Pocket Guide - Hotbars

You might be asking what exactly are Hotbars if you are fairly new to the game. Hotbars are also referred to as action bars and are the bars found along the bottom of your game screen in World of Warcraft. It is where you place the actions that you use on a regular basis, and while it starts off as a huge space with 12 mighty boxes to use, by the time you hit level 20 you are cursing the choices you need to make as to what you should keep on your screen. Well, curse no more, I will explain how to get as much functionality as possible out of the basic UI.

The first thing to realize is that you are not limited to 12 boxes on your hotbar. You really have a rotating group of 4 that can be quickly scrolled using a number of different methods:

Holding the shift key while scrolling your mouse wheel up or down Holding shift and using the up or down arrows on the keyboard Holding shift and pressing 1 through 4 to select the bar you want By creating a macro and either assigning it to a space on an action bar or assigning it a key binding.

All of these methods allow you to move through them quickly. The other thing that expands the bars usefulness is adding a top bar to each through the interface options. Simply press escape to bring up the game menu, select interface options, and then advanced. In the advanced tab put a check mark beside "Show Bottom Left Action Bar" and "Show Bottom Right Action Bar". This gives you a further 24 spaces to use.

You can access and cast each item by either clicking on it with your mouse or pressing the corresponding key (1 through =) on your keyboard. Note however that you do not have access to items on your top hotbars via keystroke, only via the mouse. Which means they are slower to access, so use them for non critical items.

Divide and Conquer

Now that you know how to add more bars and move between them, you need to know the really important part.

Use the KISS method at all times so you can find what you need. My favorite method is to lay out my hotbars as follows:

Top Left hotbar - has all the abilities you need access to in every situation but not necessarily via shortcuts on the top left bar. Top Right hotbar - has all your long term buffs, bandages, food, drink and profession items. Hotbar 1 - Your most common abilities (For my Hunter this is all my ranged attacks) Hotbar 2 - Your alternate abilities (For my Hunter this is my melee attacks) Hotbar 3 - Buffs and other situational abilities (For my hunter this is my traps and beast abilities) Hotbar 4 - Miscellaneous (For my hunter this is all my tracking abilities)

The above layout can be tailored for any class as suits your play style. For example my Paladin who is mainly tanking but alt-heals has his 1-4 bar setup as follows: Tanking, Healing, Blessings, Misc. It keeps things simple and manageable. Especially when you add in macros to help switch between them even quicker.

Creating a Simple Macro

A very simple and effective use of a macro is one that casts a spell and changes your bar to a more useful one. I have these for almost all my characters. A simple example of one is:

/cast [target=player] Holy Light(Rank 10)

/changeactionbar 2

This would be added to my main hotbar and when I get into trouble I select it instead of my normal heal. It will target myself, heal myself with a greater heal and then switch to my #2 action bar, which is my healing bar. This makes getting around the bars so much easier. Another really good use is on my hunter where I only have 1 melee attack on the main hotbar, but when I click it, it attacks and switches me to my melee bar. On my melee bar I have a single ranged attack that attacks and changes me back to my ranged bar.

 

Hopefully these tips have shown you a bit more about the hotbars and how to get the most out of them.

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