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Reader Participation Monday: Hot Keys

April 23, 2007 By Gitr 9 Comments

Today’s question is: “What are your favorite [tag]hotkeys[/tag]?” I’ve got a set place for certain actions, such as “8” is my horsie on every toon I have. It makes life very simple when I want to get out of somewhere fast.

I have recently been binding the ` key (left of 1) for the Blood Elf racial, but I found an even better use with Huntr for it. While still being a Belf, I found it much more useful to just hit ` than to CRTL-1 to sic my pet on something. It’s saving me all kinds of hand cramps and don’t see me changing that [tag]binding[/tag] any time soon.

For Deadr, ` is a satisfying 1400 point Shadow Word: Death as a finishing move. Awesome.

What are your favorite hot keys? Do you keep them the same across the board on your alts?

Sound off.

Filed Under: WoW

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Thodin says

    April 23, 2007 at 12:45 pm

    Hey, that CTRL-1 for pet attack is a phenomenal idea. I just started two hunters and it got very annoying clicking that icon every two seconds. /faceslap Duh!

    ` is my Ventrilo key, I can’t change it to anything else because it feels so natural to click it for talking on Vent.

    I map 1-5 to my most-used skills in any stance, and I click the rest of the skills. Mostly everything other than that is click click click for me.

    Clicks ftl, I know but I’m good at it. I click everything other than my “I need this now!” skills: my hearthstone, mount, potions, etc. I tried using SHIFT 1-5 and CTRL 1-5 for other skills, but my hands are so used to doing certain things it just never feels right and I stop doing it after a while. I guess that’s what happens when you play a certain way for over 2 years. And as a tank, I’m used to my eyes and cursor bouncing like crazy all over the damn place.

  2. Mindkiller says

    April 23, 2007 at 1:51 pm

    I setup the rogues i have with the same order. Usually going from most used to less with the finishers across the top bar on the left of the screen. All ancillary skills are set up on the right side bottom and right side of the screen. SNow gave me a real good way to set up for stealth attacks. I use cheap sot and back stab as the openers. She had me place them on top of each other, cheapshot on the stealth bar and staab on the unstealth bar same location. SO all i have to do is cheap-auto unstealth-backstab. Makes for a good opener and give enough time for a follow up ghostly strike then evis if the combo is full, and usually is. Plus the whole mess of /gchat, /party,/general talk macros i have. I need to post a screen of my mees some time. I am thinking of trying out a ui editor since i see me taking this new mage all the way. I want access to the lower level spells so I can cater the attacks to the level of the prey. Theres no reason to hit a level5 mob with fireball rank4…..pretty but not needed. I want some hotkeys and a better layout then the default. First i will have to find one that i like. This will happen after i get my internet straightened out…er that is until Snow gets it fixed since she is doing all the leg work.

    Yeah I think we are finally going to Cable internet as the DSL we have has been trouble for awhile. I though the lag was the server but it truns out its the providers fault for our crapy connection. As much as we are payin we are only geting what looks like 14.4 or 28.8.

  3. sard says

    April 23, 2007 at 2:07 pm

    I rebound my movement keys to ESDF rather than WASD.

    I now have the following hotkeys for all kinds of stuff (also have them bound to SHIFT):
    `123456
    qwErt
    aSDFg
    zxcvb

    Takes about a week to get used to, but if you can touch-type, it’s real easy to get your hands to the correct position, since they naturally lay in the ASDF position.

  4. Gitr says

    April 23, 2007 at 2:11 pm

    Wow. That’s an interesting idea. Did you change the standard bindings for keys like Z, X, C, and V, or did you leave them the same?

  5. Gillir says

    April 23, 2007 at 2:34 pm

    Like most, 1-5 are the most used actions. For my druid main, 1=entangling roots, 2=macro with instant casts (faerie fire, moonfire, rejuv), 3=wrath, 4=starfire, 5=moonfire, 6=faerie fire. (Bear and cat forms have their own bindings, too, but I don’t want to get that complicated here).

    ZXC are for, what you might call, the saving actions during combat. Z=macro that cancels whatever form I may be in, rejuv, regrowth (has gotten me through some tight scraps), X=hibernate, C=nature’s grasp.

    I hadn’t thought about binding the ` key. I started a hunter alt and have been trying to think of a better way than clicking the button.

  6. Gitr says

    April 23, 2007 at 2:38 pm

    As far as I know, CRTL 1,2,3 are the standard pet commands. They are auto-bound, at least when I started my new hunters using Bongos. I remember using them with Grimr as my first toon before I ever used an add-on, so it must be standard.

  7. Josh says

    April 23, 2007 at 6:42 pm

    I’m also a clicker (clickr?) but I have been known to bind instant-cast, timing-essential spells to buttons like `, z,x,c,f.

    I have a logitech MX510, so my two thumb buttons are bound to autorun and “target MT target”. My third button (wheel) is usually unbound, though with hunter it was pet-attack target.

    For my mage, Frost Nova, Mana Shield, Fire Blast were all hot-keyed. Frost Nova as a hot key saved me many times in PvP.

    For my priest, I’d mostly just use 1-5 (heal, heal, renew, dispel, heal, heal, ad nauseum). Auto-run was still bound.

    I think hotkeys are not completely necessary, though the hard-core PvPers with good connections may see benefit. Being on a minimum 300 ping from Australia sees the 1-2ms twitch time gaining me very little.

  8. Xialus says

    April 23, 2007 at 9:21 pm

    On my hunter I made “z” my attack button for my pet and “x” my, get the hell back here button!

  9. Lance says

    April 24, 2007 at 4:09 am

    I can’t type normally I am a key pecker if you will, so I have my keys binded to 4-9 and then alt4-9 so that my left thumb can hit the alt button easier. Since I can’t type my pinky doesn’t work the way it does on all you normal typer’s. This Hinders me in the amount of keyes I can use in the binded fashion since I can’t reach the shift or ctrl buttons very easily . But after reading this post I binded my pet attack to the 3 button. It works well but I wish my hands worked normally.

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