Last updated: 2025-05-20
The Default Keybinds for MMORPGs are Wrong
The default keybinds for every MMORPG do not support skillful play.
Consider this illustrative keybinding diagram from the game RIFT (this is not a knock on RIFT, which is a good game):
What we see is that the vast majority of useful keybinds for your left hand are being used for:
- a common movement setup – WSAD and QE – that is inherently awkward. You either have to move your hand to the left one set of keys, in which case your left hand is not in the natural typing location, or you have to train your left hand to move forward/backward with your ring finger, which is counter-intuitive
- UI functions that have no relevance to actual combat, e.g. “G” for Guild panel, “B” for Bags, etc
All you have to work with are the number keys, and unless you have the reach of Liberacci, that leaves you with only 6 keybinds (“1” through “6”) to work with for your abilities. This entire approach makes no sense.
Many players accept it as-is and work around it, either by adding modifiers (i.e. Shift/Control/Alt) to trigger abilities or getting hardware that helps to address the lack of available keybinds.
However, most players don’t address the root issue – by not fixing the default keybindings you are placing an artificial handicap on your skill level. It’s like trying to run but with your feet chained together. Yes, you can do it, but no, you’ll never hit your potential stride, and that’s what this is all about. Raising your gameplay.
By comparison, here are the keybinds that I used for WildStar:
I have over 20 keybinds to activate abilities / macros with a single keypress, which enables me to to fluidly circle-strafe and kite-strafe while activating abilities.
Notice that by using EDWR instead of WSQE for forward/backward/left strafe/right strafe:
- My forward and backward movement is controlled by my middle finger, which is intuitive
- My strafe left is controlled by my ring finger, which is intuitive
- My strafe right is controlled by my index finger, which is intuitive
- My left hand is in the natural typing position, in case I need to type in chat
So I’ve provided a couple examples of my keybinds. Before you start re-mapping your keybinds, there is something you must understand first…
Before You Keybind, You Must Understand What Proper Movement Looks Like
Real life combat is all about good movement. Flanking your opponent. Taking angles to set up your punches and kicks. The same principles apply to combat in MMORPGs.
Any keybindings setup should
- provide the ability to circle-strafe and kite-strafe to keep a target in your facing as much as possible, and
- enable high fidelity / accuracy for using abilities quickly, and
- minimize keystrokes with your pinky, which is the finger most likely to get aggravated due to high usage, and
- allow you to type in chat for communication with other players
Let’s look at these concepts #1 and #2 applied in the following video:
As discussed in the video, the setup I have landed on after years of iteration and tweaking is:
- right hand on the mouse for character facing, aiming, and camera rotation
- left hand for left strafe, right strafe, forward, backward, and all abilities
Here’s another illustrative video of how to strafe-kite properly, with footage from the game RIFT:
Moreover, modern games such as GW2 and WildStar are continuing the trend towards action combat with limited number of abilities, so there are fewer abilities to keybind. That said, if you feel you perform better with gaming hardware, great, stick with what works for you.
Keybinding is a sensitive topic, so keep in mind that the intention of the above video is to show “one way of thinking about it.” The way that you feel comfortable setting up your keybinds may be very different from mine – that’s fine – what matters is that you are able to execute the r numbered points above. I’ve had many gamers adopt my setup or its philosophy and they have reported good success. YMMV.
How to Learn New Keybindings
Realize that rebinding your keys is one of the most disruptive things you can do. It’s like learning to walk all over again. Therefore, you have to be patient. It typically takes a week of playing to get the muscle memory down for a new setup.
Do not remap your keybinds and then queue up for PVP or join a PVE raid. You will find yourself struggling and getting frustrated, because your natural reactions are to use your old keybinds. And then you’ll come blame me, and I’ll have to quote this section.
The easiest way to learn a new set of keybinds is to roll a new character, experiment, and by the time you hit level 10 or so, you’ll be well on your way to feeling much more comfortable with it. At that point you can try your new keybinds on higher-level characters.
Let me know how it goes!
Gaming Peripheral Reviews
In recent years I’ve begun to test and use gaming keyboards – here are my reviews:
- Red vs Brown Cherry MX Switches, Red vs Blue O-Rings
- CM Storm QuickFire Rapid Tenkeyless Mechanical Gaming Keyboard
Game-Specific Keybinding Guides
Per reader request, I have created keybinding maps and guides for specific games, given that each game has particular mechanics that should be accounted for:
Taugrim's MMO Blog 
So, in SWTOR, if your having to change your guard target on the fly, how do you get around this since you cannot use the mouse to pick targets.
Use Function key targeting. Or click the raid frame for the player.
Hi. Been following you since you started doing the SWTOR vids and i changed all my keybinds for the beta weekend after years of clicking while playing casually on wow. I actually want to be good at pvp in tor. I spent all day friday and saturday using your keybinds and decided that i couldnt do it and went back to the old setup only to find that my muscle memory kept bringing me back to your keybind setup.
I found that my fingers kept getting lost when things got hectic so ive put textured tape on the w and r key so I can always find them, worked a treat.
That last tip is pro. Texture helps.
Learning new keybindings takes a lot of time!
I tell people to realistically expect a week before they feel muscle-memory competent with a new setup, because it’s unlearning what they may have been using for years as a gamer.
You are trying this at a great time IMO. New game + leveling characters from 1-10 in the newbie zone is an excellent opportunity to learn a new system of keybindings.
I’ve been using a unique system for years that I thought i’d share with you. I like to have complete control of my character, and dislike builds that make it hard for me to do pretty much anything and everything while being able to strafe in either direction while jumping or moving backwards. The idea of this setup is to map as much as possible to keys that can be easily used with the thumb or pinky while also opening up multiple hotbars worth of abilities that can be pressed without ever needing to lose precious seconds clicking with your mouse.
First thing i do is immediately remap the movement keys from WASD to EDSF. This opens up more keys for easy use. I can now hit QAZX easily with my pinky while still allowing the middle 3 fingers to always be available for movement. I prefer to keep all 4 movement directions bound so that i can use my mouse for on screen actions if necessary (clicking on distant targets and so on).
I then bind everything past the 6 key to things around EDSF but avoid using W, R, or G for reasons i’ll explain soon. Best keys for use here are QAZBVTCX. If you have big hands, N and H can be thrown in.
Now this is where it gets unique. I bind R to scroll to the next hotkey bar, W to scroll back one hotkey bar, and G to hotbar 1. The idea here being that in combat I can easily get to any other hotbars with a quick touch of W or R. G is bound to hotbar 1 because I sometimes found in a hectic situation that I could end up on a hotbar other than my main and have to spend 2 seconds figuring out whether I had to flip up or down a bar. G is basically a universal reset to your main bar.
At first, this sounds counter productive because things can now require multiple key presses. However, once one gets used to it, it opens up a LOT of easy to get to hotkeys. I like to put my AEs and movement stuff back one bar. So say I need to hit a sprint ability or something. In under a second I can easily just hit WV to use the ability, then follow it immediately with G to reset me to bar one, ready for action. Oh, what’s this? I need to use that melee ability I rarely use on my ranged guy? RBG. It takes a little gettin used to, but once you do you can have as many easy to reach hotkeys as you basically have hotbars. It is still quite easy to hit RRA in a fraction of a second when you need something two hotbars away if your class really has a silly amount of abilities.
Doesn’t take long at all before you have all your stuff on 3 or more different hotbars in muscle memory and can hit absolutely any ability you own in milliseconds without ever having to click an ability with your mouse.
Years ago I met a man who slapped me as a young kid and called me a nubbin, he took my keyboard and he shoved it to the left. I cried!, I didn’t know why he did this, he then placed my hand apon the middle of the keyboard and said ” Son, why would you use the right side of the keyboard, when you child could use the center!” I had a epiphany at that moment, and this is why I Use TFH movement, F and H to strafe. Its a rough transition but if you can manage to do it you have the power of the entire keyboard at your hands, and can still alt bind like a champ :D
TTYL!
Zagz
That’s genious :D
Was going to ask you to post that here, after getting your TwitchTV message.
This is very helpful thanks.
One question I have is how you target players and swap targets during combat. If you are using the mouse for movement I assume you can not move forward and mouse click to target at the same time. If you use “target closest/next target” keys, what keys do you bind them to?
Tab target, or mouse click on a player if needed.
Any advice for us left handies? Would you use the same layout? Currnetly I use the arrow keys next to the numberpad for movement but I don’t think it’s the best layout.
Which hand do you use your mouse with?
You could use the other hand on the keyboard, really in any position, as Zagz talked about here:
[…] Check his recent videos for some Shadow leveling and PVP. He also made an amazing guide to Strafing, Movement, and Keybinds. If nothing else, you should definitely check out that […]
Just wondering…Read the guide, watched the video’s, makes allot of sense and thx…
Would it be possibly for you to throw up a couple of minutes of video, with the camera on your left hand, to see the actual keybinds in practice.
For those of us that are transitioning to keybinds, a visual of it in action would be priceless ( well for me anyways ).
If not, totally understand… :)
( If this already exists, appologies for not finding it…)
Hi Shaakoo,
Several people have asked on my stream for a camera to point to my hand while playing.
Your giving me this feedback is helpful in terms of knowing what people are looking for in terms of helpful content.
Right now I have a longgggg list of really critical content that I need to put up by the end of December, so those items will take precedence.
At some point if I can afford a 2nd webcam (e.g. for streaming) and/or have the time to just record my hands while playing, I’ll try to do it.
Thanks,
Taugrim
Yes to your finger gymnastic Cam!
Bravo Taugrim! Came here from your inspiring lv16 Huttball vid.
Troubleshooting my own challenges adopting this:
* PvE: Tight clumps of multiple adds -> Solution is tighter circles and spins?
* PvE: Tight corridors and nowhere to go side to side, or lots of moving from quest to quest -> Solution is a mouse-bound auto-run button? (I also bound the map overlay and esc to my mouse buttons for pve questing)
* PvE: Raid rooms with nasty environmental obstacles like mines, lava, poison clouds, ledges -> You said you sometimes revert to arrow keys :( Guess I can accept that. You’re really in a different movement mode at those times.
* Need to hit skill with Stafing finger -> Solution is getting used to R (counterclockwise) when hitting 1,2,3 or Q and moving with W (clockwise) when hitting 4,5,6,T keys?
(Is this another reason you don’t use full auto in your Huttball video?)
Yes, for Vanguard / Powertech for the middle trees (Tactics, Advanced Prototype), our best damage is at 0-10m, so you have to get into short-range of your opponents.
Full Auto / Unload is a channeled ability and therefore a self-root, it can be interrupted, and the damage is delayed.
For the spec I’m playing FA / U just doesn’t make sense from a mechanics standpoint.
Thanks for the reply and totally understand… :)
Look forward to this new content… :)
In the spirit of this thread I would encourage you to get a mouse that takes advantage of some thumb buttons. It doesn’t have to be a NAGA- though I’m trying it now (and finding it small in my hand)
Is your right thumb doing anything currently?
Personally I have 2 thumb buttons and I use one for push-to-talk and the other for auto-run.
I find that using a thumb button for push to talk doesn’t interfere with anything else I normally do with a mouse and avoids all the problems with voice activation- especially when one is eating….
Understood.
I made the conscious decision a couple years ago not to use a gaming mouse, to show people it ain’t required for high-level play.
As is often the case, I’m going against popular opinion because I believe it’s incorrect.
There’s a difference between saying
“I don’t use a gaming mouse”
to
“yes I do have a gaming mouse but don’t use it for most things because it’s not necessary and fix the default keybinds while you’re at it”
The former is a much more compelling argument.
I like that keybind setup, slightly different to what Im used to using, I’m going to try it out, I replaced my standard left and right, with strafe left and strafe right in SWTOR, did not feel right to me, any thoughts on this.
I like to use middle mouse for auto-run in every MMO, you spend most of your time moving, so why not?
Very good idea. So obvious in fact, I’m feeling a little dumb :)
Your Taugrim Dojo of Zen PVP is making too many people better PVP’rs. :(
At least this will make for some more strategic battles which is what I am looking forward to.
Keep up the brilliant work! Thanks for all your efforts.
That is exactly my goal. Deal with it, I’m not going to change :)
Just a simple tip if you’re trying to get into left side keybinding and are having issues with finger positioning. Stick a sticker, something adhesive whatever, onto important keys, or in a position that helps you have a by touch reference to where your fingers are on the keyboard.
As Taugrim mentioned most manufacturers do put a bump on the F and J keys, but in my case they’re worn down a bit. I also tend to work a smidge farther left than he does as I utilize the ~ key as well as some shift clicking, so it really worked as a good trick for me to learn proper finger placement, and helped me to avoid looking down at the keyboard during fights, which some of us do, and is a bad habit.
Awesome tip, thanks for sharing it :)
I have a question. I am new to PC gaming and have been a console gamer all my life. I am having a rough time period adjusting to M+Kb so my question to you is fairly simple.
Should I start out learning the default setups of games that way M+Kb becomes for comfortable or should I mess around with various keybindings?
I shall note I play a variety of genres but mostly 3rd Person Shooters, RPGs, Action and Platformers/Shoot Em’ Ups.
Thanks for any help in advance. I would also just like to say that your stream, videos and overall willingness to help anyone who would listen is greatly appreciated!
-Stretch
I don’t recommend learning the default setup for most games, as I mentioned the default setup makes no sense for enabling skillful play.
I would recommend that you start experimenting right from the get-go, until you can find a setup that let’s you achieve the 3 major points I mentioned in the Guide:
1. provide the ability to circle-strafe and kite-strafe to keep a target in your facing as much as possible, and
2. enable high fidelity / accuracy for using abilities quickly, and
3. not give you carpal tunnel :)
Thanks for the quick reply!
Hey there Taugrim. I’m looking to adopt your key setup but I have a few concerns about it in regards to PVP healing. A “good” healer typically can heal and help DPS however traditionally you end up with a lot of keys to bind. In your opinion how would you modify your existing set up? Or would you? By the time i’m done by keys tend to look like a cluster $%^ and I’m all over the place, so I’m hoping to get some help to clean it up and be mroe streamlined.
Hey Taugrim:
good advice, i am surprise at the number of people that actually never binds their keys just from reading your reply. I have always bound my keys, however i do so to get rid of using the mouse during most pvp. I keep the movment keys the same and use my num pad as my skill binding buttons. I use everything except for numlock key (for good reason) and switched auto run to the delete key. when kiting i just use both A and E key or Q and D key (depending on which way i am circle strafing of course) The upside to this technique is your movements are all controlled by one hand while your skills are all closer together. the downside is in rare moments when tab targeting fails or a right click activating objective appears you have to move your hand away from the key pad losing precious seconds to your rotation. oh i should probably mention that i use the 1 – 5 keys above WASD for big cool downs as well. For any who likes the idea of key binding but dreads using the mouse feel free to try this setting out, gives your game a somewhat super nintendo feel if you will.
While I would never diss a player who uses Taugrim’s controls, I believe that keeping WASD is slightly superior. My method will feel like a natural progression to whoever has played a lot of FPS. It’s been tried and tested for 1000’s of hours of raiding and PvPing. Under one variation or another, it is also probably the one that is used the most by top level players. Here’s how it goes.
W – Forward
S – Backward
A – Strafe Left
D – Strafe Right
Turn Left and Turn Right are unbound because I turn with the mouse, of course (hold Mouse 2).
All of my abilities have a key binding. The keys I use are:
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
(q, e, r, t, y)
(f, g)
(z, x, c, v)
I use Shift and Ctrl variations for all of these keys and I have 4 extra mouse buttons. This
gives me a very large pool of keybindings which I have never exhausted for any MMO. The extra bindings (6 in all) that freeing W (Forward) and S (Backward) would confer are redundant.
I press W with my middle finger, A with my ring finger and D with my index. Every other bindings are effortlessly available around this configuration without having to ever stop movement.
This setup will perform every manoeuvres in the videos with ease. I should point out that I never use Backward to create distance either.
At this point, we are even. Both Taugrim and my FPS style controls do essentially the same things.
The only real difference is that I kept Forward and Backward. I feel that this confers me an advantage in particular with the use of Free Look.
Free Look (hold Mouse 1) is huge for situational awareness in both raiding and PvP. If Taugrim wants to Free Look, he only has two directions of movement on 1 axis remaining (Strafe Left or Right). I have 8 on 2 axis (left, right, forward, backward and their diagonals). While you never want to be in Free Look mode for more than a second if you are moving franticly (because you can’t rotate your character), having more “keyboard” mobility can really make a difference when, say, you are trying to stay on a target in PvP, or you are escaping through obstacles and need to snap a look behind you in a boss encounter.
I also kept Backward for general micro adjustments to my position. If you wish to go straight back for 2 to 5 yards with Taugrims control, you need to turn your camera 90 degrees and then press Strafe. With my controls, I just press Backward. This is faster on this scale and I am able to keep my focus on whatever I was looking at.
Overall, WASD gives you more quality of life at no real cost.
Finally, I once tried ESDF but pressing Shift, Ctrl and Tab was too much of a strain for my pinkie and it didn’t provide any more effective bindings since my keybinding pool is sufficiently large.
How do you move diagonally forward?
From what I read, you have to use two fingers on your left hand, which limits your ability to press the keys in the real estate around your left hand.
Most of my prime real estate is under my index finger. So, yes, if I want to move diagonally forward to the right, I have to lift my index finger to activate a prime ability. But this happens only as often as the Global Cool Down and it is further alleviated with an ability queue system like Rift had.
For this reason, I always favor my left side for movement since I can still do a diagonal forward (to the left) and activate an ability with my index finger. For example, if I’m tanking a boss and I need to prepare to move, then I will position myself to do a Strafe Left when the time comes to move. This ties down my ring finger but I still have my middle and index finger for abilities and movement correction (and my mouse to rotate my character or use Free Look). I circle strafe to the left in PvP for the same reason although I mix it up.
I will concede that keeping Forward and Backward will make controls slightly more expensive and require a bit more finger gymnastics. Ultimately, what works for someone will make the biggest difference in how they play the game.
Thank you for the excellent guide. I love the way you are able to move and position yourself while you are attacking. You are probably one of the most strategic pvpers I have ever watched. Im trying to use mostly keybings in TOR and I have come across 2 big issues that I hope you can solve.
First, how do you handle strafing while attacking, finger wise? For example, which fingers would you use to strafe right so that you could still use abilities to the right of the strafe key on the keybord. Also what fingers would you then use to quickly switch to left strafing while still hitting abilities to the left of the strafe key on the keyboard? Do you just use your middle finger only for strafing?
I only have 1 strafe key pressed at a time.
Left strafe = ring finger, so I have my pinky / middle / index fingers available for keybinds
Right strafe = index finger, so I have my pinky / ring / middle fingers available for keybinds
Taugrim, thanks for this and all your work – rewarding and challenging. Moving with mouse (and not awsd) is revolutionary for me! I’ve watched your work on gamebreaker too, but still pretty confused. Could you do a post/tutorial on targeting? That is, how do you:
a) target mobs in PvE; and
b) target enemies in PvP
while strafing (and in general)?
Do you:
a) use mouse and click;
b) use a bound key; or
c) use some kind of auto-target?
This may seem really elementary but I can’t figure it out (Could you do in context of SWtOR? Never played Rift and a bit of a n00b :$)!
Testy
Answer is usually “b” (Tab key with pinky) and sometimes I left mouse click a specific target.
Thanks Taugrim. That’s actually what I intuitively went for (tab with pinky)… feels very awkward to a mouse click awsd n00b… guess I have to practice my muscle memory!!! ;D
After a day or two of using the number row and W & R for strafing, I find moving those abilities down and using S & F works out better for a couple of reasons:
The spam ability on the E key is more centered compared to using the 3, which makes the default position more comfortable and feeling less constrained when trying to strafe and press it. That way I also have 2 more keys that are relatively easy to hit with my middle finger.
Having two rows above your strafe keys seems much more preferable than having two below and subsequently being covered up by your hand. I’d rather be reaching up two rows than curling my fingers back two rows down.
My main annoyance now is with tab targeting and finding a way to switch targets quickly. I’m beginning to wonder if a Razer Naga isn’t such a bad idea.
I use both a Nostromo and a Razor Naga.
I find the Nostromo irreplaceable. I find the Naga not so useful.
I’ve been trying to use the key binds as suggested in this post, but in many key cases it’s awkward to simultaneously strafe and press crucial keys. As an example, you are strafing to the left (W) using your ring finger, how can you hit the 2 or S? It’s possible using your pinky or middle finger but awkward.
With the Nostromo my thumb is able to cover all directional moving, and I’ve bound “14” as the jump to avoid having to take my thumb off the directional stick.
However with all this said, I’ve taken the general advice in this thread and remapped my Nostromo so that I have my Damage and CC in the general arrangement that Taugrim suggests. So far it’s working very well for me.
As for the Naga, I use the thumb buttons only for convenience actions (map, inventory, quest log, autorun etc).
Well, what I like about W & R is while you’re still in “home row”, in the heat of action your q W e R t y becomes your temporary home row, with 1 2 3 4 5 6 conveniently close to strafe keys for my spammable skills.
That makes sense. Stick with what works for you.
Tab targeting works fine for me in most situations, although in some select cases for speed of targeting I’ll click a particular target.
I am curious about your movement setup mainly because I have tried it and my biggest problem was being unable to mouse click and not being able to use middle mouse key to push-to-talk on ventrillo. Any ideas on how to solve that problem?
Also the tab targetting in star wars is horrendous and frustrating, it feels as if I’m not entirely facing targets I can’t cycle. The mouse clicking is even worse, I can usually click a target alot faster than any global cooldowns and be strafing, moving at the same time. In swtor I literally have stopped moving and spammed my mouse key out of frustration that I can’t target someone.
It is frustrating because I am used to being able to fully switch from enemy targets to friendlies easily by using the mouse.
Another question and reason I haven’t gotten into moving using the two mouse buttons, I constantly pan my camera, is it in your opinion not neccessary? I’ve always felt it is however I’m tempted to not pan as much if it might help my forward movement problem.
P.S. don’t use backwards key but I do use sef for movement.
You can map push-to-talk to whatever is comfortable for. I personally disable push-to-talk, set my Vent sensitivity accordingly, and use an off switch on my mic when I don’t want it to pick up sounds.
Hmmm, it feels the same to me in SWTOR as in any game.
I pan the camera a ton, you can see this is my videos.
How I do it is strafe while holding left mouse button down to camera turn. That’s one way of doing it.
I just put together a spreadsheet analyzing the abilities of the Sawbones Scoundrel and put together a keybind system based on what you have here. I still had to use Shift and Control, but that’s limited, and it’ll be even better if they ever implement a stealth bar. After adding “Throw Huttball”, the speeder, pvp medpacs, regular medpacs, stimpacs, and adrenals, I ended up having 48 abilities I needed to keybind. That’s all 4 hotbars! SWTOR needs more hotbars…
Here is the spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtAT5uXw_t7qdG9qemlaTWpRWk5YM05qUHBoNEJWZnc
I’d love to hear any comments you have.
I like this setup.however what if you are straffing right and need TY6 or straffing left and need Q12? I guess any setup that has any movement on the keyboard will have this issue.
The idea I was toying with is puting strafe on the mouse 5 & 6 buttons a bit radical and I am not sure how comfy it would be.
That is a valid point. If I need to strafe right *and* hit T, Y, or 6, I flip hips, strafe sideways and hit those abilities.
That is, to strafe right, you don’t have to strafe right. You can turn your facing 180 degrees and strafe left, which takes you to the right per your original facing.
please make a swtor version
What do you have set up up on your mouse? Auto run, vent ect..
Great guide! I play a Powertech (ShieldTech) in Swtor and was wondering how you this would adapt to that. Maybe I’m wrong, but there seem to be more bottons committed to defense in RIFT than SWTOR options, as well as things like regen, sprint, etc. Can you do a quick rundown for us SWTOR guys???
Hi Taugrim,
Your guide made me rethink my setup and its limitations, so I intend to do an overhaul on my key setup as well. What i’m wondering is though, you seem to use left+right click to move forward. One of the key skills in some Shadow specs in SWTOr is Force In Balance (instant casted aoe ground effect), how do you go about casting these kinds of skills or clicking targets on the move (you posted before that you sometimes click targets) while you’re on the move?
In that case, I hit Auto-run and target with the mouse.
I like that you put this up. I developed my own layout that has a similar idea behind it.
I still move with wasd (With my ring finger on w.) I played piano so it works for me. 2 mouse buttons, qertg, and 1 – 5 house all of my skills.
TL; DR
A uniform keybind layout is AMAZING. If Taugrims isn’t for you then make your own.! :D
Exactly.
You don’t need to copy what I’ve done. The main thing is to not be limited by what a game has by default.
It’s an amazing and very sound guide… I’ve never pvp’ed before and after watching your video on the combat medic for swtor I really wanted to give it a go… but I can’t figure out for the darnedest how to change the key bindings for movement to the mouse.
wow i feel like an idiot.. it does that already… going to go practice now
Dont worry @ApHero I made the same mistake :)
@Taugrim – what I love about your guides is that you pitch them so the n00bie can understand, yet they still have a lot of depth to them… please keep it up :)
[…] […]
New to MMOs after 7 years of wife and babies killing my gaming life. now that everyone is back on a Sleep schedule I am free to take up my keyboard and mouse for late night gaming! Thank you for this, it seams so simple and I have been trying for days to figure out a setup that would work for me. now if I can just figure out what CC and DPS and AOE mean I can’t beat the crap out of some foul mouth kids in PvP. (just kidding… a little)
CC = Crowd Control, e.g. stuns, roots, silences, etc
DPS = Damage Per Second, or a term commonly used to refer to damaging abilities or specs
AOE = Area of Effect, e.g. a grenade explosion
Ok i’ve tried and tried and tried to get used to something new, but I just can’t get used to NOT using the WASD and QE block for moving and strafing. My hands just sit there on a keyboard naturally, and i’ve used those keys for gaming for more years than many players have been alive!
Unfortunately the pretty much wipes out 90% of the keybinds, so I don’t know what to do :(
I’ve really enjoyed my dip into learning to PvP in SWTOR, but without a good keybind setup I know i’m gimping myself.
“You must unlearn what you have unlearned”
– Yoda
It’s hard to break down muscle memory, but until you do, you’ll be seriously limiting yourself.
Years ago I played with WSAD. Then I moved to EDSF. Neither comes remotely to what I’m using now.
Nice stuff. I’m currently in the testing stages where I need to stay committed to learning the system. I may switch strafing up to the S and F keys, as I’ve seen elsewhere in here. I have slightly longer fingers, so I think having the two rows above my strafe buttons would be more beneficial to having two beneath it.
Have you played a Smuggler Gunslinger in SW:TOR. I haven’t played any other classes yet, but I feel like the Gunslinger has some crazy skill bloat. Other than my damage abilities, it’s hard for me to decide where my CC, Defense, and Heal Consumables will go. With SW:TOR, do you have any additional tips to add, or is it pretty much just the same concept?
Ya that’s fine, whatever you are comfortable with.
Yes, I have played both GS and Sniper.
All classes in SWTOR have a lot of abilities, it’s part of what makes the combat dynamic and the game challenging in terms of managing your keybinds.
It’s the same concept regardless of game.
Just wanted drop by to say thank you very much, and keep up the great work. Really enjoying SWTOR PvP as an Tanksassin with your keybind setup. I made the character as an alt to learn your keybinds and it ended up becoming my main because I quickly grew in skill as a pvper mainly due to the switch. Took me about 3 days of regular play to get comfortable, so its not too painful to switch.
FYI – found you via Gamebreaker TV.
Confession time, Im 31 and I was a clicker till December 2011. Nowadays I send all my guildies/friends to your site when they ask me about PvP stuff. Your videos are great, I learn something new each time. Thanks again, the least I can do is leave a tip for all your tips:)
PS – I hope you roll a shadow/assassin after your sentinel so I can learn more skills!:)
Glad to hear your new keybinds have improved your gameplay :)
I appreciate your spreading the word about my content.
And I just rolled a Sentinel last night, so once I get him to 10+ I’ll be streaming with him.
Hey Taugrim, very cool post, glad to see such a nice guide for people to get their act together.
I have been using my own bindings for something like 10 years now over several games. I have made a few changes over the years, such as unbinding backpedal, moving interrupt, and getting away from the number keys. Essentially, it is as follows;
a/w/d = strafe / forward / strafe (I feel that forward is necessary with left hand as it can hit combinations of a+w and a+d for precise control)
` (tilde on most keyboards) = autorun; I toggle this often to free up the need for forward key
s = stealth or similar essential class skill
q / e = spam
r = interrupt (fastest key within reach)
z = break CC
c = finisher
v = opener
f = snare
x = short-duration self-buff (slice and dice, stim boost)
n = high CD short duration self-buff
1 = low-demand ability (currently Throw Huttball)
4 = stun
I then place the rest of the abilities in fitting keys, using shift + core keys as needed / common sense; for instance, shift + c for a different finisher, shift + s for stealth boost. These shift-modifier abilities are quite simply quicker to use when you use the a/w/d keys as opposed to the w/r keys as the little finger has a stronger position. Granted, the w/r config has a few more keys, but it is very easy to fill 4-5 toolbars of abilities these days in MMOs, particularly when you include consumables, trinkets/relics, etc.
What do you think about this, and how would you suggest I improve? Is it really that big of a deal to retrain myself to move forward with mouse instead of keyboard?
I did not reference any mouse buttons; silly me. This really depends on the mouse, but in general, the right hand is not going to be as fast as the left hand because it is also moving around slightly; I tend to use the mouse buttons I have available on non-direct damage core rotation abilities that are cast at fixed intervals).
Also, in WoW, I made use of macros to remove the need for certain keys (for instance, had stealth bound with autoattack). SWTOR also has the distinct lack of a stealth bar, which is actually growing on me as it gives more control (don’t ever have to worry about any ability being unreachable because it’s just not on your current bar). In any case, it is possible that, down the road, we will be able to condense the need for shift+modifiers. Of course, then there are companion abilities which can also be bound…
Thanks, I enjoy sharing information and teaching / mentoring others.
Are you able to move forward while strafing, and activate abilities?
If yes, you’re fine.
If not, you might want to sort out how you can do that.
Please explain how you move foward and target someone at the same time.
Tab key while mouse buttons depressed.
Even if you don’t, you can still do any of the following:
– strafe and target with mouse
– autorun and target with mouse
– bind move forward and target with mouse.
Those answers should highlight how its not really applicable to move with the mouse in most instances. Directional movement should almost always be key presses. You need at minimum forward, and both strafes bound. You can do away with backpedal and use hold right click(M2) to turn but using hold left click(M1) to run forward is not optimal as you have to have 2 different methods to perform a single action. You cannot run forward and target someone at the same time without using another binding to move. You need a mouse that has at least M4 to use your thumb to move forward to be able to gain an advantage of key space over someone using a keyboard to move forward. M4 bound to move forward would allow you to target with M1, freeing up your traditional W key finger. This is easier to understand if you try to play a FPS game with move forward bound to M1. It’s awful. You need to tell them what buttons on the mouse to bind to movement. Other than that explanation, good article for people new to key binds.
If you want to believe mouse movement is not the right way to go, there’s nothing I can say that will change your opinion.
I have no problems with moving with the mouse and Tab’ing quickly to the correct target, or click-targeting as needed.
But stick with keyboard movement and gaming mouses if that is what works for you – the suggestions I make are not for everyone.
Thanks Taugrim, your humble guidance has really revolutionised my MMO gaming the past couple of months :)
Re the issue of targeting, I too had a real problem. What works for me is binding mouse wheel scroll up/down with target next/nearest enemy. I also use a Nostromo with its own wheel, so I can scroll easily with either hand. Can also use tab with next enemy. Haven’t tried auto run with mouse-click yet, sounds novel.
Keep an open mind, don’t knock it till you try it ;)
Glad to hear it!
People shouldn’t feel limited by what I do.
The main point of my Guide is to help people understand that the default keybinds don’t support smooth, mobile gameplay and to change people’s mindset in approaching keybinds.
The specific keybinds themselves are not as important as the concepts that direct how you keybind.
How each person configures their rig is based on what they’re comfortable with.
Just to add a really helpful way of adapting your keybinding suggestions to SWTOR that has worked for me…:
Now I keep my left pinky on shift, other four fingers on 1-5, Q-T, A-F. Mouse for movement of course :)
This really allows me a lot of flexibilty and diversity with quickkeys. So for example 1 easily becomes s+1, T becomes s+T and so forth. 12 keys (ie 1-5, Q-T, A-F, minus W and R for strafing of course ;D) become 24 all with the help of lil old pinky on shift! T for example is most commonly used AOE for me, and s+T becomes 2nd-most commonly used AOE. 3 is most common spammer; s+3 second-most common spammer and so-on and so forth. Feel MUCH less like a button masher and MUCH more like a PvPer… Experiment guys :)
Now to deal with those pesky Operatives in Alderan ;)
Testy out.
(Actually correction, left thumb on space, the rest as described :))
Taugrim can you provide us with your keybinding for Powertechs please?
Hey Taugrim, I based my new SWTOR keybinds off this guide and after just one PVP Warzone I can already tell how much better it is, thanks for the great guide! Hopefully more in the future. =]
Awesome to hear :)
Hey, Taugrim. I’m really new to keybinding and strafing, and I am really enjoying swtor. I was wondering what you do when deal with a lot of abilites that are not keybinded?
I don’t keybind everything, just the abilities that seem relevant in PVP.
E.g. the 20-min cooldown when you have your companion to heal both of you is not keybound, because I rarely use it.
For abilities like that, I either set up a modifier (e.g. Ctrl-X) or click it. I’m a huge advocate of not clicking abilities that have high usage or require fast reaction time. But some abilities are really not that critical.
Ok, thanks for the info. I was also wondering how you would set up your bars for a Jedi Shadow? And also for keybinding do you mostly focus your keybinds in the center bars?
For SWTOR I have keybinds on all 4 bars. You pretty much have to given the sheer number of abilities.
What keybind do you use to target friendly players? I don’t imagine you click on them.
Depends.
Sometimes F2-F6.
Sometimes click on their raid frame.
Sometimes mouse over their party / raid frame, if @mouseover or similar functions are supported in the UI.
Thanks for the reply. I’m trying out the Iron Fist build and getting to friendly targets sometimes I’ve just thought clicking was a inconvinence, especially when you are moving around so much in pvp.
Hi Ed,
Thanks for this great info! Usually as a healer not been needed to Kite too much as im mainly at ranged and wanted to try this out :D AWESOMENESS.
Are you still playing in rift atm with this spec after 1.7 or are there any new changes we can expect at all ?
thanks
Jebro (Bloodiron Euro server)