bindpad
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Addon Spotlight: Macros, macros, macros
Macros. They're great. For certain classes and gameplay elements they're almost required, and for many others they're terribly useful. Macros can do things like create a keybind that fires your damage mitigation cooldowns and uses a healthstone. Perhaps you want to stop casting whenever you hit your interrupt? No problem. They can allow you to use modifiers to cast your abilities on your focus instead of your target, or to use all your damage increasing cooldowns at once. But the macro interface, as one of WoW's older ones, leaves a little to be desired. Therefore, today, we're looking at addons that make macros easier, particularly those that generate more space for their use. As you can see from the above, you don't get much from the default system. So let's get started with one addon whose whole purpose is to give you a bit more room to play with. BindPad BindPad is an addon designed to give you space, both on your action bars and in your macro pane. What it does is really pretty simple, so I'm not going to allot it a ton of space for explanation. Downloading and installing it is really pretty much the only setup that you need, there are no real settings for this addon. Once you have it up and running, type /bindpad or /bp into the chat to open it up and you'll be presented with a window. As an aside, I couldn't get it to generate a button in the macro window, which might be a great addition.
Gearing up for PvP: Gaming surfaces and keyboards
My wife recently won a Facebook contest run by those Razer guys to win a Sphex "gaming grade desktop skin", which is actually just a fancy name for a mousepad. That was great timing, too, because she'd been confined to using a ratty Manila envelope as her mouse surface for the past couple of months. She'd been able to raid just fine (apparently Manila paper works better than some conventional mousepads), although a new mousepad might help.Once you've gotten your mouse, you'll want to pair it off with a proper gaming surface. My wife, who doesn't PvP, uses a generic two button optical mouse which she bought simply "because it's pink". She did drool at SteelSeries' Iron Lady gear (also colored pink), but all the fancy tech and extra dollars would be lost on her. On the other hand, if you've splurged on a mouse for your PvP, make sure to get a mousepad that at least takes care of your mouse. At its most basic, a mousepad is easier to clean and keep clean than, say, your desk.
Key bindings and you
Horns over at Yet Another Warlock Nerf wrote an extremely handy guide to key bindings in his l2pvp series, and it's a pretty good read. Although he writes mostly for a Warlock audience, pretty much all of his tips hit the nail right on the head, giving a practical, easy to understand guide on how to start key binding. I wanted to cover this at some point in The Art of War(craft), but with guys like Horn writing guides like these, I probably don't have to! He notes the three principles of successful key binding: Start slowly - Horn says to take your time and not rush to key bind everything you've got (that would actually be pretty unwieldy...). Key bind one or two spells first and get used to it, eventually moving on to more key bindings. Speed - He also rightly points out that key bindings should consist of key combinations that are accessible with one hand, e.g., it doesn't make sense to bind CTRL+9 unless you're some sort of long-fingered, quintuple-jointed mutant Efficiency - Bind the important spells first, and not those on long cooldowns that aren't always clutch, like Innervate. Which means I'll probably need to unbind my Mini Tyrael... He even has a great illustration of a keyboard lay-out color coded to show which keys are easier to access along with the modifier keys. There are a whole bunch more of excellent tips over at his blog so give it a read if you want to get rid of that clicking habit. What the guide seems to lack, though, is an actual step-by-step guide on how to actually bind what spells to what keys through the World of Warcraft interface. Personally, I just use Bindpad since the default Key Bindings interface gets me a little dizzy.
