Watch...what?

[Kushakd]

I hope I got this in the right forums..

Ok, let me begin by saying that I am a new tank, actually so new, that I'm still leveling my warrior and I just had a question about what I believe to be a major issue for me, or maybe any other tanks starting out.

I've gotten in the habit of watching my action bars for CD's, the global..anything really, while glancing at what I'm doing in between rapid movements to my action bars, to unitframes, etc. During tanking, I understand, even now, that it is becoming more and more important that I watch my surroundings a lot more than I should watch my action bars. I have Ghost: Pulse (though I can't figure out how to configurate where the boxes pop-up), but I still watch for my cooldowns, global, (again)etc.

How should I combat my need to look at my action bars? I was thinking mods that show what is currently ON cooldown, and some type of display of how long until it's off near my character, would help a lot. Eventually I'd like to hide my action bars in favor of a cleaner interface, but I don't know how i'll ever get used to it.

If you've got any mods, besides Ghost: Pulse, that I may be able to use to further improve my tanking, feel free to list them, and any other tips.

Thank you.

[vonholck]

Well since the normal rotation as a prot warrior is very simple, if you just play enough you will eventually be able to more or less know which button to push and when. The essential part of this is to bind your keys properly, ofc there are no "right" way to do this, but keep it simple and comfortable (I myself got 1: revenge 2: HS 3: deva 4: SS, that way i only need to spam 1-4 for the main threat abilities)

The only exceptions to the usual rotation is Sword and board + and revenge procs and when you need to aply buffs/debuffs. To track the first mentioned i personally use Mik's combat text, it show the procs as text in a different color than dmg and healing, and makes it really easy to see when to mash SS or revenge.

The last thing that could be an issue would be tracking shouts/debuffs, personally i use an addon called needtoknow, which makes small and customisable bars that can track shouts, sunders, TC and so on on the target, rather than having to stare at the debuff icons on the target frame. These can be placed anywhere on the screen, and since they are quite small they wont ruin your overall orientation.

You can see how i have aranged both addons in this pic: http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll111/vonholck/protUI.jpg

Hope it can be of some use :)

[Kushakd]

Well since the normal rotation as a prot warrior is very simple, if you just play enough you will eventually be able to more or less know which button to push and when. The essential part of this is to bind your keys properly, ofc there are no "right" way to do this, but keep it simple and comfortable (I myself got 1: revenge 2: HS 3: deva 4: SS, that way i only need to spam 1-4 for the main threat abilities)

The only exceptions to the usual rotation is Sword and board + and revenge procs and when you need to aply buffs/debuffs. To track the first mentioned i personally use Mik's combat text, it show the procs as text in a different color than dmg and healing, and makes it really easy to see when to mash SS or revenge.

The last thing that could be an issue would be tracking shouts/debuffs, personally i use an addon called needtoknow, which makes small and customisable bars that can track shouts, sunders, TC and so on on the target, rather than having to stare at the debuff icons on the target frame. These can be placed anywhere on the screen, and since they are quite small they wont ruin your overall orientation.

You can see how i have aranged both addons in this pic: http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll111/vonholck/protUI.jpg

Hope it can be of some use :)

Thanks. I do use keybinds and I have binds for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Q, E, R, T, F, G, and most have their shift (and some with their alt) modifiers.

I will have to research the rotation more, but thanks for the reply.