I’ve had a very dumb thought noodling for a while about how I play my characters, and I blame my utter lack of imagination in how same-y they control at times.
Because I’m ballin’ out of my mind irl my wired mouse has 2 buttons on the side of it. The M4 (closest to wire) is typically a “if I remember to use it this could be really helpful” click, M5 (the abused one) being the “slightly stronger than right click” click, then ofc left click auto/move, right click feature skill.
My keyboard skills are… well, it’s taken me about 9 or so minutes to get this far, so I’ll let you judge me for that if you’d like. So I keep it simple for the sake of my character’s life: 1 is always (if available) a heal, period - R/E stays for the pot [FoA changin’ things up so may not always heal]. 2 - 4 (please God no more than 4) is either more healing, ala WH, or defensive tools that I can fat-finger when things get sketch. Any seldom used skills, like summoning, get put on 8 and then 7 if I have more than one.
I would make a graphic to show this stuff, but that’s, like, personal, back off a bit pls - and anyway, I have no clue who else has ever cared about crud like this before.
I also try to map similar skills to the same buttons across characters. Otherwise I have to relearn how to play every time I switch. It’s not always 100% possible, but I try to keep the variants down.
Also I remapped everything beyond 4 to qweasd and have pots on rf so I don’t have to awkwardly move across the keyboard for various things.
1: A movement skill. It was that way in WoW and in D3. If I don’t have a movement skill, I put the evade skill there, even though I know it’s mapped to the space bar.
2-6: Summoning/Utility skills. Some characters have a busier toolbar than others. If I can I like to have a space between skills so I don’t accidently press the wrong number key.
7-8: Healing or damage mitigation spells/skills.
9: Healing potion. I know it’s mapped to R.
0: Mana potion. I know it’s mapped to E.
For my mouse. Left click is my damage outputter when I play melee builds. The right click is usually a support skill or sometimes an additional movement skill. If I am playing range or a caster, then I keep the left click free for movement and associating with non-monster items. My right click is for spell casting.
I try my best to follow that format. I am not a fan of piano key playing characters. I did enough of that playing WoW. Now, I try to simplify my tool bar to allow it to be more mouse clicky friendly. Though I do have my finger hovering over the 7-9 in those intense battles.
I am so used to hitting T for my hearthstone or town portal, so I have that mapped to my rift. Though, sometimes I use the mouse to click on the TP icon. I use the M key (map overview) a lot, especially when uncovering new areas of doing the SR levels. Yes, I use the mini map on my upper right-hand screen too.
Left click - autoattack or Move-To.
Right click - mobility skill
1-3 - Self-Buffs that either need constant uptime (PB, BoD, etc.) or reactionary skills like Mirror
4-6 - Debuffs
7 - A second mobility skill (if any) or some other utility. Pet Attack if needed.
Potions use R/E binds
I don’t play pet builds so the closest I get are Wind Devils/etc. I put these on the secondary bar, starting from 1.
Above are all the characters which I consider “finished”. I can see some patterns like rune-granted movement skill on 1, heals on 2, Nullification and Mirror on 4 and 5 and summons around 7, but a few things like the pet attack button are very random .
Color me blind here, but what are those aether crystal-lookin’ things on your hotbars? Are those what the clusters look like when they’re used as intended?
Unrelated, but I bet anyone that had a group project with you had nightmares about having to explain your work.
A bit late to the party, but yes.
That thing on 0 hotkey in most examples above is the aether cluster, can be consumed to gain 75% incoming damage reduction for a few seconds.
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