Guild Wars 2

I have seen multiple PvPers recomend on their tips to key bind for better reaction time, playability etc… I think tho, it holds value mostly on melee classes and also on auto targeted skills, I have done so and they proved theirselves useful, BUT playing as main staff ele, there’s a lot of AOE skills that needs to be positioned having to rely on mouse mostly, I am quite fast at it as is almost the only class I play, yet in the battle of the milisecond there’s always room to improvement, is there any tip for the fast placing of those aea skills? seen some in the menu like auto place on caster and things like that, just not quite sure if that works.

What people means by “keybind” is mostly f1-f4 1-0, etc.
Just move everything around so that your fingers moves the least possible from your wasd.
Remove backpedalling altogether, it’s too slow to be useful.
I’d rather use about fac.
I put strafing on a-d so that I move laterally left and right instead of turning left and right.
Remove every skills from 5-0 and put it around your hand.
You can kep 5 if you have big hands (which I do)
Use your mouse if it has multiple buttons and switch f1-f4 to put around your movement keys, again.

As for AoE and settings you may want to take a look over there:
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Guide:Tips_for_settings

i go with \12345 ( strafe holding right mouse button ).
other keys q,e,r,f,c, with some alts. dodge on shift.

btw gw2 does not need that many binds tbh ( maybe and ele/eng could require 2/3 more ).

Place on caster is very restricting. Even skill clickers use the double press option to avoid placing AoE on themselves all the time.

There are only three tips outside of practice that come to mind right now.

One concerns minimizing the distance to travel to the keys, which can be done by rebinding your controls. One such example is moving the movement keys to, for example QWES, so you are only 1 row away from the numbers, and then not going past 4 to avoid needing to reach too far. QWERASD\ZXC`1234 are good keys to bind. There’s also getting a mouse with additional buttons.

The next also concerns keybinds, but is about making sure you can use the right skill combinations at the right time in different scenarios. This means not binding two skills that will likely need to be used together at the same time, such that they can only "easily" be activated by the same finger, because then, obviously, your hand will have to twist, costing time and causing discomfort. It also means not binding two skills that will likely need to be used in quick succession too far apart or in such a way that the previous point will prevent it. For example, you’d want stow weapon easily accessible at the same time you’re using any of your weapon or utility skills, and set it up for a finger that doesn’t use those skills. For example, if you use your first and fourth finger for weapon and utility skills that are on your keyboard, you could set up stow weapon to be used by a different digit. For further example, you wouldn’t choose your middle finger, because while it would work, you wouldn’t be able to easily move forward when stowing, so you might instead choose to set it up for your thumb.

Finally, as you mentioned, ground targeted skills use the mouse a lot. Not all players like the GW2 mouse pointer, and find it much easier to keep track of their mouse position using a more visible pointer. This could help save you miliseconds when placing ground targeted skills.

Thank you for all the tips, will be practicing them before season 2

I just did some duels last night and it made me realize I need to redo some key binds as well for better optimization.
This is probably the third time I will redo some binds since my starting binds in 2013. I have found in the gw series that key binds can help break your skill ceiling.

Sometimes you get in a situation and you do not realize what is actually the limiting factor, and it takes some small thing to help you see the light.

Good luck with the binds. Impact gave a lot of good tips.

Only other tip I can give is the prioritize most used skill with the easiest bind. Example is my friend on his Naga put auto attack in the center 5 key so that every other attack could be reached from the central position.