How do I get better as a melee

[Al Gorefiend]

I unbound camera actions from my keyboard a while ago. A and D strafe, W moves forward and I unbound back peddling as it is seen as a "noob" mistake to ever ever back peddle.

When I play WoW my left hand rarely goes beyond the far left of my keyboard, the 5 key is the furthest key away from my hand. I do this so I always have 5 fingers maintaining my entire rotation without having to lift my hand and risk fat fingering when I reset my hand.

Basically, my key binds look like this -

1 - 5: rotation abilities,
F1 - F3 (NEVER F4!!) AoE abilities
Alt 1-4 CC
' and ~ key (above tab) self-heal spells
Q taunt on classes that have it, anti-threat on classes that don't (fade, shatter, etc.)
E and Alt E DPS cooldowns
R and alt R executes/situational big damage spells (execute,touch of karma,etc.) alt R is always my racial regardless of race
F and alt F movement spells (spirit walk, sprint etc.)

On my Razr Naga, my mouse over macros and defensive cooldowns are on it.

Holding down the right mouse button and spinning your mouse is all the camera movement you'll ever need, it's it's way more responsive than A D.

I use these same key binds across all characters with the Bartender4 addon, so I easily know where everything I need is no matter the class

[Deleted]

OP: Please stop reading those comments(with all respect). You are on a wrong track. You should not ask for hotkey bindings and WA strings, that is not optimal at all. You keep yourself distracted. Basicly, everytime you want to try a new class, you try to adept yourself a new set of hotkeys. You are screwing your memory/reaction time and you WILL perform worse(regardless of class).

Build your OWN set of hotkeys and addon setup and let it be a standard for all your characters.

Class:
I will suggest a DH. Easy to play, predictable rotation. After some time, you can try other classes if you like the melee play.

Advice:
Do NOT get yourself some WA string etc. Take your time, READ guides. Use TellMeWhen or WA, build it your own and ask yourself "How much can you boil it down to?". Track ONLY the core CD's. In this case, I would track Eye Beam, my 1-3min CD's(not even my defensives). The rest is just based on rutines and rotations. That's all. You don't need more, obviously it distracts you, if you fill your screen up with useless information.

[greeeed]

For me, it's a lot easier to play as melee then range class.

And you no longer need to used macro for most class since they remove many abilities.
Though you still need keybinding to make your life easier.

[Meagree]

-snip-

Are you just Winter Blossom hiding behind an alternative account? If so, why even bother making another account with almost the exact same name?

If not, what?

[Freedom]

willtron's advice is probably the best and most effective in the entire thread. All I have to add is, forget hitting a target dummy for 30 minutes, unless you have some serious issues with rotation or bar tunneling, and go do PVP or LFR. I find that the best way I learn or pick up a class again after a long time is to do random BGs. LFR is also effective, and is much better for configuring a raid UI in a "real" raid, but I prefer random BGs. A shorter wait, low repairs, and when I am totally honest... harder than most PVE. : P

When I made the switch from a clicking keyboard turning hunter to a key binding mouse moving warrior in TBC, I just went into BGs after binding everything and FORCED myself to not click or use the keyboard too much for movement. I caught on very quickly, and felt comfortable with melee by the time I had full S2 welfare gear.

[Deleted]

What kind of mouse did you buy? I use a Corsair Scimitar, and previously the Logitech G600 and Razer Naga, so my combat action bar is bound 1 thru = (UK keyboard). If you're just using your keyboard for hotkeys, use 1 thru 4, Q, E and F, plus whatever modifier you prefer. I use L Shift myself, since my little finger rests there anyway.

I use G600, and to be honest, in legion you don't really need it. I often find it hard to fill up my normal keyboard shortcuts and I no longer use F-keys, much less find meaningful things to bind to the "numpad". Even on my healers, who used to have 6-9 extra mouse keys in use, now barely get 4 (disc only uses 2...), and that's only because I bind all heals to it, since I do not like how mouseover feels with keyboard bindings.

For dps, I mainly manage with the default QERTFGZXCV + some (very few) modifiers. Ability prune is real.

[Deleted]

Are you just Winter Blossom hiding behind an alternative account? If so, why even bother making another account with almost the exact same name?

If not, what?

It's my dog name :-) and no, she is not named after the town in MoP. She is way older then MoP.

[Soisoisoi]

I seem to have a few problems:
1. I'm always looking on my bars. Which skill is flashing next, which button to press. I use Weak Aura and tried Tell Me When. Same result. I tried to switch the bars completly of (saw it on a yooutube vid) but It didn't worked out for me. I even bought a mouse with a lot of buttons, so that I don't have to take my eyes from the middle of the screen.
2. I have never worked with makros (besides the rdruids "oh shit"-Macro).
3. My Movement is crap. I move with a combination of mouse and WASD, QE for straving. But Since my eyes wander back to the bars I lose my focus. Take to long to reposition and so on.
4. My keyboard-setup has to improve. May primary skills are on "^, 1, 2, 3, 4" secondary Skills "Alt + ^,1, 2, 3, 4".
5. My UI has to get better for raiding/pvp-ing. I usw ELVUI and things like Trinketproccs etc. are to small. maybe its becaus I'm playing on a 27 inch monitor. (FHD).

Can you help me fix my problems. I searched diffrent forums, watched tons of youtube viedeos but still arent getting my results.

Thanks to all!

I would suggest setting up TMW (or WA2, your choice) in a "U" shape around your character. It helps remove the need for action bars entirely if you do it well enough. My Monk's UI, with no action bars shown at all, for example:

Click to enlarge & view album

This will alleviate two of your problems: Looking at your action bars, and movement. In doing this, you will also improve your keybindings as... you will definitely need them in doing my kind of setup - Like I said, literally no action bars are shown, I know all [60] of my keybinds.

[Deleted]

I use G600, and to be honest, in legion you don't really need it. I often find it hard to fill up my normal keyboard shortcuts and I no longer use F-keys, much less find meaningful things to bind to the "numpad". Even on my healers, who used to have 6-9 extra mouse keys in use, now barely get 4 (disc only uses 2...), and that's only because I bind all heals to it, since I do not like how mouseover feels with keyboard bindings.

For dps, I mainly manage with the default QERTFGZXCV + some (very few) modifiers. Ability prune is real.

The only keyboard binds I use are Q and E, because of having the 12 button mouse for so long now. It's true that I'm struggling to fill all 12 mouse buttons though :P

[Deleted]

Don't forget some people are just better at ranged then they are with melee (and vice versa). Some player can tank brilliantly while they heal for shit (and vice versa). Same goes for classes, some people suck as DK while they can play a warrior really well.

I don't understand the advice the use of addons. That won't help anyone learn their class. Once a class is learned something like TMW might make your life easier but you wont need it by then. Personally I have never used those.

My advice;

The looking at your bar part; That takes time. Depending on the class a lot or not so much time. After a while it will be muscle memory and you won't have to look at it. What helps is if you have several characters to place certain skill types in the same slot (or behind the same keybind). For example the interrupt for my mage / druid / rogue / warrior are all on the same bar on the same slot.

The keybind part; that is very personal. Same logic as above applies though. Fillers on same slot, rotational spell on same slot and OMGWTFBBQ cooldowns on the same slots. Put the skills you use most on a keybind that is easy to reach for you. Hope the logic makes sense to you.

In general melee is a little harder because your screen is usally filled with a giant boss ass / foot and makes it a little harder to oversee what is going on in the raid.

[Meagree]

It's my dog name :-) and no, she is not named after the town in MoP. She is way older then MoP.

Is that a yes or a no? I'm not really understanding the answer to my question.

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I would suggest setting up TMW (or WA2, your choice) in a "U" shape around your character. It helps remove the need for action bars entirely if you do it well enough. My Monk's UI, with no action bars shown at all, for example:

Click to enlarge & view album

This will alleviate two of your problems: Looking at your action bars, and movement. In doing this, you will also improve your keybindings as... you will definitely need them in doing my kind of setup - Like I said, literally no action bars are shown, I know all [60] of my keybinds.

Wow, that's a huge amount of clutter in the middle of your screen. Distractions ahoy! Plus, you won't be able to see diddly squat with the center of your screen this muddled up with icons and whatnot.

[Deleted]

It's a no.

[Deathquoi]

Rebind strafe to A and D. There is no reason to ever keyboard turn.

[Deleted]

- - - Updated - - -

I would suggest setting up TMW (or WA2, your choice) in a "U" shape around your character. It helps remove the need for action bars entirely if you do it well enough. My Monk's UI, with no action bars shown at all, for example:

Click to enlarge & view album

This will alleviate two of your problems: Looking at your action bars, and movement. In doing this, you will also improve your keybindings as... you will definitely need them in doing my kind of setup - Like I said, literally no action bars are shown, I know all [60] of my keybinds.

I liked it and then it was bad. Like really bad.

It's counter intuitive. Far better to track like 4 CD/Buffs. That's all.

[Meagree]

It's a no.

I think I'll decide to not believe you considering you made an account for this. Maybe it sucks to admit you're bad. But hey, not my business.

On topic, no pain no gain. Practice makes perfect. Other words.

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Rebind strafe to A and D. There is no reason to ever keyboard turn.

Well, unless you wanna play with one hand. In that case it's either clicking or keyboard turning. I'll take the lesser of two evils and opt for keyboard turning.

[Deleted]

Agreed.

Rebind Strafe Left and Right to A and D. AND use S as a hotkey, so you don't backpaddle anylonger(it takes time to get used to it, but it's a really good key).

[Vitinariy]

Class:
I will suggest a DH. Easy to play, predictable rotation. After some time, you can try other classes if you like the melee play.

Why would you be so cruel? As DH you have to play with Momentum and that means moving all the time. If the OP has bad uptime currently - it will be abysmal on DH.
It's much easier to play something like rogue, DK or pretty much any other melee where you can just stay on target.

[Deathquoi]

I think I'll decide to not believe you considering you made an account for this. Maybe it sucks to admit you're bad. But hey, not my business.

On topic, no pain no gain. Practice makes perfect. Other words.

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Well, unless you wanna play with one hand. In that case it's either clicking or keyboard turning. I'll take the lesser of two evils and opt for keyboard turning.

What...what are you doing with the other hand?

[Meagree]

What...what are you doing with the other hand?

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

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Why would you be so cruel? As DH you have to play with Momentum and that means moving all the time. If the OP has bad uptime currently - it will be abysmal on DH.
It's much easier to play something like rogue, DK or pretty much any other melee where you can just stay on target.

A DH can be ridiculously easy if you don't spec into Momentum and similar talents. The baseline Havoc DH (or DH with simple talents) is the easiest spec in the game to master.

[Deleted]

QE for straving

Ew...

Also looking at your bars makes it worse for situational awareness, having weakauras set up in such a way that you can perform your dps with periferal vision only is the best.