World of Warcraft

Been playing wow on and off for years now. I have a few 85's and many high level alts. I love PVP but decided i could be a lot better if i was to keybind. I jumped onto my arms warrior and set up a few keybinds around my movement keys (A=strafe left S=forward D=strafe right) I removed the back key as i know its bad to back peddle. Anyway i trained on a practice dummy learning to strafe around in circles with the right mouse button clicked in and strafe left and right keyboard keys. I then practiced with some keybinds around the movement keys which after a while i started to get the hang of. I then put this practice into some BG's PVP. I soon became very familiar with the ghost rez screen :( I seem fine on the practice dummy and then in the mayhem of PVP my fingers just seem to end up turning into a heap. the biggest problem i seem to have is i can strafe fine around a stationary practice dummy but then when it comes to a moving target it all goes wrong. I always need to have at least one finger over a strafe key either A or D and then another finger free for a action keybind. This plus moving a finger back over the S if i need to move forward along with the right mouse button held down and moving the mouse for direction it all just seems to much. Im so tempted to give up and go back to clicking where i do better. How long does it take for the average person to become confident with their keybinds and movement to where they see a improvement in PVP as ive only been practicing for 2 days and just cant see me ever getting their.

This is something you will generally get better at the more experience you have with it. It always feels clunky in the beginning, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes. It's like learning to ride a bicycle :)

Practise against your friends, practise on mobs, etc. It'll get easier eventually. Practising in 1vs1 is probably better than trying to go for chaotic PVP right away. Although charging into a group with all cooldowns popped and bladestorming while you strafe in circles is always fun!


I would suggest you use the same kind of abilities on the same kind of keybinds you are used to. For example, if you are used to playing a rogue, I suggest you place charge where you normally have your rogue's Shadowstep. That way you can instinctively reach for the 'kind' of button you are used to, and it won't feel strange. Same goes for stuns, interrupts, and effects that you would use in roughly the same situations, such as panic buttons or other cooldowns.

It makes it a lot easier to focus on learning movement. Also I suggest using W for forward movement instead of S. It leaves your finger closer to your numbers.

thanks for the info

i to have charge and shadowstep on same keybind, i have al the interrupts on the smae keybind to and u can do 2 moves on the same button. if u have 2 interupts u can put it as i have on F and shift F or ctr F. if u want to know my keybind on my warr i can give them and explain them:P its really handy when u can use them fast in bgs

Its more the movement I'm struggling with while doing dps I think. While its stationary its not to bad as I can just keep strafe left or right held down with one finger having a couple more free for damaging keybinds. When the target is moving though I don't know how you guys manage to keep a finger down on your forward key while keeping fingers free to go down on either the right or left strafe key while also having a finger bouncing around your damaging abilities keys while also pushing your mouse right or left to strafe. BAMBOOZLED...

Getting a mouse with sidebuttons helps too. Using Razer Naga and at first it was a bit weird till I got used to it and now I can't play without it Got 9 binds on the mouse at the moment (few of the buttons are in awkward place so haven't binded them).

19/02/2012 18:00Posted by Shammyshammy

Its more the movement I'm struggling with while doing dps I think. While its stationary its not to bad as I can just keep strafe left or right held down with one finger having a couple more free for damaging keybinds. When the target is moving though I don't know how you guys manage to keep a finger down on your forward key while keeping fingers free to go down on either the right or left strafe key while also having a finger bouncing around your damaging abilities keys while also pushing your mouse right or left to strafe. BAMBOOZLED...

Are you subtly trying to say melee classes require more skill than ranged classes? :3


As for the keeping on moving issue, I'd say there's several solutions.

Either you very rapidly rapidly release W to quickly hit the right number and return it to W so your actual pause is really short,

Or you try to use a different finger to hit those buttons,

Or you 'move forward' by strafing in your target's direction so your W-finger is free to hit abilities,

Or you keybind auto-run toggle on a convenient place. I have auto-run keybound to my middle mouse button and I use it frequently. That way you don't need to press W all that much, if you keep steering in circles through your opponent with your right mouse button while you DPS. That way you practically move only with your mouse and have your fingers free exclusively for abilities, although you still end up breaking autotoggle with actual movements when it seems more convenient to do so.

To be quite honest, I don't pay all that much attention to it. I guess it just comes naturally after a while, you get used to it. I would say practise it on mobs; try to keep moving around them and moving forward while DPSing them.

Thinking it over I dont know how I do it myself tbh! think I mostly just run forward and through them etc and change the angle of running with the right mouse button.

Starting to learn keybinds myself and have the same issue, seems to go fine untill i panick :)

more practice needed i guess

Getting used to keybinds is all about practice.

This practice can also happen in PvE too. Once you get it into your muscle memory, it's a walk in the park.

Guess ill just have to keep practicing :D

Getting a mouse with side-buttons helps too. Using Razer Naga and at first it was a bit weird till I got used to it and now I can't play without it Got 9 binds on the mouse at the moment (few of the buttons are in awkward place so haven't binded them).

using it to. but without this mouse, if you use your mouse for turning and going forward, If you key bind, the left mouse button can be used to move. I still have the W, bind to move forward, but only if i need to click something. I strafe with the Q or E, and the mouse, using my thumb to cast the buttons on the side. but even without a naga, previously i had a normal 5 button mouse, i had mousebuttons 4 and 5 connected to a macro to move and cast.

start of with a few key binds and work your way up from there, no one starts off a pro in pvp.

just give it practice, don't take it too seriously, focus on having fun and the rest will fall in to place ^___^

There is a addon on curse I believe which helps with keybind learning.

I remember it during wotlk and you could set binds up and then have a "test" where it tells you to use a certain ability and you have to press the bind.

You might like to try this:-

I don't find strafe-turning circles very useful. It only works on a fixed radius and you quickly run out of room on your mousepad. If you haven't got a gaming mouse, you also need to use the keyboard for your strafe keys - not good.

Much better I find is to use a figure-of-eight.
You don't need to use anything except forward motion and a simple mouse turn. You can run through the opponent, taking a melee cut as you go, then turn and come back. Repeat, turning the other way to complete the fo8. It's easy to do and you can see where you're going more clearly. You can make each run as long as you like and in a crowd it's very effective.

Most opponents just stand there while you cut them down.
If you're up against a melee opponent, you're out of their reach except at the moment you are making your own strike.

I only have one keyboard key bound to movement other than jump/spacebar - the extreme left-top key is 'forward' and I use it only occasionally when I want to mouse-click something while still moving. Otherwise I always use the 'both-mouse-buttons' for 'forward'. I use a Naga mouse with the extra buttons bound to strafe, turn, run/walk and auto - and mount/dismount

The entire left-hand side of my keyboard is bound - mostly to macros - I rarely use a vanilla spell.
I still mouse-click spells I don't need in a hurry - potions Path-of-Frost, that sort of thing.

The best tip I can give for keybinds is to put similar spells for different chars on the same keys. For example I've got all my interrupts on "E" and "R" (with mods) for all characters. That way it's a lot easier to switch between characters. Other than that, I'd suggest learning to move with just the mouse. That makes it a lot easier to hit your attack spells while moving around.

Whenever I start new keybinds, macros or try out new speccs I go and do a bunch of dailies. I dont try to do em 1 at a time but go crazy a lil, mass pull, run around while agroed that kind of thing. Even if I mess up NPCs usually are not strong enough to kill me for my mistakes (what a PvP opponent would do) so I get the chance to get used to my new toys under pressure.

Once I got used to the layout and the use I take it to the next level, go instances or BGs to have some fun in. Like some people already said....the more you do it the better you become.

This is why I prefer to use additional mouse buttons for strafing, the downside being that you need a gaming mouse for that.

Using the keyboard to strafe always struck me as incredibly unwieldy. With strafing (and jumping) on the mouse I can move any way I want all the time while being able to use any keybind anywhere and anytime on the keyboard.

My friends told me I NEED to have all these lettered keys keybinded I tried it and failed miserbly. People often say It's bad I have 1 to = and F1 to F12 keybinded but I have big hands and it works very well for me :P

What I am trying to say is just experiment and see what works best there are a million ways you can set up but at the end of the day it is what works for you

It's all about getting used to it, a common mistake you must avoid when trying new keybinding is to play 5 minutes with it, think you have trouble remembering them and activating them as needed (you'll do said mistakes at first), and then think "well it doesn't work, time to change keybinds".

Make sure to play a good chunk of time before trying to change keybinds, unless they're really too awkward for you.

Basically the keyword here is perseverance and patience.