I use a Logitech G15 gaming keyboard for main World of Warcraft computer. The keyboard is nice for a lot of reasons:
- The keys are hard plastic and clean easily. I can often be found eating hot pockets (Mom! Hot pockets!) or pizza roles during raids, and it's nice to be able to easily clean the keyboard if I make a mess.
- The keys light up. This is very useful late at night when I turn the lights off.
- The LCD screen is very adaptable. I use the LCD screen to display who is talking over Vent. No more asking "Who just said they need a mob taunted off them?" (of course, if they wouldn't pull agro in the first place or DPS the right target, we wouldn't have that problem now... but that's another article.)
- There are 18 additional programmable keys on the left side of the keyboard.
You want to minimize movement as much as possible. Your left hand is going to be sitting around the WASD most of the time. These keys correspond to the basic movement directions, and occupy a lot of the key presses in a game like WoW. Other keys immediately around the WASD keys are Q E R F Tab ~ 1 2 3 4.
So, let's look at what are some good things to put on each of these other keys:
Q and E strafe left and right, respectively. This is a good thing to leave as is.
The R key is automatically used to reply to people that send you a tell. This is nice in social situations, but not very necessary for raids or game play situations. In my key maps, I often have this mapped to shield block if I'm tanking, or to assist the main assist / main tank if I'm in a DPS role.
The F key is automatically used to assist your current target; or to put it another way, to select the "target of target." This is very very useful for healing and pulling mobs off other people.
The Tab should keep it's default behavior, which is to target the next closest enemy.
The ~ key is nice to use for whatever function you need to press in the middle of a fight. As a tank and someone who often has to mark mobs and lead groups through instances, I use this to trigger my microphone on Vent. I can hold the ~ key down and spam shield block at the same time while tanking and asking the healers to readjust, which is a very useful thing to be able to do.
The 1 2 3 4 keys are defaulted to the first four button on your main action bar. It's a good idea to look at what the most used in-fight abilities are for your class and map them to these locations. Here's a big hint: it's not your "start attacking" command. You only use that once per fight, but you probably use Arcane Shot a lot more. Try making your start attack command be on a "far away" key like = or -. You'll find that all of the sudden you're doing less hand movement during fights.
On the G15 and keyboards like it, there are 18 programmable keys on the left side. These keys are very nice to be able to put macros and key press assignments. For instance, I have one that charges a mob and switches to defensive stance, and then executes a shield slam. I do this using the G15 software, not anything by Blizzard. These keys are less comfortable for the left hand to go to and find easily, so they should be used for "one shot" actions that don't need to be done very often, and not in the heat of battle (ie: /wave).
To wrap everything up, the name of the game in effective keyboard game play is to minimize the movements of your fingers. You don't want to have to reach across the keyboard and find a key to press that does an important action. If you miss, you might wipe the raid at worst, or make the wrong move at best.
What are some tips that you have to maximize your keyboard game play?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
3-02-2008 @ 9:19PM
Jim. said...
This article reads like it's making fun of people who play PC games.
Reply
3-03-2008 @ 6:36AM
Angry Joe said...
Yep, the article should be called:
"Playing with MY keyboard"
If you are a clicker and want to use more the keyboard to optimize your game, just do a quick Google search, there are great guides out there.
Adam, you just go here:
http://failblog.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/army-fail/
3-02-2008 @ 9:24PM
ScytheNoire said...
I've had this keyboard since it came out, and while I love it, the keys are starting to wear off. I sense within the year, I will have a few keys that will no longer be able to be read properly. It sucks. Plus they no longer make this model, but now have some light version of this keyboard. It has the same name, but not the same.
Reply
3-03-2008 @ 12:16AM
Sakerin said...
Yup, the new one sucks pretty bad. It has lost almost all of its macro keys, has a much (2/3 the size) smaller LCD, and costs $100 retail. Apparently someone at Logitech realized they were making a great product at a great price and decided to nerf it so they could re-introduce the original for 2x as much (this is speculation and I'm still waiting on this to happen) as a premium version.
3-03-2008 @ 7:18AM
FinnStoney said...
thanks for the heads up. i loooove my g15, i'm on my 2nd one (after a mob reached through the screen and must have cleaved over a beer bottle on the first one--crazy but true!) anyway, i'm getting online and buying a backup old style g15 right now
3-03-2008 @ 1:39PM
Lori said...
I believe Logitech renamed the 18 G key keyboard. Tigerdirect lists a G11 that looks exactly like the old G15.
3-03-2008 @ 5:30PM
Anders said...
@Lori
The G11 is the same as the original G15 except it does not have the LCD screen.
3-02-2008 @ 9:32PM
cpsethgt said...
The placement of WASD for the movement buttons really doesn't work that well. I find it amazing that most people still use those buttons for movement. They really limit the number of action buttons you can map around them - You can only really reach the first four or five buttons, plus a few extra that you can map to buttons like R or F.
I've found that mapping the movement keys to TFGH rather than WASD is much better, since it opens up a lot of extra keys to the left of the movement buttons that can be used for mapping action keys. My action keys wrap around my movement keys, as such:
Default (with WASD):
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - =
Modified (with TFGH):
Z X D E 4 5 6 7 U J N M
With this system you can make all 12 keys reachable instantly, without having to do any stretching or looking at the keyboard. Also, if you're one of those people who replaces the turning buttons with strafe, then you get an extra two from R and Y.
Get rid of WASD!
Reply
3-02-2008 @ 9:52PM
Melenor said...
I agree with you. I use the following setup:
SDFG (up down left right) with all adjacent keys mapped to my bindings. I didn't get the WASD memo back when I started playing PC games, and thus mapped out my own system, starting by playing emulators with SDFG. I never have to bother with lifting my middle finger to switch from going forward to backward, which is very handy.
Any configuration of keys that's set up to resemble WASD is equally useless to me. The attempt to make the left side of the keyboard into the actual arrow keys was such a mistake. No wonder I made it to semi-pro in CS without ever practicing.
3-03-2008 @ 12:41AM
Jesuspuncher said...
Doesn't work very well with ergonomic keyboards.
3-03-2008 @ 2:39AM
quaunaut said...
Problem is, yours doesn't get the benefit of shift, ctrl, or alt keys, which essentially quadruple my keycount.
3-03-2008 @ 7:49AM
Baloch said...
I agree with both cp and quaunaut. That's why I use ESDF: at least four extra buttons in reach, and still perfectly able to reach shift, ctrl an alt.
By the way, Melenor, your setup looks great, I ought to try that once! I think at first my pinky will be a bit overworked, though.
3-02-2008 @ 9:34PM
Michael Anthony said...
T is by default bound to start attack. You can bind it to a macro that is:
/startattack
To ensure that it's always to start attacking, and not to stop attacking. When you want to stop attacking, hit Escape.
Reply
3-02-2008 @ 9:40PM
issacobra said...
"I have one that charges a mob and switches to defensive stance, and then executes a shield slam"
yea.... this is illegal according to blizz and lots of people have been banned by using the keyboard in this way. you can't bind keys to do anything with one press that would usually take more than one press.
Reply
3-02-2008 @ 9:50PM
SaintStryfe said...
then why did they build this capability into the Blizz-approved Super WoW laptop from dell a few months back? It has all the capabilities of the G15 keyboard in it.
3-03-2008 @ 7:27AM
zweitblom said...
Now that's really silly. That's exactly how macros work. You are trying to say that Blizz has included a documented program feature that's illegal to use?
3-03-2008 @ 9:16AM
Khanmora said...
As long as the abilities aren't on GCD they can be used in a macro that is one button press. If it's on GCD you can set up a sequence that will allow you to press the same button multiple times to do the requested sequence:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Useful_macros_for_warriors#All_in_one_charge
3-03-2008 @ 5:43PM
Anders said...
@OP
A way to get around this "hardware-botting-loophole-thing" is to create a macro that does the same thing (or several macros), bind them to seldom-used keys (modifiers work well for this, i.e. ctrl+shift+F10) then use the G15 to press that key. I use bartender3, so all I need to do is create a new bar, place my macros on it, bind the keys and hide it.
That is, if you really care to go through that much trouble :D
3-03-2008 @ 7:40PM
jbodar said...
Blizz has stated that it's not an issue unless you are using hardware to automate gameplay to the point where you can play without being present at the keyboard. That's all they want to avoid.
3-05-2008 @ 5:49AM
Gareth said...
Nope, this is not illegal, searching through the forums the basic rule is, anything you can achieve using the blizzard macros is ok.
But if you need to start adding in extra macro features that are not supported in WoW macro's (like delays) then it is illegal. As I believe this sequence macro able anyway it should be legal.