Guild Wars 2

I’ve been a skill clicker for as long as i can remember and I want to learn how to play with keybinds to increase my skill. I’ve started to play with keybinds but its SO hard for me. Do you guys have any tips for a new keybinder?

Get a mouse with more buttons, I use a CM Storm Inferno, it has 5 extra buttons and that helps A LOT, and it cost like 50 bucks.

Also the rest of the skills you can bind to buttons near the “WASD”, like in the Q E R Z X C keys.

Personally i use a 360 controller with x-padder there’s a big thread about it somewhere on the forum, so if your use to console games that might be an option. Otherwise a mouse with alot of buttons is good too like the other poster said.

If you’re accustomed to clicking skills with a mouse, why not ease into it by switching to using 1, 2, 3…0 to activate skills?

That’s a really simple suggestion, but it might give you more of a feel for what you’re aiming for, rather than remapping all of your keys and then not being able to find what you need in a pinch.

I can’t play with key binds, either. That is why I have a Logitech G600 gaming mouse, which has 12 buttons plus a third mouse button “shift”, so you can ultimately bind 24 keys to it. I don’t know how I could play without it.

It might take some practice, but you’ll get used to it eventually. Compared to WoW, GW2 has far fewer skills which should make it alot simpler to manage. I use the Razer Naga (gaming mouse) which I find helps alot, but its not really necessary. You may just need to play around with your keybind settings to find what feels most natural to you.

These are my core keybinds:

W – Move Forward
S – Move Backwards
A – Strafe Left
D – Strafe Right

C – Dodge
V – AoE Loot
F – Interact

The default keybind for Turn Left (A) and Turn Right (D) are unnecessary and better slotted with strafe instead. Manually trying to turn is slow and its much more practical to use the mouse to turn instantly leaving slots (Q/E) free for something else.

Along with keys (Q/E) you should also have (R/Z/X) open as well. Use these slots to bind farther skills like (6-0) which are more out of the way to press. Having them rebound closer to your movement keys will give you greater access to them when you actually need it.

You might find this helpful: http://intothemists.com/articles/spvp/binding-hotkeys/

I was a clicker when I started MMOing. I just added a key or two over time that let me fire off things faster. It helps that I’m a touch typist.

However, I do get set in my ways as to what keys do what. So I think I still to this day remap some keys to match my DaoC setup (that being my first MMO). I settled on a key map in WoW that I try to replicate in GW2 and TESO so I can always find my friends list, my inventory, my skill list, my quest log (that latter not a concern in GW2), and so on.

I do find it helpful to use a Naga HEX mouse, that gives just enough keys to put all my movement on my right hand on the mouse and I only need to hit one key at a time on the keyboard. I never remap my 1-0 keys, but – and = become autorun and walk/run toggle.

It’s whatever makes sense to you. If you are always messing up on a particular key, you might want to pick another key to fire that skill. I know that having put Dodge on N, in the heat of a fight I find my map coming up far too often …

You can also mentally assign a letter to a desired action. In WoW I had “Assist” on A and “Follow” on F, but my mind would just say “A” when I wanted to acquire someone’s target. On spells, hmm — well, for instance on guardian greatsword 3 is a leap at foe to blind them skill. So instead of thinking of the leap skill name, or having to look for and hit the icon, my mind rapidly goes “I’m too far from that enemy, I want to get closer, THREE!” I don’t actually know the names of many skills off the top of my head.

All tricks learned over time. You will learn your own tricks. Mostly you need to at first deliberately use keys rather than mouse clicks, until it becomes an instinct.

Thanks for all the tips everyone! I think the main problem is that i’m use to only moving with my left hand and now i’m using my left hand for pretty much everything which is throwing me off completely.

I think i’m going to try getting a mouse that I can keybind to. I’ll keybind my weapon skills to the mouse and then 1-5 will be my healing/utilities/elite

In Guild Wars 2 I make use of my simple 2 button mouse + scrollwheel, ideally I’d use a mouse with more buttons but I have been using this mouse for 6+ years now and it works just fine. To make buttons easily accessible I have bound my skills as follows:

W – Forward
A – Strafe Left
S – Backwards
D – Strafe Right

Q – Weapon skill 1
E – Weapon skill 2
R – Weapon skill 3
T – Weapon skill 4
Z – Weapon skill 5

1 – Healing skill
2 – Utility 1
3 – Utility 2
4 – Utility 5
X – Elite

If you are using a QWERTY layout keyboard you will notice that all these keys are right near eachother. That way it’s alot easier to press the keys than having them placed all over the keyboard (such as with old school games). I think the only way you can get used to it is by just trying it for a period. I’ve been gaming for years now so it is natural for me, but when I started I had to get used to it aswell.

Widget.8570:

Thanks for all the tips everyone! I think the main problem is that i’m use to only moving with my left hand and now i’m using my left hand for pretty much everything which is throwing me off completely.

I think i’m going to try getting a mouse that I can keybind to. I’ll keybind my weapon skills to the mouse and then 1-5 will be my healing/utilities/elite

Rebinding them will probably help. I’ve never been able to get the hang of using the default set-up with WASD because if I want to move and fight at the same time I’d need one hand on WASD and one on the number keys and it’s just awkward.

I get around it by using the mouse to move most of the time. If you hold down both buttons (or turn on auto-run and hold down the right button) you’ll run in whatever direction your character is pointing and can turn using the mouse. That leaves my other hand free for skills.

I also remapped my skills and some other buttons to the number pad so when I need more precise control I can use my thumb on the arrow keys to move, but that probably only works if you’re left-handed.

I run skills 1-6 as keys 1-6, since those are easy to reach. Then I have my utility skills as Shift 3-5 (3 is easier to reach while pressing shift than 1 or 2) and my Elite Skill is Mouse 3.

Get the Razer Naga mouse, you wont regret it. I’ve used it for many years now and still love it, can’t play without it. 19 buttons seems like a lot but its very comfortable and easy to use.

Mine are pretty simple, only got a 5 button mouse (normal +2 thumb buttons)
Thumb button 1 – elite skill
Thumb button 2 – dodge
Q utility skill #9 – teleport
E utility skill #8 – condi cleanse
V – utility skill #7 – stunbreaker

IMO you don’t need a 10,000 button mouse to play well, just add keys to bindings as you feel comfortable with more.
GL!

I have the following:

• Q: Heal
• E/Mouse 3/Mouse 5: Utilities
• C: Elite
• Mouse 4: Dodge
• R: Look Behind
• Shift+R: Autorun
• G: Stow Weapon

Personally, I don’t like using modifiers (Shift, Alt) on keybinds because that results in at least 2 keys being pressed at the same time. If I’m moving, that’s 3-4 keys at the same time, making using my abilities impossible.

If I had my way, I’d have my dodge, heal, utilities and elite on the mouse, but that already requires 6 buttons which is a bit much, particularly since I don’t like the Naga and G600 types.