Best Keybinds for World of Warcraft: An Optimal and Scientific Approach



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We gott all the gang together to yell at eachother about what keybinds are best until no-one was happy. A podcast style episode backed by the scientific method and JPCs unhinged piano teacher.

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30 thoughts on “Best Keybinds for World of Warcraft: An Optimal and Scientific Approach”

  1. QWE is the superior movement setup

    this allows u to hit A and D without having to take your finger off your movement keys

    try hitting E while moving with D.. you have to physically take your finger off the key

    binding Q and E to strafe right/left allows u to slide into A and D much easier for a stun/silence

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  2. All these guys here – pressing shift, ctrl, and alt manualy.
    me – I have ctrl/alt/shift all as mouse buttons rather than a specific ability on the mouse.

    My keybinds generally

    Movement keys
    W – Move forward
    Q – strafe left
    E – strafe right
    S – Move backward (rarely used, but does come in handy. Especially in some scenarios when tanking and want to move something just a little bit)
    Mouse right click – For all other movement options. It's pretty common for me to maneuver with strafe + mouse on fights. Manifested timeways comes to mind. or kiting around a boss while keeping melee uptime.

    Mouse buttons
    1-3: ctrl/alt/shift. the quickest for my thumbs to reach and my thumbs are always resting there. turns all of my basic 1-5 binds into 4 binds. so i can quickly reach any of near 20 skills.
    4-5: These are often used for stuff I want keybound, but aren't really specific to anything. I've put beacon here, I've put a hotkey to spam waymakers, one to clear waymarkers. etc.
    center mouse button pressed – Short Cooldown Defensive (Feint/blur)
    scroll up – non dragon mount
    scroll down – hearthstone
    mouse button 3rd main click – dragon
    Mouse wheel right click – Hard CC 1 (Kidney Shot)
    Mouse Wheel left click – hard cc 2 (Gauge)
    note: for the mouse wheel right, left, and click – those control druid forms when playing druid. as does scroll up (travel form)

    Main hotkeys
    2 and 3 – spammable rotational abilities, or heavily used abilities. Generally my builders if that class uses them (Sinister strike/pistol shot | Fracture/Soul Cleave)
    1 and 4 – occasionally used rotational abilities. Tend to be spenders, or something slightly longer cd but still core to ratation (Between the Eyes/Dispatch | Immo aura/Spirit Bomb)
    5 – occasionally used or situational abilities, if i have a spammable AoE finisher it often goes here, with spammable AoE builder on 4 (Throw Glaive)
    6 – rarely used abilities. usually something that I don't need often. This is often not even bound to anything (Provoke: all tanks)

    Shift buttons (mouse button modifier 1)
    1 – generally a dash or mobility skill (Grappling Hook | Infernal Strike)
    2 – Interrupts
    3 – occasional class skill, and tank active mit (Steath | Demon Spikes
    4 – AoE stun, or additional movement skills (Sprint | Chaos Nova)
    5 – situationally used skill (Crimson Vial | Felblade)
    6 – situational skill 2 -(Vengeful Retreat)

    ctrl (mouse modifier 2)
    1 – If i need it for rotation it's there. (Shiv | Fel Devestation)
    2 – generally some type of buff, or utility skill (Slice n Dice | Fiery Brand)
    3 – Healthstone
    4 – ST stops (blind | imprison)

    alt (mouse modifier 3)
    1 – longer cd rotational. (Ghostly Strike | Sigil of silence)
    2 – Moderate cd (Blade Rush | Sigil of Misery)
    3 – occasional AoE skill (Blade Flurry " Sigil of Flame)
    4 – occasional rotational ability (Roll the Bones | Elysian Decree)
    5 – rarely used.

    F keys

    F 1-3: Often offensive cd's. usually try to put any paired cd's close together. as my muscle memory hits f2 pretty reliably. F1 is usually a major tank defensive cd used frequently.
    ctrl + f1-3: Tend to be major defensive cd's, and immunities across the board. be that tanks, dps, or heals.

    Additional f1-f3 are entirely situational. Some classes have extra's that I need bound to alt or shift. but most of the time it's unneeded. All of my f keys will have a minimum cd of 1m. Often longer. Even my assasination rogues kingsbane + dance window is bound to alt + 3. . .

    note – but again, I have 3 mouse buttons for the modifiers. so it isnt' really akward to pair alt, ctrl, or shift with any other bind. but for obvious reasons I don't have any of them bound to f4 . . . just in case I get in the moment and accidently keybind f4 shortly after pressing an alt modifier elsewhere, causing an unfortunate side effect . . Which may or may not have caused this very adaptation.

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  3. So funny to hear everyone's takes on the movement keys. As someone who used to mainly pvp I didn't have a key for moving backwards but, now that I play more pve backward movement can be useful for slight adjustments on dodging ground swirlies. I use e for forward s and f for strafing and shift d for moving backwards, saving d for another ability bind. I find having the movement keys shifted to the right opens up more keybinds.

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  4. SteelSeries Merc stealth, best wow keyboard ever. Scroll up and down for Main abilities, scroll wheel press for aoe, mouse forward button for CC, mouse back for dump/damage, 7 for interrupts (Merc stealth layout), dash 8. Additional binds: scroll right left, G, R, V, Function keys for cooldowns, tilda for oh shit buttons(bubble, feign death, Emerald communion etc). For healing I use mouse over click label with shift, alt control modifiers, and scroll up down. Standard movement keys, standard menu keys.

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  5. Mouse to move only, two mouse buttons to strafe, one to target. fingers rest on E R T and Y, and you move up and down from there. 2-8, w-u, and s-j. you can move and cast anything at the same time. Press alt with your palm. EZ. not a single keyboard movement key

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  6. Shout out to changing Q and E. I remember doing that when WoW first dropped (came from CS), and having the strafe on the Q and E keys was too strange for me. I remember about 18 years ago showing my buddy my rogue, and he was trying to move and gave me crap about changing those keys. WELL LOOK WHO'S LAUGHIN NOWWWWW!

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  7. Wtf are these shortcuts. There is no logic. In al honesty my rotation is 1-7 on my MMO mouse than I have shift 1-7 mostly for AOE and Ctrl 1-4 these are always crowd control
    Q and shift Q is movement+
    E and shift E is interrupt and hard CC
    F and shift F self heal and defensive
    x and Shift X big CD's
    G, shift G and CTR G are stealths stances and or shapeshifts

    But I might actually use the one step to the right idea making movement EDSF I actually think that'd brilliant. On the other hand… I really don't need more shortcuts :')

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  8. WASD movement (strafe a-d)
    I have 7 buttons in the mouse(+shift and +alt) so 21
    Q,E,R,T,F (+shift and +alt) 15 more
    “F is always my stun on every too”
    Also scroll up and down with (+shift and +alt)

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  9. 1-4 main , q for aoe , e for aoe spender, mouse button 4 for st spender . S1-5 for util . F for main Talented spell . T and Shift T for main defensive . C for aoe stun , v for kick , X for Vanish type ability , Z for trinket . These are the best binds don’t @ me

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  10. This spiraled so quickly into chaos. Biggest take away I got was do your keybindings however you want because everyone has different sized hands and and different sized brains

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  11. I’m surprised more people don’t use mouse wheel up/down for spammable attacks. Shift+mouse wheel for movement abilities. I set it up years ago and haven’t been able to go back

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  12. I use 3 keybinds. Q/E to strafe and W for forward. You should never move back peddle. Use your mouse.

    1-5 and shift+1-5 should be main abilities. Anything over 5 is dumb because you shouldn't be stretching out past what your hand can do. Hand shouldn't move

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  13. I'm a hunter and forward wheel scroll on my mouse is AoC and backward wheel scroll on my mouse is disengage.

    On my pally alt, forward is my mount, and on my shaman, forward is wind gust, while backwards is my wind rush totem.

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