Keybinds 

It is critical that you have every key on your keyboard set up to an ability. If you are new to keybinds, then just like learning to type, you should assign one key per day of gameplay, and practice it a few hours, until 50 days later you have all 50 keys burned into your skull. If you have multiple toons, then it helps to use the same keys for the same abilities. For example, “R” is always bandage. And for me “X” is always a defensive ability that is critical for me, such as fade, or blink or drain life.

Q: Why keybind?

A: It’s much faster than mouseclicking (But joo don’t understand!, I mouse click REALLY fast !!!)
A: It allows for multiple possible responses to a threat.
A: It allows for streamlined sequence of responses.
A: It allows you to slam on 3-4-5 responses at once until one catches.
A: There are times you must mouse-move and you need your left hand ready to cast spells while you helicopter-move an offensive spell into someone’s face while you run away.

Q: Hey buddy, I’m still not convinced, can you give me a really concrete example of how my game play will improve?
A: Yes, listen and learn…

Let’s suppose you are playing 2’s as a disc priest with an arms warrior. You are against a Mage/Arms combo. Mage is bearing down on you. Warriors are head to head.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you are moving with WASD with your left hand. With you right hand, you place your 5 fingers over B,H,U,I,L. Let’s say you are a discipline priest. Your opponent is a frost mage. You fear one of many possible moves on you… sheep, silence, deep freeze, ice lance, frostbolt, nova. your biggest threat is getting deep frozen, then shattered, so you process possible threats, and decide to save your trinket for DF. You will dispel frost effects on you. You process that mage will spell steal any hot or shield, so you start thinking about direct heals. 

You wait patiently for the mage to attack. You hover three fingers over dispel, flash heal, and trinket. B,H,U. Meanwhile, you are thinking about keeping your partner up. He’s getting thrashed by a warrior, and you don’t mind dropping a HOT or shield on him. So you literally have your fingers hovered over BHUIL for those 5 spells. You partner is half-health after a massive crit. Your left hand clicks F2 for warrior, and you right hand clicks I, L for shield, renew. Then you get frostbolted. You fear a deepfreeze, so you dispel. You warrior needs to be yanked out of melee range of his opponent — another warrior. So you leap of faith him back to you with O. Now you need him dispelled to reach the mage. But if you get DF’d you are worthless. You save trinket for DF, and you get hit with 2 frost bolts. You are DF’d, and you trinket.

What I am trying to illustrate is that if my mouse is hovering over the screen, it can only be in one place at a time. If I change my mind on what to click on, I will lose time. You need to have it in 5 places at a time. And you may need to go start to click on one then change your mind.

Now, what if you need to change camera angles, and see what’s behind you? How would you drag the screen with the mouse if you are busy trying to click on a box? In that case, I move my right hand back to the mouse to change camera angle, and my left hand hovers over BHUIL to consider one of 5 spells to cast.

Targeting: Try setting your “tab” key to “target nearest enemy PLAYER” and shift-tab to nearest enemy (the old setting) — this will stop u from targeting pets and totems when you don’t want to.

Weekly Task: Recheck all our keybinds, and make sure the ones you use the most and have the shortest CDs, are closest to your left hand for speed. Take a good look at all 50 keybinds each week, and make decisions to move some around to get a little faster. Be flexible.