Feral Druid, need help with UI, key-bindings and macros

[Acquire]

Dunno if I'm writing in the right forum... but I hope you can help me anyway!
I stopped playing for about three months ago, but now I'm going to start again with my Feral Druid.

The problem is that I've had a hard time structuring the icons on the action bar. It feels like there aren't enough buttons, or maybe... so many buttons so that I can't keep them all in my mind during a fight - I become confused.
I hope you can see my problem, as a Feral Druid I need help with tips on key-bindings, UI, (addons?) and also macros. I have no idea how I should organize everything so that it becomes easier to play.

The only macro I can find, that many people say is useful, is mouse over lacarate. But it ought to be more useful macros than that, don't it?
I feel that my key-bindings and macros are the biggest problem, so, if you have any tip for me... please, write them down. Need 'em badly :)

/Nocturnal

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

I have a number of macros in my thread that is stickied at the top of this forum that I use with my Feral Combat druid: Xlorep DarkHelm's overly complex useful macros... (http://www.worldofwar.net/forums/showthread.php?t=412727)

[elsegundo]

lacerate? you must be tanking. =]


i simply have the ALT modifiers for all my buttons, so each button gets double use. there are other conditions i use as well. but lets start off with your playing style....


what do you do when you play? we'll simply just customize your actionbar from the ground up.


I have a number of macros in my thread that is stickied at the top of this forum that I use with my Feral Combat druid: Xlorep DarkHelm's overly complex useful macros... (http://www.worldofwar.net/forums/showthread.php?t=412727)

and xlorep's thread has helped me greatly. you should check it out as well. perhaps you wont need any more advice here after reading the thread. who knows.

[Acquire]

Yeah. I read that thread and it sure helped me... it was great!
One less think to take care of now I guess :) . Now I know which great macros that I can use, but still... having some trouble with how to bind my keys so that I find them all easily during play time.

Well, anyway. You asked me about my playing style and I tank a lot, as you said. Though, I find it a bit difficult so I'm just doing the easiest heroic for now. Trying to figure out a way to make it easier. So... I'd say, I'm trying hard to get some tanking skills so that I can start off with the other heroics or I spend my time grinding/playing instances as kitty.

Thanks for helping out!

[Tunga]

One thing you could look at would be an actionbar replacement mod such as Bartender, Bongos or Trinity. These will let you move your bars around and change the size/shape of them, as well as adding extra paging options so the bars can switch based on form or modifier keys.

[elsegundo]

if you're using a keyboard, you can put a piece of tape on one of the number keys to make it a "home" key... much like the F key, (or D key for macs). i suggested this to another person in the newcomer forum. check out the thread. i need to find the link.

[Acquire]

One thing you could look at would be an actionbar replacement mod such as Bartender, Bongos or Trinity. These will let you move your bars around and change the size/shape of them, as well as adding extra paging options so the bars can switch based on form or modifier keys.

Ya, I understand what you mean. But if we take "Bear Form" (for tanking) for example. And we imagine that the bars switch based on form. Are the only keybindings you use the 0-9 buttons, combined with pressing alt and ctrl?

And, should (or do you have) the most common attacks be bound to buttons like 1,2,3,4 because they are the first buttons in the row? I don't really know how to organize it, you see. Even if I use Bartender, Bongos or Trinity I'll still have to bind my keys.
Mangle is common use, so is Lacerate, Swipe, Maul, and Growl. I could of course have them in that order, from 1 to 5, but it feels like I'm leaving other important attacks and spells out (and it feels like that aint the ultimate order). Faeire Fire is also great, so is Demoralizing Roar... but how to bind those two so that I don't forget them? And what about Feral Charge, that should be a "fast button", right?

I might have forgotten something important too, but I hope you understand anyway =] I have no idea in which order to put the attacks and to bind the keys. The most common attack first (on button 1), or...?
And should I swap the orginal Attacks for (spam) macros .. for example this Lacerate spamming macro:

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=4 Mangle (Bear), Lacerate, Lacerate, Lacerate
/startattack

Or have the macros bound to still another key?
And at last, (for now =] ) what about marking, should I bind skull, cross, blue square etc. to keys too, or should I only have them visible so that I can press them with the mouse buttons?

(elsegundo, had a hard time finding the thread you were talking about, but I'll check again)

Thanks
/Nocturnal

[Tunga]

My Druid is level 20 I can't really help with that, I was just offering general addon advice.