Keybinds, really???

[Mephisto 2]

Ok I'm not a mythic raider but a long time player with good dps on all my toons.

Basic ilevel is around 680.

 

I've read many posts here in different classes about trying to extract every ounce of dps and the word keybind keeps coming up.

 

I'am sorry it must be me but I dont see how pressing ALT Shift F for Fireball is any quicker or more efficient than just clicking on the spell with a mouse.

Watching the screen clicking seems a lot easier than my fingers guessing their hitting the right keys to do what I want to do.

 

When you have an ability or spell that has a cast time you click it then go to your next spell/ability ready to commence once that one is done.

Hitting several keybinds to mind wont make it go any faster or efficient.

 

So please, I'am donning my asbestos suit, any calm, logical and constructive criticism as to why keybinds are better is most welcome.

 

Being flamed is just wasting your time I wont answer it and its not helpful.

 

If it makes sense sure I'll give it a go but is the dps increase that significant that I need to keybind?  

[Archimage 98]

Who binds filler spell on such a complex keybind?

 

Manually clicking spells will reduce your responsiveness on any mechanic.

For example:

1. When changing targets - now you have to move your mouse to select the mob, and then move back to the spell.

2. When moving - When moving out of an mechanic, you normally just strafe out left/right, but when you need to move backwards you need to change your angle and then strafe (unless you are a backpaddler). The quickest way to change your angle is to hold in you right mouse button and turn it, and then strafe. During this whole process you are unable to click any spells.

 

Even if you don't have a mouse with buttons, there is still 16 easy to reach bindings without any modifiers and that is more than enough to bind all your keys and macros.

 

Spells that are used outside of combat and for pre-fight like Conjure Table and Revive doesn't need to be bound.

 

Spells you cast often should be on keybindings that is easy to reach, like all the spells on your rotation can go on 1-5. F and G.

[Krazyito 521]

Pretty much what Archimage said.  Moving your mouse across your screen is much slower than moving your fingers across a keyboard.  If you're clicking your action bars you're going to lose reaction time becasue your mouse has to do more than just click the action bars, it has to click targets to attack as well as move your camera. 

 

Being able to click a target and immediately start casting a spell is faster than clicking the target and then clicking the spell on your bar.

[Mephisto 2]

Ok thanks guys the comments make sense so I'll give my memory management a try and see how it goes.

[Drafty53 17]

A suggestion for a new binder. Make a new character. It can be a bit overwhelming to go from clicking everything to having new binds, especially during a raid or dungeon.

I would suggest a new toon to practice.

Also, try and keep similar abilities across all of your toons to similar binds.

I.e. my defensive cds are all q, e, r, t on all of my toons. Interupt is mouse button 3 on all of my toons, filler spells are 1 through 5, etc.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Drafty53

[jmbruni 0]

I wasn't a keybinder and for a long time I clicked everything...I'd lose my cursor on the screen all the time, miss opportunities, it was about as "casual" as you could imagine. I always thought I was better and could do better but those thoughts and an improvement of some sort don't equate without tools and practice.  

I was told to time a round at the practice dummy using a rotation of 2 or 3 spells and involving one movement to the left or right of 10 feet or so...do that rotation you created 20 times with the clock.   Now bind some easy to use and remember keys for those spells - practice a bit pressing the key with a finger and not the mouse then 20 times just like before.

I was a wreck for a month after that.  I started with a similar spell in the same place no matter what toon I was on...those starter binds keys remain today -- a good instant interrupt is on Dwn Arrow and a good cc of some sort is on Rgt Arrow, on all 16 toons I have.  The speed difference and control you have should astound you - suddenly the mouse has new possibilities!

Today my mouse is used for one thing, selecting things in the world.  I bound everything to my keys. I wanted to press only single letters or numbers in combat situations -- alt, shift, and ctrl are not for me.  All my Blizz keybinds became Ctrl + LTR and this is one drawback to moving Blizz's stuff - if someone asks what the key is for Professions I say "Ctrl+A....oops nm, idk..."  Now my letters are free!

I am a WASD player from eons ago, and I still am...moving WASD and QE over to SDFE and WR opens 3 awesome, ultra fast binds -- I tried that and lost patience and went back, but I did sense something good there.  I took the bindings thing a step further - since I moved using my left hand already, casting spells at the same time became a dance I didn't enjoy much...my right hand was newly free from spell clicking on the mouse so I saw where that hand was and I bound my entire number keypad!  I use left hand for movement and some spells but the meat of the matter is on my number pad. I had trouble keeping NumLock on with so much activity so I popped the key off and stuck a cut off pencil eraser under the cap -- now it takes some effort to toggle it, and the larger Num+ and NumEnter keys are naturals for emergency defensive or nuke spells.  It's much too easy to "faceroll" with both hands on the keyboard, that tendency helps me stay alert and very conscious of my keypresses.  Every ability I'd ever need in combat is one key-press away and most non-combat things are a ctrl or alt + a keypress away.

Faster, more flexibility, less chance for error (losing cursor, mis-clicking the screen, etc...) and once you have your stuff mapped and practiced you can set your bars up so you can see the icon like it was a button on the keyboard which makes memorizing unnecessary --  my bars are stacked and look like 4 rows of letters and numbers - just like my keyboard layout.  Left half of the 12 slot bars have  row 1 thru 4: 12345678 then RTYUIOP then FGHJKL and CVBNM ...the right half of those bars are INS HM PUP Num/ Num* Num-  then DEL END PDWN 7 8 9 etc...its a totally effective and simple way to remember your binds!

 

gl!

[Aastus2 0]

Well I have the same problem but I don't target with my mouse my mouse is always on my spells I use caps lock to target with but also use "wsad" to move with I tried to me with my mouse but just kept move my camera angle

[Shine 144]

I have been a keybinder for many years. Pretty much all the upsides are already mentioned above. I do like to mention that you shouldn't be afraid of the learning curve. You'll likely notice you will get the hang of your binds pretty quickly and before long you'll be playing without thinking about the keybinds themselves. What I'm saying is that it will be committed to muscle memory (like opening a door or turning on a light switch)

Additionally what you might want to look into (if you haven't already) is macros.

It is often handy to use different spells on one keybind. Particularly interesting are spells that are off the global cooldown. You can simply bind those to abilities that are on the global cooldown. For example on my mistweaver monk I use always combine thunder focus tea with renewing mist. Because thunder focus tea is not on the global cooldown I can cast them both with one button press with a macro like:

/cast Thunder Focus Tea

/cast Renewing Mist

This is a very basic example of a macro. Macros can be used for loads of things. Note btw that this works for keybinders just as well as clickers.

Maybe this is something worth looking into

Shine

[CaptainFizz 1]

I was a clicker for a long time, MT/OT'ing in Raids too!

 

Moved to keybinding and was rubbish for a week.

Then similar for a week.

Then better a week after that.

 

Also a DPS increase when DPS'ing.

Handier for out and about.

Even better visibility of adds incoming etc.

[notsofriendly 1]

As a PvPer i have no other choice but to play with key binds so.. If i have to remember from my experience yes is way faster and more efficient to play with key binds and you will only realise that ones you try it yourself and once you get used to you key binds that are always a matter of personal preference i may say!! 

 

That being said i would advice you to keep your key binds as simple as possible and focused on one button each not combinations of buttons as that flowers the procedure. If you have a mouse with plenty of buttons then that's easy to set and get used to it.

 

If u are not considering a multi-button mouse then you may stick to the buttons provided by your keyboard (something that makes ir a bit harder to get used to). In this situation be certain you build a set of buttons containing your abilities using buttons that are closer to where your hand sits most of the time which that would be around and about the 'WASD' keys which are for moving around. After making sure that your key binds are close to each other make a series (one enact to the other) of them according to the occasions you press them.

 

I hope this helps, good luck.

[Zurt17 0]

Well keybinds do help alot in my experience instead of mouse clicking on abilities/skills/etc, specially if you have specific rotations or priorities and need to react fast to mechanics at the same time during encounters.

 

With that said you don't need some shift+ctrl+etc crazy keybind, just get a mmo mouse or some other peripheral to help you on that if you don't feel comfortable with just keyboard keybinding.

 

On the dps part, after you adapt to keybinds you will definitely see an increase on it.

[vandplan 0]

I have keybinded every single one of my spells. Even some with really weird and slow combinations. Like ALT 8 on my monk for zen meditation

[HAZJ 0]

Keybinds will be always faster than mouseclicking in almost every aspect of the game in my humble opinion.

 

They shine specially when you're playing a melee class in which every ability has to be thrown as soon as it's out of CD. Mind also, as the previous replies mentioned, macros.

[bibikun 0]

I think it's nost just about being quick, it's also about how good you can control your character including movimentation.

[Nazrai2 1]

Another option you can do if you have a mouse with extra buttons on the side, not the naga with 12, but even one with 2 buttons on the side, is to set up your bars in 3 tall mode and put all your important spells on 1 through 6 then the bar above that put shift 1 through shift 6 then on the top bar put alt 1 through alt 6. Then I program the 2 buttons on the side of my mouse to use shift and alt. What this does is keep my hand hovering over 1 through 6 and never have to move my hand in an awkward way to hit alt or shift its all controlled by the mouse buttons. This will take a little getting used to but it has made me a better raider because I have all my keybinds as muscle memory so it allows me to look at timers more frequently, which is huge when your the RL calling stuff out. I hope this makes sense.

[Polybius 2]

I personally wouldn't remove the Q and E, since there are encounters in both PvP and PvE where you benefit more from shifting. At least rebind them if you have to. You don't get to show your back to a boss (tank), for example. Or you can just move to the right/left if there's fire (DPS).

 

Start with 4-5 keys, maybe 1-5, or a place in your keyboard that you'll remember. You can even bind F1-F5 for cooldowns and such.

[Valks 2,375]

I think it's nost just about being quick, it's also about how good you can control your character including movimentation.

 

Yeah, I feel like this is a key factor in keybinding. You can move around more fluidly and your attention is no longer on what you're clicking on your bars, but your character itself.

[Purpleflurp 0]

I just have my bottom right actionbar macro'd up with shift. All my really frequent abilities (Crusader Strike, Shield of the Righteous) and emergency abilities (Lay on Hands) are right in the normal bar, easy to use, and I have similar abilities right above them. For example, SotR is key #3, and my defensive cooldown is shift + #3. This makes it really easy for me to remember where everything is. I am by no means a hardcore key binder, but I found a visual system that works for me.

[TripleZero 0]

Imho any respectable player should utilize keybinds on pretty much all spells but the largest (>=5mins) cooldowns. Putting stuff like heroism on a keybind seems unnecessary to me.

 

Its simply alot better to have you mouse free for target selection and actually look at the fight instead of your actionbars.

Edited May 14, 2016 by TripleZero

[Valks 2,375]

Imho any respectable player should utilize keybinds on pretty much all spells but the largest (>=5mins) cooldowns. Putting stuff like heroism on a keybind seems unnecessary to me.

 

Its simply alot better to have you mouse free for target selection and actually look at the fight instead of your actionbars.

 

I used to have that sort of stance towards buffs and such, but I end up binding them anyway. It can be really annoying having to click to rebuff after someone dies, or re-heroism for someone.

[Dreamz 0]

Another option you can do if you have a mouse with extra buttons on the side, not the naga with 12, but even one with 2 buttons on the side, is to set up your bars in 3 tall mode and put all your important spells on 1 through 6 then the bar above that put shift 1 through shift 6 then on the top bar put alt 1 through alt 6. Then I program the 2 buttons on the side of my mouse to use shift and alt. What this does is keep my hand hovering over 1 through 6 and never have to move my hand in an awkward way to hit alt or shift its all controlled by the mouse buttons. This will take a little getting used to but it has made me a better raider because I have all my keybinds as muscle memory so it allows me to look at timers more frequently, which is huge when your the RL calling stuff out. I hope this makes sense.

Thanks Nazrai2, going to try this out. I've been playing for 7 years as a clicker and I've done pretty good but I want to max out my potential with my toon.

[MrVolare 0]

There are a number of keybinding tutorials out there, but as others have said, it's what works for you. I've found putting my short-cooldown interrupt on C and moving the character sheet to Shift+C was a huge help, now I run with common skills  on 12345, less common/longer cooldown on shift+12345 utility on qerf interrupt C. For most of my dps and tanking characters, this has worked great.  I rarely heal, but I assume I would do something similar.

[Valks 2,375]

Another thing to always remember is the ability to rebind movement keys. On my Rogue, I play with DFG as my movement keys and remove the backpedal key. It just means I have way more keys around and within reach.

 

This isn't for everyone, but I love it.

[kaboo 0]

Ok I'm not a mythic raider but a long time player with good dps on all my toons.

Basic ilevel is around 680.

 

I've read many posts here in different classes about trying to extract every ounce of dps and the word keybind keeps coming up.

 

I'am sorry it must be me but I dont see how pressing ALT Shift F for Fireball is any quicker or more efficient than just clicking on the spell with a mouse.

Watching the screen clicking seems a lot easier than my fingers guessing their hitting the right keys to do what I want to do.

 

When you have an ability or spell that has a cast time you click it then go to your next spell/ability ready to commence once that one is done.

Hitting several keybinds to mind wont make it go any faster or efficient.

 

So please, I'am donning my asbestos suit, any calm, logical and constructive criticism as to why keybinds are better is most welcome.

 

Being flamed is just wasting your time I wont answer it and its not helpful.

 

If it makes sense sure I'll give it a go but is the dps increase that significant that I need to keybind?  

 

if you dont see yourself  why keybinds are necessary then you dont really need them, and i mean no offense by that, some people just like to play because its fun and dont care about doing their best, which is absolutely fine. but basically you want to keybind because you want to use the mouse to look around and be able switch targets quickly, for example i have right mouse button pressed down almost all the time so that i can move any direction and still face the mobs following me so they dont hit me in the back.

also on a side note, im using 30 keybinds and none of them are 3 button combo, so im not sure if youre doing something wrong there or just exaggerating. either way, here are some pointers for a compact and easy to use 30 keybinds, when using WSAD for movement:

- 1/ 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 for main abilities

- ALT + 1/2/3/4/5 for more main abilities

- Q / E / R / F / T for secondary abilites

- ALT + Q/E/R/F/T for more secondary abilities

- MOUSE 1/2/3(2 side buttons and wheel) for utilities

- ALT + MOUSE 1/2/3 for more utilities :D

- F1 / F2 / F3 / F4 for long cooldowns/pots

 

on most of the alt buttons i have somewhat modified(alternate) version of the spell as on the single button, for example:

1 - death strike

ALT+1 - soul reaper

2 - blood boil

ALT+2 - DnD

3 - rune tap

ALT+3 - icebound

Q - death coil (generates blood charges)

ALT+Q - blood tap (uses blood charges)

etc...

 

its also a good idea to bind abilities that all classes use on the same button on all your characters. for example i always have interrupts on F.

[3lratha 0]

I just bind 1,2,3,4,5,A,D,F,G,R,X,Mouse4,Mouse5. I find that I can do everything I need to with those keybinds without having to do a bunch of key modifiers. gl with your dps goals!