Guild Wars 2

I’m starting to develop a repetitive-motion injury, which is manifesting in swollen tendons in my left elbow. These are the ones that connect to my pinky and ring fingers.

Essentially what’s happening is this: I’m using these two fingers more than I ever have before when I play GW2. In other games, like Guild Wars (and every other MMO I’ve played), I always place the skills I use least on the 1 and 2 keys, and the skills I use most around the 5 and 6 keys, because it makes more sense (to me) to use my index and middle fingers more often than my pinky and ring fingers.

Because of this ergonomic flexibility in other games, I’ve never had a repetitive motion injury from gaming.

Since I can’t do that with GW2, I’m using my weaker fingers much more often. Now I realize that I can change my keybindings, but you have to understand that having keybindings in a different order than the skills on the screen gets pretty confusing – especially with weapon swapping.

I’ve tried lots of different bindings and it’s really just very frustrating. I’ve either got to deal with the repetitive motion discomfort, or constantly be hitting the wrong skills (which really takes the fun out of combat).

Seriously, for those who’ve never tried this: rebind your skill keys in the opposite order (1=5, 2=4, and so on). Then try and play.

The existing setup is just not ergonomic, and I’m finding that I’m reaching a point where if I play, even for a few minutes, my arm and elbow flare up. I don’t have this problem in any other game I play, because I can move skill icons around. Just GW2. I can go play WoW, right now, for a couple hours, and not have any pain or discomfort (well, physically anyway ). But I can’t play GW2 any more for more than a few minutes and I start to get sore.

Fellow players: Is anyone else having trouble with this? Have you found a solution?

ArenaNet: Please, make the UI just that little bit more user-friendly and intuitive. Just let us move weapon skill icons around in the same way that we can move utility skills around.

TL:DR – The existing, static, weapon skill setup in GW2 forces repetitive motion and is not ergonomic. Please allow for rearrangement of the weapon skills on the skillbar in addition to merely changing the keybindings.

1,2,3,4,5

heal is middle mouse button

alt+1/2/3 are skills (use your left thumb for alt)
elite is another mouse button, but could be alt+4 or `

This works perfectly for me, and is very easy considering most other MMOs need 30-40 keybindings

I like your thinking, and I do have my heal, utility, and elite skills bound onto my mouse (because they’re on the right side, and so is my mouse).

Your left side setup doesn’t really help me though, unfortunately. I still wind up using my pinky and ring fingers more than any others.

Using this I never use my pinky, my ring finger is only used on “a” for movement and 1. If you’ve been placing your hand in the middle of the keyboard for a long time, putting your fingers back on WASD will take some getting used to, but I’ve been gaming for years and never had a problem with this setup

Do you use WASD for movement, or just your mouse?

So how do you get around the problem of things on the screen being in a different order than keys on your keyboard? Maybe I’m missing something.

Well my 1-5 on screen is still 1-5 on the keyboard. I’ll hit 1 with my ring finger, 2 with my middle, and 3,4, and 5 all with my index. My index finger is the most agile, as is true for most people, so I find that handling many keys with it is simple. It also lets me move my fingers from WASD up to the 12345 easily without actually having to shift my hand.

No Walking.6349:

Well my 1-5 on screen is still 1-5 on the keyboard. I’ll hit 1 with my ring finger, 2 with my middle, and 3,4, and 5 all with my index. .

Yea that’s not really going to help…overusing my ring finger is part of the problem

Have you considered using something like the Razer Nostromo, Belkin n52t or Logitech G13 to relieve some of the strain on your tendons ?

Goettel.4389:

Have you considered using something like the Razer Nostromo, Belkin n52t or Logitech G13 to relieve some of the strain on your tendons ?

I am using a Logitech G13, which is basically a remap of the keyboard but with the palm support and keys spaced more ergonomically. I was developing cramping in my fingers and wrist a couple years ago, which is why I got it. It solved that problem. The problem I have today didn’t exist until GW2 came along, and I can’t move my skills around in the UI. Every other game I’ve ever played lets me move them.

So short answer: the G13 helps, but GW2 introduces a new problem.

can’t you set 1 to auto attack? will that help?

I hate the fixed positions of skills. Some times I want certain skills to be right next to each other on my keyboard. Though if rebind them and then play on another profession. I have to rebind them again because the binds are account bound!

Another thing that ticks me off. Autotargetting. I like auto targetting for when I use range for quick lock on upon targets in PVP. When I go into melee and use charge attacks with autotargetting. That ALWAYS goes badly. Especially in PVP. Fleeing? It’ll send you right back to where you’re fleeing from. Want to target that player in front of you? Too bad, here’s an off screen mob we’ll send you at.

Completely agree. The inability to move skills on the skillbar is frustrating at best. I have no problems with a limited number of abilities on the skillbar, but what possible reason would they limit your ability to just swap their location within those 5 slots?

I don’t think they considered those of us who have mobility problems already. What if you’re a war vet missing several fingers, but still have an interest in playing the game? What if you have carpal tunnel and have limited use of specific fingers, but every time you swap a weapon your key config goes to hell?

Or how about, what if you’re just used to playing every MMO ever with use of specific fingers and are looking for a solid reason why they’ve decided to make the game less customizable?

I don’t even…

I’ve had some repetitive-stress injuries in my forearms from gaming, as well as massage, which is my profession. Some things you can do out-of-game to work with your injury:

—Ice the area of inflammation. Time spent icing should be a 1:3 ratio (5 min on, 15 min off, for example). This will reduce the inflammation, and combined with rest, is crucial. If the inflammation doesn’t go down, then you are just constantly injured and building up scar tissue.

—Rest. Take a break. Letting the area heal will mean less pain and downtime in the long run.

—Strengthen and stretch, when it is not inflamed. You didn’t specify whether the area of concern is your outer elbow (extensor group), or inner elbow (flexor group), but an exercise like curling your fingers into a fist 5-10 times, followed with 5-10 vigorous finger extensions from a loose fist into an open splayed palm, can work both sides of the forearm.

Another forearm extensor and finger conditioner is to place a thick rubber band from say, a bunch of broccoli, around the tips of the fingers and thumb, then spread your fingers and thumb out against the resistance of the band. Again, 5-10 times, 1-3 sets.

I will also second a Razr mouse as good for reducing finger gymnastics, its pretty great.

1 2 3 4 5
6 – 0 = shift +1 – shift + 5

That worked very well for me.

First time I’ve seen this thread.

First time I’ve had a repetitive-motion strain.

Mesmers are at work.

I like to bind weapon skills around my movement keys so that I have easy access to them without a reach. I use a Dvorak layout but in Qwerty I have:

S: Strafe left
D: move forward
F: strafe right

It’s a variation on WASD with keyboard turning and backpeddling disallowed.

Wep skill 1: E
2: W
3: R
4: V
5: B

Heal: Q
utils: 1,2,3,4

This layout puts my most used skills on my strongest fingers and it avoid key combinations. F1-F4 are all on my mouse. Occasionally, I’ll have to do a bit of finger gymnastics to pull off the 2/3 skills depending on the direction I’m strafing but it’s a general layout that has worked well for me for a number of years.

I am sorry you are injured.

However I love my Naga even more now.

Check this link:
http://taugrim.com/2012/06/27/guide-to-guild-wars-2-keybinds/

I’m left-handed, and since I’m playing on a laptop, the default key binds are a complete no-no. I used the layout in the link above as basis for my current lefty layout (centered around I-O-P for movement instead of W-E-R), and it’s much better.

Logitech G600…otherwise I wouldn’t be able to play.

Become a clicker? wasd for movement and activate skills with the cursor…

Mouse 3: 1 skill (very useful as Grenade Engineer)
Mouse 4: Next target
Mouse 5: Last target
Tab: Nearest target
Shift+1: Heal
Shift+2: Utility 1
Shift+3: Utility 2
Shift+4: Utility 3
Shift+5: Elite
X: Rear-view mirror
Z: Target Target
Ctrl+Z: Call Target
C: Dodge

Its best to just rebind to something comfortable, you’ll get used to it. You don’t look at the buttons to press the hotkeys anyway, you’ll associate your hotkey with an ability, not with its position.