by Jaraman » Sat Oct 28, 2006 7:41 pm
Arc, here are 3 "survival" hotkeys I use to get Jaraman out of tough situations. While you could use any of these abilities separately, such as manually targetting yourself for a Union heal or just activating Ancestral Guard alone, crisis situations don't usually happen more often than every 15 minutes, and combining several survival tricks into one or more hotkeys provides enough headroom to ensure you have enough oomph to save yourself. It's fun to play on the edge, but I like my "plan B" options to be fairly reliable.
This first one is a simple heal. I always have my quick heal in spell gem #6. I also have a bandolier setup to swap in my Goad of the Just, as it is my fastest spell haste for heals. You may wonder why bother with making a hotkey to heal yourself; why not just target yourself and cast a heal? Putting all this into one simple hotkey eliminates the chance for errors in targetting yourself (versus accidentally targetting pup with a double F1 press), prevents accidentally hitting ALT5 or ALT7 instead of the correct gem #6, automatically recasts for fizzles and interrupts, and most importantly swaps in that spell haste focus for a fairly quick heal. Anticipation and quick reflexes aided by quick mechanics are key to quick heal successes.
selfheal
/tar Jaraman
/bandolier activate goad
/pause 3, /cast 6
/pause 2, /cast 6
/pause 2, /cast 6
The PANIC button hotkey activates Ancestral Guard and Ancestral Favor instantly. It also instantly activates my heal potion, which is in slot 1 of my potionbelt. If the danger isn't too great and I just need a quick burst of health, using the hotkey for the quick heal potion is enough. But if things are too dangerous, I use my Panic button, which is in the same hotbank as my self-heal hotkey. No /pause commands are needed as these are all instant cast and it works every time for me.
PANIC
/alt activate 528 (Ancestral Guard, instant cast)
/alt activate 780 (Ancestral Favor, 499 a tic)
/potionbelt activate 1 (insta-cast heal potion)
My final survival hotkey is quickly becoming my favorite. It's simply Union of Spirits but with myself targetted. It's great being able to cast quicker than can be interrupted by the mob or if you're on the run and need a lot of health NOW. While the Panic button can sometimes be used when you're the offtank in an emergency, Union is a get-out-jail card that works if you're about to die from multiple adds like say from a flubbed pulling attempt.
Union.me
/tar Jaraman
/alt activate 662
In general, if you know you're about to encounter trouble, like say when you're bravely (or foolhardily) about to attempt splitting 4 mobs for a pull, it helps tons to have a clicky root available, have a HOT on yourself, and also have Lingering Sloth on yourself to buy a second or two. And don't underestimate kiting when you need to.
And as for the Epic -- I never equip mine, and don't have a bandolier setup for it even tho I bought the AA for an extra bandolier slot. I keep my epic in inventory and have a hotkey to activate it. (Click and hold the mouse for a couple seconds on an inventory slot to make a hotkey appear on the mouse cursor.) Shift 2,5 activates the Epic HOT when I need it. Likewise, I have my clicky Tnarg's mending spear hotkeyed and shift 5,5 activates that one. And a note on hotkeys -- for the important ones, I map them into the same key as the hotbank they're in -- Shift 5,5 for the spear heal, Shift 2,2 for the AA group cure, shift 3,3 for the TA bandolier, shift 9,9 for Direwind Bear, and shift 4,4 for the self-Union hotkey. That way, a quick SHIFT, double-tap on a number key activates the button as soon as possible with less fumbling around. Hope this helps.
The best solution is not either/or, but best-of.