Never used this system myself. I suspect many do only because it has become something of an industry standard, like car cup holders. But I’d love to hear your reasons for using WASD.
I myself use a very unique scheme. Guess it would be SpaceFGJ. I rest my left hand right in the middle of the keyboard using Space to move forward, F/J to move left and right, and G to move backwards. I use the H key for jump. Turned to this scheme a long time ago as it felt like there was a lot less strain on my fingers reaching over to various keys.
Thumbs don’t seem to do much in WASD, and it doesn’t do much with my setup either. They used to make spacebars a lot longer though, without the windows and menu keybinds on the right side of the board, so now my thumb has to stay a bit tucked in, otherwise its natural position would be over the alt-key.
I find I got plenty of single bind keys broken down below by finger, where * is the at rest key, and * * indicates a binding that requires a bit of a stretch away from the resting position:
Pinky – F*, R,D,V, 4**
Ring – G*, T, B, 5
Middle – H*, Y, N, 6
Index – J*, U, I, K, M, 7**, L**, Comma**
Thumb – Space*, R-Alt
Other keybinds require a complete repositioning of my hand, but as most keyboards have guides for the F and J keys, I find it relatively easy to get back to my start position.
In all I have about 10-12 keys I can use for action bar bindings. I do only have the one modifier key in range, RAlt, but I don’t normally use a modifier a lot during a fight, and tend to set action/abilities that are seldom used or have high cool downs to the modifier.
This setup does require the pinky to do a lot of work I admit, so I tend to choose bindings that are less frequently used to fatigue it less. Nevertheless, its not uncommon for me to give my pinky a bit of a massage after an intense gaming session. Otherwise my most repetitive actions are handled by the index, middle and ring fingers, in extension to hit T,Y,U,I,K or contraction to hit B,N,M. These are very natural keystrokes, that do not put my fingers in awkward or stressed positions. ‘6’ is also is a pretty natural keystroke in this setup.
If you’re like me, the ring and middle finger feel more comfortable when moved in tandem, and this setup tends to be less punitive if you decide to move them in tandem when hitting the T/Y or B/N keys than trying to hold a finger down for movement, as I think the WASD setup has you do with the middle finger, which has to be held down in place during run and gun scenarios. In fact using the thumb to move forward, liberates a lot of movement for the rest of your fingers in general.
I have found that the oversized keys (Tab, Enter, Backspace, etc) on the keyboard are still pretty easy to identify by touch and use, though it will require me to completely move my hand and thus lose all movement abilities, so they are best used while in a stationary position or on auto-run with mouse steering. Getting back into the rest position is aided by the aforementioned F/J bumps.
Finally, and this may just be because I’m so used to the setup, I find it pretty easy to glide my hand over to the natural keyboard position of ASDF, where I can use several more keys in range, while still moving. For example, when possible I bind Quests to Q, so I can bring up the Journal/Quest log while traveling to my destination.
Anyway that’s my wierd setup. How about you guys, do you have any unique alternatives to WASD, and if not, any tips for using a WASD keyboard setup?