As always, I know keybindings really just come down to personal preference and there isn’t one “set-in-stone” way that all players should bind their spells to. That being said, I want to hear some ideas for keybinds with Havoc demon hunter. My keybinds are the same across all my characters/classes, but it just doesn’t feel smooth on my Demon Hunter.
Awhile back I played around with binding MouseScrollWheel to different spells. I’m always zooming my camera in and out while playing, and this interfered with having the scroll wheel bound to spells. Do any of you use the scroll wheel for your abilities?
Then I have 7,8,9 for stuff like Shadowmeld, Spectral Sight, and things not used very often.
Movement keys are W,A,S,D with A and D being rebound to strafe left, strafe right. I usually bind “spam” abilities, or abilities used very often to “E”, and abilities that are used around every 30 seconds to “Q”.
These keybinds work well for other classes, but I’m just not feeling it with demon hunter. Perhaps an overhaul of all my keybinds is what I need. Henceforth I come here to the forums to find some ideas. I always like seeing what other players set for their keybinds.
I have my “O ****” abilities unbound to keys and displayed on my #2 action bar.
Far left. metamorphosis
Next. blur
Then. Darkness
Center of my screen moving from center to the left.
Eye beam
Disrupt
Imprison
I bind most of my movements to my mouse. (Step left/right/back) and auto run. I use my mouse for movements and keys for spells. I also have other abilities and situational macros on my actionbars.
I do this so I don’t take my eyes of the screen. I also don’t need to move my hands much so never lose my place and rarely accidentally press a key.
Very important spells like eye beam and disrupt are always visable so just in case I do mis or forget I can see the cooldowns and keep them accessible. My main bindings are spells that are used consistently and have low cds.
This of course is all personal preference. But I do not do it this way for ranged characters and some other melee classes
My setup is quite a bit different, but to each his own. My keybinds generally retain the same type from character to character with some modifications depending on the situation.
1-5 primary action buttons with closer to 1 being used more often and 4/5 being reserved for frequent procs or aoe
shift 1-5 less used action buttons that are still easily accessible, or are talent dependent. (i.e. fel barrage or a heal in a dps spec)
F is a taunt or a utility (leap of faith) something that i need instant access to.
G is typically a cc function of some sort (knockback etc.).
Z is movement, X is utility or cc, C is lock rock
Shift FGZXC typically carries a similar function with some mutability, where shift G is typically a combat potion. Something i don’t want to fat finger but isn’t an awkward keybind for me to hit when i intend to.
For my naga, i have the first 2 rows rebound to ctrl+1 through ctrl+6
Ctrl 1 is interrupt, Ctrl 2 is a major cd, Ctrl 3 is a defensive cd
Ctrl 4 is a short cooldown ranged attack for melee, or another quick access spell (innervate on my boomkin etc.). ctrl 5 is a purge or another major cd, and ctrl 6 is another utility/catchall quick access.
I also have another 6 buttons for shift + naga key where i might put a battle res, or something that i want access to but i don’t need frequent pushes.
Hope this helps you somewhat getting the thought process behind my keybinds a little bit.
1-12, (mouse) a, q, w, r, t, y, v, g, h, scroll wheel up, down, in, shift up, shift down, shift in, mouse button 5, 4, shift mouse button 5, 4 and e s f to move
Fel eruption
Q. Disrupt
E. Chaos strike
S. Chaos nova
F. Immolation aura
R. Fel rush
Z. Vengeful retreat
C. Imprison macro
X. Racial
V. Fel barrage (reverse magic)
G. Netherwalk
T. Trinket
Shift 1. Rain from above
Shift 2. Blur
Shift 3. Darkness
Shift 4. Consume magic
Shift E. Taunt macro
Shift R. Metamorphosis macro
Shift T. Spectral sight
Control E. Mount
Control 3. Belt macro
Control F. Cloak macro
Mouse button 1. Healthstone
So, first off, I should specify that I play using an ESDF movement star instead of the more common WASD. This adds 3 buttons to the left side of the movement star, allowing a (mostly) symmetrical key layout around it, and lets my pinky naturally rest on the A key for quick response binds. I also have a Roccat Nyth mouse (think Naga, except with a configurable side button layout. I have it setup with 6 larger side buttons, rather than the 12-16 most Naga-type mice have).
I also habitually set up my keys in similar patterns across my alts, so similarly-themed abilities are on similar binds. For example, hostile purges on all of my toons are on Shift-T, interrupts are on a specific one of my mouse buttons, etc. My primary rotational buttons for all of my toons are set for 2, 3, 4, 5 and shift-2, 3, 4, 5, with the “center” being 3 (since it’s immediately above E)
Here’s my binds for my DH. S = Shift, C = Ctrl, A = Alt, M = Mouse button, labeled as 1-6 for the side buttons (note: these do not correspond to how Windows numbers the buttons):
Main Bar
2 - Throw Glaive
S/2 - Eye Beam
3 - Chaos Strike
S/3 - Blade Dance
4 - Demon's Bite
S/4 - Immo Aura
5 - Fel Barrage
S/5 - Target @focus macro.
M3 - Disrupt
S/M3 - @focus Disrupt
M6 - Fel Rush
S/M6 - Vengeful Retreat
Secondary Bar
A - unset
S/A - Netherwalk
Q - Torment
S/Q - floater, often used for quest items
W - Darkness
S/W - Meta (@cursor while out of combat, @player in-combat)
R - Blur
S/R - Nemesis, for those rare occasions I have it talented.
T - Chaos Nova
S/T - Consume Magic
G - Fel Eruption (this is usually my AoE key, but DH lacks a dedicated AoE-only ability)
S/G - unset
Utility (unset omitted)
A/M3 - /focus [@mouseover] macro for setting or clearing my focus target quickly.
A/2 - Health potion
A/3 - Healthstone
C/Q - Spectral Sight
C/W - Imprison
C/G - Invis pot
A/W - Meta @cursor macro, regardless of combat state.
S/M1 - Target and focus swap macro
S/M2 - Targetlasttarget macro
M2 - Arcane Torrent
M4 - Potion of Prolonged Power
S/M4 - Agility Potion
C/M4 - Drums
Oh, and middle mouse press is my push-to-talk bind.
Sure. Note that these are a month or so old, from back when we were still working on Opulence, but they still mostly reflect the state of my UI and bindings.
Notable elements:
The bar in the center, under the HUD, is a TellMeWhen bar. I have it dynamically change based on my spec, and it hides while out of combat (unless I have a hostile targeted, in which case it shows at 50% opacity).
The HUD is IceHUD. The red bar on the left is my target’s HP, and the yellow bar to the right is my threat, which turns red if I take aggro and am not currently a tank specialization.
The scrolling text is Mik’s Scrolling Battle Text. I’m contemplating trimming down my usage of it, though. One notable setting I have is that when I gain and lose debuffs, they pop up bright purple in the center of my screen, which makes it much easier to notice them.
Bars are Dominos
Map is SexyMap
Raid frames are Vuhdo
Player and target frames are ZPerl
Buff bars/icons are Raven
Tooltips are TipTac
Chat is Prat. Party, raid, and whispers go to the left window, say, yell, chat channels, and most other crap to the right window, with my combat log as a secondary tab on the right side. While out of combat, whispers are instead handled by WIM.
My primary rotational set is on the left side, lower pair of bars, though to be honest, I almost never look down there during combat. My UI is intended so that I never really have to glance away from the center 500 pixels or so of the screen unless I’m looking at a different area of the encounter space. All of the information I need during combat is in the center block space. I’ve also spent considerable time tuning DBM and Weakauras and setting custom sounds (and for some, visual alerts) so I can easily identify things I have to react to without having to actually watch for them specifically.
