How do you not focus on action bars??

[kevow 0]

Hey guys,

Maybe a silly question,

But how do you not focus on your action bars while raiding?

The reason i ask this is because i look at allot of vids, where people can do their normal rotation and still call out how many seconds left untill by example a new add spawns.( in dbm or big wigs)

I'm even having trouble to keep looking at all my big wigs warnings while doing my rotation. Or looking at the duration of my dots...

Dont know if there are any tips for this topic :p

Thx in advance

[Pandacho 286]

Well, the most obvious part is - time. If you are raiding for long enough time on the same toon, you just remember your rotation, CDs, buttons... It's like a blind typing I think :)

 

Another thing - knowing tactics. If you are familiar with boss, you know more or less when he'll cast the abilities that you have to react to. So you'll start to pay more attention to DBM closer to this time - like 5-7 sec. before specific casts.

 

Last advice - adjust your UI.

 

You don't have to look at duration of your DoTs - you have to get a WeakAura or TMW or other tracing addon, which will remind you to renew your DoTs a couple of sec before they expire. 

 

Configure DBM / BW. It's not necessary to use the default configuration - untick announcements that you don't need, make larger / add voice to announcements you do need. 

Try not to use Scrolling Battle Text during raids or leave only crits or useful information.

 

In two words - less noise in UI - easier to focus on really important things.

[sonie 7]

Lots and lots of raiding, after loads of experience you will be able to do your rotation with your eyes closed. And you can instead shift your attention to boss timers and such while simultaneously doing your normal rotation.

 

As Pandacho said, having a good UI setup with weakauras/tmw will help you to multitask a lot. And furthermore as a healer I can recommend to try to keep your raid frames close to the center of the screen (where your character is), that way it's easier to pay attention to what's happening at the same time. This rule applies to dps as well, but instead of having your raid frames central, try to have weakauras/tmw the same way. Obviously don't overflow it though, too much icons is bad, you only want to track the most important things. 

[Hawkin 5]

Weak auras for CDs tracking, or bar configuration that make your bigger CD on the bar closest to your character and other relevant information (raid frame, dbm, combo pointt, etc. depending on your role). Adjusting your UI can drastically improve your performance in a raid. It might take some time to adjust, but having something personalized for what YOU need, and what you struggle with can help a lot. Personally, I use a lot of WeakAuras to remind me of my resources (Rage) management because I have a hard time tracking it otherwise and let it cap.

 

You can also keybind a lot of your spells (every last one of them if you can!) and it helps to improve your reaction time as well (no longer need to stare at your action bar for 2-3 seconds, to drag your mouse and finally to click). One quick flick of the eyes, it's off cd, press of a button.