Armor Hotswap

T_i_m - Dreamweaver

This was asked in another thread but I think it's worth a standalone. My view of a blademaster is versatility is key to success. Both tank-y axe builds and aps builds have their places in both pvp and pve. The trick is being able to switch between the two quickly. Clicking on the hotkeys won't cut it, especially fighting frequent stun classes. Therefore I present you one of my skillbars (please disregard the other skills on the list... it's set up that way for reasons specific to my mouse and personal preferences).



Note that all three buttons at the top of the vertical bars are checked green. This makes all those bars "active" which means by clicking on the bottom button (see blue/orange arrow), the rightmost column rotates through each of the active bars one at a time. Clicking that little button is slow and error-prone, so set up a hotkey for it. The default rotation key for the Function-key bar is "V."

The skillbar should be default left on the skills you use normally. To perform an armor swap, press V once or twice, then F1-7 in succession (or in groups, depending on how many buttons your keyboard will register at once), then V again once or twice to return to your usual skills.

If you have a mouse, keyboard, or other input device that has macro ability, you can program it to press V (once or twice depending), F1-7 in succession, then V back to your skillset with fractions of a second between each "press"... all with the push of 1 button. That way you can set up one button to equip APS gear, and another to equip tank gear.

There are some caveats - if you equip the same gear twice you will remove your chest plate (ymmv) instead, and have to manually fix it. Also, if you are stunned in the middle of the armor swap you'll have to manually fix both the armor and the rotation, and you can't switch armor/weapons while stunned.

Overall this gives you a solid increase in capability (finishing off those last mobs in a lunar or warsong pull for instance), and keeps your pvp opponents guessing.

TheDan - Sanctuary

I wanted to try to get my gear all on hotkeys before, but it's hard to switch out my hotkeys after getting used to the set up I've had for 4 years so I just said forget it because I never found it completely necessary to change my entire set up just to switch my gear 1 second faster, and I'll tell you why.

I always switch gear after a RoP, and I can effectively switch click all my gear in under 2.4 seconds of the channeling / cast time of RoP anyways, so I really didn't think there would be any difference in time consumption regardless of whether or not you can change your gear in .5 seconds or 2 seconds because either way you'll still be in the channeling/cast time of RoP unable to do anything anyways.

Here's what my set up looks like so you know what I'm talking about when I say it'd be too much of an issue re-learning everything.

truekossy

Been doing that already with my Heavy/Robe veno long before APS became a thing. I assume many others have as well.


Personally, I'd prefer a macro for it all, though so that the problem of hitting it and getting stunned or the like wouldn't occur.

Maelael - Heavens Tear

I have a similar setup.

http://i48.tinypic.com/2yulxqx.jpg

To me its more about that I will last minute-late swap to APS, as a finisher. I dont mind clickly slowly back to R9, as usually everything is dead by then. I did try the V switch but it didn't work/wasnt needed given the finishing factor.

This is my PvE Setup, GS switches out for Meteor or Farstrike depending on the instance. TW/PK has a bunch of skills moved or swapped around, but Id say 80% stays the same. (macro is Drake Ray through Aeolian, sometimes I add Oceans edge in at the end)

It takes about half a second to switch into APS for me. Sometimes I hit F9 too