How do you grenade good?
Step 1 – Buy Razer Naga or equivalent gaming mouse with macro keys.
Step 2 – ???
Step 3 – Profit!
My mouse of choice at the moment is a Logitech G700. The three buttons on the top left are—from the bottom up—the “1” attack, dodge and autorun. The four buttons on the side are “2,” “3,” “4” and “5.”
I also bind Q to “6,” and E, R and T to “7,” “8” and “9.”
I only PvE though.
I bought one of those mice. It is still sitting in the box with the receipt intact.
I decided to stay with what I call the Teldo setup. I copied it off his stream one day.
Q – utility 1
E – utility 2
R – utility 3
T – Heal Skill
G – Elite
1-5 – Weapon skills
My mouse of choice at the moment is a Logitech G700. The three buttons on the top left are—from the bottom up—the “1” attack, dodge and autorun. The four buttons on the side are “2,” “3,” “4” and “5.”
I also bind Q to “6,” and E, R and T to “7,” “8” and “9.”
I only PvE though.
I use a G700 as well & I love it. The naga’s full on keypad is way too much for me, so the G700 is perfect. I don’t actually use the buttons up top, though.
6, 7, 9, 0 are on the right
8 (my stun breaker) is on my wheel click
Everything else is basic, 1-5 and F keys.
I’m pretty good at grenading well, and honestly it just comes down to practice & a lot of pvp with it. If you’re bad, you lose & die.
Find a series of binds that works well for you, your mice makes almost no impact whatsoever in a game like GW2 (unless you’re hurting for more keybinds you can access with your mouse-wielding hand). Mice are more critical for the FPS genre where DPI makes a notable impact, for GW2 it’s more about binds and reaction times. I personally have heal bound to left shift, utility 1 to Z, utility 2 to left alt, and utility 3 to c… the only keybind I’m not proud of his elite skill to capslock. I ran out of buttons, sue me.
Sorry, the title just typed itself.
Question, once I have to go grenades for various non-PVE content, what’s the best way to ensure proper grenade throwage? Do you bind right and left mouse keys to enhance throwing and use that options toggle to just throw the nade where your cursor is? Using your keyboard hand would seem to hinder your good ability to move so I would figure you would use the mouse to throw the nade.
My fingers are already rebelling at the potential clicking that I’m going to have to do to make grenades work. :/
The greatest piece of advice that anyone can give you in this instance is to remove the aoe sighting and enable “Fast-Cast Ground Targeting”. You will throw grenades wherever your mouse is. Additionally, I would suggest keybinding your primary kit (nades in this case) to the standard weapon swap button “~”, as this will allow you to swap between kit and weapon more effectively.
Sorry, the title just typed itself.
Question, once I have to go grenades for various non-PVE content, what’s the best way to ensure proper grenade throwage? Do you bind right and left mouse keys to enhance throwing and use that options toggle to just throw the nade where your cursor is? Using your keyboard hand would seem to hinder your good ability to move so I would figure you would use the mouse to throw the nade.
My fingers are already rebelling at the potential clicking that I’m going to have to do to make grenades work. :/
The greatest piece of advice that anyone can give you in this instance is to remove the aoe sighting and enable “Fast-Cast Ground Targeting”. You will throw grenades wherever your mouse is. Additionally, I would suggest keybinding your primary kit (nades in this case) to the standard weapon swap button “~”, as this will allow you to swap between kit and weapon more effectively.
Personally I think this is terrible advice. I think grenades are much easier to utilize with the ground targeting on.
I spam 1 until i get Carpal tunnel syndrome
The thing with fast cast is if you use that and then you want to use jump shot and forget to disable it … you’ll end up at the bottom of the cliff. >_> I just double-press the skill key instead and it also throws where my mouse is.
Fast cast helps me a lot… but some people hate it. I never turn it off for any of my toons. Pushing 1,1 isn’t that much longer than just pushing 1 though.
In PvP it’s about knowing how far to lead the nades in front of the target to time it correctly (also can take some prediction). Nades do have a good sized AOE if you’re tossing out 3. It’ll take a little bit of practice for some so don’t get frustrated. IMO that’s why nades are balanced… it takes more skill to use them properly Vs. some auto target fast moving shot.
As far as buttons… I just use a normal mouse with back and forward webpage buttons on the side. F1 – back page F2 – forward page Mousewheel button – f3, alt = F4. 1-5 remain the same, qerfc = 6-10 (respectively) x = auto run, z = interact, g = aoe pickup, shift = dodge.
Salvage 4 Profit + MF Guide – http://tinyurl.com/l8ff6pa
(edited by Aberrant.6749)
The greatest piece of advice that anyone can give you in this instance is to remove the aoe sighting and enable “Fast-Cast Ground Targeting”. You will throw grenades wherever your mouse is. Additionally, I would suggest keybinding your primary kit (nades in this case) to the standard weapon swap button “~”, as this will allow you to swap between kit and weapon more effectively.
Personally I think this is terrible advice. I think grenades are much easier to utilize with the ground targeting on.
You’re free to disagree, but to go as far as calling it “terrible advice” seems unreasonable. At worst, someone will try it, scoff and go back to reticle-based ground-targeting—while on the other hand if they like it, it could cut the number of clicks/keypresses required for using grenades in half.
Personally, the only time I miss the reticle is on the odd occasion I need to do one of the dark-room jumping puzzles, but hey, that’s what the Flamethrower is for.
I think before you go on and follow people’s advice, you have to ask yourself a few questions surrounding which areas you are most comfortable with. Some people are more comfortable using the mouse, others use both, and a few prefer the keyboard over the mouse. There is no point in following people’s suggestions if you are not comfortable switching over to their method because the learning curve may be steep. That said, a lot of people who posted have a lot of good recommendations and I agree with most of it.
So before you pick and choose one method, you should ask yourself a few important questions:
1. Are you comfortable using the mouse, keyboard, or both?
2. Are you familiar with the keyboard (like, can you type fast and blindfolded)?
3. Do you have a gaming mouse? And if no, are you willing to invest in one?
For me, because I am good with typing and can type blindfolded (e.g. I am very familiar with the location of the keys) and because I don’t have a gaming mouse, I was restricted with using both the keyboard and mouse when playing. I couldn’t bind skills onto the mouse since it was a generic 3-button mouse (left, right and scroll button). I know my way around the keys so I knew I would have to cast skills with the number keys with my left hand.
With this in mind, I generally moved with the mouse (right hand) and cast skills using 1-0 and f1-f4 (left hand). I found casting skills 8-0 difficult to reach with my left hand (since right hand was on the mouse) and eventually binded 8 to 0 as f5-f7. I also changed some arrow key bindings, so I had the wasd as the secondary arrow keys (‘a’ key for strafing left, ‘d’ for strafing right), and q (turn left) and e (turn right). Dodge was set as v. My aim was to cast skills and dodge without actually moving my left hand. It was all finger and wrist movement.
When using grenades, I enabled fast-cast ground targeting so whenever I hovered my mouse over the ground, that was where the grenades would immediately land. You would only do this if you are comfortable with it. Some don’t do this, others do. It’s up to you. I find engis to be somewhat squishy so I had to train myself to grenade kite around enemies. It was hard in the beginning but I eventually got used to it. My advice: don’t grenade kite for over an hour…your pinky will be very sore.
To grenade kite, I had to do it in a way where my left hand would stay stationary, otherwise I would hit all the wrong keys since my hand wouldn’t know where it was! This meant that I would have to use my mouse to travel around in circles at the same time, you would have to find a way of running sideways (strafe) while using your mouse to run forward and turn. So, my solution to kite counter-clockwise was to hold the d (strafe right) with my left middle finger, while pressing my mouse (both left and right button) with my right hand, while pressing #1-2 grenade skills with my left pinky. Pressing #3 would involve my 4th (ring) finger, and #4-5 with my index left finger. You do this while multi-tasking mouse targeting on the ground.
I would suggest first kiting in a straight line so you get your mouse aim right, plus the time it takes for the grenades to land (plus get used to the timing of when it hits the enemy) then work your way up to kite in circles.
Good luck and hope this helps!
Razer Naga:-)
/15 chars
Tekkit’s Workshop
Imo Nostromo is much better than naga, was playing lineage 2 with nostromo, and playing GW2 with it.
http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-keyboards-keypads/razer-nostromo
http://incendies-guild.tk/
Imo Nostromo is much better than naga, was playing lineage 2 with nostromo, and playing GW2 with it.
http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-keyboards-keypads/razer-nostromo
I tried nostromo in past and it was wierd. Buttons was to high and hard to push, also buttons ergonomy isnt well for MMO.
Right now I use Razer Naga Hex for skills (only elite on keyboard) and rest on my ZBoard Merc Stealth keyboard. Imo its best keyboard ever (Ive tried lots of them including all G from logitech). Gaming pad on this one is simply something awesome for MMO.
http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/6/61865/2278665-product_32.jpg
Tekkit’s Workshop
I have over 5.2k games on my engi, a good 90% of which I used nades.
I don’t use fast cast.
All it comes down to is practice. If that fails, roll a necro cuz marks are easier to land.
@$20 an hour! It’s worth it!
I have over 5.2k games on my engi, a good 90% of which I used nades.
I don’t use fast cast.
All it comes down to is practice. If that fails, roll a necro cuz marks are easier to land.
In regards to how they should be used, under most circumstances, do you think a more aggressive in their face approach to be more effective or do you try to keep them at a distance? I’ve seen a few of your videos and think your advice for the OP would prove invaluable. Plus I just like to pick brains =P
Ground AoE targeting on, learn to predict enemy movement. Win.
My mouse only got three buttons and I’m doing just fine. For me it even seems to be better that I have to press more buttons on my keyboard instead of my mouse, so I can still aim unhindered.
It’s like playing chords on a piano or guitar, only a lot easier. If you ever played a computer game you shouldn’t have problems with getting used to pressing one additional button to wasd.
I have a mouse, I point, click, throw, win,
profit.
I angle my camera a little downward to see where I’m throwing at max range, I center my mouse on screen, hold right click and run around throwing them to center of screen. I will click both mouse to run forward or use WASD to move as needed. When kiting, I’ll put mouse to far left/right screen and run circles using W so I’m at highest speed & unloading grenades doing circles around mobs (Holding right click at the side of screen). I will also throw grenades behind me by looking ahead for clear path, auto-run, turn camera around with left click and start throwing grenades.
Pretty much I put the mouse where I want the grenades to go, hold right click as I run around throwing grenades & moving/kiting as needed as fast as possible.
I have a Razor Naga & it just makes using 6-0 way convenient, otherwise I could probably do it w/o it.
The greatest piece of advice that anyone can give you in this instance is to remove the aoe sighting and enable “Fast-Cast Ground Targeting”. You will throw grenades wherever your mouse is. Additionally, I would suggest keybinding your primary kit (nades in this case) to the standard weapon swap button “~”, as this will allow you to swap between kit and weapon more effectively.
Personally I think this is terrible advice. I think grenades are much easier to utilize with the ground targeting on.
You’re free to disagree, but to go as far as calling it “terrible advice” seems unreasonable. At worst, someone will try it, scoff and go back to reticle-based ground-targeting—while on the other hand if they like it, it could cut the number of clicks/keypresses required for using grenades in half.
Personally, the only time I miss the reticle is on the odd occasion I need to do one of the dark-room jumping puzzles, but hey, that’s what the Flamethrower is for.
I didn’t think fast-cast would work that well for me but I definitely prefer it after trying it.
The problem I had with visible ground targeting is not so much the extra time it took to press “1” again but the fact that I couldn’t remember how many times I had pressed the key for a grenade when I was in the thick of things. I’d be trying to throw a chill grenade then a bleeding grenade inbetween spamming the normal grenade and accidentally just target the first, without actually throwing it, before moving to the second. This can’t happen with fast-cast.
On the other hand, the one giant downside to fast-cast for me is that when the screen gets very busy I can sometimes lose my cursor and these are the worst moments because I’m probably getting killed and don’t have time to pause or make mistakes. It’s a lot harder to lose a giant green reticle.
As for the mouse and keybindings, I have a 2 button mouse and the only keybindings I’ve really change are making 6-10 into shift+1/shift+2/etc. I suck at trying to move and dodge if I’m just standing there in a faceoff with a ranged opponent but I think these are probably the worst times to use grenades. Usually I pull them out when kiting or sieging which doesn’t require a lot of dodging or left/right movement anyway.
On the other hand, the one giant downside to fast-cast for me is that when the screen gets very busy I can sometimes lose my cursor and these are the worst moments because I’m probably getting killed and don’t have time to pause or make mistakes. It’s a lot harder to lose a giant green reticle.
Always a joy to reposition yourself and somehow throw into the wall behind you XD.
However you force yourself into the habit of never having anything at your back (visually) when you do fast-cast, so after time this becomes less of a problem. What you say is true though, each option has pros and cons that the individual must weigh.
I just use the 1-5 keys 2×. The first time selects the ’nade, the second time accepts the positioning. Much easier than clicking all over the place, or trying to maintain perfect arrow position on screen. Its also easy on the hand as those buttons are easy to reach.
I’d recommend a Razer Naga as well (it’s what I use), although I feel it’s kind of crappy to be recommended such third party hardware when the game should, in theory, control just fine with a standard mouse and keyboard. I’ve been able to handle them quite decently with the Naga though. There is an adjustment period in which the mouse makes you regret having purchased it, but with some practice and experimentation you can come to love using it.
An alternative is to create a keyboard macro that will double press your buttons for you, although that will probably be pretty similar to fast-cast ground targeting.
My layout is based on the philosophy that the left hand should always remain on WASD, so binding the skills to the naga works well for me. That way, I don’t have to sacrifice any movement potential in order to use skills. In reference to the “Teldo setup” you quoted above, I would have to forego the ability to turn or strafe to the right briefly every time I go to use my heal skill, and same for moving or strafing to the left when I use skill #7. It’s also a bit of a stretch for my hands to reach the “T” and “G” keys, so my whole hand ends up being displaced from WASD if I need to press those.
If I had wider hands it might not be as much of an issue, but using the Naga helps me maintain full use of WASD while utilizing all other skills as well as dodging, targeting, and jumping. The only things I frequently use that require I move a finger off of WASD is interacting with things, toggling auto-run, as well as opening up any of the game menus or map, which are generally not done during mid-combat (aside from looting loot bags, but that rarely causes me to lose a beat).
My biggest issue with fast cast is that in hectic moments for my pc (= bigger fights) that my mouse cursor actually gets lost sometimes.
Happens a lot in WvW.
Fast-casting + mouse cursor having a mind of it’s own = grenades all over the place
I went back to ground targeting recently, and I’m back to the practice dojo indeed.
The problem I had with visible ground targeting is not so much the extra time it took to press “1” again but the fact that I couldn’t remember how many times I had pressed the key for a grenade when I was in the thick of things. I’d be trying to throw a chill grenade then a bleeding grenade inbetween spamming the normal grenade and accidentally just target the first, without actually throwing it, before moving to the second. This can’t happen with fast-cast.
You can also fire off the grenade with left-click. There’s a bit of a rhythm to it, but it’s slightly faster than double-tapping 1 as well; it’s second nature for me now to fire off the grenades so fast that the green reticle doesn’t even show up most of the time. That way, I can still mouselook with right click and the aoe reticle is still there for those precision throws… only drawback is occasionally deselecting your target, but I use “call target” and “take target” to get around that.
Fast-cast definitely has it’s upsides, but 2 things are a deal breaker for me: this game has high particle effects, and the cursor disappears on mouselook. Me no like.