Another original idea!

With Mists around the corner, I've decided to play a monk. (A healer, of course.) While the idea of leveling from 1 when Mists drops is discouraging, the unique play style, likely lack of competent monks and my affinity for all things martial arts has me excited. I don't want to be left behind in the new content, so I'm looking to power to 90 within the first week, for sure. This requires preparation. Preparation requires lists. And so, it's time for another bucket list, Mists of Pandaria edition!

1. Gather all monk heirlooms

From my past attempts at leveling druids, I actually have most of these. I just picked up a set of caster trinkets, because my previous set got lost at some point. I just need two one handed-maces for my DPS spec and I'm good to go. Hopefully that 45% exp bonus will make the grind much more tolerable.

2. Prepare leveling mats for my monk's professions

This goal actually requires deciding what I want to have as professions. Between my druid's Alchemy/Jewelcrafting and my priest's Enchating/Inscription I have the big money makers covered, although a second transmute alchemist is an option. I've always wanted the toys that come with having your main be an engineer, so that's an easy choice. I've already bought the mats to power this one to 525.

As for the other slot... things get a little more difficult. As I mentioned before, Alchemy is an option. As is Tailoring, because I currently lack one and have been relying on a friend to craft all my bags. But a leather-wearing tailor never seemed right to me. Enchanting is convenient to have on your main, but not very exciting. Inscription has a lot of new toys, but like hell I'm leveling that again. Leather Working seems like a good fit, and even has the benefit of being a good use for Spirits of Harmony that I'll inevitably gather on my main. The question is do I level with Skinning, use that to level Leather Working, and then drop it for Engineering, or do I just buy the mats in advance? Not sure on this one.

3. Find any other way to speed up the leveling process

Pretty much what it sounds like. I'm not looking forward to being so far behind my friends and guildmates, so any boost is appreciated. I considered using Darkmoon card quests to level from 20-50 relatively painlessly, but that would cost over 75 000g. Not a very attractive price. Suggestions are welcome.

4. Finish a few transmog sets on my priest and druid

Each of my past mains -- that I still play regularly -- have at least one transmog set planned in MogIt that I'd like to finish. Despite enjoying myself in the beta, it's possible that I could end up not liking monk healing, and have to return to one of these two. In that case, or when then inevitably get leveled to 90, I'd like to have a decent wardrobe set up. I swear, I put more thought into dressing my toons than I do myself.

Related to this goal, I really need to clean out my banks and void storage of unwanted transmog gear.

5. Continue stockpiling cloth, ink, etc.

In the past few months I've become somewhat of a AH goblin. I'm a major vendor of glyphs on my server, and was moving a lot of gems as well, until that market slowed down and I decided to step out of it. I've stockpiled hundreds of Netherweave and Embersilk bags to sell to all the new toons in Mists, and tens of thousands of ink in the hope that Glyphmas comes around again. All in all, I'm in a decent position to pocket a fair amount of gold from this expansion. I'll keep buying all the cheap herbs I can find, and hope it works out for me.



That's it for now. I don't have quite the same list of things to do as I did pre-Cataclysm, which I think says something about this expansion -- or maybe just how much I played it. Here's hoping Mists goes smoothly!

UI post: WoW Insider

I love looking at other people's UIs to get ideas and inspiration for my own.  I decided to submit mine to WoW Insider's Reader UI showcase, and they used it. Check it out here.

UI post: On my wacky way of key binding

I've pretty much accepted that, despite what I've tried to force myself to commit to in previous posts, I'm going to be a very sporadic poster. For the time being, putting out a constant stream of posts is not a priority. I'd rather just put up what I think is interesting and/or important to post when I have a fully constructed idea in my head. In that vein, I'm going to continue talking about my UI set up. Today, the topic is key bindings.

Key binding is broadly considered to by the most effective way of casting. While there are great players who are clickers and there are alternatives for healing, I've always found key binding to be the most logical. It allows you to separate your actions into two realms of input: your cursor is for moving and/or looking around, and your keyboard is for casting and/or moving. In any case, an effective key bind setup can make a huge difference. That being said, the default "WASD + 1 through 0" configuration that most people seem to stick with always seemed clunky to me. Because of this, when I made the migration from clicker to key binder, I came up with my own configuration. Hold on, because this is where it gets weird.

My Arrangement 

The colored keys are the ones I use most often in combat:

• At the core of what I've done was shifted my movement (green) keys over from WASD to TFGH. R and Y are my strafe keys. This was actually an iterative process, with me moving one key set to the right at a time until I found myself here, essentially at the center. 
• The red keys are the easiest for me to reach and therefore are my core abilities. For Balance, that means my core nukes and DoTs. For healing, that means my five most used heals.
• The yellow keys are still easily in reach, but take a little effort. The abilities I put there a little more situational. Cooldowns, interrupts, AoE spells, potions and the like. I actually don't even use all of these for combat; my mount and autorun keys can be found in here.

The idea was to give myself an abundance of easy to reach keys, and bind the easiest to reach with my most oft used spells. The result is a configuration that allows my to bind all the abilities I'll ever need, while keeping them comfortable. However, even with all of this I couldn't fit all my DPS, healing and utility abilities on at once.

So I kicked it up a notch.

The Next Level...


...consisted of buying a mouse with more than your basic three buttons and binding ALT to an easy to reach one. Throw in a few modifier macros, and you've doubled the number of abilities you have access to. What I chose to do was invert my bindings, in a sense. By that I mean that if I'm DPSing and need to toss out a heal, I hold down that convenient modifier key on my mouse, and my spells flip over into my healing setup, or vice-versa. But that's just what worked for me, the details are up to you. The point is that this setup gives you about 38 spells without requiring the finger agility of a pianist. Not something to scoff at. However, being me, it wasn't enough.

Too... Many... Buttons...


I bought a Razer Naga. I'm still getting used to it, especially on all my alts, but let's just say I have enough buttons to legitimately bind Aquatic Form to something convenient. And I still have a few spots left over. It's probably too much, but I enjoy a little excess.

So there you have it. My weird way of setting up my key bindings. Crazy 20 button mouse aside, it's a simple way to give yourself a lot more flexibility and comfort while you tear through Cataclysm.

UI post: Balance Power Auras

Continuing from my last post, here are my PvE Balance auras. It's out a little sooner than I anticipated, simply because it's exam season and I needed a reason not to study. I still use the Mana, Flask, Well Fed, Innervate and Rebirth timers I posted before in this spec as well. This time, I'll just post all the screen shots at once, because they play off each other. Also, all of these only show up in combat.

A quick note first: The eclipse bar is Balance Power Tracker, a nigh-mandatory addon for Boomkin that I discovered via Graylo. Get it. Now.


Balance Power Auras

1. Insect Swarm timer. Simple, effective. The only thing you need to learn is how far apart your IS ticks are after haste (Read the tooltip.) so you don't clip it too much.
   

   Version:4.2; b:0; target:true; icon:Spell_Nature_InsectSwarm; buffname:Insect Swarm; r:0.1529; x:-78; bufftype:2; texture:74; isResting:0; mine:true; stacksOperator:=; exact:true; PowerType:0; textaura:true; spec1:false; combat:true; size:0.28; torsion:1.5; texmode:2; timer.h:2.2; timer.UpdatePing:true; timer.Texture:Digital; timer.enabled:true; timer.cents:false; timer.y:-37; timer.x:-136; timer.Transparent:true

2. Moonfire/Sunfire timer. Blue for Moonfire, yellow for Sunfire. Same as the IS timer. One aura for each DoT.
   

   Version:4.2; g:0.7765; target:true; icon:Spell_Nature_StarFall; buffname:Moonfire; r:0; bufftype:2; texture:61; symetrie:1; isResting:0; mine:true; stacksOperator:=; exact:true; PowerType:0; textaura:true; spec1:false; combat:true; texmode:2; timer.h:2.2; timer.UpdatePing:true; timer.Texture:Digital; timer.enabled:true; timer.cents:false; timer.y:-37; timer.x:133; timer.Transparent:true

   Version:4.2; b:0; g:0.7843; target:true; icon:Ability_Mage_FireStarter; buffname:Sunfire; bufftype:2; texture:61; symetrie:1; isResting:0; mine:true; stacksOperator:=; exact:true; PowerType:0; textaura:true; spec1:false; combat:true; texmode:2; timer.h:2.2; timer.UpdatePing:true; timer.Texture:Digital; timer.enabled:true; timer.cents:false; timer.y:-37; timer.x:133; timer.Transparent:true 

3. Starsurge/cooldown. The white ring in the shot and the white timer in the middle of the second are Starsurge. Given that we use it on cooldown, I decided that it was worth having front and center. The timer is so I know when to start queuing it, because it generally comes off cooldown in the middle of a cast. Two auras: one for the cooldown, one for the ring.
   

   Version:4.2; b:0.9373; icon:Spell_Arcane_Arcane03; buffname:Starsurge; r:0.9529; x:-307; customname:48477; isAlive:0; bufftype:15; texture:15; alpha:0.1; isResting:0; PowerType:0; textaura:true; size:0.14; y:-107; texmode:2; inverse:true; anim2:1; finish:0; timer.h:1.55; timer.Texture:Digital; timer.enabled:true; timer.cents:false; timer.y:20; timer.Transparent:true

   Version:4.2; icon:Spell_Arcane_Arcane03; buffname:Starsurge; bufftype:7; texture:103; alpha:0.66; isResting:0; spec1:false; combat:true; size:0.5; y:20 

4. On the topic of Starsurge, I wanted to talk about why I still use the default Shooting Stars aura. First of all, it's pretty much what I'd do anyway and it fits in well with what I have. The REAL reason to use it, however, is lag. Power Auras actually lags behind the in game events. I never noticed it until I had the two aura systems side by side. You'll actually get your "Starsurge ready" white ring show up up to half a second after the Shooting Stars aura, depending on ping. because of that, it's well worth keeping around.
   
5. Starfall ready. No timer when it's gone. I find with these longer cooldowns, I don't need the timer. I cast them when I can.
   

   Version:4.2; icon:Ability_Druid_Starfall; buffname:Starfall; x:-104; bufftype:7; owntex:true; isResting:0; exact:true; PowerType:0; spec1:false; combat:true; size:0.11; y:6; texmode:2

6. Ditto with Force of Nature.
   

   Version:4.2; icon:Ability_Druid_ForceofNature; buffname:Force of Nature; x:104; bufftype:7; owntex:true; isResting:0; exact:true; PowerType:0; spec1:false; combat:true; size:0.11; y:6; texmode:2

7. Eclipse. Yellow for Solar, purple for Lunar. While these days I'm generally staring at the eclipse bar, but it's nice to have this big, central reminder of which spell I'm casting given how central eclipse is to our DPS. Sometimes I forget these things. One aura for each buff.
   

   Version:4.2; b:0; anim1:2; g:0.6902; icon:Ability_Druid_EclipseOrange; buffname:Ability_Druid_EclipseOrange; begin:6; groupany:false; unitn:Only for raid/group.; texture:72; alpha:0.2; isResting:0; speed:1.7; stacksOperator:=; exact:true; PowerType:0; spec1:false; combat:true; y:20

   Version:4.2; b:0.9216; anim1:2; g:0.098; icon:Ability_Druid_Eclipse; buffname:Ability_Druid_Eclipse; begin:6; groupany:false; unitn:Only for raid/group.; texture:72; alpha:0.2; isResting:0; speed:1.7; stacksOperator:=; exact:true; PowerType:0; spec1:false; combat:true; y:20 

8. Nature's Grace. I have that small white timer as well as the white glow around the entire eclipse bar. If you don't use my exact bar setting, you'll likely have to change it to something more practical. It's not big because it's not crucial, but I like knowing when it's up for cast hurricane, DoTs, etc.
   

   Version:4.2; icon:Spell_Nature_NaturesBlessing; buffname:Nature's Grace; texture:69; alpha:1; isResting:0; exact:true; PowerType:0; spec1:false; combat:true; size:0.99; torsion:1.5; y:-60; timer.Texture:Crystal; timer.enabled:true; timer.cents:false; timer.Relative:CENTER; timer.y:17

There you go. Remember, like last time, to make sure that the auras are enable for the correct specs. I didn't change them, and I have Resto as for my primary, and Balance as my secondary.


BONUS AURA FOR THE FORGETFUL

Because it's awkward to explain why your DPS was so low on that last Sindragosa fight..

Version:4.2; b:0; g:0.1098; icon:Spell_Nature_ForceOfNature; buffname:Moonkin Form; groupany:false; texture:139; alpha:0.89; aurastext:NOT IN MOONKIN FORM; isResting:0; textaura:true; spec1:false; aurastextfont:6; combat:true; size:5; torsion:1.5; y:494; texmode:2; inverse:true