Kasi

I use laptop as well. I guess my hands are smaller than most. Even though I'm just starting with keybinding, I much prefer having everything clustered so I don't have to stretch as much.

 

◊ Eej

The biggest stretch I have is ctrl+6, and that's pretty comfy. Normally my thumb rests on B and my pinky rests on shift, I don't see how you would stretch your hands. Mind you, I'm asian, so I have genetics going against me for hand size too. :O

 

BurntSushi

I use keyboard + numberpad to do most of my stuff. I use the mouse occasionally for certain things like targeting when I dont want to tab through stuff. Though I don't have the same manuverability as with the mouse I come pretty close.

Movement: asdw, with strafe right/left on numberpad 7/9. This lets me strafe and turn at the same time. It was a bit goofy getting used to at first, but its nice now. I have most of my non stance specific things (shouts) on 1-9 of the keyboard. battle-1, demo-2, execute-3 (though this is tough on moving mobs and I should change it), the less I use the ability the farther it is towards 9.

I have most of my stance specific abilities on the number pad and I made an effort to have similar abilities in different stances on the same key. for example, I have charge and intercept both bound to NUM8, between my strafe keys. I have shield bash and pummel on same key. I put the ability I use most on NUM4 which is under my first finger. My stance shifts are on NUM *,+,- . For the most part this works pretty good. I have a Nostromo, but havent really tried it yet.

 

Kuai

I guess im weird that i only have 4 keybindings for my Mage and Warrior

q = Polymorph on mage. Stance switching depending on stance.

e = Counterpsell on mage. Stance switching depending on stance.

Mouse button 3 = blink on mage. Sweeping Strikes/Pummel/Disarm on warrior.

Mouse button 4 = Mount on mage. Charge/Intercept/Shield Block on warrior.

I found that on mage at least i only use 12 buttons total and for things like trinkets i just click on them on a secondary action bar above my main. I can comfortably reach to 8 with my hands resting on wasd so i bound the last 4 buttons to my mouse and Q/E so i can move my character whenever i need to.

 

Cel

I tend to move with a combination of both my mouse and keyboard... circling around and such I'll strafe one direction, and use my mouse to guide myself around whatever it is I'm attempting to circle... this results in me being able to look at what I need to and still move efficiently from place to place (like if I come to a sizable mob, I can begin autoattack and maybe throw a single SS while moving towards the back of the mob for backstab, I'll have no facing the wrong way errors, etc). Because my default damage spam is 2 and shift+2 (BS and SS) it works out nicely to use the regular strafe buttons (q and e) and still spam backstab with my middlefinger.

I have a very hard time moving as well as I'd like with just the mouse or just the keyboard, though if I have to pick, I use the mouse.

"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell

Alpha is recruiting... go go.

 

Mish

Scary how similar we use our keyboard/mouse. I have the G15 keyboard and the mx1000 as well - the one big difference though is the use of your mouse. I have fewer actions bound to my number pad which helps keep my hand on my mouse instead - perhaps this will spark an idea as your setup has created some ideas for how to use a similar setup for my warrior. Here is my mouse setup:

Mouse (Logitech mx1000):
Scroll Wheel Tilt Right: Rupture / Distract (unstealthed / stealthed)
Shift+Scroll Wheel Tilt Right: Emergency Heal Macro for a pot or HS, etc.
Scroll Wheel Tilt Left: Slice N Dice / Distract
Shift+Scroll Wheel Tilt Left: Kidney Shot
CTRL+Scroll Wheel Tilt Left: mount/dismount
Scroll Wheel Button Up: Sap
Shift+Scroll Wheel Button Up: Auto Attack
Scroll Wheel Button Down: Vanish
Shift+Scroll Wheel Button Down: Blind
Side Button 1: Cheap Shot / Sinister Strike&Riposte macro
Shift+Side Button 1: Blade Flurry
Side Button 2: Garrote / Gouge
Shift+Side Button 2: Evasion
Side Button 3: Kick

18 unique abilities on the mouse with room to grow. I love that mouse.

Mishana, 80 UD Rogue, Lightning's Blade (US)

 

Fizban

Mages, just don't bind 'Blink' to your 'E' key, as I used to...

Accidently pulling Loatheb last week convinced me to bind it to '~'

 

kharen

ESDF and mouse for movement, and everything else clustered around in reasonably convenient spots:



Probably not the most efficient setup possible, but it's way too ingrained now to change. Longest stretch is U for blood fury (which, along with Y, is more of a stretch than you might think, as i use an ergonomic keyboard), but it's not something i have to hit at short notice mid-fight, so it being a bit of a stretch isn't a big deal. One thing i might try to remap at some point is gouge, if i start pvping more - with me using esdf for movement, hitting 3 is rather awkward if i'm trying to move forwards.

Backstab on 2 is rather redundant at the moment, since i'm combat fist right now, but when i was combat daggers i had weapon switch macros set up to auto-switch BS/SS when i changed between dagger/claw (for grinding, and the occasional raid situation where getting behind things is more trouble than it's worth - razorgore phase 1, sartura, etc)

 

Joink

Over the years i've keeped the same bindings but slowly added more as needed. I use an ergonomic keyboard so 6-0 binds are out of the question. Everything from AP pom fireball macro to mount to decurse is bound to the following:

1-5
shift 1-5
ctrl 1-5
alt 1,2,3 (alt-4 and alt-5 are to hard to press )
s is escape artist shift s is trinket 1
blink is mouse3

The only combat spell I have that isn't a bind is mana shield.

Movement is:
w-forward, x-backward, z/c for strife, and a/d turn. e is assist target and q is autorun

 

◊ Quigon

The importance of key bindings is make sure you can bind everything, and then, over time, you'll get used to it.
As long as you setup important basics and fundamentals you'll grow into a strong system of player control.

Ctrl and shift are trivial to add in for left-handed bindings, and it allows easily 36 hotkeys at the range of your left hand alone.

 

◊ Shalas

Using only left-shift I can comfortably hit up to Shift-8 and Ctrl-9, and I've never found switching to right ctrl/shift and back a noticable delay. While not small, my hands aren't particularly large.

 

Elendril

what in the world? i have pretty big hands and ctrl-9 with pinky and index finger is actually painful.

 

Sciurus

I can only reach to 5 comfortabley on my keyboard (Logitech Elite). Trying to hotkey anything past that is just asking for carpal tunnel ;p

My setup on my hunter looks something like this:

1 - Concussive Shot
2 - Multishot
3 - Auto-Shot Toggle
4 - Arcane Shot
5 - Hunter's Mark
Q - Viper Sting (Rank 3)
C - Serpent Sting
E - Scorpid Sting (I found I had to bind this for PvP when I need to cancel another sting to trap someone).
G - Aimed Shot
V - Viper Sting (Rank 1)
F - Scatter Shot
~ - Tranq Shot/Badge of the Swarmguard depending on what I'm doing.

Everything else I have bound is a shift or control variant of those (ie frost/freezing trap is shift e/c and FD is shift q, it works out pretty well) with the exception of aspect of the monkey and hawk being shift space and control space.

I also use the same binds for my rogue, with 1-5, q, e, c, v, g, f, r, shift r being my main attacks, and shift 1-5 + ~ being my cooldowns.

My warrior being on a different account, I use the same main binds for his general attacks, but stance switching I have bound to Shift 1, 2, 3.

All movement is done via WASD (I rebinded my strafe keys to attacks, so to strafe I right click + a/d). The only thing I seem to have issues with is my mouse 5 button (using an MX1000) as autorun and shift Mouse 5 as mount/dismount. Sometimes the button sticks and I'll dismount a little too slow in PvP which can lead to some problems (however that's more of a hardware issue than mapping issue). I also have my vent key bound to mouse 4, so it's easy to call things out while still being able to control my camera angle and running around shooting stuff.

 

krucifix85

I have memorized three classes worth of hotkeys (priest, current main, druid, and warlock), everyone of them being:
1-5
q,e,r,t,z,x,c,f,v,g,`
ctrl, and shift, and alt variants
I use f1 f2 f3 f4 (and mouse scroll) on my druid as well, though I normally let mods change forms for me.

With the the changing of forms only changing my main bar, buttons 1-5 are form specific, while basically everything else (incl shift,alt,ctrl 1-5) are universal. (Having said that, I haven't really got my druid down cleanly with keybinds, as I only use him for elite grinding, or PvE DPS, which is basically spam one button and shift change for hax energy regen)

Any feral form -> caster form is scroll backwards on my mouse, and scroll forwards is cheetah form.

My keys are wasd, with a and d as strafe, just like Scirius.


On all my character's I also use the numpad:
The big + sign (spammable with your mouse hand) is my autorun.
* is inspect myself
- is inspect target
I use that enter button to open chat, normally
/ is toggle run, walk (is that default?)
And when I get around to it, I'll eventually bind my Autobar to the numpad numbers. Haven't been PvPing much recently, so i haven't needed it (mana potting in pve isn't really a timebased thing)

Also good keybinds which are out of the way and are especially handy for PvP are the Insert - Page Down, block. These are really handy to keybind Wardrobe (or similar mod) binds to, as they are out of the way, but easy to click in a rush. Our MT, who is a PvP Prot spec, loves using his different resistance gears against mage / warlock defenders in WSG. He can walk in, using a mod which analyses previous damage dealt by a certain player, with around 75% chance to resist everything from what that player (ice mage vs fire mage) Really funny reading some of his combat logs, where he resists almost all of the slowing effects from a frost mage. hehe.


@Shalas:
Ouch. Do you use pinky + thumb to reach ctrl-9 ? No matter how I try I can't do it (unless I use right ctrl. :P), without having to move my whole body over. You must have amazingly large hands. ><

http://ctprofiles.net/13134

 

FunBall

If you want to re-map your keys, the best way I've found is two steps. Unbound the key in the short term until you get used to it not being in its normal spot, then rebind it to a new key.

I simply try and keep instant moves closer to my fingers and cast time stuff further away, since I'm a bit more free to move my hands around the keyboard.

 

holychite

 

Drakonious

Hi, I also use an N52 pad. What I've done is copied some dudes flexbar script from the flexbar forums since it's setup in the same shape as my N52 pad, and then I ran a script for my Stealth button (which is the single button above the d-pad on the N52) to change to my vanish button when I go into combat, and then back to stealth/destealth when I'm out of combat.

For a warrior you could have that button as your stance button and search through flexbar forums for a script to change your layout depending on which stance your in. I've fallen in love with my current Flexbar/N52 setup and I cry when I can't use it on the test realms the way I want.

I highly recommend checking out http://www.flexbarforums.com/ and seeing if there's someone who has an N52 Pad and plays a warrior with a nice script out there.

If not, I'm sure you could find enough useful scripts that you could piece something together yourself.

As far as general setup of my pad goes. I use 1-0 as my hotkeys with Cntrl + 1-0 for the extras. I tend to keep my most used abilities toward the right top buttons (forefinger, middle finger, ring finger) and my less used keys toward the left side and bottom. By less used I mean more situational things, like evasion, blind, kick, WoTF, sprint, etc. For a warrior I suppose that would be like Last Stand, Shield Wall, Retaliation, etc.

*Edit* I also use the top far left button as my Tab target button and sometimes replace it with an assist macro for raids.

 

◊ Shalas

Laptop keyboard (full size keys, but less space between them), Caps Lock remapped to Ctrl, and I'm hitting 9 with my thumb. With the normal left ctrl I can barely reach 9, and it's fairly painful to do so for more than a few seconds.

 

Drakonious

I found the intial post I used to setup my UI, this is a good flexbar intro tutorial and will teach you how to setup your buttons in the shape of your N52 pad so you always know where the buttons are. There's plenty of info in the warrior sections on how to configure flexbar for stance dancing so that it only shows actions for that particular stance, and you shouldn't have to map your N52 mor than once, and then do the rest through flexbar.

http://www.flexbarforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=1690

 

krucifix85

Shalas, that seems to defeat the purpose of a keybind for me (for a combat action, anyway). I use keybinds as a means to, with the least movement possible, cast spells, while still having total movement control (keybinds nearby to wasd), and still being able keep my eye on the combat screen (makes clicking, impossible)

Each to their own I guess.

http://ctprofiles.net/13134

 

◊ pewsey

I'm a customising junkie, and a keyboard junkie. Mouse is turn, strafe, and side button1 is autorun, side button 2 is assist (that rules, I can just spam assist with my thumb while looking for the red circle on the ground). I use the PlayerAssist addon for selecting my assist and keybindings for it.

Also, as an old-school Unix/C developer I've permanently remapped caps-lock to control (damn these young kids and their horrible windows keyboards) and unmapped the Windows key (habit from CounterStrike playing days)

I'm a carebear, so I'm PvE focussed, but enjoy PvP at times for giggles, so my bindings don't really reflect how I'd do it for PvP.

Combat daggers rogue (mostly pve)
Movement keys; WASD
1 = autoattack
2 = sinister strike macro*
3 = eviscerate
4 = slice'n'dice
5 = kick
` = vanish
^c = blade flurry
^b = rupture
q = kidney shot
e = backstab macro*
v = adrenaline rush
^e = gouge macro*
^f = feint
shift-e = evasion
^s = sprint
shift-f = enter stealth
shift-z = fire gun/bow
^z = blind
^q = thistle-tea
^d = distract
^t = use top trinket = Jom Gobbar

* the macros do a check to see if I'm attacking my target, and if not - do an attack. I added this in because I was so sick of getting behind a new mob to backstab, and having the "not enough energy" or "you must be behind your target" and just standing there like a stunned bunny for a couple of seconds until I had enough energy to SS or BS.

My only special one is "shift-Q" which is "quaff potion" and for particular fights I drop the potion into that slot on my AB
(I'm using bartender2)

Running into combat a mob it goes, e (or 2), 4, ^t, v, ^c, e, e, e, e, shift-e, `, /y learn2tank ;-)

Fire mage (mostly pve)
Movement keys; WASD
1 = frostbolt
2 = fireball
3 = scorch
4 = fireblast
5 = cone-of-cold
` = blastwave
^c = counterspell macro**
^b = blink
q = arcane explosion
e = frost nova
v = arcane missiles
^e = sheep macro**
^f = flamestrike
shift-e = rank 1 blizzard
shift-f = decursive
shift-z = fire wand
^z = pyroblast
^q = quaff mana pot
^d = combustion
shift-q = escape artist

** the macros do a "SpellStopCasting()" so I can immediately cast counterspell and/or piggymorph.

My setup has Q and E as the major keys for "doing stuff while moving around", and I'm not 100% happy yet with my mage setup, but meh, it's good enough.

Pewsey has heard about tact and discretion, but tends to regard them much as children view vegetables.
Nemesis: "Pewsey is single-handedly turning around every guy in the BB that didn't want to have kids."
Viator: Because I had a baby so I'm better than non-breeders.

 

Necro

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 + ´
[tab] q w e r t y u
[caps] a s d f g h j
z x v b
mouse buttons ~ 2, dont know what they're called.

That's the hotkeys I use. I move on rdfg
I never ever have to click an ability manually with the mouse, and I play without any visible buttons on my interface.

I am able to key 30 spells/ abilities all reachable without stretching or moving my hands away from either keyboard or mouse. I also never use any shift+click, ctrl+click stuff as that always messes things up. The only thing that is actually slowing me down is that my keyboard can only register 3 clicks at the same time, so I sometimes have to stop strafing, If i'm trying to insta cast a dot while sending my pet on some sort of mission.
I play a warlock

 

◊ Lactose

[Button left of 1] - Auto Run
1 - Melee macro
2 - Raptor Strike
3 - Auto Shot
4 - Serpent Sting
5 - Arcane Shot
6 - Multi-purpose, usually Tranq Shot
7 - Concussive Shot
8 - Hunter's Mark
9 - Multi-Shot
0 - Aimed Shot
+ - Scatter Shot
\ - Distracting Shot

F1-F5 - Party members
Shift+F1 - No gear macro
Shift+F2 - DPS gear macro

Ctrl + 1-8(?) - Pet bar

Alt+1 - War Stomp
Alt+2 - Feign Death
Alt+3 - Disengage
Alt+4 - Multipurpose, resistance gear or potion
Alt+5 - As above
Alt+6 - Rapid Fire
Alt+7 - Multipurpose, usually Heart of Noxxion
Alt+8 - Aspect of the Monkey
Alt+9 - Aspect of the Cheetah
Alt+0 - Aspect of the Hawk
Alt++ - Viper Sting
Alt+\ - Multipurpose, resistance potions mostly

Playing guitar helps for some of those stretches ;)

Look, Lactose, we'd rather you didn't eradicate the whole human race.
- Sam & Max

 

Drakonious

Holy crap.

Now it all makes sense.

I suppose I could take the actual visual part of my buttons off the screen, but it's just reassuring to see that I'm hitting the right button.

 

◊ Shalas

The only speed requirement for spells is that I need to be able to be hitting the next key before the GCD is done. Obviously you wouldn't bind something you'd want to do while moving to something like ctrl-9 (which is GH3 for me, something I'd never cast in PvP and only rarely cast in PvE), but even with things like Flash Heal I reach over and hit -, and still be moving the entire time that I'm not casting. Probably doesn't work as for a class that doesn't rely on cast times, though.