Keybinding

[monkeyswinkle]

Re Mouse5: I am using that for my Focus Modifier hotkey, and it just doesn't seem to want to work all the time. I'm not sure if it is the key itself, or something to do with the Focus system that I am just not familiar with. I haven't yet tried remapping Focus Modifier to a different key, and have just been tabbing between allies.

Re keybinds: I took a look at Taugrim's keybinding and strafing guide. While I don't use that particular exact setup he uses, one thing I have switched over to is just having strafe left and right on S and F, respectively. I now use Mouse1 and Mouse2 to move forward, and I just don't backpedal, trying to use the two strafes and Mouse2 camera control to zigzag backwards if I need to. I still have my arrow keys for moving forward, backward, and strafing left and right for things like retrieving datacrons, when I don't need to worry about enemies and just need fine control over movement. The shift to using the mouse for forward movement was kind of weird, since I am used to keyboard movement from shooters and such. But, I have finally gotten my middle finger to stop trying to press E when I want to move forward.

I use Mouse4 for Shift, and QWERTYADGHZXCVB for most of my abilities, with a few of the numbers as well. The Shift on my mouse button effectively doubles my keys. QAZ and 4EDX hold most of my instant abilities I need to spam/use on the move, and channels go on other keys, for the most part. It's probably not 100% effective, and I will probably keep tweaking it, but it works pretty well for now.

I use my mousewheel for tabbing between enemies and allies, with Shift added for backwards tabbing. Specifically, I am actually using Mouse3 left and right using Setpoint to assign buttons like Tab and whatever the one is for tabbing between allies to Mouse3 left and right, rather than scrolling the mousewheel to tab. But, that might work, too. That is the only awkward thing about using Mouse1 and Mouse 2 for forward movement. It makes it hard for me to move and tab-target at the same time. I could still use Tab itself, but I usually forget, hehe. Instead, I tend to squish my two fingers to sandwich Mouse3 so I can sort of hit both Mouse1 or Mouse2 and move Mouse3 to one side or the other at the same time, which is still pretty awkward.

[Crash0]

I actually asked this very same question on the official SWTOR forums a week or so ago.. I was in my mid 20's as a sniper, and was running out of rooms. As a former WoW raider, I was used to having a lot of abilities and using modifier keys (alt and shift, mostly), but without the use of Macro's, I was having a hell of a time keeping things straight in SWTOR. Someone recommended I pick up one of these:



It was a great purchase! Now I've got 7 action buttons on the top row in easy reach of my fingers, plus the 2 modifier buttons for shift and ctrl next to the d-pad. As for the d-pad, it's absolutely amazing to use! I stopped using wasd for movement after I got this thing... forward and back on the d-pad do what you would expect, and I have left/right set to strafe. If you push the joystick in, it has a button click on it, so I set that to auto run. I look/steer with my mouse, and movement is all wrapped up.

As for the rest of the key pad, in the first row I have:
1-7: Primary single target DPS rotation
S+1-7: AOE Abilities
C+1-7: Melee Range Abilities (including stuns)
8-14: Utility Abilities (interupts, CC, focus targets, etc)
15-19: These are my Oh-Sh*t buttons, which I bid to my F5-F9 abilities. I have my left action bar set to F5-9, S+F5-9, and C+F9 and C+F10. These are long cooldowns, like adrenalin probe, my stun breaker, and my DPS cooldowns.
G-20 is my speeder bike. It' makes a huge difference being able to mount up quickly, especially when questing in large areas like Hoth.
G-21 is my Sprint buff
G-22 is my Ventrillo PTT key, which is set to Alt.

Funny Story: In my first iteration of key binds, I had the third row set to F1-F5. Just as I about to pull a gold-level elite for a class quest, I fat fingered my PPT key, and hit G22 and G18 at the same time, and my game crashed to desktop! It took me a few seconds to realize that G-22 was bound to Alt, and G18 was bound to F4! Ooops! That's why I rebound that row to F5-F9!

Anyway, in addition to the G13, I have a G500 mouse from Logitech.



This one is nice, because unlike most mid-range gaming mice, this has 3 thumb buttons. I have the farthest one back set to Target Nearest, the middle one set to Jump, and the farthest forward set to Target Next. Having targetting right at the tip of my thumb makes changing targets in rapid situations (FPs, and PVP) very easy. I had to find a place to bind Jump since neither hand rests on my keyboard anymore, so I can't hit space. As an added bonus, since Space is the default 'skip movie' button, it makes skipping past dialog in FP's I've already done very easy.

Anyway, that's probably more information than you really needed, but if you've got a little Christmas money left over the G13 is a fantastic investment if are having trouble getting used to keyboard binds. Now that I've had mine for a week or so now, I'll never go back to a standard keyboard. The d-pad alone makes it worth it, both for the ease of use and for freeing up those keys for other binds.

Hope this helps,
Crash

[GWARRR]

First things first, I unbound Turn Left/Right from A and D and put in Strafe Left/Right, respectively.

After that, everything within short reach, which means:

12345
zxcvb
shift+1234
shift+zxcvb
ctrl+12345
ctrl+zxcvb

Generally I keep the spammers on 12345, secondary functions (i.e. healing abilities, tank abilities) on zxcvb, AoE on shift+1234, panic buttons on shift+zxcvb, objective stuff on ctrl+zxcvb, and the rarely-useds on ctrl+12345. More keybinds available than keys required, but I try to slot them in based on what seems comfortable to me rather than the "next one on the line," so to speak. I do also do corny things like assign my long 60s CC to ctrl+c and my grenade to ctrl+4, but that's mostly for kicks.

Being that SWTOR is my first true MMO, I had to take the time to learn it this way (especially with the no turning keybinds), but I'm much happier with this setup.

[Salion]

A lot of people advocate unbinding turn left and turn right, and in many games I agree that it makes sense. In TOR, however, I'm finding that my tab targetting isn't always reliable, especially if there are small obstacles that cause enemies to drop out of LOS or slight differences in terrain heights (steps, etc.). I often have to click on the enemy I want to attack, and I use the turn keys during these situations. There are also the out-of-combat reasons for keeping the turns keybound - moving around with only the left hand while eating, sending your crew out on missions, organizing your inventory, etc.

Edit: I thought I'd add in this reason from another thread for keeping the turns keybound.

(12-31-2011 12:51 AM)theothersteve7 Wrote:  So I discovered something annoying. You can use your arrow keys to move your ship around independent of aiming, and it's really useful. Only problem is, to move left and right you need to hit the keyboard turn buttons. I unbound those before I even moved my character for the first time, and I'm not looking forward to changing my controls around every time I want to do a space mission.

[theothersteve7]

Still totally worth it!

I'm really starting to run out of buttons at 36. How useful are the "only usable on stunned enemies and not elites" and "only useful on slowed enemies and not elites" at endgame?

[Kaedis]

Quote:How useful are the "only usable on stunned enemies and not elites" and "only useful on slowed enemies and not elites" at endgame?

Useful during the 30-50 grind, moderately useful in flashpoint, essentially worthless in Ops, and 100% worthless in PvP.

Side note: how are you running out of buttons? With 24 available at the bottom, plus another 24 on the sides if needed, it's not too hard to bind everything you need. On my sorc, I have both bottom bars bound in my standard format, then the left bar bounds piecemeal as I need it. I'm using 33 out of the 36 buttons available on those 3 bars, and that includes having Saber Strike, Tumult, and Throw the Huttball bound. Shouldn't have any problems finding enough hotbar real estate unless you're doing silly things like putting your profession on the bars or putting empty button visual spacers on the hotkeyed bar.

[bluekieran]

For what it's worth, I did eventually get my bindings mostly sorted. I ended up putting all my channeled abilities on the keyboard, and the most important once usable on the move on the mouse sidepad. Everything with a cooldown/conditional effect is on the bottom two quickbars.

I'm not using modifiers much, except for stuff rarely used in combat, although I use mousewheel + modifiers for targetable AoEs (wheel alone for Death From Above, CTRL for Stealth Scan, Alt for Throw Huttball).

I've also set mousepad-5 to a macro that executes Heat Blast immediately followed by Rapid Shots, so the latter will be fired if the former is on CD. I can see me doing a bit more of that sort of stacking if I'm going to fit in everything with no modidiers.

[theothersteve7]

I meant good keybinds rather than space on the bars. If those abilities were vital for PVP and ops add management, I'd have given them quality space since they need convenient placement to be used reactively. Since that's not the case, I'll use that real estate elsewhere.

[Salion]

(01-04-2012 01:29 AM)Kor Wrote:  Side note: how are you running out of buttons? With 24 available at the bottom, plus another 24 on the sides if needed, it's not too hard to bind everything you need. On my sorc, I have both bottom bars bound in my standard format, then the left bar bounds piecemeal as I need it. I'm using 33 out of the 36 buttons available on those 3 bars, and that includes having Saber Strike, Tumult, and Throw the Huttball bound. Shouldn't have any problems finding enough hotbar real estate unless you're doing silly things like putting your profession on the bars or putting empty button visual spacers on the hotkeyed bar.

On my Shadow, including consumables, trinkets, Throw the Huttball, and a slot for items that have to be used on missions, I have 50 abilities to fit on my action bars. (This doesn't include a couple of slots I'd like to leave empty, for consistency while respeccing between tank and dps). Since I'd like to keep my companion bar up to toggle some of his abilities, I only have 36 free spots on my bars. Until we get some customization, I have the companion bar toggle bound so that I can use it or hide it as needed, and I manually replace my RP consumables with my PvP consumables when I queue for PvP. It's all very inefficient, though.

I do usually leave empty spaces in my bars to help keep abilities grouped better visually, mainly so that similar abilities are in the same place when I switch between alts. I'm used now to having everything crammed together on my main, but I'm not looking forward to having to learn a different bar setup for each of other 7 advanced classes.

[Vor]

Is anyone having any luck making macros?

I am trying to utilize my n52te to make a "useable on stun" skill and a "useable on targets <30% health" skill on the same key. I am having no luck at all.

I don't understand why it is not working. In theory the key press should try the first skill and if the requirements are not met, use the second skill. I have tried altering the in game skill que, and adding different delays in the n52te software macro builder. Nothing seems to work and it is driving me bonkers!

Could anyone that has successfully created any macros using the n52te please share what skills and methods you were able to use?