Guild Wars 2

There are few of us.

Few of those who actually use the mouse and click our weapon swap, our skill bar, our F1 skills, and perhaps most often- our healing skill.

Honestly, I have no idea how many people use the mouse compared to the keyboard.
I’m used to clicking the skills instead of pressing a binded key—-something that has plagued me since the beginning of GW1.

So, what do you guys use? Any ideas of advantages or disadvantages of each?

Late at night, I find myself missing the skills. which could be easily avoided by pressing the 6 key to heal, for example.

To each their own. It’s going to be an inferior method though. GW2 in particular is much more action-y then other major MMO’s, so having shooter-style controls will make a much bigger difference. In PvP or the harder PvE encounters, it will probably result in defeat.

This is the perfect game to learn how to keybind. You can’t have more than 14 keys, and depending on your movement key layout, at least 5 should be comfortable to reach (i use W,E,R,D so i can reach #6 just fine). If you really want to learn how to stop clicking it’s gonna take a good week of nonstop practice. You’re gonna mess up along the way, just don’t give in. I learned how to keybind during my time with WoW when i had roughly 30 keybinds.. now THAT was nuts lol

I had to learn to keybing in LoL and got pretty good at it.

In Guild Wars 2, I guess I like having more control since the combat is more dynamic.
Using a mouse helps casting aoe skills better for me as well.

i use my mouse mostly...just W-A-S-D (no click-to-move here -_-’) and "put away weapon" on key "Y", sometimes "C" for weapon swap and of course "F" for looting/any interaction (played a shooter-game alot before GW2, so i’m used to that key-setup, customized to what i feel most comfortable with)

but i can’t keep my hands off my mouse
it also got some nice extra buttons, which i use for skills like "Lightning Reflexes" on my ranger

Ethan, this is what I did first thing in beta.

I re-mapped the keys.
E-forward
S-strafe left
D-180 turn
F-Strafe right
Z-weapon skill 1
A-weapon skill 2
W-weapon skill 3
R-weapon skill 4
G-weapon skill 5
C-utility 1
V-utility 2
B-utility 3
shift-heal
Q-weapon swap
1-4 Profession skills

And then I practiced 1 full afternoon to get my fingers used to reaching those keys and knowing where to reach by instinct. I did that practice in Lion’s Arch up on the cliffs where I could be all alone. Did it until I felt like it was an extension of my mind.
And it really paid off, and I can’t go back to clicking now!

I clicked all through GW1 and it wasn’t until GW2 that I realized…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ2HcRl4wSk

I use keybinds for my attack skills and healing skill, plus weapon swap. The rest of my utility skills and the “profession mechanics” (F1 – F4), I click. If I only played one or two professions, I could probably keybind everything. But I play quite a few different characters, and to be perfectly honest I can’t remember what every “button” does on every character without seeing an icon with it.

for me i use keyboard for W E Q (strafe) sometimes S, weapon swap,
F1,X to holster,Naga for the rest

Redfeather.6401:

E-forward
S-strafe left
D-180 turn
F-Strafe right

This is so much better than WASD due to the increased buttons right next to your movement keys.

Sadly I could never quite adjust and always give up and go back to WASD.

But, Jestunhi…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ2HcRl4wSk

Just takes some practice, but once you get used to it your pinky finger will become super buffed and start to intimidate your other fingers.

I was never a fan of creating weird keybinds for my skill bar. I also knew clicking wasn’t going to cut it for me especially in PvP.

I have used a Razer Naga for about a year now and it is the best thing I have purchased for my pc.

I really need to work on my click addiction but I barely have time to play let alone reeducate my mind on how I control my char.

If you have some spare cash kicking around I’d highly recommend picking up a multi-button mouse. GW2’s limited skill set means you can bind every skill to the mouse and use the keyboard for movement. It took me about 2 days of solid play and some mucking around with what’s bound to what to naturally know exactly which buttons to hit for what effects.

I have a Logitech G600 with 12 buttons on the thumb, and a “Shift” key (ring finger) to give you another 12 actions. I’ve bound 1-0 on the main set, and weapon swap + F1-F4 on the shift set.

After using it for a week, I could never go back to clicking, and I was a hardcore clicker in every game previous since EQ1.

I use my mouse. I have tried using my keyboard, and I really just haven’t gotten the hang of it. However, I do quite often press the 6 button to get my healing skill going if I’m in the middle of a really heated battle and my mouse is being used for something else.

I use Alt+1,…,Alt+5 for 6,7,…,0 keys.
Alt key is under my thumb so it is easy.
And I use middle mouse key(wheel) for “autorun”.
Like more than 20 years i use WASD so… I know you get me

Redfeather.6401:

Ethan, this is what I did first thing in beta.

I re-mapped the keys.
E-forward
S-strafe left
D-180 turn
F-Strafe right
Z-weapon skill 1
A-weapon skill 2
W-weapon skill 3
R-weapon skill 4
G-weapon skill 5
C-utility 1
V-utility 2
B-utility 3
shift-heal
Q-weapon swap
1-4 Profession skills

And then I practiced 1 full afternoon to get my fingers used to reaching those keys and knowing where to reach by instinct. I did that practice in Lion’s Arch up on the cliffs where I could be all alone. Did it until I felt like it was an extension of my mind.
And it really paid off, and I can’t go back to clicking now!

I clicked all through GW1 and it wasn’t until GW2 that I realized…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ2HcRl4wSk

Whew! I got tired just looking at those keys

I’m sure once some of the binds become installed in your muscle memory, it is a piece of cake and efficient.

Eileithia.5246:

I have a Logitech G600 with 12 buttons on the thumb, and a “Shift” key (ring finger) to give you another 12 actions. I’ve bound 1-0 on the main set, and weapon swap + F1-F4 on the shift set.

After using it for a week, I could never go back to clicking, and I was a hardcore clicker in every game previous since EQ1.

Sounds like something I need to check out.

I was a clicker for a long time (I also moved with my arrow keys). I played mostly console games and only Counter Strike on computer before MMO games. GW1 was my first MMO and I clicked my way through all the expansion for about 1 1/2 years. Then I moved on to Aion and played that for about 3 years. Being a clicker in that game became noticeably more detrimental to my game play and how fast I could react in the higher levels, especially in pvp. I finally got tired of it and picked up a Naga mouse since that’s what most people seemed to like and use. It took me about a week to become very comfortable with it but once I left Aion I decided to never click again. I moved on to Diablo 3 and using the Naga in that game was very easy since there weren’t many skills. Then I played in the beta’s and headstart for GW2 and since there are a small amount of skills and such required for everything in this game as well, keybinding and using the Naga is extremely easy. Here is the breakdown of what I use for everything in GW2.

W – move forward
A – move left
S – move back (don’t use this too much tho. Much easier just to turn around and go forward).
D – move right

Q – F1
E – F2
R – F3

X – pull out weapon / stow weapon (just because I like how it looks )
C – swap weapons

1-0 buttons for skills are all done on my Naga.

I don’t keyboard turn either if you’re getting that impression. Keyboard turning is extremely slow and can hinder your game play big time. If I need to strafe or turn I just hold down the right button on my mouse and use either A or D. It’s really very easy and is quick to learn.

I’m sure there are other areas I can improve on but this seems to work very well for me in both pve and WvW style pvp. I don’t play much spvp.

I used to click as well, but after playing Tera, where it’s more or less impossible to click, I got used to using keybinds. While it can be rather annoying at first, training yourself to play differently, it does pay off in the end. Sometimes I use both mouse buttons to move, and sometimes I use WASD. It’s basically preference, but you will probably get much better results if you do not have to rely on the mouse click for the skill (which can be faulty, for various reasons). I wish you luck!! It just takes some practice!

i’ve actually NEVER tried clicking in gw2. (i haven’t played a PC game since like.. red alert days or warcraft 2, lol). recently came back to d3 and that was a click fest. but with gw2, i prefer using my keyboard a lot more.

WASD basic for movement / strafing – turning with the mouse (took keyboard turning off)

1-5 stay the same, F1-Fx stay the same

and then i like to keep my key buttons close to my “hub” (i.e. wasd)
Q – wep swap
E – heal
and then utilities and elites are Z, X, C and V

sheathing weapong is Shift + Mouse 4 (i have a Razer deathadder. with 2 extra buttons, i feel too many can be overwhelming but haven’t tried yet)

this set up has been great so far. you can bind anywhere you want, you’ll get used to it in no time. and then after you get used to it, you have to figure out if you like it or not. if not, then tweak it here and there. it coul dbe just ONE button or bind that makes the whole set up off. and if you like it, then awesomeDDD

Am I the only one, who has turning instead of strafing on A+D? During fights, the RMB is perma-pressed, so strafing and turning keybinds have the same effect. The only situation, where the difference matters, is when I have removed my right hand from the mouse (eating/drinking) and still moving from A to B. In these situations I prefer turning over strafing.
Otherwise:
^, 1-5, F1-F4 unchanged
Q,Y,X,C,R in addition to 6-0 (german keyboard, Y and Z are switched in comparison to an english one)
E dodge
Mouse 3 target nearest enemy
Mouse 4 autorun
Mouse 5 look behind

I just strafe with the mouse, personally I find it a lot more flexible.

Only times I use my mouse is if I really don’t want to use tab to swap targets and for strafing / quick turns and dodging

My keybinds are pretty much

W,A,S,D for the simple moving.
Mouse button for dodging.
1-5 stays for skills.
Shift + 1-5 for secondaries such as attunement changing, pet abilities etc.
Q for Healing slot
Shift + Q for first utility slot
E for second utility slot
Shift + E for third utility slot.
Another mouse button for Elite skill.

Rest I left untouched.

I utilize shift more than I utilize keys. Saves room and allows me to do more abilities in quick succession without having them cluttered on different keys everywhere.

it depends mostly on profession/build. a warrior with all sigils for crits only needs to press 1-5 and occasionally f1, which is easy without any special binding. on the other end of the spectrum the ele needs f1-f4 frequently and all 10 skills, which is why I also bought a g600 and I’m very content with it (except shifting to the second function of each thumb-button breaks my right-click which means I lose control over the camera. but that’s pretty much the only complaint I’m having)