To say that the human race is in its infancy presumes too much. Sol is our mother and we are still in her womb, dependent on an umbilical tether to the only star we have ever known. As the fetus cannot fathom life beyond its cocoon, nor can we as a species comprehend what is in store for our extrasolar descendants. Our feeble attempts to reach the planets are but the twinges of a coming labor that we must endure. If we do not start to push for the stars soon, the birth of our race may come too late; our future will be stillborn.
I was playing around with the WoW Model Viewer checking out how cool all my toons were eventually going to look someday, when I decided I should try to do something a little more productive with it. Because I like shiny things, and guilds like shiny things, and people like to be rewarded with shiny things as they achieve, uh... shiny things... I decided to create some shiny progression graphics that guilds can use on their websites as they fight their way through Cataclysm raid content.
You are free to use these graphics in any way you please (well, since it's all Blizzard's artwork regardless, in any way THEY please). However, PLEASE DO NOT LINK TO THESE GRAPHICS DIRECTLY! HOST THEM YOURSELF! All of these graphics can be downloaded in this convenient 11MB package. NOTE: That package also contains the original GIMP/XCF files, if you want to customize them... though you will additionally want to grab the Faerie font from UrbanFonts in that case.
Throne of the Four Winds
Bastion of Twilight
Blackwing Descent
Yes, I play Warcraft. I'm not proud to admit it, but there you go. My main toon is an Elemental Shaman named Koe, but recently I've been playing a Protection Warrior alt, Sizzink, more often. Of all my alts and toons, she has the most complicated setup as far as hotkeys and macros go, so I figured I'd write a blog post about it because, well... why not. It's always good to practice my writing...
Just a quick note before we get started: my Protection Warrior play-style is derived mainly from the info I've read about gear, talents, and skill rotations over at the Elitist Jerks forums.
The Concept
The goal with all of my characters is to be able to control as many skills as possible with hotkeys instead of button clicking. After many years of playing different games and trying a wide variety of layouts, I ultimately always come back to a basic WASD movement setup as my starting point. EDIT: To clarify, I mean an FPS-style WASD setup, where A and D strafe left and right. That means I've changed my WoW key bindings for strafe to A and D, and use the default mouse with right-button for turning. So no, I'm not keyboard turning :)
From WASD, I've found that I can reliably hit the hotkeys 1 thru 6, Q, E, R, T, and F. For some reason I have a hard time hitting the lower row reliably (Z, X, C, V) so I tend not to use those for anything important, or at all. In addition, I can always hit the spacebar, alt, control, and shift, but when it comes to key combinations, the only ones I can comfortably do are alt-based ones (which I hit with my thumb), and even then I can't cover everything. 1 thru 5 and Q and E are the only hotkeys I can reliably combine with alt.
For Warcraft I've left T at the default of toggling autoattack and F at the default of assist target. This leaves me 1 thru 6, Q, E, R, alt-1 thru alt-5, alt-Q, and alt-E. Sixteen hotkeys total to fit in all the abilities needed by a Protection Warrior is a tall order, but here's how I did it.
The Execution
This is my action bar "at rest". You can see that I've remapped the buttons to add Q, E, and R to buttons 10, 11, and 12. And I've reordered 1 thru 9, moving 7, 8, and 9 (hotkeys I never hit on the keyboard) to the far left. This is so that my most crucial hotkeyed skills are pushed as far to the center as possible, making them easier for me to see peripherally while staring at big monster butts in the middle of my screen.
You may notice that quite a few key skills seem to be missing entirely; for instance, where the heck are Charge, Rend, or Cleave? You might also wonder why important talents like Shockwave or Reflect are sitting up on the 2nd action bar waiting for mouse-clicks. This starts to make sense once you see what happens to the action bar when I'm holding down the alt key:
As you can see, most of the items on the 2nd action bar become available by hotkey when I'm holding alt. I've only placed them on the 2nd action bar so that I can watch their cooldowns, and also for those rare cases that my other hand is busy eating pizza while I drive solely with the mouse :)
Despite that cleverness, there are still too many things a Protection Warrior must do. For instance, even with alt held down, Charge is still missing (though you might have guessed where it's hiding from the macro name on button 1). In addition to this hotkey setup, I've had to employ several more complex macros to fit everything in. I'll go through the hotkeys and their macros so you can see how these all work out.
The Buttons
1. Zoom
Button 1 is my "Zoom" macro. When nothing is selected, it simply uses Battle Shout. When an enemy is selected, the icon changes to Charge, and I can use it to Charge the enemy. If Charge is on cooldown, then it changes to Intercept. If a friendly target is selected instead, then it changes to Intervene. In all three of those cases, it will automatically pop Battle Shout too if it's off cooldown. In a long battle, even though the icon will show the Charge tooltip while I have an enemy selected, I can hit it to refresh my Battle Shout if the cooldown is up. Finally, if I'm holding alt, this just uses Victory Rush. The macro that does all this is:
#showtooltip
/use [mod:alt] Victory Rush
/stopmacro [mod:alt]
/castsequence [harm] reset=15 Charge, Intercept
/use [help] Intervene
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/use Battle Shout
/run UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
On the 2nd action bar above this hotkey I have Commanding Shout, which let's me see the combined shout cooldown and also let's me easily mouse-click to use Commanding instead of Battle Shout if it happens to be required.
2. Taunt
Button 2 is my "Taunt" macro. This lets me taunt a mouseover target, the current hostile target, or the hostile target of the current friendly target. It also switches me to Defensive Stance first if I'm not there already. If I hold alt, then it lets me use my Challenging Shout instead. The macro for this is:
#showtooltip
/use [mod:alt] Challenging Shout
/stopmacro [mod:alt]
/use [stance:1/3] Defensive Stance
/use [@mouseover,harm,nodead] [harm,nodead] [@targettarget,harm,nodead] [] Taunt
Above this, on the 2nd action bar, I have placed Challenging Shout so that I can watch its cooldown.
3. Slam
Button 3 is my "Slam" macro. Hitting this uses Shield Slam, but first it also pops my trinkets and Shield Block. The automatic use of Shield Block here may not be for everyone, but I simply don't remember to use Shield Block at all if I don't have it setup this way. In particular, it's possible you might have enough rage for Shield Block but not Shield Slam, and hitting this will cause you to miss a slam, which could be critical at the opening of a fight. For this reason, I have Shield Block on the 2nd action bar above, so I can watch its cooldown and know when I need the extra rage to hit it. The one downside to this macro is that the button will NOT light up when Sword 'n Board procs, unlike when you have Shield Slam on the action bar by itself. However, the screen graphics and sound effects for Sword 'n Board are quite obvious, so I don't need the button highlight. I also use this hotkey to apply Rend when holding down alt, which is typically only at the start of the fight since I (hopefully) keep it refreshed with Thunderclap.
#showtooltip [mod:alt] Rend; Shield Slam
/use [mod:alt] Rend
/stopmacro [mod:alt]
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/use 13
/use 14
/use Shield Block
/run UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/use Shield Slam
4. Conc
Button 4 is my "Conc" macro. This is a simple macro that lets me use either Concussion Blow (no modifier) or Shockwave (holding alt). As with the others, I've placed Shockwave on the 2nd action bar above so I can watch its cooldown. Since that's a common theme, I'll stop mentioning it.
#showtooltip
/use [mod:alt] Shockwave
/use [nomod:alt] Concussion Blow
5. Bash
Button 5 is my "Bash" macro. This macro is a bit more complicated because it's designed to work across stances, but from a Defensive Stance tanking point of view, it just let's me use Shield Bash (no modifier) or Spell Reflection (holding alt). In general, I place my spell interrupt on button 5 for every single toon I play.
#showtooltip
/use [mod:alt, stance:1/2] Spell Reflection
/use [nomod:alt, stance:2] Shield Bash
/use [nomod:alt, stance:1/3] Pummel
6. Thunderclap
Button 6 just has Thunderclap. I can't reliably hit 6 while holding down alt, so I don't have anything more tricky going on there. Above this on the 2nd action bar I have Demoralizing Shout, which I have to click manually if I want it. Generally speaking this doesn't get used much anymore except when riding the very edge of my gear/abilities.
Q. Dev
Button Q is my "Dev" macro. This macro let's me apply Devastate to mouseover targets, hostile targets of friendly targets, or my current hostile target. It's essentially the same target precedence as my taunt macro, and let's me drop Devastate/Sunders on more than my current mob when tanking several, without having to switch targets.
#showtooltip Devastate
/use [@mouseover,harm,nodead] [harm,nodead] [@targettarget,harm,nodead] [] Devastate
E. Revenge
Button E is just the Revenge ability. I have a hard time noticing the Revenge procs (even when the floating combat text clearly shows it), so I need Revenge all by itself so that it gets the yellow button highlighting when it procs. Above this on the 2nd action bar I have my "RetWall" macro, which simply uses the "3 minute cooldown stance-dependent skill", which of course is Shield Wall in Defensive Stance.
#showtooltip
/use [stance:3] Recklessness
/use [stance:2] Shield Wall
/use [stance:1] Retaliation
R. Rage
Button R is my "Rage" macro. This is basically my rage dump button, and is a simple macro that switches between Heroic Strike (no modifier) or Cleave (holding alt). Since Cleave and Heroic Strike share the same cooldown now, there's no need to see Cleave separately.
#showtooltip
/use [mod:alt] Cleave
/use [nomod:alt] Heroic Strike
The Leftovers
As you can see in the screenshots back at the start of this post, I've thrown a few talents I never use, like Slam and Disarm, way off to the left. They're available if I ever need to click them, but they are not commonly used so it doesn't happen very often.
Likewise, my right hand 2nd action bar is primarily used only during the pull, and it's where I've put things like Heroic Throw, Heroic Leap, Goblin Rocket Jump, etc. I know some people weave Heroic Throw more intimately into their single-target tanking rotation, but I just couldn't come up with a comfortable way to do it.
I also have my Berserker Rage, Last Stand, and Enraged Regeneration buttons there. I tried different ways of macroing these but in the end I couldn't make it flexible enough to do what I wanted. So instead I just decided to leave them where I could easily click them. My "oh crap" reflexes are sufficient that I can hit all 3 in a row for a massive health regen pretty darn quickly, or use each individually as the situation warrants.
So there you have it; my almost keyboard-only Protection Warrior layout. I hope it's helpful to someone out there but, even if not, at least this way I'll be able to reproduce my setup the next time I have to wipe my computer or come back after not playing WoW for awhile.
20101011
I've been playing Civilization 5 recently, and enjoying every minute of it. All of the core gameplay I know and love is in there, and the new hex system and non-stacking combat units make for much more interesting strategic decisions about combat and city placement (in particular, chokepoints in the terrain, such as mountain ranges and lakes, are much more important as natural borders). After having played several games where I aimed for good 'ole military domination, I decided to branch out and try for the other victory conditions (the associated achievements had nothing to do with the decision, I swear!). The streamlined gameplay makes multiple game runs a much more viable option now, since even late-game empire management does not devolve into the arduous stack management and city micro of previous iterations.
Once my Great and Bountiful British Empire of North America reached the stars before any other civilization, it was time to start up yet another game to try for a cultural victory. And with the one city achievement sitting there taunting me, I decided, why not, I'll go all-in and see if I can pull off the one city cultural victory.
I knew that defense was going to be the most pressing issue while attempting this goal, so I hedged my bets just a bit by picking an archipelago map type. I knew from previous games that a few well-trained naval units could hold-off mass invading armies. Everything else was left standard: standard map size, standard game pace, all civs (including mine) left to random chance, and a difficulty of prince (normal).
The Founding
I spawned as Suleiman of the Ottomans, a choice that was fairly neutral to my goals. The leader bonuses were not particularly helpful for a cultural win, but the barbarian navy could prove helpful for my defensive strategy. My starting placement, however, was fantastically fortuitous for my goal. Though I didn't fully appreciate just how good it was at the time, there were promising indicators early on. With my settler spawning one hex to the north-east of my final city location, and my warrior one hex north-east of that, I could already see snow, tundra, a hill to the west, and furs. The snow and tundra told me that I was near the edge of the map, which would be a great help to remaining unnoticed for as long as possible. The furs meant I would have at least one early luxury for happiness and trading, as well as the gold income I knew would be key. And the hill gave hope that I would not suffer too badly for production.
In a one city game, city placement is crucial, and I was worried that I would have to spend several turns scouting the area to find an ideal spot. Upon moving my warrior to the SE, however, the situation only improved. Another hill, this one with gold, meant even better production and another luxury. In addition, this uncovered ruins across the bay, which meant I could count on at least one early boost. The tundra hex to the SW of my settler looked like a promising spot -- equidistant between the hills I could then see -- and moving my settler there just sealed the deal. Grasslands for farming, coastal waters for gold, food, and the eventual navy I would need, and good access to a decent selection of resources and luxuries. I was able to found my city on the very first turn; the great city of Istanbul. This was a relief, as it meant I could avoid falling behind on the early production and research.
With my city founded I immediately started production on a monument and research on calendar (via pottery). My early goal was simple: I knew I had to be the first to build Stonehenge, both for the massive early cultural boost (+8) and also for the +1 great engineer point that would allow me to hurry production later on. This was the first in my list of overall goals that I knew would be key for a cultural victory:
- Stonehenge: a wonder that adds +8 to the cultural output of its city.
- Oracle: a wonder that grants a free social policy.
- Angkor Wat: a wonder that reduces the culture cost of acquiring new tiles.
- Sistine Chapel: a wonder that increases city cultural output by 33%.
- Cristo Redentor: a wonder that reduces policy costs by 33%.
- Sydney Opera House: a wonder that grants a free social policy.
- Free Religion: a policy in the Piety social tree that grants two free social policies.
- Mandate of Heaven: a policy in the Piety social tree that converts 50% of excess happiness into culture.
- Constitution: a policy in the Freedom social tree that doubles cultural output in cities with a wonder.
- Free Speech: a policy in the Freedom social tree that reduces policy costs by 25%.
- Aristocracy: a policy in the Tradition social tree that increases wonder production by 33%.
Based on these goals, I was already committed to the Tradition, Piety, and Freedom trees. Luckily these trees have good synergy with a one city victory; they improve my capital city in many ways, and grant happiness bonuses as well, both of which would be crucial for keeping my empire running smoothly with only one city.
I continued to explore my little island, first by raiding the ruins. They gave me a +30 culture bonus (I swear, I didn't bribe the RNG!), which allowed me to adopt Tradition, which in turn sped the growth of Istanbul. The exploration yielded little else of importance. With the cultural boost from the ruins, I was able to adopt Aristocracy a few turns before calendar finished, so production on Stonehenge would be as fast as possible. After the monument completed I began production on a worker, but switched that to Stonehenge as soon as calendar completed. Research began towards philosophy (for the Oracle), and my warrior tirelessly patrolled my tiny island to seek out and destroy any barbarian encampments that might spawn. By 2140BC Stonehenge was completed, and I switched production back to a worker, which I set to farming.
Once philosophy finished, I immediately begin construction on the Oracle. Since researching philosophy began my Classical Era, I used a social policy I had "saved" to adopt Piety. Likewise, I began research on those technologies that would allow my worker to exploit the nearby resources: the furs, forests, deer, fish, and gold in my immediate vicinity. And another stroke of luck; horses were uncovered right next to my capital once I researched animal husbandry. Finally, as my next social policy came due, I adopted Mandate of Heaven, which converts excess happiness into even more culture.
In 1520BC (turn 62) I completed the Oracle and used my free policy to adopt Legalism, which improved my civilization's happiness. At this point Istanbul had grown to 6 population and was generating 4 gold per turn, 5 happiness, and 14 culture. The fact that I had been able to build both Stonehenge and the Oracle implied that the Egyptians had probably not been one of the random civs spawned in this game (an assumption which turned out to be true); this was another stroke of luck for my starting conditions.
Pax Ottomana
At this point my civilization entered a long and quiet period of peace and prosperity. After researching sailing and exploring the local coastlines further, I discovered just how beneficial my starting position was. My only nearby neighbor was the cultured and friendly city-state of Brussels. This suggested Patronage as a likely fourth social tree, since their allied culture bonuses would help with my final goal, though I wasn't yet at a point where I could leverage this. Most importantly, my little corner of the world was otherwise completely cut off from the rest of society by deep ocean waters. I knew it would be many turns yet before having to worry about any other civ, which freed me to focus my city production on improvements instead of having to maintain a standing army to fight off invasion. To determine my city production, I picked improvements based on a simple set of priorities:
- 1. Culture (temple, etc.)
- 2. Growth (granary, etc.)
- 3. Production (workshop, etc.)
- 4. Research (library, etc.)
- 5. Gold (market, etc.)
Once I had researched the technologies needed to tame the local resources, I made my next technological bee-lines for theology (to build Angkor Wat) and acoustics (to build the Sistine Chapel). Thanks to both Stonehenge and the Oracle, Istanbul was turning out the occasional great engineer which could be used to hurry along production. As part of this process, I unlocked Free Religion in the Piety tree but did not adopt it until I finished researching acoustics and entered the renaissance era, so that I could then immediately adopt Freedom and Constitution with my two free policies.
From this point I aimed for archaeology to unlock the additional cultural buildings it allowed, all the while building wonders and improvements in my capital. I had built one worker and some fishing boats, and my only other unit was the warrior I had started with. The single worker was having no problems keeping up with tile improvements to match my pace of research and expanding borders.
By 1330AD (turn 193), Istanbul had a population of 12 and was producing 8 gold, 13 happiness, and 54 culture. I had adopted 14 of the 30 social policies required for a cultural win, and committed to the five social policy branches that must see me through to victory.
- Tradition
- Piety
- Freedom
- Commerce
- Patronage
In addition to those branches previously mentioned, I adopted Commerce as a means of improving my navy, my coastal city's production, and increasing my income to help with maintaining city-state relationships.
On the way to researching archaeology I passed through astronomy, which meant I could build a caravel to begin exploring the world. I knew that the moment of truth would soon be upon me: first contact with the rest of the world. What opposition would I face on my path to cultural dominance?
As I began to explore, my very first encounter was with Montezuma of the Aztecs. This gave me pause, as he can be an aggressive leader. I immediately setup a research agreement and traded resources to try and improve the relationship. As I continued to explore, I took this approach with every civilization I encountered. I negotiated for open borders and trade agreements, and agreed to any pact suggested to me short of declaring war against another civ. In fact, I even acquiesced to all demands made of me; I was not hurting for resources, and had plenty of luxuries to keep my citizens happy, so I bent over backwards to stay in the good graces of all the other leaders. Eventually I encountered all seven of the other civs in my world.
- Montezuma - Aztecs
- Wu Zetian - China
- Napoleon - France
- Ramkhamhaeng - Siam
- Bismarck - Germany
- Catherine - Russia
- Alexander - Greece
The Era of Next Turn
Once I had encountered all of the other civs and knew what I would be dealing with, the Pax Ottomana held strong. I knew I would need some economic improvements in order to keep up the income level necessary for both city-state relationships and to meet the demands and research agreements from other civs. Once archaeology finished, I began researching banking to further this aim.
Istanbul continued to grow and pump out culture, and I kept filling out the five policy trees I had selected in no particular order. Great engineers were used to hurry production of improvements, great scientists to quickly discover new tech, and great artists to start golden ages (though in one case I did have a great artist culture bomb a little deserted island to gain access to iron).
Around this time my empire entered the era of the never-ending next turn. From approximately turn 200 to the end of the game, I was simply accepting all demands placed on me by other civs while occasionally slotting in a new building for my production queue. Most of the other civs seemed to be too busy with each other to spend much time bothering me, and while many wars took place in the world, all were beneath me and my tiny but enlightened civilization.
Despite the apparent peace, I was still worried about maintaining my defense. After all, one quick strike from any of the large empires could quickly spell disaster. For this reason, after banking I headed for electricity so that I could use destroyers to defend my island paradise. This also worked nicely with the desire to get radio and telegraph for the cultural buildings enabled there (Cristo Redentor and broadcast towers).
In the end, my good neighbor policy served to keep the other civilizations at bay. I was also the first civ to field destroyers, which may have helped to keep the AI from becoming overtly aggressive. No one ever attacked me, and my cultural domination was finally at hand. It proved unnecessary to even reach radio or telegraph to manage my one city cultural victory, which was achieved in 2034AD, on turn 468.
