Optimum keyboard bindings for movement and skills

[Snipp]

I'm trying to determine the most efficient way of binding keys for optimum performance in games. There's a lot of good players that read this forum so I'm hoping I can start a decent discussion that will encourage those people to share their wisdom. This is what I'm currently thinking:

ESDF for movement keys
Most people use the WASD config and this is the same thing just carried over a notch. This should make it easier to type since your fingers are already in the "home row" position.

Bind skills to keys near the movement keys
With the ESDF setup, your pinky should now have easy access to more buttons such as A, Z, TAB, Caps Lock and the Shift key. Your middle finger should be able to access numbers 1-5 without being able to lift your entire hand and your ring finger should be able to quicky tap Q and W. Your index finger also has fast access to R, T, G, H, C, V and B. The only keys that require you to lift from more than one of your movement keys are 1, 2 and 5.

Narrowing down the best keys for the most common skills
I like to have the option to continue moving while using various skills. In a game like WoW where PVP can be important, I need a way to quickly use various skills while circle strafing without having to use the mouse. From what I've experienced the best way to do this is to use the mouse for turning and then using S to move left while using R, T, G, and H for skills when going that direction. If you were going right your skill buttons would be Q W A, Z and X while using F to move.

Using the shift key to create "alternate" skill buttons
WoW is the only game I've played that allows you to do this by default. You can hold down shift while pressing a letter to use a different skill than without holding shift. This can be very useful for binding your actual movement keys to skills if you are holding down shift. However, you can't circle strafe while doing this so it's not a good place to put the type of skill you would need to use in a critical time like that.

Having a mouse with buttons 3 and 4
A scroll wheel mouse where the mouse can be clicked down is very useful. The side mouse button is also useful for quick thumb tapping.

Can anything think of some better ways to do this? I'm really interested in getting the most out of my key bindings.

[Xarpolis]

I love having my mouse's 3 thumb buttons for stance swapping on my warrior.

[Lelaniel]

Another thing I like about ESDF is that the F key on most keyboards has a nipple (there is another one on the J key). They are there so touch typists can recenter their hands without having to look to see where to put their hands.

In the case of ESDF it allows me to put my hands back on the movement keys without looking down if I had to say reach over and hit N or M or something.

[Kolle]

I don't know if many people do this, but I use the number pad. The arrows keys there are used for movement and all the surrounding buttons are tied to a skil. It worked great in EQ1 and even WoW with the multitude of skill/item options. Everything is an inch or less away from a finger and easy to push.

This has always been more convenient compared to wasd type setups...maybe it's because on num.pad you get everything in a nice, neat rectangle arrangement intead of the off-center stuff on the letter keys.

[Snipp]

Originally Posted by Kolle

I don't know if many people do this, but I use the number pad. The arrows keys there are used for movement and all the surrounding buttons are tied to a skil. It worked great in EQ1 and even WoW with the multitude of skill/item options. Everything is an inch or less away from a finger and easy to push.

This has always been more convenient compared to wasd type setups...maybe it's because on num.pad you get everything in a nice, neat rectangle arrangement intead of the off-center stuff on the letter keys.

Yeah but then you can't circle strafe. You need one hand on the mouse and one on the keys to do it well.

[Zaptruder]

As a hunter...

I exercise fine control over my pet a lot... so my hand needs to stay in a position where its easy to hit ctrl-1.

doubtless I could probably put it in a better place, but with so many keys bound, it's difficult to find space that is as intuitive.

The rest then follows; 1-6 buttons are hit by key... the bottom left extra bar I've got bound with Shift-1 to shift-6, giving me easy hotkey access to more buttons.

~ and shift ~ is also bound.

I have feign death bound to V as well, allowing easy access for critical split timing, without making it too easy to hit the key.

Finally, on the mouse, button 4 is bound to autorun, while button 5 is set to follow, allowing my mouse to be 100% navigation device on long runs while I scratch my nuts with my left hand.

[Marauder]

123456qertzx for hotkeys. Shift+those for 2nd bank, Ctrl+those for 3rd bank. asdw for movement, and always having you hand on the mouse. That way your left hand is always in range of all hotkeys, and your right for movement and visibility. You neverneed to n00b it up by clicking on a skill - its instant with hotkeys. Essentially this is a FPS style setup. You can move the worthless non-combative commands like reply and whatnot over to the right side of the keyboard. This works for my shamand and warrior rather well - and the shaman has about 15 totems bound and all being used.

[Elerion]

ESDF vs WASD has been argued into the ground in 100 games. Bottom line is ESDF is slightly better if you can handle the extra strain it puts on your hand when reaching for Ctrl and Shift.
Personally, I find it a lot more comfortable using WASD, and with shift and ctrl hotkeys, I have everything I could possibly need hotkeyed nearby. I don't do true touch typing either, so having my hand in the "right" position doesn't matter to me. After spending 8 years of my life with my left hand on WASD, finding it isn't exactly hard.

[Tuco]

but I use the number pad.

What do you do with your mouse??

Bottom line is ESDF is slightly better if you can handle the extra strain it puts on your hand when reaching for Ctrl and Shift.

Only if you need the extra buttons... ~, esc, tab and shift are very important, and should not be put farther from the hand imo.

I had 88 hotbar bindings on my priest in WoW, and WASD covered them all.

[Cad]

Originally Posted by Zaptruder

As a hunter...

I exercise fine control over my pet a lot... so my hand needs to stay in a position where its easy to hit ctrl-1.

doubtless I could probably put it in a better place, but with so many keys bound, it's difficult to find space that is as intuitive.

The rest then follows; 1-6 buttons are hit by key... the bottom left extra bar I've got bound with Shift-1 to shift-6, giving me easy hotkey access to more buttons.

~ and shift ~ is also bound.

I have feign death bound to V as well, allowing easy access for critical split timing, without making it too easy to hit the key.

Finally, on the mouse, button 4 is bound to autorun, while button 5 is set to follow, allowing my mouse to be 100% navigation device on long runs while I scratch my nuts with my left hand.

I have a 5-button mouse and on my hunter I use the thumb (left side button) for pet-attack, and the right side button (pinky button) for pet passive. Middle mouse button is concussive shot. Dash auto-fires at good times now, so thats generally about all I needed to do with him. I have Q bound to serpent sting, e to viper sting, 1 to mark, 2 to a macro that does raptor/wing clip/mongoose bite depending on which is up, 3 to auto shot, 4 multi, 5 arcane, 6 scatter. R is my feign death/freeze trap macro.

Gives me pretty good control over all aspects of hunter without having to move my hands, which is very handy. I still click the mouse for aspects (I leave hawk on 99.999% of the time) and tracking, and the different trap types other than freezing.

[Kasonic]

1-= for main bar, ctrl+1-= for my second bar(although I normally only use 1-5 on either and click the rest), with shift+asdfgh for medding/pet bar. Two thumb mouse buttons are autorun and jump.

I've been meaning to change them around to be more ergonomic, but after playing like this for a year I doubt I could live with it.

[Merklyn]

I used to use the Number pad but switched long ago to RDFG (one over from ESDF). I've never seen the value in the WASD setup. You lose access to too many buttons. Moving even further over would be good if you have bigger hands but mine can only comfortably reach two keys in either direction.

[Olio]

Having my hand on the mouse for hours really strains it so I go with all the hotkeys on the left hand position and movement on the arrow keys or mouse.

Olio

[thorn]

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[Surlok TP]

Logitech MX510 mouse has two one the side,scroll button,one above scroll and two below.

I use a microsoft media pro keyboard on top of this which has a zoom button to the left of the tab caps key,that I can easily operate with my pinky.This negates the need to use the scroll wheel for camera functions which frees up both scroll up and down for other hotkeys.Side buttons perform one spell and auto target,Scroll wheel and 3 buttons around it perform spells as well.

I then use 1-6 on keyboard for most often used spells.Q,E,Z,X,C,V,B are all mapped to other spells.Tab flips my camera.Shift,CTRL,ALT,and the windows key,which I have remapped to act as a page up all perform functions as well.

F assists,R is auto run,T and G I use as well though I forget what for.

Basically I have the entire one half of my keyboard mapped to do something.I suppose with smaller hands this would be difficult.Doing this I never have to move my hands for any key at all.Typing isn't something I often do as I am usually on saome variant of Teamspeak or whatever.I am also a capable typer which helps,if you need to look at the keyboard to type you are going to have more trouble with keyboard mappings than someone who doesn't.