Guild Wars 2

I’ve been experimenting with a shout build and I think I like it quite a bit but I’m having a problem keeping my shouts up. If you combine 3 shouts with signet of rage + 2 warhorn skills that’s lot of skills to be actively monitoring on short cooldowns. Generally I would think you would want to use them every single time they are off cooldown. At first I thought I would just bind them all to one key so I could use them all at the same time and just click one key to use any that are off cooldown but I don’t think the game will allow me to do that.

I use WSAD to move/dodge, TAB for targets, and generally use my mouse for everything else. Maybe I just need a gaming mouse I dunno it just seems a little more difficult to stay on target in this game which makes looking at my skill bar a huge disadvantage vs other games.

BTW I joined SPVP last night first time for one game to test my shout build before investing gold/karma in gear and got 2nd in points at over 100 so it’s not like I’m completely kittened I’m just trying to up my game. Any help would be appreciated and maybe the recomendation is just to get a gaming mouse? Anything else to simplify the rotations?

I’ve been trying out using ESDF for movement. I’ve bound Q -> 7-skill, W -> 8-skill, R -> 9-skill, T -> 0-skill (ult), and I have 2 thumb buttons on my mouse, one of which is bound for dodge, the other for my healing skill.

I’ve found it works pretty well, though I’ve been slow to adjust simply due to a lack of (a) play time and (b) usable skills; I mostly just run around PvE with signets on.

After a bit of playing, I noticed that it was a bit of a hassle to reach my 1-skill, so I bound it to A. I’ve also noticed that while I can strafe a target (I have S and F set to move left and right, not rotate left/right; I use the mouse for character rotation), it can get a bit difficult to continue in a direction and use all my weapon skills. For example, holding “F” to strafe right and keeping my middle-finger on E to keep close for melee range, I can use my 2 and 3 skill without any problem, but 4 and 5 get a bit more difficult. Reverse for holding “S” and strafing left.

I currently use “TAB” for weapon switching, and have set up a small enemy trio for X, C, and V as Previous Enemy, Closest Enemy, and Next Enemy, respectfully.

I have Z set to “Look Behind”, and I use SHIFT+D for “Turn Around,” allowing me to quickly check my flank, and then respond to it if necessary.

Also, I set SHIFT+Q to my “Burst Skill” button, since I’m always real close to them. Despite my initial thoughts, that I would use my Q/7-skill too much, due to miss-clicks, I have never actually done so.

All that ranty-goodness aside, binding Q, E, R, T, and using WASD for movement, could also work. I haven’t tried that quite yet.

(Also also, as an added bonus, most keyboards have a little extra texture on the “F” and “J” keys, for touch-typing, so if I move my hands away from the keyboard, I can re-orient myself by touch by feeling for that “F” texture.)

Space/WSAD/12345/tab/F as normal
QER for utility (shouts)
C for healing
X for elite
side mouse button for dodge

I’m running the yojak shout build myself and made 4 changes from the default key bindings that has helped tremendously. I changed 7, 8, 9, and 0 to alt+1, alt+2, alt+3, and alt+e for the elite skill. Makes using those four moves MUCH easier.

I’ve rebound a few keys myself. R=Heal, B = Utility 1 (usualy FGJ). I use my scroll button on the mouse for Elite and a side buttons on my mouse for Utility 3 (OMM) and 2 (my swap ability, Might/FM usualy).

This way I can do most abilities while still hovering around WASD + mouse.

I found it pretty funny that they bound WvW screen to the B key. How often do you really need to access it that it needs a key bind? But I guess it’s easier to reply to people when they ask how to get to the battlegrounds to hit B rather than say “hit the thing that looks like a fishbowl castle on the top left of your screen, well, not the top left, but the rightish top left of your screen.”

This is how I set up my keybinds across all my characters and it’s pretty simple. I also run a shout build so I’ll convert it to that as well.

These are all Alternate Keybinds so 1 – 9 is still displayed on my Bar.

E = (short CD offensive) For Great Justice
Shift + E = (longer CD) Shake It Off
Q = (always my heal) Mending
Shift + Q = (longest CD) Fear Me
Shift + F = (Elite) Signet of Rage

I also have two additional buttons on each side of my mouse that I use:

LMB additional top button = Burst
LMB additional bottom button = Alternate for 3
RMB additional top button = Alternate for 4
RMB additional bottom button = Alternate for 5

Hope this helps.

All of you have been very helpful thanks. I was hoping for a work around to be able to bind my shouts onto one key. All of your suggestions are good and definitely doable I was just hoping for simplification so I could focus on what I was looking at more. I think I’m going to just try and pick up a gaming mouse. In PVP I think trying to hit shift or move my index finger too much would cause me to lose my finger placement on my movement keys or simply become too cumbersome.

I was really frustrated with button binding as well. I literally spent the first week of the game doing nothing but trying different key binds.

I finally gave up and bought a 6 buttons mouse. It helps a lot.

Shift, Q, E, R, T, 1 (heal), 2, 3, 4, 5 (elite)
Shift + (1,2,3,4) for specials.
Weapon-swap and dodge on mouse.

My settings:

Skills on bar: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, mouse, F1, F2, F3, F4
Class skills: F5, F6, F7, F8
Dodge: mouse

Note: I got a keyboard with quite near together F-keys (F8 is still left up of the 8 key)

Shift + Space is another, for me – easy to reach key combination – i use it for my elite skill, and i actually use CTRL + space for dodging

Q, E, R, T is utility skills, A+D is strafe, middle mouse button heal and mouse side button is Run-toogle – rest is default.

Buy a razer naga all your problems will be solved hahaha!

I used to own a Naga but couldn’t get on with it. Just to many kitten buttons lol. I do however use a Steelseries Merc keyboard which I picked up for £15 on Amazon and it works a treat.

Pictured below.

http://www.productwiki.com/upload/images/steelseries_merc.jpg

Oh I got that keyboard as well, a god send back in the day when I used to play games with multiple key binds such as Aion and Rift, but the thing about the naga is that I can bind my F-1 skill to #11 and have everything under control specially since my elite sits on the corner of my mouse, meaning I can leave my key board alone for movement. At first I had a massive amount of confusion while dealing with the naga but after a while it just became natural for me, yet doing super long events can make your fingers cry.

If you are going to get a Naga probably best to get the Hex version. It has only 6 side buttons rather then 12 but would be less confusing to use and because the buttons are slightly larger and not crammed together I would imagine its easier to use.