Trying to get better as a RDM

[Rongway]

Some suggestions in regards to the layout of your abilities on your crossbars.

It looks like you have Veraero-Jolt-Verthunder on right hand buttons, but then you have Verstone and Verfire on D-pad buttons, and they're even on directions that are inconsistent with the other buttons. You can reduce the amount of thinking you have to do by being more consistent.

For example, if you do this,

      [        ]                    [        ]
[        ]  [        ]        [ Vaero  ]  [ Vthndr ]
      [        ]                    [ Impact ]

on one of your bars,
then on other bars, do this:

      [        ]                    [        ]
[        ]  [        ]        [ Vstone ]  [ Vfire  ]
      [        ]                    [  Jolt  ]

and

      [        ]                    [        ]
[        ]  [        ]        [ Vholy  ]  [ Vflare ]
      [        ]                    [ Accel. ]

So that all the white spells are on the same button, and all the black spells are on the same button. Then you control the tier of the spell with your shoulder/trigger buttons.


If that doesn't work, give something like this a shot:

      [        ]                    [        ]
[        ]  [        ]        [ Vaero  ]  [ Vstone ]
      [        ]                    [ Vholy  ]

on one of your bars,
then on other bars, do this:

      [        ]                    [        ]
[        ]  [        ]        [ Vthndr ]  [ Vfire   ]
      [        ]                    [ Vflare ]

and

      [        ]                    [        ]
[        ]  [        ]        [ Impact ]  [  Jolt  ]
      [        ]                    [ Accel. ]

In this layout, shoulders/triggers select the color of the spell, and then all the spells of the same tier are on the same button.


Consistency of either sort will reduce the cognitive load of selecting the appropriate spell by a lot, leaving you in a better position to succeed. Once you've decided how to organize the spells so that you can cast them all without thinking about them, you can add on the other buttons. If you have Verholy and Vflare on the same bar, then you might put your melee combo on the dpad for that bar. Maybe you'll find that Corps-a-corps and Displacement go well above and below Verholy and Verflare, while Acceleration goes better somewhere else (maybe with the Verstone and Verfire buttons). However you do it, it's all about arranging the buttons to make sense of themselves, so that you don't have to try to make sense of them when you're in the middle of a fight.