Buttons and the Nostromo pad.

I'll get right to the point;

Let me use my own UI as a base for my questions.



Part of the deal is, I'm using the Nostromo pad, and I've been hurting myself trying to figure out how to use the different shift states, while still maintaining the amount of mobility you need as both a tank and a pvper.

So, the first question is, how do you folks configure yours, if you have one?

Second, how many buttons you folks got on your UI to serve you efficiently?
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I use one and don't require too many buttons. I have been contemplating using the keyboard though just because I hate going back to my keyboard to type something out.

Anyhow, I use 14 buttons, and then with button 15 as my shift key that gives me 14 more. The fact that I use the d-pad to move gives me 28 buttons to use and that is more then enough to tank efficiently. Oh, and I have 3 buttons on my mouse too.
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I feel like you're doing a disservice to your party if you don't have all sorts of skills mapped to buttons. You should definitely have down-ranked consecrate on your bars, and all your seals. Start adding in judgement, exorcism, hammer of wrath, RD, bubbles, BoSac, BoF, etc, etc and you'll quickly want more than two bars worth. And when I say "on your bars" I mean mapped to a key press.

I'm the type of person that likes to have any skill I could possibly need in combat available at a key press. This means I use three full bars of skills for combat and quick-access abilities, plus two more for tradeskill buttons, food, buffs and such.

Here's my layout:

My layout.

~ is my PTT, T flips my camera. All my skills are bound to 1 through = and shift 1 through =, although I have DS and BoP bound to my middle mouse button.
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The danger must be growing, for the rowers keep on rowing!

I use 1-12 for 1-0,-,= on my keyboard.
Then i use 2 of the buttons on my mouse for alt/ctrl giving me 36 action bar buttons very easily reachable by hotkey.

I use the scroll wheel for my auras.
Gamepad portion for movement. IMO moving with 1 finger allows you to chain your skills better with 4 other fingers.
13 is my char screen.
14 is my auto run.
The red button is for vent.

All in all I LOVE my n52 and it's REALLY hard to play without now that I am so used to it.

Mine looks like this:





























Cause it's broken QQ. New one won't arrive until first of next week, if I had to guess.

Trying to tank with unfamiliar keybindings is FTL.
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Ha. I'd hate to play without one, but I switch between desktop, laptop, and wife's computer enough that I can muddle along. I also deliberately modeled my Nostromo so that it would translate to a keyboard well.
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No really, I'm not addicted.

http://armorylite.com/us/Silvermoon/Spectrum

I don't use the different key states, no. I don't really need that many extra buttons and I'd have to macro a button to switch between them anyway.
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The danger must be growing, for the rowers keep on rowing!