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What you're looking at here is my UI with a Razer gamepad + a Naga. The reason why you're seeing 2x side twelve is because when I have shift held down, it toggles on my shift naga bar. When shift is not held down, it is invisible.
My gamepad is a 3x5 however the entire first column is removed due to it being escape + tab + shift keys. the 3 middle keys in the center of the pad are not displayed on this bar due to them only being strafe left forward and strafe right. The top left most key is removed from the UI as it's my control modifier for spell book and other pane binds. What that then leaves is 8 keys (2x4) which is what you see here. What you'll notice is there's two extra keys to the right side of this. This is shift R and shift F which R = CC on most classes and F = Interrupt on most classes.
What I do is have R + F Normal macros that CC / Interrupt my target. R and F with the SHIFT modifier is @ Focus macros. Now my Mouseover CC and interrupt abilities I have to Shift + Scroll UP for say Poly or Fear and Shift + Scroll Down for interrupt.
You'll notice silly placement like "X" is up top, however on a normal keyboard, X is close to your pinky... When I press X on my UI it's the equivalent of hitting 1 with my ring finger on a normal keyboard.
1 on my Naga is my stop casting macro that also applies lightning shield / dismounts / pet passive master macro all in 1 with other class specific alterations.
For my Naga normal 2 and normal 6 are @self where as with the shift modifier they are mouseover heals. When I am healing I'm not really moving so it's okay for me to need to use shift + 2 to heal someone else and it's easy for me to remember that no modifier is me.
You'll notice my racial is all alone. That's because it's my Cooldown button on my gamepad which I hit with my thumb. The top 3 buttons on the UI are obviously my top 3 mouse buttons (middle click + 2 alternative top buttons)
This all sounds jumbled but typically no modifier = myself or my target shift = mouseover. However Shift + Scroll wheel = mouseover CC / interrupt since I need to be very quick with my mouseover poly / counter on my mage and the second fastest function to scroll wheel is shift + scroll wheel. However, I may get more flirty with my focus and move focus to shift + scroll wheel. That way it would be constant that R regular is target poly and shift R is mouseover poly. I change up my binds constantly as I'm always making things more intuitive.
Having a gamepad + naga means every single button press is very easy to press which has been somewhat difficult to me. Do I want to spam abilities on my side 12 or my gamepad? I settled on keeping most combat specific rotation abilities on the naga and more special uses on my gamepad as I'd rather have my strafe / movement secure. The only downside of having my spam rotation abilities on my naga is that it makes for a frustrating time with scroll clicking if I'm casting abilities at the same time. I know some people who will stop attacking and stand there spamming scroll wheel for a scroll click but i'd rather be ensuring a kill on the enemy so I miss some clicks. I'm considering making a universal finisher button press on my gamepad so I am free to continue attacking while spamming my wheel. (Incoming footpedal controller)
Now I understand that this is all extremely specific to having a gamepad + naga and if you have neither, my ui is somewhat useless. What I'd say is that simplicity is key and the easier for your muscles the better you'll be at not messing up those keys. I prefer having @ Target abilities, @ Mouseover abilities and then some @ Focus lockdown CC abilities. With that being said, I like to keep things consistent so they align with and without a modifier. In addition, I try to keep consistency across my characters in which case shammy is one of the odd balls due to not having an aoe / not having a CC. On most of my classes who have an instant heal or hot and an instant dot I have shadow word pain / moonfire / shock to my 4 on my naga and shift for mouseover versions, and then I have the hot / shield / riptide as 6 on my naga. For shift 6 I then make custom macros that if my mouseover is friendly, it hots them, if hostile, it will dot them just so I can particularly spam shift 6 and it will dot rogues quickly in between me getting an instant mouseover on my teammates.
I try to use player frames as often as possible as I am then aware of my surroundings. However, when things get hairy, I'm looking at my raid frames. The reason why my raid frames are not closer to the center of the screen is because I need to keep my visibility and I can't stand shit all over close to my character. I don't play zoomed way out because I lose a connection with my character and myself... It's easy to feel like that tiny dog running around down there isn't me.
Soon when I get a hookup for a new gamepad with another row I'll be throwing my extreme long CD and consumables / gear sets two rows above my movement keys as opposed to needing to hide them somewhere else (typically shift naga presses or some gamepad presses where I take off of my movement)
Also square map because visibility over 9000 over cropping my square into a circle.
Sorry if this is like "mocha wtf" but I just wanted to provide some details about my UI across all characters and some reasoning behind it. Hopefully you can siphon some tips that may change the way you see something. Obviously, the longer the CD / less often you use something the harder the button press should be. With a gamepad / naga everything is pretty easily in reach and the 8 way stick I haven't bound to abilities but more interface options such as bags, character, map, etc and then shift for honor pane for queuing / social pane / zone map toggle / collections and whatever. I have escape bound to Shift + escape button since it's RIGHT next to abilities that I often use and I don't want to accidentally press escape. Unit frames I think I have as CTRL + gamepad.
The rest of my interface toggles are on my real keyboard which I have elevated (like 5 inches) and in between my naga + gamepad so I can have my gamepad and my naga a comfortable distance away from each other and still fit my keyboard in between as my hands are slightly under the tips of my keyboard when I'm playing.
I hope there's some spark in here for you. Sorry for it being so all over the place... Just getting my ideas out there before bed.
Cheers,
Mocha