Keybinds and You

[orcstar]

So keep strafe and back to keystrokes, just turn and move with the mouse? That makes a lot more sense then, I must have just misunderstood.
The transition won't be nearly as bad as I feared then. Thanks!

I've got side buttons on my mouse and mapped strafe left and right to them, the transition will be hard but in the end you'll love it.

Best way to learn it is to just roll an alt druid or something and level it to 30 or so, unbind WASD altogether and map your strafe buttons to the side buttons. (and I mapped back to my middle mouse button)

Mouse moving really does work.

[siubosn]

I've read through this several times in fact i get the new posts emailed to me, all is great info but I still as of yet to see anybody answer the questions to help out those of us who are naturally Left Handed. What that means is the MOUSE is in our LEFT Hand and Keys are done with our right. So with that said I can only assume that there must be some other players out there who do the same. (as Ive seen more than 1 request)
In addition I love the EX. spread sheet w/ the keyboard layouts on it, but is there a way that the author could do the same for Palladin Tank spells?
thanks for all the advice
Zephryus

[Karith]

I've got side buttons on my mouse and mapped strafe left and right to them, the transition will be hard but in the end you'll love it.

Best way to learn it is to just roll an alt druid or something and level it to 30 or so, unbind WASD altogether and map your strafe buttons to the side buttons. (and I mapped back to my middle mouse button)

Mouse moving really does work.

Yes, but as I said, I only have 3 things on the mouse - left and right click, and the wheel. So I can't physically bind the strafe keys to the mouse. And mapping back to the middle isn't a bad idea, if I didn't need that one for heroic strike and cleave, which is working for me exceptionally well.

Siubosn, I wish I could help, but I'm afraid I have no suggestions for being left-handed.

[Bloodwraith]

I've read through this several times in fact i get the new posts emailed to me, all is great info but I still as of yet to see anybody answer the questions to help out those of us who are naturally Left Handed. What that means is the MOUSE is in our LEFT Hand and Keys are done with our right. So with that said I can only assume that there must be some other players out there who do the same. (as Ive seen more than 1 request)
In addition I love the EX. spread sheet w/ the keyboard layouts on it, but is there a way that the author could do the same for Palladin Tank spells?
thanks for all the advice
Zephryus

I'm not left handed so I can't really give you any suggestions there. As for the spreadsheet, I don't personally know the author so I don't know what he could and couldn't do. I put his name in there so you could always try to contact him in-game.

[siubosn]

I'm not left handed so I can't really give you any suggestions there. As for the spreadsheet, I don't personally know the author so I don't know what he could and couldn't do. I put his name in there so you could always try to contact him in-game.

Thanks Blood anyway; I was kinda hoping a Lefty would read and respond

[Radhja]

My complete bindings (Protection Warrior setup)

WADS - Forward, Turn Left, Turn Right, Backwards (default)
Q, E - Strafe Left/Right (default)
X - Heroic Throw
T - Taunt (Alt+T: Challenging Shout)
F, G - Flying/Ground Mount

~ - Spell Reflect
1 - Devastate
2 - Revenge
3 - Shield Slam
4 - Heroic Strike OR Cleave (I exchange depending on encounter)
5 - Shield Block
6 - Mocking Blow
7 - Rend

F1 - Charge/Intervene macro
F2 - Bloodrage + Thunderclap macro
F3 - Shockwave
F4 - Berserker Rage
F5 - Demoralizing Shout
F6 - Intimidating Shout

Mouse Keys (I have a 7-button mouse, which makes for all kinds of neat keybinding, but takes a little time to get used to)
M1 - Left-click
M2 - Right-click
M3 (Middle button) - Challenging Shout
M4 (Side button) - Shield Bash
M5 (Side button) - Disarm
M6 (Up) - Last Stand
M7 (Down) - Shield Wall

With few exceptions, most pulls begin with Heroic Throw + Charge with a quick Thunderclap, Shield Slam, Cleave, rotate to line up Shockwave, Revenge, Cleave, Thunderclap, Shockwave, then begin my normal clean-up rotation.

[Radhja]

My complete bindings (Protection Paladin setup)

WADS - Forward, Turn Left, Turn Right, Backwards (default)
Q, E - Strafe Left/Right (default)
X - ... (NOT "Sit", lol)
T - ...I forget the Paladin "taunt" names. lol
F, G - Flying/Ground Mount

~ - Avenger's Shield
1 - Exorcism
2 - Hammer of Righteousness
3 - Shield of Righteousness
4 - Holy Shield
5 - Consecrate
6 - Holy Wrath

F1 - Judgement of Light
F2 - Judgement of Wisdom
F3 - Judgement of Justice
F4 - Divine Plea
F5 - Avenging Wrath

M3 - ...
M4 - Hammer of Judgement
M5 - ...

All heals and major cooldowns are still click-only.

Bear in mind I haven't tanked as a paladin nearly as long as I have with my warrior (I just hit 80 last night on my paladin, in fact. lol), but this is the setup I used while leveling and it's served me well.

9-6-9 works ok with this configuration. The Judgement positioning makes it feel more like a premeditated mode of combat rather than moving one judgement to the number line and spamming it ad nauseum.

As I said, I'm a paly nub, but this is what I roll with. Criticism welcome.

[Sitri]

Awesome guide man i will surely try this out ASAP

[Gorkk]

I've read through this several times in fact i get the new posts emailed to me, all is great info but I still as of yet to see anybody answer the questions to help out those of us who are naturally Left Handed. What that means is the MOUSE is in our LEFT Hand and Keys are done with our right. So with that said I can only assume that there must be some other players out there who do the same. (as Ive seen more than 1 request)
In addition I love the EX. spread sheet w/ the keyboard layouts on it, but is there a way that the author could do the same for Palladin Tank spells?
thanks for all the advice
Zephryus

I'm no lefty, though i'd suggest to use the following mapping for movement keys, and of course the adequate mapping for other keys as suggested in the main article (i reckon you can adapt the advices for keys to use around the movement keys to work with these movement keys):
- bind movement to OKLM keys (or OKL, on QWERTY keyboards): this should give a lefty a feel equivalent to the ESDF binds for a righty.
- bind movement to PLMù (PL,- on a QWERTY): this should give a lefty a feel equivalent to the standard WASD binds for a righty.
Though both these suggestions have few downsides compared to the righty version in the modifiers department: you'll be replacing the Alt key with the Alt Gr key which functions as Ctrl+Alt, so i you were to use both Ctrl+key, Alt+key, and Ctrl+Alt+key shortcuts, you're out of luck; additionnally, on some keyboards, you'll have both a Windows key and a Menu key on the the right side, putting the Alt Gr key farther away from the Ctrl key - however you can probably use the Menu key as a modifier in WoW.

PS: hope i got the QWERTY keyboards keys reference right, don't have a QWERTY keyboard on hand to check them precisely, but i suppose you still get the idea.



Back on the general topic: I personally never even thought about eventually be a clicker, so I've been using shortcuts in WoW from day 1 (which was not so long ago though), like in pretty much other games (that goes back way longer in time ). I haven't unbound the turn keys, even though i don't use them, and I mainly use 5 bars on 1...= with various modifiers (Shift, Ctrl, Alt, Ctrl+Alt), rarely populating those bars more than 1...6.
I have tag icons on hover shortcuts with Ctrl+Z...N (I find that being able to mark targets without having to actually select them is really of a big help), and stance/form changin on Shift+A...H.

Reading this guide though makes me want to try to change that a bit and sit down and really think through my shortcuts, bringing those keys closer to my movement keys. Gonna have to give that a shot. Might be hard to keep things consistent between characters and dual specs though.

[KnThrak]

And in the end most people use a hybrid of keybinds and clicking. I still click the spells I rarely use and have keybound my bread and butter skills.

This can be further expanded.
You should have (albeit obscure) keybindings for any and all abilities you could ever need midfight - i.e.: while you're busy using the mouse for movement.
On the flipside, you should have clickable buttons, even if on a minimized auto-hiding bar somewhere in the corner, even for the super-spam-keybound abilities. Just in case you can't hit it right now because you're busy doing some obscure strafe-movement.

This allows you to freely use clicking OR keys for each and every ability.
The big upside of this is that independant of which specific fight mechanic ties up which hand right now, you can always trigger an ability.


E.g.:
I usually click my totems from Totemtimers. However, Tremor Totem, Cleansing Totem and Mana Tide Totem I got on keybinds since depending on the fight I may have to drop one right that very moment.

I do generally key-trigger ~15 of my char's abilities, while clicking the rest. However I frequently find myself click keybound abilities or keypressing clicked abilities. It's just one annoyance I wanted to get rid of and once I did it worked out pretty well.

[Kinetix]

I'm left handed but i've always played every game as if i'm right handed. It's not that difficult to do. I find it easier to have my right hand move the mouse and my left hand do the key work. As a lefty, i'd say its good to have my left hand doing the harder stuff and my right hand doing the simple stuff. I just started keybinds and boy is it exhausting : )

[Waddles]

great guide, im learning keybinds on my 22 warrior, but on my resto shammy i dont use keybinds i use clique and grid, i have CH as left click on my mouse, lesser healing wave as right click and riptide as mouswheel click. i also use shift and control to apply ES on tank and mana shield plus earthliving for myself accordingly

[bmd]

One thing I like to do with my mouse is to bind the alternate buttons to the modifiers. On my G5 mouse, the left thumb button is "shift". This was assigned in the Logitech software. This allows me to avoid awkward hand combination and I have noticed my response time has increased this way. The tilts on the mouse wheel are CTRL and ALT, and the middle click is disabled (I hate middle clicking).

[Dan Quixote]

For you lefties looking for a solution beyond the basic number pad, here's what I did:

1. Download either keytweak or sharpkeys. Both are freeware programs that let you remap keys on your keyboard. sharpkeys works with Window7, keytweak does not.

2. Remap numpad_0 to either alt or ctrl.

3. Profit. you just doubled the number of keys you have on the number pad.

I mouse turn and move forward with my mouse by holding mouse 1 and 2 down together. I do not have a "move forward" button anywhere. mouse 4 (behind the mousewheel) is my "back up" button, while the tilt on my mousewheel is my strafe. Crtl-tilt changes my stance. pressing the mousewheel is my tab target. I also remapped numpad_enter to spacebar and it is my jump button. (you have to remap it because just changing the binding will cause your normal enter key to jump too, instead of opening chat). Numpad+ is autorun.

Everything else is on the number pad, pageup, pagedown, home, end, and the alt-modified version of those. Put your rare use-non emergent stuff out on home, end, alt-home, alt-end, as they're a bit of a stretch. pageup and pagedown are very reachable in a hurry though.

If you're really hungry for even more keys there, you could remap numpad_enter to ctrl, and get another whole set of modifiers.

[Darkconious]

Thank you once again Bloodwraith for the spreadsheet you posted with the key binds, it helped me a lot. I just wanted to share something that happened to me while learning my key binds playing my Human Warrior. This will benefit any Warrior for that matter.

Warriors unlike other classes have three stances Battle, Defensive and Berserker. They use 3 of the action bars provided in WoW to store the abilities you would use in each stance as follows: Battle Stance Bar 7, Defensive Stance Bar 8 and Berserker Stance Bar 9. You would not see this unless you use an addon such as Dominos.

Well dependent on the stance your warrior is in, Bar 1 will also show the abilities you have attached to the bar corresponding to the stance.

Well some of the quests or fights of the game require that you take over some device to control a machine or a mob to do damage onto another. The abilities of said item are also automatically attached to bar 1.

To make a long story short if you use Dominos, DO NOT disable bar 1.

While key binding my abilities I thought it was a good idea to disabled bar 1 and key bind all of my abilities using bars 2-10. I didn’t want the change of stances to affect the position of the abilities at the time (don’t ask you live and learn). After soloing some and getting used to the keys I decided I was ready for a raid.

We headed into Naxx and we come up on Instructor Razuvious and I am asked to take over one of the devices that control the understudies. I activated the device, but nothing happened. I was in control of the understudy, but I could not attack or taunt with him.

As a result I wiped the raid. I did not know what was going on at the time. To me it was a glitch. So another player and I switched places and cleared Razuvious.

In the end I had to rebind some of the keys, but since then everything has been working nicely.

Please find below the way I finally decided to key bind everything hopefully it helps you as well. Good luck.


4shared.com - online file sharing and storage - download Warrior Keybinds Post 061509.xls

[siubosn]

For you lefties looking for a solution beyond the basic number pad, here's what I did:

1. Download either keytweak or sharpkeys. Both are freeware programs that let you remap keys on your keyboard. sharpkeys works with Window7, keytweak does not.

2. Remap numpad_0 to either alt or ctrl.

3. Profit. you just doubled the number of keys you have on the number pad.

I mouse turn and move forward with my mouse by holding mouse 1 and 2 down together. I do not have a "move forward" button anywhere. mouse 4 (behind the mousewheel) is my "back up" button, while the tilt on my mousewheel is my strafe. Crtl-tilt changes my stance. pressing the mousewheel is my tab target. I also remapped numpad_enter to spacebar and it is my jump button. (you have to remap it because just changing the binding will cause your normal enter key to jump too, instead of opening chat). Numpad+ is autorun.

Everything else is on the number pad, pageup, pagedown, home, end, and the alt-modified version of those. Put your rare use-non emergent stuff out on home, end, alt-home, alt-end, as they're a bit of a stretch. pageup and pagedown are very reachable in a hurry though.

If you're really hungry for even more keys there, you could remap numpad_enter to ctrl, and get another whole set of modifiers.

You have some very good ideas here and I will try them out as soon as I can. However, my real problem is I'm not a true Lefty. I'm actually right handed but when i taught myself to compute w/ cad prog. i learned to use the mouse w/ my Left an still do to this day. So i have my dominate right hand on the arrow keys and ole Lefty is mousing.
I'm just haveing problems finding a comfortable way to use keys on right side w/ out my fingers getting all twisted up. LOL
Thanks for the INFO
Zephryus

[swayjay71]

The best thing I have ever done for my keybindings was to go to the registry of my computer and switch my Caps Lock and Ctrl keys around. The Caps Lock key is way easier to reach and I find normal functioning isnt effected too much by the change. Except for a few people around you who wonder why the hell your Caps Lock button doesnt work.

[kingymech]

do you use an addon for the bindings or do it the old fasioned way in menu/key bindings

[Darkconious]

do you use an addon for the bindings or do it the old fasioned way in menu/key bindings

I use Dominos. You can download it from curse: Dominos - Addons - Curse

However, my experience with this latest download is it appears that Tuller the project manager is working a bit ahead of him/her self and all of the toc files have the interface versions set to 30200 instead of 30100. Therefore, just go to the toc files and change the interface versions to 30100. If it is already at 30100, then don't bother it should work just fine.

Ofcourse all that will show up on the ui if you don't change the interface version is that the addon is outdated and it won't work. Also, easily remedied by pressing the button in the addon box in game to use outdated addons.

Again any questions let me know.

[Bloodwraith]

do you use an addon for the bindings or do it the old fasioned way in menu/key bindings

I use Bartender4. Simply type /kb and hover your mouse over the specific button and kit the keybind .