Key Binding Is Important

[ninjanatesause]

Hi all, so I've been playing for 6 months now and yes I was a clicker. Now that I started doing Operations and HM FP

I have found clicking is just not fast enough. I'm starting the slow painful task of learning how to bind keys and using them.

BTW holding down both mouse button lets you run and move around. try it, that frees up your left hand for hotkeys.

My advice is this: Start gaming with key binding, it's much easier to learn along the way.

Any idea how long this painful process with take?

Any tips

Edited January 3, 2015 by ninjanatesause

[psandak]

Any idea how long this painful process with take?

Any tips

 

Varies from person to person.

 

My advice: do not go cold turkey, be a hybrid (a mix of key bind and clicking). You'd be surprised how efficient it can be.

[GaBacon]

I was a clicker for years and actualy got very good at it. I mean u couldnt tell the dif between me and a key binder BUT i finaly broke down and purchased a gaming mouse, now i am totaly dependant on my keybinds but i do click every now and then for the hell of it.

[WolfyZack]

hey

 

check this guide out, genaraly this youtube clip, and you get to see atleast one good option.

 

 

Check out more of his player guides playlist to get some really good tips

Edited January 4, 2015 by WolfyZack

[The_Anf]

can someone explain this too me?

[Fidelicatessen]

You use keys on your keyboard and buttons on your mouse to activate your abilities instead of moving the on-screen mouse cursor and clicking the on-screen icon. It's faster and more intuitive, and if you're doing PvP then it will greatly improve your survivability.

[DomiSotto]

I advise against a hybrid, because on one of my characters I kept going back and forth, falling back into the old mousing habits when things went sour (I was playing a Sage Healer) and it took far longer to get used to it.

 

Another advice I have:

 

1. Good comfortable mouse. I started with a regular, upgraded to 5-button, and just started on the 17-button one

 

2. if you do not blind type, try a little bit of that it helps to get an idea (I was typing with 3 fingers when I started). It is important to be able to fight without looking down. Eyes have to be on the battle, not keyboard

 

3. Lay out your abilities in a logical fashion, and learn each character's rotation by heart like a pianist learns a tune

 

4. Keybind your targeting, focus target, target of target, centre screen, nearest, next, focus modifier... initially I started with different targeting binds for different roles, for the lack of buttons, but now with the new mouse they are standard so I remember the fingers position better

 

5. if you have buttons on the mouse, I am finding that moving and targeting with the right while fighting with the left is what is the easiest for my old brain. I can actually now run a circle with 2 strafes while spamming energy neutral shot. When I apply myself that is. Not in a battle. I

 

6. Start on a low-level character with less binds, and level him playing a PvP daily. Nothing like a friendly sin to teach you the importance of binds

 

7. Arrange and re-arrange your interface to manage your real estate. I have important cooldowns on an off-centre screen vertical bar because otherwise I WILL forget ( I am an old lady. And Dulfy says 'it is imperative to apply on CD')

 

8. Practice. Manka cats on Hoth are still laughing themselves silly remembering my Marauder. Or maybe not. They are dead, and my Mara is mostly alive.

 

Stay with it. I don't even remember now what I used for movement before. Not a pro by any means, but KB is superior in every respect.

Edited January 6, 2015 by DomiSotto

[mkwerner]

Varies from person to person.

 

My advice: do not go cold turkey, be a hybrid (a mix of key bind and clicking). You'd be surprised how efficient it can be.

 

QFT. This is my first MMO, and I was staunchly against keybinding because it was weird to me. Now I do a mix of both, and I'm pretty happy with the results...especially in PvP as someone mentioned above.

[KamWinter]

Alright urm IMO I say that I'd prefer a hybrid but to be hybrid you need prob 4-6 quickbars, You see I seperate my abilities into 3 categories, "Agressive", "Support" and "StandBy".

-Agressive-

These abilities take up 1-2 quickbars. My Agressive Skills are keybined, because they are used more often than the 3 as they are used specifically for attacking like (for a Sith Warrior) Assault I keybind to 1 because thats your "bread and butter" attack, or basically attacks you use alot.

-Support-

These abilities take up 2-3 quickbars. My Support Skills are not keybind, because they are used, as said in the category of these skills, for support now as a Sith Warrior my support skills are Ravage(used to be keybined to 7 as it dealt a lot of damage and 7 is my lucky number), Saber Ward, That Skill We Use Only In PvP or really hard boss fights when we are stunned and need to be freed quick, heroic moment, my guard, taunt and freeze skill( these are unlockable as a Jugg). Now since I'm writing this guide when my Jugg was Lv 20. the Agressive skills take only 1 quickbar, Support Skills are to help you change the tide in battle giving you buffs and whatnot, You might be asking why Ravage isn't in Agressive, well it has 18s cooldown and has a 3s execution so any skill with execution time is automatic Support.

-StandBy-

These Abilities Take Up The Remaining Quickbars. My StandBy Skills are not keybind, because they are things like your class boost( Mark Of Power, Coordination bla bla bla), or my medpacks, or off battle heal ability, or if your a sub like me, a place to stash all your speeders and unwanted stuff, or your Sprint ability or changing between Lightsaber Styles or Gas Cannisters. They are called StandBy because most of them can only be used if you are not in combat.

 

Now to be a succesful hybrid you'd need to be a sub, and have good Agressive, Support and StandBy skills and use them at the right time, oh and Support and StandBy skills are to be clicked on btw incase you guys don't know.

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

Here's my reccomendation, If you can find one (they have been discontinued by the manufactuer) find yourself a Steelseries Merc Stealth and ONLY use it for gaming. It has this awesome side area that has all of the number keys and the - key all in a neat little side area with QWEASD and a few other keys all in a nice small ish configuration to condense the keys all used for MMO's and FPS's into a easier to use configuration than a normal QWERTY keyboard. It does have a normal QWERTY keyboard also, so yea. Your alternative is a Razer Naga, but I prefer not to spend $100+ on a mouse alone...

[Ridickilis]

All these tips are great so I'm just going to relay how I approached the first step when I made the switch.

 

Before I keybound anything I got used to targeting without ever seeing the mouse cursor on the screen. Domi touched on it a little; set up your tab targeting in preferences (next, nearest and previous enemy) and target center screen. Later you'll want to do allies as well, but let's start with the enemies first

 

Head to a planet that you're over leveled for so you don't have to worry about dying (dismiss your companion as well). Find a mob and run through them, call them names (or make mama jokes) until they get mad at you. When the scrum ensues, hit each of them one time with your basic attack (which should still be on default 1). Try not to hit the same guy twice. Get used to tab targeting in relation to moving and facing and how target center screen works as well. That helps with target switching and/or fighting multiple people at the same time in pvp or whatnot.

 

Once I got used to doing that with just spamming 1, then I started incorporating more keys into my practice "rotation". After that everything seemed to fall into place much easier. That's when I started planing out a keybinding map and grouping certain abilities near each other. It can be overwhelming at first but realistically only took a couple days (a few hours) to get comfortable with it. Start small and work your way up from there. The biggest obstacle for me was getting used to not seeing that cursor on the screen anymore or using it to target after all the years of clicking on my single player rpg's, so that's why I say playing with the targeting first may be a good place top start.

Edited January 6, 2015 by Ridickilis

[The_Anf]

I'm bad at this stuff, so forgive me

 

what is the difference between keybinding and just using 1,2,3,4 etc and the arrows for moving around?

[Ridickilis]

what is the difference between keybinding and just using 1,2,3,4 etc and the arrows for moving around?

 

Because turning with the keyboard will *always* be inferior to turning your character with the mouse. There is no debate, it's a scientific fact. When you turn with A+D (or with the arrow keys) the game has one set turn speed. You can't increase it in anyway, like pressing the button harder to turn faster, it's hard coded to be a certain speed and that's it. When turning with the mouse, you can control the speed in which you turn; you can go as fast or as slow as your wrists will let you. Then add in that you can just move the camera angle with left click then press both to run in that direction for instant turning and it makes the whole package far superior.

 

I'd say that pressing the key binds is faster than clicking them, but some people are fast clickers. I'll give them that. In your case, I don't see a reason why you shouldn't start moving with the mouse. You're already halfway there in the keybinding experience by using 1-4 etc with your left hand and using your right hand on the arrow keys for movement. Just move your right hand to the mouse and forget about the arrow keys.

Edited January 6, 2015 by Ridickilis

[DomiSotto]

I would like to add two things.

 

Ridickilis mentions the enemies targeting binds to go first, but I find that it is role-dependent.

 

For a Healer and a Tank, I find it is more important for me to target the allies real NOW, real fast (‘cause that Sent is gonna die in another 2 hits, or that Sage is running…).

 

For a DPS it’s the enemies. Still, I also always prefer the centre-screen targeting on the enemies, because the ‘target nearest/next’ failed me many times, particularly on a ranged character (shooting someone behind my back when the focused target is right in front of me! And (hangs her head in shame) it’s likely was lovingly cc’d too.

 

Focus Target and the ability to use Focus Modifier w/o losing that other VIP of yours from the cross-hairs is better than chocolate. And that’s from a woman. Try it, you’ll love it!

 

Key-turning vs mouse turning… mouse turning is far easier for a brain to process, I find, because the movement is much more natural. We just don’t move the Roman way at straight angles, guys. We weave in and out and love smooth.

 

Before learning the mouse, my fighting style was: Approach a pull. Drop in cover. Shoot. Shield. Let the healer companion heal through damage. BAD. Now it’s run around, zoom out, cc, guard, whatever, and use a DPS companion. It’s much more mobile and creative. Less boring. Faster. More efficient.

 

In addition, strafe for me only become possible when separating mouse clicking from movement.

 

I simply cannot use both A or D intelligently to Strafe L/R AND press say 1 or Z to attack, while watching the enemy so I stay out of the melee range, but in the ranged range. But if I move with the mouse, adjusting facing (Strafe L or R) with the right hand on the side button, I can keep pressing a variety of the keyboard commands (Okay, let’s be honest here, spamming that very 1 or Z attack) on the left hand.

 

If you haven’t seen someone doing a perfect strafe, you should. That Operative that demo’d the technique for me in the very first zone I loaded is forever burnt into my memory. As short as the demo was. ‘Cause you know, v. dead v.fast

 

Outside of that, if you ever plan on facing any class with a backstab ability in the nearest future, moving backwards needs to be a part of your repertoire of moving like Jagger.

 

And, I lied. I added more than 2 things. Don’t hate me!