Guild Wars 2

So I just started gw2 not even a week ago and love the game, have been playing it excessively. Even after nearly 40 hours of playing I feel like I dont have a firm grasp on the fundamental combat mechanics. Like I understand circling your enemy and attacking, dodging and blocking. I understand what I’m “suppose” to be doing, but I’m having trouble translating that to reality.
I use the mouse to move the camera ans have set A and D keys for strafing. I can reasonably circle a single opponent and auto attack, cutting in the opposite direction with a dodge when my mouse reaches the end of my mousepad.
The core problem I am having is activating my skills mid combat. I have one hand on the strafe keys, and my other hand on the mouse keeping the camera at the right angle. I have to either stop strafing to use a hotkey or lose sight of my opponent to activate a skill.
I’m certain there is a more intelligent and intuitive away to approach combat. I have tried long and short range characters but that fundamental flaw I have of having to interrupt the flow of combat to activate skills is making the game difficult for me.
I’d like to know how other players orient their controls to surely avoid this problem. I really don’t care if you use keyboard or mouse camera control, I just want to know what other players are doing.

Hey,
I rebinded skills hotkeys to “Q”,“E”,“Shift” and “Ctrl”.
It works for me)

hmmmm, it costs a bit of money, but maybe a different kind of mouse. I’m using a razor naga moba. You have your 1-6 skills under your thumb on your mouse then. (so the weaponskills and your healing skill). Also takes a bit of practise to get used to it.

Ya…rebind those buttons as that helps quite a bit. Another mouse wouldn’t hurt either but the rebinding is something you can do now.

I am one of those rare players who clicks skills, but I do pretty well (and I play D/D ele, a class that demands a lot of movement and skill usage). It’s pretty much a matter of alternating between moving the camera and clicking skills, while using all of your strafe keys to stay mobile in combat.

Hard to explain, but if you’d like, I could meet you in-game or send you one of my videos so you can see it for yourself.

just realized my keyboard has a third set of number keys to the very left of the keyboard (its new), I’m going to see how that goes, I still would like to see what other people are doing so I can try other play styles. Currently i activate all my skills with the mouse which isnt super practical, have to lose sight of my opponent and often waste a dodge.