Omen of Clarity will be one of the new “must-have” talents for all Druids, proccing off not only melee abilities but spells of all types. Learn about the expected proc rate and estimated MP5 value of this 11-point Restoration talent.
The Belkin Nostromo N52 TE
Published on November 6, 2008 by Phaelia 
Featured, Lunar Guidance, Macros, UI Addons 
63 Comments
A new version of the Belkin n52te Tournament Edition SpeedPad
For those of you unfamiliar with the Nostromo SpeedPad, it’s a computer peripheral that rests under your left hand and mimics the key commands of the keyboard. The keys themselves are laid out as follows:
- 14 keys in 3 rows (the last of which only has 4 keys)
- A rectangular thumb button
- A circular thumb button
- A clickable scroll wheel
- An analog directional pad
The 14 base keys are where you map your primary abilities. The four fingers of your left hand rest on the middle row of keys (6-9), and there’s a home row marker on key 8 so that you can quickly find your hand position without having to look at the pad. The Nostromo SpeedPad works by mimicking key presses from your keyboard. So your first step is to configure your gamepad so that each of its keys corresponds to a key on your keyboard.
What You Will Need:
- Bartender4 (via Curse.com)
- Belkin Nostromo N52 TE (via Amazon.com)
- Paper and pencil
Quick Links
- Configuring the Nostromo N52te
- Laying out Action Bars with Bartender4
- Key Binding with Bartender4
- Pagination with Bartender4
- Planning Your Macros
- Sample Role-Based Layouts
- Key Binding Character and Camera Movement
- Key Binding Shapeshifts
- Macro Help: Mouseover Healing
- Macro Help: Heal Self
- Macro Help: Form-Specific Abilities
Configuring the Nostromo N52te
Install the drivers and software that came with the Belkin Nostromo SpeedPad. If prompted to restart your computer, be sure to do so. Now we’ll want to map the keys on your Nostromo to keys on your keyboard. I have my keys mapped in the following way:
You can, of course, map your keys however you want, but avoid using keys that are bound to common interface functions you’ve grown accustomed to using (such as C for the Character screen). I’ve bound my thumb key to ALT since that’s the “alternate” key I like to use in my macros (since it has the fewest number of characters) and my red thumb button to "jump" for interrupting spells or just hopping around to annoy people. Note that in my configuration, I use F1-F4 for shapeshifting, but I’ve never used the keys to target group members as is the default configuration.
Laying out Action Bars with Bartender4
By default, Bartender starts with several bars enabled and displayed in the center of your screen. We’ll want to start by hiding all but two of these. To do this:
- Open the Bartender4 configuration by typing /bt.
- Click on Bar 3 in the lefthand pane.
- Uncheck the Enabled checkbox to hide this bar.
- Repeat steps 1 and 2 for bars 4-10 if necessary.
Because each action bar within Bartender4 is limited to only 12 keys, we’ll have to use two bars to simulate the key layout of our Nostromo.* We’ll set up the first bar as 5 columns by 2 rows and place a second bar below it that’s 1 column by 3 rows so that it looks like this:
* Note: There are multiple configurations that can work, but this layout is one that will give you the most flexibility when it comes to activating automatic paging based on shapeshifts.
To configure bars 1 and 2 to resemble the layout shown above:
- Open the Bartender4 configuration by typing /bt.
- Uncheck the Lock checkbox at the top of the dialog box.
- Click on Bar 1 in the lefthand pane.
- Set the Buttons slider to 10.
- Set the Rows slider to 2.
- Click and drag Bar 1 into position, leaving enough room to position a second bar beneath it.
- Click on Bar 2 in the lefthand pane.
- Set the Buttons slider to 5.
- Set the Rows slider to 1.
- Click and drag Bar 2 into position beneath Bar 1.
- Check the Lock checkbox at the top of the dialog box.
- Optional: Check the Button Grid option for Bar 1 and Bar 2 so that you can easily see which buttons are unfilled.
- Close the Bartender4 configuration by clicking on the Close button.
Key Binding with Bartender4
Now that our action bars resemble the key layout above, we can bind the keys of our Nostromo to their corresponding action bar buttons within Bartender4. To do so:
- Type in /kb. This will put you into Key Binding Mode.
- Mouseover each key on your action bars and press the key on your Nostromo you want to associate with it. For the sake of symmetry, I like to bind the fifth button on Bar 2 to a key on the side of my mouse. I generally map this key to emergency ability such as Barkskin.
- Exit Key Binding Mode by clicking the OK button.
Pagination with Bartender4
Druids have many abilities that are form-specific, making stance-specific pagination (automatic bar swapping when you shapeshift) especially helpful. I recommend paginating your action bars as follows:
- Open the Bartender4 configuration by typing /bt.
- Click on Bar 1 in the lefhand pane.
- Click on the State Configuration tab in the righthand pane.
- Ensure the Enabled checkbox is checked.
- Under Bear Form, set the paging dropdown to Page 3.
- Under Cat Form and Cat Form Prowl, set the paging dropdown to Page 5.
- Under Tree of Life and Moonkin Form, set the paging dropdown to Don’t Page.
- Click on Bar 2 in the lefthand pane.
- Click on the State Configuration tab in the righthand pane.
- Ensure the Enabled checkbox is checked.
- Under Bear Form, set the paging dropdown to Page 4.
- Under Cat Form and Cat Form Prowl, set the paging dropdown to Page 6.
- Under Tree of Life and Moonkin Form, set the paging dropdown to Don’t Page.
- Close the Bartender4 configuration by clicking on the Close button.
Planning Your Macros
Since your default action bars will be those available to you when in caster form, you’ll want to map all those abilities you want to have easily accessible to buttons 1-14. Note that how you lay them out will probably depend upon the spec you play primarily. A Restoration Druid will probably reserve her home row of keys (6-10) for healing spells while a Moonkin will probably use those keys for her Balance spells. Because we’re limited to only 14 keys for the spells and abilities that are available from caster form, we’ll want to create macros that “pair” abilities based on the use of an alternate key such as Shift, Ctrl, or Alt (whichever key you’ve bound to the thumb key under Configuring the Nostromo SpeedPad). To do this in an intuitive way, I like to categorize my spells and abilities based on what function they perform and what they require:
Healing |
Spell DPS |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Melee DPS (Cat Form) |
Tanking (Bear Form) |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
* Must be behind the target |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Miscellaneous |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I will often create a macro that combines two skills within the same category, with the less frequently used (or sometimes the one that feels more powerful) version set up as the alternate ability of the more commonly used one. Such a macro looks like this:
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:alt] Ability2; Ability1
The above macro will activate Ability1 by default and Ability2 when pressed and the alt key is held down. The #showtooltip line will automatically display the appropriate tooltip for the ability that will be activated (and icon if you chose the 
icon when creating the macro). Example pairings that I like to use include:
| Default Action | +Alt Action |
| Innervate Self | Innervate Target |
| Entangling Roots | Nature’s Grasp |
| Abolish Poison | Remove Curse |
| Wild Growth | Tranquility |
| Rejuvenation | Swiftmend |
| Nourish | Healing Touch |
| Mark of the Wild | Gift of the Wild |
| Wrath | Starfire |
| Moonfire | Starfall |
| Hurricane | Typhoon |
| Insect Swarm | Faerie Fire |
Obviously, many of the above pairings are spec-dependent since a Restoration Druid won’t have access to Starfall, Typhoon, or Insect Swarm (in which case, she might instead pair Moonfire with Faerie Fire), and a Balance Druid won’t have access to Wild Growth, Swiftmend, or Nature’s Swiftness. Ferals tend to have fewer abilities available to them within a given form, so it isn’t as important to pair them up like this. However, by doing so, a Feral frees herself to keybind abilities that will shift her out of form when necessary. It can be helpful while soloing to have heals readily accessible, especially when you have “heal self by default” enabled. (Note, however, that a Bear might not want to risk accidentally popping out while tanking.) These are just to give you some ideas of how you might choose to set up paired abilities.
Sample Role-Based Layouts
Caster Form
|
|
Cat Form
This layout assumes level 75+ for Savage Roar and Maim (but was created on my level 62 Feral Druid, hence the icons):
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bear Form
I tried to match abilities between Cat Form and Dire Bear Form to make the learning curve between the two a little less steep. For example, the Bear Form stun, Bash, is mapped to the same key as Pounce/Maim for Cat Form, and Barkskin/Survival Instinct remains the same. This layout assumes level 51+ for Berserk (but was created on my level 62 Feral Druid, hence the icons):
|
|
And to help you plan your own custom layout(s), I’ve created a printable template in Acrobat Reader.
Key Binding Character and Camera Movement
Movement — including strafing — is important in many PvE encounters and especially in PvP content. To facilitate this, I keybind my Nostromo like this:
- Analog Down: down arrow key, back up
- Analog Right: F2, strafe right
- Analog Left: F3, strafe left
- Analog Up: up arrow key, move forward
- Round Thumb button: spacebar, jump
Then I use the in-game key bindings (Escape> Key Bindings > Movement Keys) menu to bind F2 and F3 to strafing.
Note: you may find the analog directional pad to have a non-intuitive orientation (where the up/forward key feels like it should instead be right/strafe right). If this is the case, feel free to shift your directional bindings clockwise one position.
To maneuver the camera, I hold down the right mouse button, and to turn without strafing, I hold down the right and left mouse buttons and move the mouse left or right.
Key Binding Shapeshifts
Even pairing up abilities as described above, you may find yourself short on space when it comes to being able to map your different forms. Over time, I’ve settled on using the scroll wheel for shapeshifting. I use "scroll down" for Dire Bear Form and "scroll up" for Cat Form. I then reserve key 5 for my spec-specific form — either Tree of Life or Moonkin Form. This macro won’t shift you out of the specified form unless you hold down ALT:
#showtooltip Tree of Life
/cast [nomod,nostance:5] Tree of Life
/cancelform [mod:alt]
Because my bars are set up to switch to another page when I’m in a Feral form, I use key 5 to switch between the two forms. In other words, if I shapeshift into Dire Bear Form, key 5 is set up to let me switch into Cat Form and will shift me back into Bear if I’m in Cat Form. The Bear to Cat version of this macro looks like this:
#showtooltip
/cast [nomod,stance:1] Cat Form;
/cancelform [mod:alt]
And the Cat to Bear version of this macro looks like this:
#showtooltip
/cast [nomod,stance:3] Dire Bear Form;
/cancelform [mod:alt]
Macro Help: Mouseover Healing
Mouseover techniques are worth mentioning here because of their potential when paired with a gamepad like the Nostromo SpeedPad. By setting all of your heals (and decurses) up as mouseover macros, you can heal raidmates and groupmates by simply sliding your mouse over their unitframe and pressing the corresponding key on your gamepad, all without ever having to click to target. This is a particularly great technique when paired with the Grid addon and is often used in lieu of a mouse-based healing addon like Clique. I personally prefer this technique to Clique-based healing as the number of our heals increase. This also gives you increased visual feedback on what heal you’ve selected rather than requiring you to memorize which of the 5+ buttons on your mouse perform which function. A simple mouseover healing macro looks like this:
/cast [target=mouseover] Rejuvenation
And when we pair it with an alternate ability, it will look like this:
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:alt, target=mouseover] Swiftmend; [target=mouseover] Rejuvenation
If we want to get really fancy (and we do), we can build a macro like this:
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:alt,target=mouseover,exists,help][mod:alt,target=target,help][mod:alt,target=player] Swiftmend; [target=mouseover,exists,help][target=target,help][target=player] Rejuvenation
The above macro will do the following:
- If ALT is not pressed and the target under your mouse is one you can help, it will cast Rejuvenation on her.
- If ALT is not pressed and the target under your mouse is one you cannot help but your current target is one you can, it will cast Rejuvenation on your current target.
- If ALT is not pressed and both the target under your mouse and your current target are ones you cannot help, it will cast Rejuvenation on you. (This is particularly helpful for healing on the run via insta-cast HoTs in PvP!)
- If ALT is pressed and the target under your mouse is one you can help, it will cast Swiftmend on her.
- If ALT is pressed and the target under your mouse is one you cannot help but your current target is one you can, it will cast Swiftmend on your current target.
- If ALT is pressed and both the target under your mouse and your current target are ones you cannot help, it will cast Swiftmend on you.
It’s a long macro, so it helps to cut-and-paste into notepad, make modifications for applicable spells, then paste it into the macro creation window. You can do something similar for other paired heals like Wild Growth and Tranquility or for Remove Curse and Abolish Poison.
Note: While you could opt to use the interface option for “Heal Self by Default”, this option won’t attempt to heal you should you have someone harmful targeted. The above parameters are necessary to achieve the PvP-friendly behavior described above.
Macro Help: Heal Self
A Feral or Balance Druid might find these macros useful, whether for soloing or PvPing. They’ll shift you out and cast the heal spell on yourself:
#showtooltip
/cast [target=player] Rejuvenation
Macro Help: Form-Specific Abilities
Because Druids have so many form-specific abilities, it’s easy to run out of character-specific macro slots. Save on macro space by building one macro that performs an action based on your current form then map that macro to the same position in either form! For example:
#showtooltip
/cast [stance:3] Feral Charge - Cat
/cast [stance:1] Feral Charge - Bear
You might be wondering why you would want to make such a simple macro when you could just as easily drag the two different abilities to your paginated action bar, but you can add alternate abilities onto this macro like so:
#showtooltip
/cast [stance:3,mod:alt] Dash; [stance:3] Feral Charge - Cat
/cast [stance:1] Feral Charge - Bear
I like to call the above macro my "Go!" macro. For your reference, the Druid forms/stances are:
- Bear / Dire Bear
- Aquatic Form
- Cat
- Cheetah
- Tree of Life/Moonkin
I actually returned my nostromo for only one reason: I couldn’t get used to the analog d-pad. It didn’t have enough tactile feedback, and I found myself going diagonally when I wanted to go straight, in any direction. It was just too hard to get used to. I gave it a week, but that was it.
Another trick, if you find yourself running out of macro space, is to use the paging ability of bartender (or any other bar mod). I tend to have my main bar page to an alt bar when I hit Shift. That way I get twice as many buttons, without having to write macros. Of course, my druid is starved for actual bars - cat, cat/stealth, bear, caster, tree, plus I like to actually page two bars based on form. Sigh.
Fabulous article, Phae, with amazingly useful tips. Thanks!
I am a Grid+Clique healer and I feel the pain as we get more spells. I haven’t figured a good binding for Wild Growth yet, and Nourish will make it worse. (That is, assuming there’s a reason to cast Nourish…) I don’t think I would use keybindings on a regular keyboard, but the Nostromo is tempting. My biggest worry is using the d-pad, just like Pfooti says. And I get pretty nervous when I think about changing the way I heal. Maybe the best time to do that is while I’m leveling to 80.
How do you use the numeric keypad? I’ve configured mine to use the lower-right action bar, and I put a lot of spells on it that are reactive or operate on cooldowns, as well as trinkets and potions.
I’d love to see a screencap of your UI at some point too, if you don’t mind.
Alameins last blog post..Raiding Zul’Aman
I play on a laptop, so while I’m tempted to buy a Nostromo as a present for my desktop-using fiancé, I just don’t have more couch space. I already have a mouse and mouse pad next to me on my right. If I put something on my left too, there would be no room for cuddly kitties and that would be tragic
I use Grid with mouseover macros. I’m not entirely sold on the more complex multi-function ones you’ve listed, but I’ll try them out.
Question! Does this device support multiple keymaps for multiple programs? I’m seeing opportunities here not just for WoW, but for my photoshop and 3d applications.
Tigerfeets last blog post..Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
I strongly urge people to be wary of this thing. Check out the problems people are having at the official forums. (n52te.com)
The support is horrible. They promised a firmware upgrade months ago and even with people constantly asking for updates there has been no official word since.
Just a word to the wise.
Nice. My girlfriend bought me one for my B-day and I never really could figure out a way to set it up for my Resto. I used it to some degree on my hunter but with this article I am going to play around with it more tonight. Thanks for this article.
I’ve just started using mouseover macros, about 3 or 4 days ago, they are basically the same what you have. Alt for healing myself, mouseover, then default. I’ve also got an extra line in my regrowth and healing touch macros for using Nature’s Swiftness when i hold down shift, which is helpful. And of course because i am completely lazy i’ve also got a macro for revive/rebirth depending on if im in combat or not.
Oh and before i forget, for the truly lazy druids out there, ive got a macro to choose the fastest way for me to travel aswell:
#showtooltip
/cast [stance:3,stealth] Dash; [swimming] Aquatic Form; [flyable,nocombat] Swift Flight Form; [outdoors, nocombat] Swift Mistsaber; [outdoors,combat] Travel Form; [indoors,stance:3] Dash
Just change Swift Mistsaber to your ground mount of choice (also, this is made for people who have epic flying, but wouldnt need much of a modification to change).
Phae,
When you first posted this article months ago, I immediately went out and bought one. Since then I have fallen in love with it and will not play any game without it. Using a keyboard now is so foreign to me! The article was excellent months ago and is still an excellent article now! I’m a Clique + Grid user but I do have a mix of mouseover macros as well.
If its not too hard, for some people who are new to a nostromo, could you provide you nostromo setup file for download? I personnaly don’t need it, but for new people who want to see how you setup your Nostromo without having to go through the manual setup which can be tedious because of the nostromo UI it would be benefical for them to to just download your setup and experiment with it.
Keep up the excellent work. You blog is unique and is always a pleasure to read!
Brewnnor/Bruennor — Horde Boomkin/Feral of Gorgonnash US
1 druid wasn’t enough. =)
Oh I did have a question. I noticed you use all 5 keys in each row. Do you have difficulty reaching the 1st key in each row? I especially have difficulty reaching the 1 key in the 1st and 2nd row. It may be my hand placement or I may have tiny hands.
Brewnnor/Bruennor — Horde Boomkin/Feral of Gorgonnash US
1 druid wasn’t enough. =)
Phae, thank you SO much for posting this! Hopefully I’ll finally get into using this instead of leaving it to gather dust! >_<
/hug
Softis last blog post..Getting NaBlo’d out already!
Great stuff! Couple of comments, I have used this tool in the past, but for whatever reason it seemed to cause my large hands to cramp up. My wife, however, is a convert. For those of you that had problems but love the concept (who wouldn’t), you may want to check out the Logitech G15 keyboard with the 18 additional keys that can be mapped on the left side. Many of the same ideas above can be applied there as well.
I’m convinced I need to try some mouse-over macros - very useful info. Looking forward to some more math posts!
I use mouseover macros myself, but in a different way. I have a logitech 518 mouse, which has six extra buttons in addition to the normal left-and-right click buttons. There are two “paging” buttons near your thumbs (forward and back), the zoom-up and zoom-down buttons near the scroll wheel, the funny button below the zoom down button, and the scrollwheel itself is clickable.
I bound all of those buttons to control-1 through control-6. Mainly because I don’t use pet keybinds (I macro my pets stuff anyway).
Then I set up an action bar using bartender which responds to those keybinds. When I’m PvPing, they’re things I need at my fingertips no matter what (nature’s grasp, howl of terror, etc). But when I’m healing, I use target=mouseover macros and stick them all into that action bar. That gives me fine-grained enough control over healing, and makes things work well.
I really like that model, where you can swap keybinds by just moving the abilities around on your action bars, rather than going through the actual keybind menu. It’s much more intuitive for me. I even keep an extra two action bars just for “temporary storage”, very small scaling, though, so I can swap my heal buttons for my solo ones without digging through my macro interface.
I also use target=focus macros for the same spells, and bind them very close to my left hand (QATG, since I move with ESDF). Those are for healing my main tank, which I can do no matter what’s targeted, and the mouseover are for healing other people. It works out nicely for me at least. Also having my focus-heal buttons on the same hand as my run-around buttons means I’m less likely to stand in fire while I reorient myself from “healing” to “running away” keys.
Great post. My hesitation is movement. I use the trackpad on my portable for most mousing, but I’d love to get into mouse movement — I just don’t want a mouse. As it is now, I macro and keybind everything, and use my trackpad just to select targets for non-feral work. For feral, I am stuck tab-selecting and I move with WASD. Ugh.
The D-pad movement kind of turns me off a bit, because it doesn’t seem like strafing (major use in tanking for me) is intuitive. I love the peripherals with the thumb joysticks, but haven’t found one compatible with my Mac.
Also, I’ve tried to keep my UI super vanilla, and loading Bartender and possibly other mods makes me shy away.
Am I being silly? Does the D-pad movement actually work fairly easily for strafing? If this is a million times better, I’ll bite the bullet and keep up with another mod (Itemrack, Omen, DBM) and learn how to use this. But… I remain cautious.
Nims last blog post..He beat WoW
Now if they only made a version us left-handers could use….
Thanks for the extensive write-up! Long time reader, first time commenter, blah blah blah.
I use the older model N52 that I got off ebay more than a year ago for ~20$ and I couldn’t be happier with it. A few fundamental differences between my setup and yours, as food for thought.
I split my two custom bars into 2 4×3 arrays - one has the standard 1 through = keys, then other represents the Fkeys (and shift-keys) mapped to the cardinal D-pad directions, with the angular directions mapped to nothing.. I tried the Dpad for motion, couldn’t get used to it.
Button Layout for bar 1: pages with forms
1 2 3 4 Shift (not on bar)
5 6 7 8 Tab (not on bar)
9 0 - =
Button Layout for bar 2: static across forms
f5 f1 *F4 *f5
f4 *f4 f2 *f2
X f3 *F3 X
The cardinal directions are F1-4, the big red thumb button is F5, * represents shift, and the Xs are not bound at this time - they’re for clicking with the mouse
With this setup the only time I ever have to move my hands to use the keyboard is to type something in chat - when the mulch hits the fan everything I need is ready - no looking away from the screen to relocate my hands.
I have been using a Nostromo for over a year now and I love it! I do use mine a lot different than you do though. The biggest difference is I use the middle buttons on the Nostromo pad for movement. I put what I consider to be defensive spells on the direction pad. Also I use the thumb button to jump and the red button as shift, which is what I use to get a different spell out of the same button. Also as a Grid/Clique user I have my heals on my mouse not on my Nostromo.
A couple of things to add:
First, the Saitek Cyborg Command Unit (http://www.saitek.com/uk/prod/cyborgcommand.htm) is very similar. It has a hat-switch for the direction control, which some people like better, and it has an extra row of four buttons.
Second, I’m a huge user of modifier keys as you can see in my pre-3.0 pally layout (http://www.casualaddict.com/static/nostromo_bindings.png). I love that it gives me all my spells at my fingertips. I never have to worry about not having a spell available, which gives me maximum flexibility. I achieve this by having both shift and ctrl on there.
Lastly, I had trouble when I laid out my keys for the nostromo, then played on someone else’s computer. The buttons were all over the place! So I’ve since sort of figured out a pattern such that my most used buttons will also appear early in the action bars. I’ve gotten used to where they are such that I don’t feel like I need to have my bars in a nostromo shape, but I do the following:
tab 8 7 6 5
ctrl 3 2 1 4
shft - 0 9
This makes buttons 1-3 really easy to push, buttons 4-7 very easy to push, and the others are just okay. So I put my most frequently used abilities in those areas and when I don’t have the nostromo available I still have my most frequently used abilities right there.
I hope that all made sense. Perhaps I’ll do a response post soon to explain how I approach it.
Phae
This thing looks amazing! I can’t wait to grab one and give it a try. It may finally relieve some of the frustration that I get when trying to push sparsely used buttons further down my keyboard and hitting the wrong key.
Love this blog to pieces! Great work!
I confess to being generally ignorant when it comes to macros, and that being 1 of many places where I fail in the game, so this is really awesome info, thank you.
Now to convince the best wife in the world
that I don’t just need an expansion, but a new toy for the computer, too…wish me luck!
Wow, that’s a serious writeup! Thanks!
One other fun Macro-hack that can work well for hybrid players is the [help]/[harm] modifiers. On my priest, I have the following macro:
#showtooltip
/cast [harm] Shadow Word:Pain
/cast [help] Renew
With one hotkey, I have easy access to a HoT and a DoT, depending on what I’m targeting. I’ve got similar combo’s with SW:Death and PoM, etc. You could also mix-in the stance conditionals as well.
OT, but is there Grid Wild Growth addon yet? =P
Nevermind I set it up… just made an Aura and let it track it that way.
I’d say that the most powerful control setup uses a combination of clique and mouseover macros. Clique can be used for oft-repeated actions like remove curse, lifebloom and rejuvenation, while mouseover macros can be used for everything else. I agree that paging is also very useful, especially since the bars tend to automatically pickup on [modifier] in macros.
Phae,
Great post. I got my n52 after reading your first article, and have been pretty happy with it. Anything to get away from that start-menu button when running in full-screen mode.
I’ve tried three general methods for organizing keys:
1) Certain keys are attacks, others are heals, others are shift/target. Using ctrl or shift (I use ctrl instead of alt) changes the attack or heal. This basically aligns with your article. 09=Wrath. ctrl-09=Force of Nature.
2) Unshifted meant heal or attack depending on mouseover/target. Shifted meant heal me. Ctrl meant use some item, self-buff (Barkskin) or shapeshift.
3) Unshifted: All keys are attacks (single-target attacks prefer mouseovers).
Shifted: All keys are heals (single-target heals prefer mouseovers).
Ctrl: All keys are shifts/items/self-buffs.
For resto, you’d swap shifted/unshifted.
I’ve been using (3) since 3.02, and I’m happy with it so far.
The issue I had with with (1) is that for infrequently used spells (say Hibernate), I’d forget which key it was, and even if it was shift-something, or ctrl-something. It took too long to find visually. With (3), I know hibernate is available, unshifted. I can look at my action bar and find it immediately.
The problem with (2) is I found it a mess to have my action-bar changing as my mouse moved around. If my intent is to cast Wrath, I want Wrath even if my mouse is currently over healbot.
I use the thumb-button for ctrl.
The spacebar for jump. Shift-spacebar is sit.
I use the gamepad for forward/strafe/flip-camera.
For the main keypad, I have the bottom-left key be shift. The other keys are bound to
1-5
6-0
F9-F11
Organization for Attacks (nomod)
2-5 = AoE (including FoN)
7-0 = Single-target damage.
1,6,F9 (left column) = CC
F10,F11 = Assist,Target
Organization for Heals (shifted)
1-5=Innervate/Buffs/Poison/Curse
6-0=Tranquilty,single-target heals
F9-F11=Target Prev Friendly, Bandage, Target Next Friendly
Note shift-7 = HealingTouch/Rebirth/Revive, based on if my mouseover/target is alive or dead, and if I’m in combat, or not.
Organization for “Self”: (ctrl)
1-5 Trinkets,Drums,Nature’s Grasp, Barkskin
6-0 Mount+Shapeshifting
F9-F11 Shadowmeld, HealthPotion+Stone, Mana Potion
Of the things I may want to do in a hurry, I really only miss food/drink/soothe animal/other items (other drums, quest items)/Target previous enemy/Target Party Members (default F1-F5)/Faerie Fire. Some of these I’ll probably add as a (ctrl+shift) binding.
Stop the feeding repression of lefties!
This would be awesome, but apparently reversing the moulds is impossible (yeah right) so that its not possible to make a left handed production run.
@Pfooti: I prefer moving using my mouse, binding autorun to a key on the side of my mouse. Nonetheless, strafing is an invaluable technique for PvPing as a Resto Druid, so I had to find some way to make that possible. I actually have a whole section above about setting up Bartender4 to paginate and agree that it’s invaluable for a Druid.
@Alamein: Blizzard has actually said “Whoa! Maybe they DO have too many spells!” It makes me wonder what they can possibly do with us as we approach level 100. Everyone likes new abilities, but if they go too much further, we really will be green blobs of slime (albeit less pretty blobs than Priests). I’d love to share a screen capture of my UI, but it’s pretty much a disaster right now. Maybe I’ll spend some time building something nice soon!
@Sydera: Personally, I’d buy a lapdesk to make room. Or make my kitties sleep on my feet. I simply can’t play without my Nostromo anymore!
@Tigerfeet: Yes, I believe that it does. I haven’t played with its more complex functions, but I believe you can bind different profiles to different executables.
@Brib: I know that people using some of the Nostromo’s more advanced features (like the built-in macros) have reported problems, but I use mine in the very simple way described above and have had no issues. They also released a Firmware update in June. You can find that here, though again I haven’t upgraded mine since I haven’t had any trouble, yet. Sorry to hear you’ve not enjoyed yours as much as we do ours!
@Etokni: I hope that this helps you find ways to apply it to your Druid. I know it’s always a fun challenge setting it up for an entirely new character!
@Breen: Cool idea to macro Nature’s Swiftness into your RG macro. I’m doing something similar with my HT macro since they eliminated downranking. And thank you for a working ATTF macro! I have been looking for one that works post 3.0!
@Bruennor: I am so glad that you are enjoying your Nostromo and that my earlier article helped inspire its purchase! I will try to put up my Nostromo set up file for download along with instructions for where to place it. That’s a great idea.
As for my hand placement, my pinky rests on key 6 (second row, first key) and my index finger is used to press key 9 and 10 (the last two keys on the second row). I never have any trouble reaching any of the keys from this position.
@Softi: Oh excellent! I was happy to read that you’ve been able to apply some of this to your own layout today.
@Pwonja: If you think it would be helpful, I believe that the base hand plate (the part that rests under your palm) can be lifted off of the base and repositioned into a second, lower peg for larger hands. You can find instructions on how to do this on Page 14 of their user manual (http://cache-www.belkin.com.s3.amazonaws.com/support/dl/man_f8gfpc200_p75561.pdf)
@Pfooti: I am quite jealous of your mouse. Between that and a Nostromo, I could do anything. Even tank 5 gorillas. Definitely going to put that on my Winter’s Veil list!
@Nim: I consider myself a minimalist when it comes to UI display, but I load a TON of different addons to make my UI that way. I consider an action bar addon like Bartender4 to be one of the most basic “must haves”, though. It was the first thing I installed when I started playing in the beta. Really, I think the pagination options alone make it worth having. I’d encourage you to try the addon out first and see if it’s something you think you would end up liking.
@NotAnIssue: Have you taken a look at the Fang Gamepad by Ideazon
? It’s not as sleek as the Nostromo, but it looks a lot more friendly for left-handed users, and many of the same concepts outlined above would apply.
@Rhus: Thank you for taking a moment to comment and share your experience.
I probably went through 3 of the old Nostromos (they were sort of notorious for wearing out, but I’ve been really impressed with the craftsmanship of the TE). That’s a great idea to bind your movement to the main keys, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t have enough room for all the abilities and spells I need in caster form (Feral forms, on the other hand, would be easy).
@Ayslin: Another person who binds movement to the main keys! I suppose I can see how that would be possible if you use Clique and a fully-featured mouse. I know Valenna from PDS actually had enough free keys to bind things like Inventory and Character Sheet (I rely on keyboard shortcuts for those). Crazy!
@Spectrum: I’ve only seen pictures of the Cyborg Command Unit, but it always struck me as not particularly ergonomic. Is that untrue?
At some point, I definitely want to try out macros with more than one modifier (Shift and Alt, for example). I’m just worried that the learning curve might be too steep for me. Still, it would free up more space to map directional movement. I’ve actually gotten familiar enough with my layout now that I can play some of my characters with nothing but a HUD displayed (and if I’m partnered, I can add their health to my HUD). WoW is really beautiful this way.
@TheseRoots: (Cute name!) Thanks for the compliments! I hope you love your new Nostromo as much as I do mine!
@Yggdrasil: You could try for Christmas! The one I have now was actually intended for Mr. Phae, but he wasn’t playing at the time so I confiscated it. MWAHAHA!
@Mithral: I’ve seen those type of macros before. I think one of their biggest benefits is that you don’t end up with a “?” icon if none of your specified target meets the criteria of being either hurt or harmed. ^_^ Thanks for the tip!
@Denaras: If there is, I haven’t found it. Oh, but GREAT idea to use the aura. U R S-M-R-T!
@Daenon: I don’t necessarily agree that Clique is superior to this method (obviously) because I find it easier to memorize button positions on a Nostromo than on my mouse (plus, I often move and activate Vent via mouse buttons). Nonetheless, I know some great Clique + Grid healers, so it’s clearly a very effective technique!
@Erdluf: I’m not sure how much the Start button bothers you, but you can disable it via a registry change. It could be worth looking into! Your comment really demonstrates how flexible the Nostromo is when combined with an addon like Bartender. There are probably a million different ways to set it up. Thank you for sharing your impressions of those three methods. I sometimes have trouble finding my Hibernate spell, too.
@Perrin: Awww … sorry! Perhaps the Fang I mentioned up above would work for you?
Woah! Interesting way to set it up! I might try out some of your layout ideas! I love my n52 which I picked up last year after 3 hour raids made me feel Carpal Tunnel-ish.
However I am of the 3 rows of 10 key action bars… 1-0, shift 1-0, and ctrl 1-0
Keymapping
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 0
ctrl shift x spacebar
With wsqe on the d-pad (mouse turning ftw) and using the circle button is my PPT for Ventrilo. Scroll bar is tab targeting! 30 keybinds combos is more than enough for me with bar4 paging my bear/cat/prowl stuff.
I find that that sort of layout works nicely when doing a lot of druidy flight form flying. I got used to doing a lot of mouse turning and managing height with x and spacebar. Luckily I have a multibutton mouse so I keep my shapeshifting keybinds on the mouse.
gts last blog post..You know your Paladin has gone rogue when… Pt.2
I love my N52TE. I thought I’d leave a comment for those Macintosh owners out there with the N52TE.
If you don’t already have it, to do what I’m about to describe, you’ll need ControllerMate from OrderedBytes (I won’t link the site in case you don’t trust the link, just Google it instead). ControllerMate is a nifty little application that’s reasonably cheap to buy that allows you to completely configure the way all of your input devices work, including the N52TE.
I have small girly hands (no offense ladies), so I find it a little bit of a stretch (literally) to hit those keys along the top row. Nothing major, I can press them, but it’s somewhat less than 100% comfortable (maybe my desk is too high to position my hand appropriately for those keys - hmmmm).
With ControllerMate and it’s powerful (and Blizzard-approved) abilities, I have configured my N52TE with ‘chords’. In other words, I’ve mapped the N52TE’s ‘07′ key to 2, ‘08′ to 3 and finally, ‘09′ is mapped to 4. But, if I press ‘07′ and ‘08′ simultaneously, I get 5, when I press ‘07′ and ‘09′ simultaneously, I get a 6, and finally, ‘08′ and ‘09′ together give me a 7. With three keys, I have six different actions. Of course, this principle can get extended to any number of combinations, although the setup starts to get a bit complex. And no, this idea doesn’t need an N52TE for it to work, I’ve just found it very convenient to use ‘chords’ on the N52TE.
Anyway, I think I’m rambling a bit. Good luck if you decide to give this a whirl.
WHY OH WHY don’t they make these for left handed people!?? QQ
I” just have to make do with my ZBoard Fang.
I wish they made neat stuff like this for lefties. =/ We get so hosed.
Tigerfeet…Yes you can and here are some photos of what I’ve set up for Photoshop and Illustrator.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/cyxodus/Photos/speedpad-web-01.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/cyxodus/Photos/speedpad-web-02.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/cyxodus/Photos/speedpad-web-03.jpg
It does help out a lot and saves on the wrists but does take a little getting use to. I love my gamepad when lettering comics.
LadyFirehawk…I suggest the Ergodex DX1. Here are a few reviews on it.
http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/ergodex_dx1/index.shtml
http://www.boxgods.com/dept/hardware/index.php?Action=Article&ID=168
And here is their website. http://ergodex.com/mainpage.htm
Can you use this as a hunter in arena? I’m sure at 80 there’ll be close to 100 key bindings with all the new skills.
Beathoovens last blog post..Spanking Heroic MgT and Target Dummies
I’ve gotta go ‘reaching across the isle here’ {from a Horde tree to a Ally tree}…
ZOMG this is exciting, I think this nostromo will solve some serious key/ability reach problems for me. Thanks so much for writing up such a detailed post on it Ms. Phae.
/tree hug
hi!
i bought my nostromo(the older n52) to play fps games. I never believed i could use it for wow, so i’ll give it a try.But in my opinion the D-pad isn’t reliable enough for movement,so i think i will bind macros on it.
but the article is great,and now i will use my nostromo again.thanks!
itelethozo
I just ordered 53te for myself for Christmas..
I run 9 characters. Holy Priest, Prot Paladin, Frost Mage, BM Hunter, Sub Rogue (all 70), Fury Warrior 65) Shadow Priest, Balance Druid, Enhancement Shaman (all pre 60)
My main is the Holy Priest who raids. I’m looking forwards to trying out the Nost but I think I’m going to have to standardise my key layouts a LOT.
Can you make different profiles on the device?
For healing, I like Healbot and Decursive. I was using Clique for a long time and still do for some things. I could never get on with grid for some reason.
Also, for bars I’m using Macaroon which is the new version of Trinity.
One thing I love about it, is you’re not restricted to 12 columns. You can have one bar with 120 buttons on if you want.
I usually have a paged main bar and a secondary bar set up to mirror the numeric pad. (9 digits plus 0 and .)
The Druid is by far the most complicated with so many forms abilities and spells.
Thankfully, with the new Spellpower change at least my Priest doesn’t have to carry a dps set for soloing now.
Anyway, thanks for a great article.. I tmade me finally get one of these devices.
Holy OMG on a stick. How long did that writeup take you?
I’m very tempted. Do you think it would help an RSI sufferer? They look quite tall, which would raise my wrist unpleasantly.
DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT. I bought two, one for my wife and I. We returned them to Best Buy within a week. Bottom line is the design is flawed. I’ve been gaming for 25 years but could not get used to the way the key pad fits into your hand. You end up smashing the wrong buttons because there are just too many close to one another. They did try make it easier with a little bump on the middle key (like on the F key on your keyboard). Tried by making the button rows at different levels. It just does not work.
And at the price point of $70 bucks or whatever, its just not worth it. Dont waste your money