Keybinds Guide - WoW

I've done my best to group all of the key binds by which of them is most useful and by most useful I mean which of them is easiest to hit while moving because that's what determines how good a key bind is your goal with key binds is to make sure you are always able to outmaneuver your opponent be that by kiting effectively on hunter or constantly getting behind your target on a road or warrior so you can't be parried now you accomplish this by having key binds that allow you to have your hands on the movement keys as much as possible so obviously you want to put your most important abilities on keys that are closest to your hand now when it comes to modifiers you should only be using shift at first using shift as a modifier allows you to effectively double the amount of keybinds that you have instead of just having one through four you now have shift one through four now don't get me wrong ctrl and alt are great but they're hard to get used to so start with just using shift I've been playing since Burning Crusade and I still only barely use control even in arenas now I cannot stress this one enough guys the best key binds at your disposal are not on your keyboard at all they are mouse button five and mouse button for they're the easiest buttons to hit while moving now this actually includes shift mouse button 5 + shift mouse button 4 because these also don't interrupt your movement I place my most spammed instant cast abilities like sinister strike mortal strike or fire blast on my mouse buttons the only time you're gonna see me break from that is when the ability has a cast time like frost bolt you're never going to need to press a movement key at the same time as pressing frost bolt now following this the next best key binds are going to be scroll wheel up scroll wheel down and again these shift modified versions and you've probably guessed why it's because it's easy to use them while moving this is really what opens up the amount of key vines that you have the one problem with the mouse wheel though is if you put an ability on it that you're going to spam like sinister strike you can give yourself carpal tunnel syndrome very very quickly it's an excellent place though for openers movement or set up abilities like hunter's mark blink cheap shot or even gouge try to think of abilities that you need to cast while moving but you're not going to hit them very often that's what you want to put on the mousewheel now using something like shift scroll wheel down for gouge might sound a little crazy at first but give it a try seriously it's way easier to use it while moving then you would initially think all right now we're moving on to the actual keyboard these are buttons that are still very easy to hit while moving and are great for instant cast abilities that don't fit on your mouse but while these are the best key binds located on your actual keyboard they don't even come close to being as useful as your mouse buttons now after this I think that 2 3 4 and s are still easy to hit great for abilities with a low cooldown think 30 seconds this is going to mean stuff like finishers interrupts or CC abilities now two in particular is very good for abilities with a cast time because normally the problem with two is that while it's really easy to hit you can't press W and two at the same time to run forward this is because they both use the same finger but this isn't a problem when the ability that you put there has a cast time after that it's going to be G 1 X and Z still easy to hit these but they're a bit farther away so this is a good place for abilities with a longer cooldown for example I always place my ice block or bubble on shift G it might seem weird to have one this far down on the list but really it isn't nearly as good of a key bind as those in the tiers above it shift 1 in particular can be very clunky to hit so I tend to put my least important offensive cooldown on shift 1 this is the last tier of what I consider to be usable key binds these are good for spells you almost never use but you still need a key bind for them for that one time you're gonna use them spells like scare beasts expose armor or potions and bandages are really good here some people like to move over the keys es DF instead of WASD this way they get access to more keys but I'm not the biggest fan of this setup because it makes it way harder to hit the shift modifier which you are going to be using a lot so I don't recommend it if you're using this guide with retail in mind and you're wondering what should you be using in arenas a common setup would be one like this you use qwe for movement and strafing and that leaves you free to assign a s and D to targeting arena one through three this completely removes the ability to keyboard turn or backpedal which are both extremely bad in high-end PvP this also allows you to assign things like counter spell arena one through three to shift a shift s and shift D since they're no longer tied to movement it's gonna give you a way faster reaction time on your interrupts but make sure you don't assign anything to shift on the keys that you are going to use for a movement in this case that would be Q W and E those need to be dedicated to only moving all right before you go key binding anything you need to organize your spell's on your bars first if you notice I don't do what a lot of other guides recommend where they've got 1 through 5 on their bar and then shift 1 through 5 right above it I know this doesn't look as pretty but there is a good reason for it you want to keep things close together based on what they actually do for example all of my offensive abilities go right here and my defensives go over here this way whenever I'm about to die I can look in one spot and immediately see all of my options in general I try to keep offensive abilities in front of my hand defensives to the right of my hand and set up abilities below my hand this is just what makes the most sense to my brain you don't have to use this but it is a pretty good setup you've probably also noticed that I don't use Q and E that's because I use them for movement look I need to be able to keyboard turn when I'm playing with one handle right I I mean these Doritos aren't gonna eat themselves right it's a really good idea though to try to think of each key bind as being for a specific type of ability this is gonna help a lot when you create more than one character for example if I keep buying scattershot 2/4 on my hunter it's also gonna be blind to my rogue sheep on my mage or fear on my warlock pretty simple stuff you've probably heard that before alright let's show an actual example this is what I use on my rope you'll see that all the instants are on my mouse buttons it's really nice having backstab here because it makes it really easy to get behind my target the rest of my openers cheap shot and garrote are on my mouse wheel because I'm also using them all moving but I don't hit them that often so it's not going to cause any problems for my hand all of my finishers are on one and two offensives are on are my interrupts always goes on three crowd control on four defensives on F you get the idea if you want to keep looking you can pause the video right here but rogues don't have that many key binds so let's take a look at a class with a few more spells once again all of my instance are on the mouse buttons mouse wheel up is Hunter's mark which while it's not a stun it's always the first thing I'm going to hit when I get into a fight very similar to stuns being the first thing you hit on a rogue and instead of finishers all of my abilities that have a cast time go on one and two hunters don't have an interrupt but keeping my feign death on shift 3 really helps because it can work just like an interrupt against casters everything else here is just about lining up abilities that function the same as the ones on my rogue if they don't line up perfectly I try to think of what abilities I would use in the same situation on both characters I want to show one more example I haven't started a mage yet but when I do I drink that I mean this is probably what it's going to look like if you're hoping to see my setup for any of the other classes or maybe even a class from battle for Azeroth just ask in the comments so I'll do my best to answer I played almost every class in retail except for death Knights and screw those guys all right now let's get into how to actually do your key binds the first step is going to be unkind everything that you're not going to use there are a lot of default key binds and while that are very easy to hit on accident that you need to take care of so you're gonna start by getting rid of move and steer on the metal mouse button it's the same as hitting both the left and right mouse buttons at the same time so it's pointless to have a key bind for it I also recommend getting rid of numpad 0 for jump I then uncombined almost everything in chat except for of course open chat on enter and push talk and then in action bar I uncombined everything that comes after 5 and yes you unfortunately have to do this one at a time it's really boring and tedious I know but it's worth it I also know it feels like you might need some of these and you're wondering why are we getting rid of all of them but trust me you really don't want to hit these on accident if you do want to keep buying something specific in here though such as your pet abilities or your warrior stances with the special action bar you can do that but often it's better to handle this with a macro instead and then place it on your bars now all of the changes we're making right now are going to be the defaults for your entire account it's really important that you don't hit character specific key bindings until you're done with at least setting up your main character you only want to have to do this once all right jump into targeting and uncombined everything except for target nearest enemy I might get some flack for this one but seriously it's very unlikely that you are going to use any of these key binds all that having them does is give you a chance to hit them on accident and get yourself killed now a lot of arena players in retail do use target self and target party member one through four usually they'll bind this to something like scroll wheel and the middle mouse button but if you're playing classic which doesn't have any arenas you don't need to worry about this if you're one of those weirdos that likes to toggle your health bars on and off all the time like seriously why you can set it something right now like zero you can also set up a key bind for assist target it's not super necessary but that one is pretty useful now it's time to set the basic key binds that you are going to share between all of your characters first up is gonna be--start autorun not toggle auto run but start auto run i like to put this on tab but a lot of you are gonna be using that for targeting so use something convenient like tilde because you are going to be using this one a lot I'd also recommend setting a key bind force it sheath weapon toggle run walk and follow target I like to use my now empty key binds between six and zero for most of these now a lot of players at this point would recommend that you unkind Q&E and rekey bind strafe to a and D now this is sound advice because it frees up Q and E for your abilities but don't feel like you have to do this now I hate to make a recommendation like this but if you're gonna get into World of Warcraft you're gonna need a mouse with at least two mouse buttons you could go all out with something like the Razer Naga which has the 12 buttons but two buttons is more than enough in fact having more than two is probably worse because the buttons are smaller but if that's what you like it's not gonna kill you if you don't have a mouse with extra mouse buttons though freeing up the key binds q e and maybe even s is very important for you in particular because otherwise you are not going to have enough keys also contrary to popular belief back peddling is pretty useful at least in PvE when you're positioning mobs while tanking they can paths really weirdly if you strafe instead of backpedaling and it's important that you never show your back to a mob that's hitting you or you're not going to be able to parry their attacks backpedaling lets you guarantee that that never happens and it's really useful on any character while leveling at least if you're playing a class that has parry if you really want to use s for an ability though you can always sit back pedal to a less important key bind that's further away kind of weird though I don't know I can't stand it I recommend setting B to open all bags instead of just your backpack very convenient character pain I recommend changing to something else because C is a very useful key bind I like to use K because character starts with K I also like to keep mind Oh two friends paint specifically because otherwise it's going to open up to whatever tab you had opened the last time under social which is annoying when you're in a raid trust me for a quick reference this is the setup that I use for my interface the last key bind we need to change is the one that we're going to use for zooming in and out mouse wheel is just way too useful so keep it really simple here just change these two control mouse wheel up and down instead all right now you're free to set up your key binds however you'd like in action bar and multi action bar hopefully by now you've got a good idea of the setup that you'd like to use I recommend just looking at the tier list starting at the top and making your way down putting your most important skills in first testing those out and seeing if you like them I like to use the empty spots on my default action bar for the mouse buttons and X and then I go into multi action bar and I use this setup whenever I start a new character also make sure that you have all of your action bars showing in the settings alright you're pretty much ready to go but here's a couple tips for new players if you're completely new to key binds take it slow key bind a few spells at a time learn how to use those and then do a couple more just start with the ones on your mouse or the ones closest to your hand you don't have to do everything all at once if you're a clicker first off I'm proud of you acceptance is the first step second don't worry about forcing yourself to stop clicking right away just set up a few key binds and you'll be very surprised at just how fast you start using them instead because every time you go to click with your mouse you're getting a visual reminder that you could have just hit the key bind instead choosing where to put your key binds as a balance between what spells do I hit most often and what spells do I need to hit as quickly as possible a good example I don't recommend putting ice block on a button that's super far away just because you don't hit it very often put very important long cooldown spells on a shift modifier this makes it so you're far less likely to waste them on accident I have preparation on shift V for my rogue even though I have nothing important key bound to V just because I kept hitting it on accident for all the rules I'm giving you about T binds I break almost all of them myself if you've got a key bind that you really like and you're super used to it just keep it if it makes sense to you that is all that matters if you absolutely need more key binds dip into using ctrl or even alt as a modifier as well they're a bit awkward to hit while moving but they can be very nice for things that you're going to hit while standing still I would start with ctrl R ctrl F or maybe alt one alt two and alt three you can experiment yourself and see which key combinations are the easiest to hit without needing to move your hand but those are a very good place to start you can also keep on spacebar to use an ability as well if you are truly desperate alright guys I hope this video was useful to you it took me a stupid long time to make it and I can't believe you made it all the way through thank you so much for watching don't forget to subscribe guys and if you'd like to support me and the content I make you can do that on patreon I'm working on more videos right now and I really appreciate everyone that has supported me these last couple months oh and I'm working on warrior macros

Channel: muhshuh

Views: 407,609

Keywords: Wow Keybinding Guide, keybindings guide, classic wow keybinds guide, classic wow, how to keybind wow, pvp keybinds wow, pve keybinds wow, hunter keybinds, rogue keybinds, mage keybinds, warrior keybinds, clicking wow, wow clicker, classic, vanilla, blizzard entertainment, world of, classic wow guide, new player guide, wow keybinds, demon hunter keybinds

Id: sHIuHvlD__E

Length: 15min 50sec (950 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 19 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Hurtzdonut13]

Pretty nice guide. I think the best piece of advice here that I don't remember seeing in other guides, is keeping similar classes of abilities in the same spots across different classes. Keeping your defensive and offensive cool downs bound to the same keys really helps when switching classes around to keep your muscle memory trained.

[u/resetet]

Nice guide.

Personally i find alt the easiest modifier. My thumb naturally rests in the gap between alt and space bar. I also use that gap to confirm that my hand is back in the right place without looking (if I've moved it away from wasd for some reason).

Shift is good too, but not as easy as alt.

Ctrl feels terrible for me and i never use it. It's so far away from where my fingers rest, they have to curl up way under my palm to reach it.

I would suggest just using whatever is easier for you.

[u/h4am]

Nice guide, clearly explained. There are some things I don't aggre with/use but still something I could share with someone that doesn't do keybinds

[u/[deleted]]

I didn't realize how much I used Q and E for movement until I tried rebinding it. I couldn't get over it...

[u/StealthedWorgen]

I just use that one mouse with 12 buttons arranged like a telephone on the side. Never went back to whatever nubs use.

[u/Kawaty]

I've been playing wow since 2009 and I still have no idea of how do people press shift-something. It feels like my pinky is gonna break if I do that. Alt-smth is cool though, it's as easy as pressing space to jump.

[u/MrGraveRisen]

https://www.razer.com/ca-en/gaming-keyboards-keypads/razer-tartarus-pro

https://store.na.square-enix-games.com/en_US/product/564462/tactical-assault-commander-f14-final-fantasy-xiv-edition

I've used one since vanilla. And for every MMO I play. Extremely worthwhile investment.

Basically.... Your keybind setup pretty much mimics these gamepads perfectly. Only big benefit is that you have a d-pad on your thumb. Which I bind 1 2 3 4 to so you can use those while moving. 39 total keybinds, if I keep qweasd for movement

[u/k47su]

I use a Logitech G13 game pad, and have for 10 years, I have trouble playing otherwise, even had a friend who is far more experienced with computer repairs over haul it a few years back. I also use a 12 button mouse so I can have all my shift, control, alt keys for easy of access to modifiers. I haven't used 'WASD' movement in so long that trying to find a replacement for the G13 is impossible because it has a directional thumb toggle and most other game pads don't

[u/avoidingNSFWsubs]

If you’re thinking about making a drastic change to key binds like I am after watching this, I think shawdowlands is a good opportunity. You’re going to get new abilities and you have low consequence content to practice all of it on with leveling.