might set up my UI to be better, I'm sure it's possible, no doubt mine is quite inefficient. I'm just not sure HOW and apparently I suck at finding such information. Any advice would be helpful on say layouts or key bindings maybe.

I think that rotations being off is a way bigger issue though. I know doing Brutallus I could watch my DPS from each attempt differ by up to a couple hundred DPS by just hitting the buttons in the right order at the right time. I know that having Seld take care of the Demo shout helped my DPS quite a bit. It's an attention thing I guess.

Overall, I feel inferior to what I think I should be doing and want to try fixing it. Maybe useful macros or keybindings, better layout, whatever it takes. And paying attention to things more closely.

[• Raptace]

I really wondered about this too Tier. Some people have some really crazy UI's... I use a couple mods, but nothing major, and nothing that changes the look of the original UI at all.
I've come to think that maybe I don't need to do that? I mean, I don't heal or dispell, so I don't need anything like grid. I've thought about maybe getting something to change my bars so I can put more abilities out than the standard UI. But I honestly don't know crap about mods.

And I have no concept of how to do keybindings when it says like "position 8 bar 3" or w/e it says. I have no idea how to find out which space is which.

My class and spec specifically sort of makes it so I don't have to change things so much cause I'm just basically spamming one button...

If there is something I should be changing or doing that would make me do better, I'd love to hear it, but like Tier, I'm not good at finding this stuff.

[♦ Nortibiry]

I imagine it varies a lot from class to class, but for me (and I imagine for melee in general) I made two changes this year that helped enormously:

1) More keybindings. I reclaimed z,x,c,v,f from the default keybindings and assigned them to useful things. I'm debating taking this one step further and changing my movement keys to e,s,d,f so I can bind stuff all around them but so far haven't taken the plunge. The more stuff I can hit without moving my hand, the more stuff I can do in a heartbeat, or do while moving.
2) Put everything in the same place visually. If you check out my posts in the UI thread you can see what I mean. I can not overstate how much difference it makes to be able to see my character, my health, the mob's health, boss mod timers, and all the cooldown information (including GCD) that I care about in the same area of my screen. The key mods I used for this are bartender for action bars and x-perl for unit frames, I found them both pretty easy to set up.

The next big thing on my list (well in addition to rethinking keybindings) is to try and stop mashing. I know in theory that if I hit an ability right before the GCD expires it should queue up server side (this came in with the stopcasting change) and give me a bit of an edge timing wise, but so far I haven't managed to pull it off with any consistency -- seems like sometimes stuff doesn't trigger and then I'm mashing to catch up again. I'm going to keep picking away at it though.

Hope this helps! I'm also game for any general advice or news on breakthroughs other people have had, I'm sure there are things I'm missing and don't even know about.

[• Aurorawind]

I was the same way as well. I have one button to keep a 1:1 steadyshot to autoshot ratio for my DPS, and it's a macro that weaves a kill command in when possible to have Sable hit and probably crit and give the party the +3% damage.

Other wise every 2 minutes I have to hit bestial wrath to get the big red kitty, drums of battle, and haste potion. Then every 3 minutes I have to hit my rapid fire. I have no trinkets to use or anything. So those I just mouse over and click, perhaps just do a chain macro that I just hit that key several times?

And I do have my UI like Nort mentioned, my screenshot should be up somewhere still. I've got a HUD with tactical data on me and the target in the middle of the screen and all my buttons, save consumables, are right below that. That does really help.

[♦ Assault]

I agree with everything Nort said. I personally still have a ways to go before I get my setup exactly how I want it, but there's two general principles to keep in mind.

Your keybindings should in theory be set up to rarely or never have to click anything. It's just much faster and there's less room for error when you hit a key with your finger than when you mouse over to a button on the screen. This is more important in PvP where timing is everything, but it's also helpful in PvE.

For example I have my normal action bar, but almost everything else I would ever use is bound to a key I can hit wit my left hand. Evasion is B, Cloak of Shadows is V, Sprint is Z, Vanish is N, Healthstone is shift-F, Super Healing Potion is shift-D, target nearest hostile and begin autoattack is T (beware of sheep), Blade Flurry is shift-2, Adrenaline Rush is shift-4, etc. When I switched to this method of keybinding it made a big difference for me. There's no doubt in my mind that I get the Cloak or Evasion off quicker now compared to back when I would hit it with my mouse or a key with my right hand.

The other principle is that all the information you ever need to see on the screen should be concentrated in as small an area as possible rather than scattered all over the screen. This makes it more efficient for you to see what's going on and make intelligent decisions.

There are a number of things I need to see in combat. My energy bar, my combo points on the mob, my Slice and Dice duration, my Rupture duration on the mob, my character (make sure I'm standing behind the mob, not in AoE, etc.), my cooldowns, any relevant boss mod timers and also I have the raid pulled out so I can see what's going on (who's dead, how's healer mana look, who has relevant debuffs, etc.). The idea is that you set up your UI so that all of this information isn't scattered across the entire screen. Nort's UI is a perfect example of this. All of the information he needs is located in a little box in the middle of his screen.

[• Vand]

I certainly agree with Assault about rarely clicking on things. In fact, one of the most annoying things I have to do in the Brutallus is click off the ice block buff after I get burn. That takes a couple seconds, seconds that could have been used to cast another fireball. If only I could figure out a way to come up with a single macro that casts iceblock the first time and cancels it the next time...

One thing I did to help my Brutallus DPS was to map a specific timeline over the 6:00 fight in order to maximize efficient use and stacking of consumable, trinkets, and abilities with CDs. For me, that meant that I activate/use a certain group of things at 1:00, 3:00, and in execute range. I do not know about other classes, but a large part of maximizing a fire mage's DPS is proper cooldown stacking, so it definitely pays to think about those things in advance.

I then created a macro for each of those times that includes all the things I need to do at the same time. I then bound those macros to keys, and ended each macro with casting the next fireball. So rather than having to separately hit the keys to drink a destruction potion, activate icy veins, eat a flame cap, activate combustion, and start casting my next fireball when Brutallus gets into execute range, I simply hit a single key. The result is that all those abilities/consumables are instantly used and my next fireball is underway.

A mod that I have found extremely useful for furthering the whole notion of assigning everything possible to keys in order to minimize mouse movement is Spellbinder. It allows you to directly assign keys to any ability, macro, or item, without first having to put those things on an action button. The result is that I have a lot of things available for when I need them without them taking up screen real estate. It also allows you to switch between different sets of bindings with a single click, something I use for the Teron Gorefiend fight, but something I imagine would be even more useful to hybrids who switch what roll they are filling from fight to fight...much like mods like Closet Gnome or Outfitter allow you to switch gear easily.

edit: This thread got me thinking about the whole ice block thing. I simply added /cancelaura Ice Block before /cast Ice Block, and it works great! No more having to click it off. =)

[• phewl]

Originally Posted by Raptace

I really wondered about this too Tier. Some people have some really crazy UI's... I use a couple mods, but nothing major, and nothing that changes the look of the original UI at all.
I've come to think that maybe I don't need to do that? I mean, I don't heal or dispell, so I don't need anything like grid. I've thought about maybe getting something to change my bars so I can put more abilities out than the standard UI. But I honestly don't know crap about mods.

And I have no concept of how to do keybindings when it says like "position 8 bar 3" or w/e it says. I have no idea how to find out which space is which.

My class and spec specifically sort of makes it so I don't have to change things so much cause I'm just basically spamming one button...

If there is something I should be changing or doing that would make me do better, I'd love to hear it, but like Tier, I'm not good at finding this stuff.

[• phewl]

But honestly, with bongos you can set a key binding by just selecting the option then hovering over the particular button of interest and pushing the key you would like it bound too. I use that for my macros on the gorefiend fight but personally im still a mouse clicker for my dps. I just keep my shadowbolt button near by my curse, potions, trinket, and cast bar above them. Also i keep the threat meter somewhat close by so i can monitor that inbetween stopcasting. I have found that sometimes it can be tricky to do the stopcasting perfectly so if i have a few bad ones in a row i ease up and do it later than i was trying to do it.

Another thing is when you get burn and run to that safe zone, you should make sure your still in range of basements totems, theres a few sweet spots where you can be out of the slash and still get the totems. At the start of the fight i wait until nort hits 10-15K threat on the meter, then i pop my trinket and destruction potion and start to giver. On the next 2 cooldowns i use mana pots and my trinket, and i always try to predict when heroism is coming and make sure i have >75% mana prior to it being used, whether that be through the use of a mana pot(convieniantly) or lifetapping.

I try to stay below the tanks on threat until the 150K range, even if on certain attempts with alot of lucky crits at the start that means throttling myself, after the 150K range i feel safe enough to pass them if it happens to work that way. Around 190-210K threat i use my soulshatter, i find if i use it any earlier theres the chance i could catch up and pull during heroism as i had done twice last week. Going slow at the first bit is definately better than using the soulshatter early, as it will allow you to go full out even if u get super lucky and get say 5 or more 10K crits in a row later in the fight.

Also it should be noted that my dps should be roughly 150 greater than the next warlocks if i am using CoD, basically whoever does CoD should see roughly a 150 dps increase. Also the mad warlocks hitting 2700 dps i believe is from back when infernals were still able to be used producing around roughly another 150 dps per warlock(or with full sunwell gear getting multiple heroisms), while also getting to do CoD. Also noted is that alot of the crazy dps'ers on wws have multiple heroisms. If your trying to benchmark yourself based off another wws kill it is probably wise to investigate their guild status and gear, along with the buffs they gained and the abilities they were not limited to use.

Other than that minor stuff to sneak out the bit of extra dps i can only advise that you really put alot of effort into focusing on doing everything 100% perfectly. I try and get into my zone when we start that boss fight and i sometimes even forget to breath during a insane attempt(the only reason i force myself to is to keep dpsing!).

[• Mithwen]

I use this mod ... dang I forget what it's called offhand (I'll edit this later), but it pulses a symbol in the middle of my screen when a cooldown is up. Pretty useful when you get all excited and you start to wonder if shadow word: death is up. The resto shaman in the SK Gaming Felmyst vid uses it too, so it must be good!

I put all the stuff I can use on the move (instant casts, and the all important Mind Blast) where my left hand can hit it like the folks who posted previously. However, I had to move Mind Flay to my right hand area cause I was getting serious pains in my hand. No kidding ... and how sad is that?

P

[Lockon]

For everyone, theres a mod called "Instant Health" which refreshes life statistics faster then normal. Its so fast even that you can even see people in negative health before they "die".

For shaman, I use like 20 macros but one of the two most useful are the following (taken from arenajunkies.com):

Cure Poison/Purge
Whenever you target a friendly target and press this macro it will cast Cure Poison on that target. Pressing Alt while pressing this will cast Cure Poison on yourself. Whenever you target a hostile target and press this macro it will cast Purge on that target.

/cast [modifier:alt, target=player] Cure Poison; [button:2,target=player] Cure Poison; [harm] Purge(Rank 2); [help] Cure Poison

Earthshock Focus
Stop whatever spell you are casting and Earth Shock the focus target if you have one otherwise it will Shock your current target. To use Rank 1 Earth Shock add "(Rank 1)" after lines 2 and 3.

/stopcasting
/cast [target=focus,harm] Earth Shock(Rank 1); [harm] Earth Shock(Rank 1)

Just make sure to set the focus to the boss or mob that needs to be interrupted and you will never have to target him again to shock unless you focus another target. Makes healing and interrupting one fluid motion =D