What the Hell Does This Button Do?

My Warrior now has himself his first two 359 pieces and will be getting his third today.  I could get more but I am not going to craft, or pay to craft, gear I can get something better than as a raid drop.  Sorry, it is just not my way.

I crafted the waist because there is no better waist for me outside of current heroic raid content (based on an article I read at least) and I am in a casual guild so the only time I will see heroic raiding is on my main after we are over gearing it, so I doubt my 7th 85 alt, 2nd in terms of tanks, is going to be getting into heroic raids any time soon.  That means the waist is a fantastic investment in gear that will last until 4.2 comes out for sure and might even last a bit longer depending how much play time this character gets. 

That is neither here nor there however.  This is about me deciding that it is about time I redesigned my bar because, as I get more gear I am going to want to pug into a raid at some point when I am bored and looking for something to do and while my set up was effective, it was not optimum at all.

See, when leveling I just throw things on my bar where they feel comfortable.  The way I think of things is, everything before 85 is temporary and quite honestly while leveling you will never make full use of all the tools available to you like you do at 85.  Even in lower level dungeons, nothing last long enough to give a crap about anything but killing it.

Now it is time to set things up so they work best for me.

I removed all my skills from my bars.  Set the layout with my bartender to be how I liked it, small and neat and not obstructing anything, sort of out of the way.  I hate a cluttered screen.  I set up all my hot keys and then I went to start and drop my skills back into the positions I figured would work best for me.

2, 3, 4, should be my most used things.  Shift for those numbers should be the things closest associated with them but for multiple targets. Alts for those numbers are utility skills I use most often.  Then I fill them out at 1 and 5 with the second most used things.   Additional things go in further numbers and some letters.  Either way, I laid everything out nicely putting everything where it is supposed to go and put my two biggest defensive cooldowns on C and Z as I do on all my characters.  I try to keep things somewhat uniform like that.

Now to test it out.  Lets do a normal and get some guild mates to abuse, I mean run with, while I start to learn where I put everything.  While waiting we are talking and someone mentions spell reflect.  Oh crap, I forgot spell reflect.  Where to put it.  Screw it, I'll just throw it as an Alt for now, I have a group ready.

One pull comes and there is this caster that just won't come.  Heroic throw will get his butt here.  WTF?  He is not moving and still casting.  I'll taunt him.  There, he is on me now, still not coming but at least not hitting anyone else.  Quick look down, heroic throw is not on cooldown, I hit it, the mob comes, about freaking time.  What the hell did I hit then?  Ahh, Shockwave but it did not go off because it was already on cooldown.  That makes sense.

Another pull, heroic throw caster, charge, rend, thunderclap, shockwave, cleave.  Aggro is mine baby, no way I am losing anyone here.  Huh? Excuse me mr dragonkin, where do you think you are going?  Taunt.   Hey, why are you not coming to me.  Taunt.  F it.  Intervene, challenging shout, charge back, shield slam that stinking dragonkin.  Why wasn't he coming?  Oh, I moved my taunt and forgot where it was.  I remembered every pull up to here, why did I forget now?

Cruise control.  That is why I forgot.  When I play I play on cruise control.  I just know where everything is.  The thing with this is, my cruise control still had my old keybinds in mind.  I have to keep thinking where everything is until I get used to the new set up.

Okay, for the time being I am going to watch my bars and see what I am hitting.  Next few pulls go fine and I start to fall into the comfort zone again.  I am staring at the bars as much as the mobs.  While that is not a good habit it is helping me get used to the new places I have everything.  This is why I am in a normal.  Less chance of messing up so bad because I have my eyes on my bar instead of the mobs all the time that it will cause a wipe.

Next pull.  Wipe.  No kidding.  I had just mentioned on vent that this is so much better for me because it is giving me a chance to get used to my new keybinds and we are less likely to wipe here if I screw up.  Thing is, this wasn't my fault.  Well, not completely.  The healer was D/Cing.  Her vent was lagging so bad that by the time her saying, I just DCed, actually came over vent I had already pulled. 

While the other three classes DPSing where all classes that could heal, I was at 10% left in no time and before I could even move my fingers fast enough to start blowing cooldowns or before they could throw a heal I was dead.  I swear, I never saw my life go from 100 to 10.  It was like, charge, 10%, death in a matter of 2 seconds.  Or at least it felt like that.

Another pull the casters are ripping me apart.  Spell reflect, nothing.  Shield bash, nothing.  Heroic throw, nothing.  I couldn't seem to do a damn thing.  Normally, when questing, I love facing casters, it is a free kill.  There is no way a caster ever gets a cast off on me.  Now, I am missing every interrupt.  Thank god for having a pally DPS that just fell in love with rebuke and was having fun interrupting everything he could.

Reaction speed was doing it to me.  My interrupts where in easy to reach places but each one of them took a second for me to recall from memory where the bind was now, by that time, it was too late.  As for shield bash.  That was just forgetting where it was to begin with.  It was in the same place on my bar it has been since the day I trained it.  One small problem with that.  That spot was not shift 3 any more, it was now shift 1.  Oops.

The rest of the run went on like that.  Small mistakes here and there.  By the end of the run I was pretty much used to a lot of the new positions.  Taunt was no longer 4 it was now shift 4.  Shield bash was no longer Shift 3 it was shift 1.  I can name a few just thinking about them now while not even on the game.  Only a few however.  When I can name them all I will consider myself ready again.  I sense a lot of normal runs in my future.  I'll get used to where everything is again, in time, but it is a case of what does this button do sometimes now.

You might ask, if I knew where everything was so easily before why am I changing everything now.  Why did I just not keep it the way it was.

Effectiveness.  While I did know where everything was before and it was smooth, some of the things where not in really good places.  A few where not even bound at all because I used them so infrequently.

Binding even the infrequently used ones to something, even if off bat, means when the time comes that I need them they do not become click me when you need me things, they are easily accessible like everything else.

While at the moment it seems as if everything is worse I know, from experience, that in the end everything will be better.  I will have more things keybound, I will have them in a better set up to where the things I use the most are in the most comfortable places for me to reach.

Have you ever asked yourself why your keyboard has the letters all over the place instead of in order as if they where thrown in there with no rhyme or reason?  Well, there is a reason.  The letters are set up that the ones you will use most often are in the most comfortable places for the human hand to move.  The lesser used letters are in the places that the human hand is not as comfortable flowing.

Not sure how they figured this all out but that is the reasoning behind it.  That is the reasoning I am redesigning the keybinds I use.  While the other ones where fine, I could use them and use them well, changing their layout will make them more effective, just like the keyboard is designed to be more effective.

Why didn't I just put them in the places I wanted them at originally?  Well, this is my first 85 warrior.  I did not know how I wanted everything until I got here and played here a little bit.  On my other warriors, I have 2, I will be sure to level them with this new set up now so when they reach end game they are used to it.

I am sure, while it might not have looked like it in that run, I will be a better warrior over all when I get used to this set up because everything will be in a more comfortable place to click meaning my reaction and use of them will be faster.  I missed so many interrupts because I had to think, even for a fraction of a second, where it was.  If I had just known and done, if I had just been running on cruise control, I would have never missed an interrupt.

I figure 6-10 normal runs, guild only of course, I do not tank for randoms and even more so will not tank when still learning something, and I will be ready again with some confidence.  My gear might be heroic, my skill set is not right now.  Missing a shield bash in a normal is nothing.  Missing it in a heroic could mean a wipe.

Revenge, revenge, revenge.
Why the hell is revenge not going off?
Oh, revenge is now 1.
So what the hell does this button do?