What are your keybindings?

Guides Returning Player Help & Discussions
1

Hello all I have just returned to the game and I have been struggling a bit with the amount of abilities I need to setup with keybindings. Obviously, I don’t want to be clicking abilities to make sure I am efficient at the game, but I don’t remember having this amount of abilities to bind before. I would like to know what your binding look like. Here is my usual binding that I have developed over time.

Here is my basic setup of what I have had in the past.
1,2,3,4, E - Rotational abilities
Q - Stun/Root
R - Utility, usually slow
S-Q - Purge or remove ability
S-E - Interrupt/Silence
S-R - Variable
F - Main Heal
S-F - Other heal or ability

S-1,2,3,4 - Long Cooldown Abilities
Z- Power Ability(Basically this is the increase dps ability that makes you do more damage)
X- Defensive ability
C- PVP Trinket / Get out of croud control ability
s-z- Mount
s-x- Heavy Defensive Ability
s-c- AOE Ability
Mouse-Up = Variable(Whatever is needed to be used quickly)
Mouse-Down - Variable(Whatever is needed to be used quickly)
Shift-Mouse-Up = Variable(Whatever is needed to be used quickly)
Shift-Mouse-Down - Variable(Whatever is needed to be used quickly)

Now as far as other keybindings using ctrl, alt or t,g,v,b, has always felt super awkward for me, not that I can’t use those but I wanted to check if there were other solutions first.

The obvious problem is that I am not used to having more abilities than I do keybinding here. As an example, I have one ability defined for my “power ability” but when I look at the abilities on this arcane mage that increase damage I have :
Arcane Surge,
Radiant Spark,
Touch of the Magi

If I look for what I usually have for slow I have :
Slow,
Cone Of Cold,
Blast wave,

If I look at what I usually have for stun/root I have :
Ice Nova,
Dragons Breath,
Frost Nova

All together I have 33 abilities(at the moment, I am not quite 70 yet) but only 24 keybindings. I am sure I am not the only one who has run into this, so I wanted to see what the general consistence was as far as extra keybindings people were using.

Thanks.

2

It’s tough. I’m still working on mine, but I do have a mouse with extra buttons, and one of those I use as a toggle between a single-target action bar and a multi-target action bar. I’m considering getting a mouse with more buttons and I’ve even toyed with the idea of foot pedals. I’ve already overwritten F, Z, '. I find shift, alt, ctrl modifiers awkward.

1 Like
3

My binds are kind of unique, but because of the way I have it set up, I currently have the potential for 39 total binds, while only using a total of 12 keys. I achieve this by using the scroll wheel to cycle through 4 of my 5 bars, and then reusing the exact same bind for multiple abilities depending on which bar they are on.

So currently on my main bar (that’s reused 4 times), I use 1-5, Mouse 4 & 5, and F.

On my second (static) bar I have z, x, c, as well as alt + 1-4. These are all single use.

The way I usually sort this is as follows. I’ll be using a generic DPS build as example.

Scroll up 2: off spec abilities
Scroll up 1: Self heals, utility
Main bar: Core rotation
Scroll down 1: Defensive abilities
Scroll down 2: Mounts, Buffs, etc.

Then the following static keys are always the same across all toons.

z: Interrupt
x: stun/cc
c: speed boost
Alt + 1-4: DPS cooldowns

Needless to say, this setup requires a lot of time to get used to and commit to muscle memory, but it’s opened up a ton of options for me over the years. And if I ever need to, there are still a bunch of options for more binds that I can add on the 4 scrolled bars.

Edit: I should note that on druid this setup grants me even more binds as each form gets it’s own dedicated Main bar when you shapeshift.

4

I highly suggest using ALT, SHIFT, and CTRL modifiers for keybinds.
Alt+1-6, Shift+1-4, CTRL+1-3. That makes for 12 more keybinds. Very nice.

Edit: I also use F keys F1-F5.

5

i was very late to the keybinding world. I think I played from late vanilla to early wotlk as a mouse turning, ability clicker.

there were two things that got me to learn how to improve my play:

  1. I did the ironman challenge as a hunter and learned how to move with my mouse, jump/turn with abilities, etc.

  2. i discovered the clique addon for healing and created mouseover binds

my key binds are standardized for most of my toons, but the base of them comes from my healer keystrokes. for those, i got used to shift, ctrl and alt modifiers

i am sure that truly good players would laugh at my set up. oh well.

the only thing i would add to the conversation is the look to macro any abilities that almost always go together into one key bind.

if you have any ability on the number 1 and you always hit the ability on number 2 right after, then just macro those two abilities together on 1 and just hit it twice.

6

1 to attack, 2 to eyebeam, 3 to blade dance. Sometimes I mix it up and and click chaos strike but that’s pretty much it. I find adding any more abilities to my bar is quite overkill.