Guild Wars 2

So… I Love This Game!!!!

But I’m having a problem. I get really frustrated with the keys placement. For example, my right hand is on the mouse all the time, and I have the left on the movement keys “w” “s” and “q” and “e”. From this position I can quickly access attacks 1, 2, 3, and 4, but go any father to 5, 6, 7… etc. And I find myself unable to locate the keys without taking my eyes of the screen or using my mouse and clicking the attacks. Using my mouse is OK for most utility skills but for ground targeted ones its frustrating to go back and forth.

Also, the “F” keys for the special mechanics are impossible for my fingers to successfully reach without hitting the wrong things first. I never had to use those keys in typing this message, so I’m not used to finding them in a pinch.

So… in the heat of the battle, regardless of what profession I’m playing as, I catch myself hitting the wrong keys, missing entire attack builds that I had planned, and getting my but kicked because I’m being forced to break eye contact with the enemy to find the right keys. Either that or take my mouse from the ground around my enemies’ feet and adjusting the camera.

This is very frustrating… so how do you guys solve this problem? And if you reassign key functions, what is your set up? Thanks. I’m really looking forward to a solve on this issue.

PS: I love this community!

I like to use the “esdf” as movement keys and I use the right mouse button to strafe.
From there, I set up “awrtg” as my main skills because they lie directly around the movement keys. I set up switch weapons as Caps Lock so it is easily within reach (I like to constantly bounce between two weapon sets). I set my other 5 skills to the 1-5 keys so they are right above my main set up, and my class skills as zxcv so they are directly below.

It should take a while to get used to any configuration. If you just play enough and try as hard as you can not to watch the keyboard while you play, you should get to the point where you’re hitting the keys without even thinking about it once the muscle memory kicks in. Hope this helps, enjoy!

Oh, I forgot to mention: I switched the action key (f) to the left shift key and I also assigned my healing skill to the scroll click button on the mouse.

Like the poster below said, it takes practice no matter the set up to really get good with your keybindings, the key is to find a setup that feels most comfortable to you, then stick with it so that you become as accustomed to it as possible.

reassigning keys is an option, but practice will get you hitting those keys no matter your setup. Even if you switch, it’ll take you time to learn it, just take some time to practice no matter your setup.

I only started playing this weekend and I was ready to give up on the game after the first 2 hours purely because of the control system. Maybe it’s an MMO thing – I’m not used to MMOs and this crazy button mashing multitasking they require.

It was simply impossible to keep moving, dodging, switching weapons AND hitting the skill keys at the same time. I don’t know how people get used to it but I was a mess even after reassigning and trying out different combinations. I couldn’t dodge, I kept mixing up the skill keys, I couldn’t even run around properly in battle.

My solution has been to switch to a 360 controller, as weird as that sounds. And I’m someone who generally hates controllers, I like to play with keyboard and mouse. But it works for me in this case so… that’s what I’m doing.

Here’s my setup with a 4-button mouse

S – Forwards
A – Strafe Left
D – Strafe Right
Shift – Dodge
Space – Jump
Q-T – Weapon Skills
Z-C – Utility Slot Skills
MB3 – Heal
MB4 – Elite
1-4 – Class Skills

And yes, I don’t reverse.

“And yes, I don’t reverse.”

Ojimaru, I totally lol’d after looking for it.

Thanks guys. I’m already trying a new setup and after I get used to it, I think it will work better.

for what it’s worth, if you watch videos of people doing spvp or the like, they’re usually not doing much more involved than keeping all their skills on cooldown

I watched a guy who did a slow-mo play-by-play of how he was blocking or countering, and it seemed intricate and refined. Then I rewatched and discovered the #1 main thing he was doing was positioning and heavy video editting, cuz he was just mashing the skills as they came up.

Moral of the story — focus on movement and mash the other keys until your fingers learn where they are.

Get Razer Naga. Problem solved.

I go with 12345 for weapon skills, and zxcvb for class skills. Works okay for me. You might also want to try arrow keys for movement and numpad for skills. Or you can make use of the ins,del,home,end,pageup,pagedown block for movement or skills

Personaly i went with Ctrl + 1-5 for healing, utility and elite skill and it works perfect for me. Also i dont have to remember much new keys, just push Ctrl or Shift if you prefer and enjoy

Thanks guys. I’ll try rearranging my keys.

I play an elementalist and found that the F1-4 keys were really not that convenient for fast switching style, aka. arcana build.

So I rebinded my attunements to ALT+WASD, one key for each attunement.

And rebinded skill slot 4 and 5 to Q and E. So I move around with conventional WASD.

Rebinded utility+elite to ZXCV.

That way I practically always have my keys available without moving too much around.

Also, putting your character to auto run in combat and then use the mouse to align correctly, can free up some mashing.