Q & A: My Key Bindings

First off, if you’ve sent me an email that I never replied to, please do not take offense. I receive a decent amount of email now and again – mostly pertaining to my UI – and it gets very difficult for me to devote time to detailed responses, especially when things are crazy around here. I wish I could respond to each and every one of you, but unfortunately my role as WoW blogger has dropped a few rungs in terms of priority and importance in my life.

However, once in awhile someone catches me during a good time where I’m able to provide a thorough reply. The following was an answer to a question sent in by David, in which he asked how I configured my UI and keybinds – most importantly, how I use my action bars. Those of you who’ve seen my UI know that most of my abilities are hidden from view, so David wanted to know where I stuck my skills and how I clicked on them, or if I had everything bound.

Before we continue, here’s a look at how I have my UI configured. (additional images can be seen here)

In the image you only see 2 action bars, plus a tiny 4-slotter which has my traps. All others bars are hidden; however, I do set them to display in the very rare case that I am dabbling with an alt (i.e., lesser class). If you’re thinking of going to a setup like mine, it’s a good idea to have all of your abilities viewable on screen until you get the hangs of things. I have all of my skills committed to memory so I like to hide everything, with nothing showing but mainly the cooldowns I want to monitor.

Some of you may benefit from this response as well, so I figured I’d share it with everyone!

Hi David, I use keybinds for everything. I like to use the mouse solely for movement, so I have all skills assigned to keys.

The way I have my UI set up is this:

The first action bar shows actual abilities that are assigned to the keys 1 through =, so Scatter Shot I have bound to 1, Arcane Shot to 5, Intimidation to =, etc… That’s a very old habit that I just can’t change, so I stopped fighting it. 😉 When I first started playing WoW, I naturally assigned my attacks to the default keys and that just works for me.

The second bar shows important cooldowns, but those keybinds are all over the place – the bar is just there for reference.

The third mini-bar with the traps is also there solely to monitor cooldowns.

All other bars are set to be hidden, apart from the one I have set to display on hover for misc non-combat odds and ends. That’s more of a convenience thing for swapping pets or having easily clickable quest item on-use stuff, etc.

My keybinds would be considered unorthodox by most, because I’m all over the place. I’m not a touch typist, so some of my keys do require a quick bit of eye-hand, but I’m pretty efficient with it. My oft-used skills I can control without my eyes leaving the screen, but some abilities require a quick glance.

I also place some critical abilities in odd places so that it lessens the likelihood of a mistake. Example: Deterrence is bound to / so I must be very deliberate when I want to use it. Same with Rapid Fire – I have that bound to \.

You may look at this list and go wtf..?! But I say go with whatever works for you, and maybe a few of these keybinds will make sense or at least get you thinking, so here goes…

• ` – Master’s Call
• 1 – Scatter Shot
• 2 – Glaive Toss
• 3 – Counter Shot
• 4 – Concussive Shot
• 5 – Arcane Shot
• 6 – Serpent Sting
• 7 – Kill Command
• 8 – Cobra Shot
• 9 – Widow Venom
• 0 – HM / Target Macro
• – – Big Red
• = – Initimidation
• f1 – Deterrence
• f2 –  Flare
• f3 – Hunter’s Mark
• f4 – Distracting Shot
• f5 – Tranq Shot macro
• f6 – Multi-Shot
• f7 – Trap Launcher
• f8 – Freezing Trap
• f9 – Frost Trap
• f10 – Explosive Trap
• f11 – Snake Trap
• f12 – Stampede
• w – Pet Attack macro
• a – Pet Care macro
• s – Pet Passive macro (shift+s = Pet Dismiss)
• v  -Pet Sentry macro
• d – Feign Death
• y – Kill Shot
• u – Misdirection
• i – Camouflage
• g – Assist
• h – PvP Trinket
• j – Burst Trinket
• k – Bandage
• ,  – AotH
• . –  Tame Beast + Deterrence macro
• / – Deterrence
• [ – Battle Standard
• ] – Scare Beast
• \ – Rapid Fire
• r – Racial (Shadowmeld in my case)
• x – GoGoMount
• z – autorun
• shift + mouse scroll up = switch to PvP gear
• shift + mouse scroll down = fishing macro

So there ya have it! 😀

Have a great rest of your weekend!

One thing I forgot to mention in my response was that I’ve reassigned all of the default UI functions so that they have a modifier key, for example, I use Shift or Alt + m, b, c, etc…to open up the various UI windows. A few years ago I finally grew tired of an ill-timed accidental opening of the character pane while I was in an arena – or worse yet, a large world map. Nothing worse than thinking you have a chat window open, pressing M, then having your screen eclipsed my a world map. So, I suggest adding modifiers to certain UI windows so that they don’t get accidentally triggered.