I Click My Skills

[Fashooba]

Hello. I have a lv 50 powertech and a 35 assassin. I pvp often. And I click every single one of my skills.

 

I come here to the newbie forum seeking help. I need to break my old ways.

 

I'm sick of clicking the wrong skill based on erratic mouse movement's .. and the inability to rotate my camera as needed.

 

How can I possibly hotkey all my skills? How can I keep an eye on my health and energy when I'm looking in the field?

 

 

Please, share your experiences and help me break this habit.

[Owsley]

Logictech G510 keyboard allows 3 banks of 18 G keys. That's 54 dedicated programmable keys. Problem solved.

 

edit: Model # is G510

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-920-002530-Gaming-Keyboard-G510/dp/B003VAK16O

Edited February 1, 2012 by Owsley

[Zunayson]

I can hit all my skills easily with 1-8, Shift + 1-8, And I can start doing Ctrl + 1-8 for the remaining abilities. Use the sides for abilities you click such as medpacs, buffs, rest, and quicktravel. I have a level 38 operative, and a level 26 Vanguard (And not many skills on my vanguard...). I usually map them not randomly. example: 1 is usually something spammable, Shift 1 (S1) is usually something spammable as well. 2 and S2 are main damage abilities. On my vanguard, S3 and 3 are melee, 4 and S4 are CC, 5 and S5 is AoE, and so on... Edited February 1, 2012 by Zunayson

[Fashooba]

Logictech G500 keyboard allows 3 banks of 18 G keys. That's 54 dedicated programmable keys. Problem solved.

 

G500 .. appears to be a mouse unless I'm missing something.

 

Shift + control will help I guess..

 

Learning which keys do what is gonna be a paaaiinn...

[amandakun]

Pff, all about the logitech G13 gamepad. Granted its only 22 customizable buttons but because its not in a keyboard format you don't have to waste space with keys you would use to talk with! Granted you'll need to keep your keyboard nearby but meh.

 

Plus you can assign shift, ctrl and alt to 3 of those keys, allowing you to mod the other 19, and the analogue stick i assigned to WSQE for movement to 'save' on space.

[DarthDemens]

G500 .. appears to be a mouse unless I'm missing something.

 

I think he means the G15.

 

 

Some of us prefer not to spend close to $200 on a keyboard, however. Those of us use Shift and Alt (Ctrl in this game defaults to companion skills, but can be overwritten for the dedicated PvPer)

[Fashooba]

Pff, all about the logitech G13 gamepad. Granted its only 22 customizable buttons but because its not in a keyboard format you don't have to waste space with keys you would use to talk with! Granted you'll need to keep your keyboard nearby but meh.

 

Plus you can assign shift, ctrl and alt to 3 of those keys, allowing you to mod the other 19, and the analogue stick i assigned to WSQE for movement to 'save' on space.

 

Sounds .. OK.. I *hate* aiming a camera with a joystick though. Hate.

[Exertim]

You don't need any fancy mouses or keyboards to do well as a keybinder. I play a Sentinel/Marauder which (arguably) uses the most abilities in PVE/PVP combat and do just fine with your average run-of-the-mill keyboard with a Logitech MX518:

 

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/6301/screenshot2012020115101.jpg

 

All you need is your standard keyboard + a mouse with two, preferrably 3 side buttons (2 on the side, 1 in the middle in between LMB/RMB) and you're set.

 

Switching from a "clicker" playstyle to a hotkey playstyle will be very confusing for you initially and you might even do worse. Just keep at it for a week and muscle memory will come into play soon enough.

 

Edit: almost forgot. If you haven't done so already, rebind A and D to strafe left and strafe right. That frees up Q and E for you right there.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Exertim

[Lyle_Shnub]

I use a Razor Naga and find it incredibly helpful as I can access the majority of my numpad keys easily in addition to more expected keys around WASD. I'm assuming you can easily reach keys 1-5, for me, anything past that is sketchy when it comes to quickly pressing it. Some things I'd suggest would be to rebind your keys q, e, r, t, f, g, z, x, c, v, and ` to all correspond to hotkeys.

 

Q and e are unnecessary when you regularly swivel your camera by hold down right click as the a and d keys used in conjunction with your right mouse button let you strafe. I have rebound the r key's default "reply to whisper" functions to my backspace key as chatting with someone typically isn't high priority over abilities. If you ever play a cover-based class, rebinding f to a hotkey is probably counter-intuitive as you'll already be using it a lot for cover. A lot of the default things (like holstering your weapons) keys like z, x, or c did I rebinded to the same key except with a shift modifier. I find using the shift modifier to be the easiest for keybindings rather than ctrl or alt, so try to have shift-modified version of all your hotkeys.

 

Also, you can still click some abilities like your class buff, recuperate, very long CD abilities, speeder, etc if you're running out of keys to bind abilities to. These things aren't usually needed in the heat of combat.

[Skodan]

if you have alts like me, i try to put similar skills in the same slots.

 

for example my quick travel is always in the 3rd from the bottom on my right bar (ctrl+r).

the 15 sec heal and the skill that frees you from stuns are always shift+1 and shift +2

 

i have the following setup

left bar: shift 1-6, shift q-y

right bar: ctrl 1-6 ctrl q-y

center bar: 1-=

bottom bar: alt 1-6, alt q-y

 

companion attack/passive: alt a/alt s

[Fashooba]

All you need is your standard keyboard + a mouse with two, preferrably 3 side buttons (2 on the side, 1 in the middle in between LMB/RMB) and you're set.

 

Switching from a "clicker" playstyle to a hotkey playstyle will be very confusing for you initially and you might even do worse. Just keep at it for a week and muscle memory will come into play soon enough.

 

Edit: almost forgot. If you haven't done so already, rebind A and D to strafe left and strafe right. That frees up Q and E for you right there.

 

Yeah my mouse has 2 on the side and 1 in the middle. I use one on the side for voip though.. can't change that, been using it for years.

 

All great ideas though guys. I really appreciate it. And I look forward to sucking for a week. Its gonna be even worse trying to memorize keys for 2 different characters.. maybe ill try to bind similar abilities to the same keys..

[ghettogenius]

First thing you need to do if not done already is remap straff left/right from Q/E to A and D. You dont need both and keyboard turning will only slow you down (even here with auto facing). Now you can remap Q and E to either something spammable or a couple of your big attacks for easy access.

 

Everyone plays a little different, but like another poster mentioned I try to keep some similar abilities on the same keys or near the same keys for my alts. Actually only playing 2 chars currently to avoid too many keymapping discrepancies. Some abilities are always in the same place from char to char tho like interrupt. i often just leave the abilities in the place where they fall when I learned them (ie: older abilities are usually still on the 1-0 bar). I mix it up as new ones are learned but rarely do I try to place specific rotation keys in an order on my hotbar. Theres just too much need to adapt and switch things up in both pvp and pve for me to do that.

 

I use a naga here and most attacks are on keyboard 1-0 or keys near there while force powers and other attacks are on the naga thumb keys. I havent needed more than this but if necessary I can add the shift + 1-0 or shift + thumb keys. Razer and Logitech mice/keyboards offer a tremendous amount of hotkey accessibility but the issue you will find is that the client doesnt even offer enough hotbar slots to fill them all (only 48 I believe). You can get by without these tools but they are a lot of fun and can definitely increase your performance level once you get used to them.

 

Oh and about that. I recently got this mouse (2 weeks) and have finally settled in on it. Its a tricky transition, like trying to knock a bad habit. Sometimes in the midst of a stressful encounter I will catch myself trying to click something lol. Just got to force that thought out of your mind and keep on with the furious fingers. Its like a choreographed dance or technical martial arts - need to eliminate useless extraneous movements to increase efficiency and that takes practice.

[Fashooba]

One of my biggest flaws.. is I never click a target. I'm too conditioned to clicking skills that I TAB to every single target. This habit needs to end fast.

[Varcan]

If you're truly startin from nothing, then binding strafe to W and R makes a LOT more sense. But if your already a WASDer I understand keeping it. If you're not a WASD user, then the whole concept makes no sense. It makes SO many key cumbersome to use while holding down a strafe key..

 

Go to Taugrim.com > Guides Keybinding for a good overview of the W/R strafe method. It will allow you to use the reguler [1-6], [F1-F5], [Q,E,T,Y], [A,S,D,F,G,H] and [Z, X, C, V, B] all quite naturaly. Also a binding "Ctrl" to the front side mouse button will open up a lot more options, which is useful for Relics, Pots, Buffs, etc.

 

It's just another option which is not the norm, but can produce much more fluid movement while casting abilties than most WASD users are capable.

[izayoinotsuki]

Don't buy into the stories that you need to keybind to be good at PvP.

 

But if you truly have issues with using your mouse properly then *shrug*, I guess there's nothing else to do about it.

Edited February 1, 2012 by izayoinotsuki

[Varcan]

One of my biggest flaws.. is I never click a target. I'm too conditioned to clicking skills that I TAB to every single target. This habit needs to end fast.

 

You rarely need to be clicking a target. Yes the tab system is crap, but you eventually should get use to hitting it quickly multiple times and getting on the target you want in a fraction of a second.

 

Heck, click target is much more flawed in this game than Tab target. If they're not a healer standing still then goodluck clicking. You'll need it!

 

Basically, I'm saying learn to tab target regardless. The only time you should should be clicking anything is to cap a node, diffuse a bomb, ground targetable AoE. That's IT!

[Owsley]

G500 .. appears to be a mouse unless I'm missing something.

 

Shift + control will help I guess..

 

Learning which keys do what is gonna be a paaaiinn...

 

Sorry. I fat fingerd the model

It's the G510. G15 only has 12 G keys.

Each bank can have different colored keys.

I have configured red keys for attack, green for heals/buffs, and blue for debuffs. It makes it real easy to manage what's going on.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-920-002530-Gaming-Keyboard-G510/dp/B003VAK16O

Edited February 1, 2012 by Owsley

[nethervoid]

The keybindings I use allow me to keep most of my fingers on WASD for movement. I hate number keys and function keys with a passion. My keybinds are:

 

Hotbar 1: F|E|R|C|Q|X|Z

Hotbar 2: Add shift to F|E|R|C|Q|X|S|D

Hotbar 2: Add alt to F|E|R|C|Q|X|S|D

 

Target next enemy is on my mouse thumb button.

 

This gets me all the hotkeys I need, and it's very easy to hit the keys without moving my fingers from WASD. This set up has been really awesome for raiding etc. I've been using in since before WoW.

[Osirium]

Hello,

 

To the OP, im a clicker aswell and as someone said clicking isn't exactly bad...but it comes with certain limitations if you want to PVP.

 

Limits the ability to watchout for your surroundings and you need to "look" at the ability before you click it.

 

I've began a couple of weeks back changing those old ways (6 years of habits) and from my point of view you should start with 4-5 keybinds at most and work your way from there.

 

Yes it will feel awkward and yes you'll fail alot of times (which still happens to me alot) but its a necessary process if you dont want to click skills, another advice would be to apply it even on PVE which will allow more maneuver space since you wont be pressured like PVP but don't disregard the usage in PVE or you'll get the notion you wont manage.

 

Tbh I still fail alot mostly because im ust to using the AWD so I still cant seem to work well only with AD (strafe left/right) + Mouse to walk forward which makes me stop my character and look at the screen completely clueless on what's going on.

 

I find it really hard to work with the 12345 keys if I don't use the mouse to walk/run so my keybinds are generaly something like this (Bounty Hunter here):

 

Movement:

 

Strafe: A+D

Forward: W

 

Q = Electro Dart

E = Tracer Missile

R = Heat Seeking Missiles

T = Cure

S = Shield

F = Unload

G = Power Surge

X = Determination

C = Jet Boost

V = Fusion Missile

Mouse 4 = Rapid Shots

Mouse 5 = Death from Above

 

Shift+Q = Rapid Scan

Shift+Mouse 4 = Healing Scan (Razer Deathadder side button)

Shift+R = Railshot

Shift+T = Vent Heat

Shift+F = Medpac

Shift+G = Concussion Missile

 

Hope it helps but like I said, start small (4/5 keybinds) and work from there.

 

Regards

[Cichard]

I use a naga epic which has 1-= on the side of the mouse i use my thumb to click this keybinds. Then i have a Anasi keyboard and i bound alt shift and alt+shift to the buttons under the space bar. So i effectivly have 1-=, alt+1-=, Shift+1-=, and alt+shift+1-=. I obviously dont use all the keybinds but my main set is works well

 

I even use My middle mouse button Click it is taunt alt + click is aoe taunt. Alt+click it is guard. Works really well

 

How i set up my bars are great

 

Top bar 1-6 are my main attacks 7-= are my main situational skills ie. Jolt assassinate overcharged saber break free.

Bottom Bar alt+1-6 My main Cooldows Defensive , speed, Stuns. alt+7-= CC Knockback relics and adrenal.

 

Left bar Taunts guard stealth

right bar buffs mounts quest items from dailies.

 

also try mapping stuff to F R V and combinations ALT+F R V and so on.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Cichard

[Zunayson]

Yeah, and I'm able to use just number keys so far. I never keyboard turn, nor do I strafe. I'm used to just passively having my finger on the right click and just turn my mouse to turn, and use A and D to strafe (Even if it's turn, it'll be strafe if you have right mouse button clicked down) This allows me to use my camera. Playing FPS games, I must have full intricate control over my game camera!