Beginner with Key Mapping Questions

[luxlunae]

Also for your dps spells, start with simple castsequence rotations. If you're planning to do dungeons, for example, you don't want your healer dpsing when you press A, you want her to start casting basic no oom heals on your tank or doing nothing.

Your shaman probably want to start with something like /castsequence reset=combat lava burst, lighting bolt, lightning bolt, lightning bolt, earth shock

You don't want to be having to hard cast individual segments of a rotation on top of every thing else you are doing at the same time in a dungeon. You don't need the highest optimal dps, just something that works well and is fire and forget. Take a look at the macros and 2 step macros that people are using to get an idea of what I'm talking about. Add new abilities as you find the need for them (I personally find that using clique to bind a few of my tank abilities is helpful) but go slow, you definitely don't want to overwhelm yourself with trying to imagine everything you could possibly need before you've even hit dungeons. I wouldn't suggest adding more than one or two abilities per day as you level. (by abilities I mean across the team... for example you'll probably want a round robin silence/interrupt as an early key which would cast wind shear for shaman and rebuke for the pally).

[Criels]

Also for your dps spells, start with simple castsequence rotations. If you're planning to do dungeons, for example, you don't want your healer dpsing when you press A, you want her to start casting basic no oom heals on your tank or doing nothing.

Your shaman probably want to start with something like /castsequence reset=combat lava burst, lighting bolt, lightning bolt, lightning bolt, earth shock

You don't want to be having to hard cast individual segments of a rotation on top of every thing else you are doing at the same time in a dungeon. You don't need the highest optimal dps, just something that works well and is fire and forget. Take a look at the macros and 2 step macros that people are using to get an idea of what I'm talking about. Add new abilities as you find the need for them (I personally find that using clique to bind a few of my tank abilities is helpful) but go slow, you definitely don't want to overwhelm yourself with trying to imagine everything you could possibly need before you've even hit dungeons. I wouldn't suggest adding more than one or two abilities per day as you level. (by abilities I mean across the team... for example you'll probably want a round robin silence/interrupt as an early key which would cast wind shear for shaman and rebuke for the pally).

This has become my problem. I wiped 6 times on the second boss of Stormstout Brewery last night with a group of 87's ( Prot Pally, Resto SH, Ele SH x3) with 400 plus ilvl gear. I'm simply having to micromanage to much and the fight turns into my tank trying to grab aggro while my healer heals and my dps goes down to nothing. VideoFX healing seems to be my weakest link and I'm not sure what my healing solution will be. I currently have simple /castsequence macros and casting everything else alone ( Ascendance, Unleash Elements, totems etc). That works fine for questing and trash, not so great for boss fights.

As a beginner when you start to look at your options it does become overwhelming because everyone seems to have a different way that works for them and you have to many options. I'm using ISBoxer so I can setup a priority system, use the swap actionbar setup or use in game macros as I have been doing to this point. Is it worth it taking the time to learn how to setup ISBoxer for a priority system or going with the CLS Pro System? Are swapping action bars going to give me any advantage over an in game macro like...

/cast Ascendance
/castsequence spell, spell, spell, etc
/cast Unleash Elements

This is where the confusion comes in for me. There is plenty of info for the beginner to learn how to do things but figuring out which route to take to accomplish your goals (in my case MoP heroics) isn't as easy. I'm not sure if this post gets put in the same category as people asking what class they should play in the WoW forums (the answer being whatever class you want to play) or if there is a "better" method depending on your experience and goals.

[Khatovar]

Is it worth it taking the time to learn how to setup ISBoxer for a priority system or going with the CLS Pro System? Are swapping action bars going to give me any advantage over an in game macro like...

/cast Ascendance
/castsequence spell, spell, spell, etc
/cast Unleash Elements

This is where the confusion comes in for me. There is plenty of info for the beginner to learn how to do things but figuring out which route to take to accomplish your goals (in my case MoP heroics) isn't as easy. I'm not sure if this post gets put in the same category as people asking what class they should play in the WoW forums (the answer being whatever class you want to play) or if there is a "better" method depending on your experience and goals.

It is almost always worth the time to learn how to use more advanced methods once you have the basics down. You say -

I currently have simple /castsequence macros and casting everything else alone ( Ascendance, Unleash Elements, totems etc).

That's a lot to be hardcasting. Honestly, I have about 3 "core" buttons I use at any given time. 2 is my normal spam, Tab is my normal spam with IWT, 3 is my normal spam + cooldowns. Everything I need is in those. Riptides on my whole party, totems, shields, procs... Yes, I have tons of other buttons I use as well and I do a lot with mouseover because I use HotKeyNet instead of ISBoxer so I don't have things like VideoFX. But the point is we have the ability to set up a lot of things in our multiboxing software that reduces micromanagement.

The advantage of learning to use a setup like priority casting in ISBoxer is that instead of 1 just being

/cast Ascendance
 /castsequence spell, spell, spell, etc
 /cast Unleash Elements

1 can become

/cast Ascendance
 /castsequence spell, spell, spell, etc
 /cast Unleash Elements

/castsequence totem, totem, totem, totem

/cast proc

/cast long cooldown spell

/castsequence reset=target just need once spell, null

/cast racials or something

/dance

Plus you don't have to worry that anyone is out of sync and not ready to use whatever you are currently hardcasting. You stick it under a priority system or something like that and they use it when they can, and it's less to keep track of.