Rogue Lesson: Keyboard Turning and Clicking (revised)Follow

On the forums people pay a lot of attention to theorycraft. They’re constantly tweaking builds, comparing gear, running spreadsheets, and breaking game mechanics down to their core formulas. This is great stuff, but all your theorycrafting can come to naught if you miss the basics of playing your class. We are rogues, and we must play our characters in ways fundamentally different from other classes. I’m not talking about stunlocks and stealthing, I’m talking about keyboards and mice. Playing a rogue requires a lot of finesse. You must be fast, smart, and prepared to react. If you haven’t set up your peripherals and user interface efficiently, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage to other classes.

Ranged fighters have the luxury of standing at a distance, choosing their targets, and avoiding direct melee damage. Their primary concerns, positionally, are maintaining range and line-of-sight. Once they’re in a good spot they can stand planted, clicking away on their abilities.

Tank classes have the benefit of plate armor. They can go toe-to-toe with any class and take a serious pounding before going down. Running into the fray is the name of the game for them. What they lack in finesse, they make up for with thousands of extra hit points.

The difficulty Rogues face is that we must be right up in the face (or back) of our opponent, but we’re fragile. A few good hits will send us to the graveyard. We can defeat this weakness with our speed and mobility. So long as we’re able to move and stun, the rogue is still the deadliest class in the game.

But what if you have to split your attention between moving and attacking? What if every time you need to blind someone, you have to move your hand away from your movement keys and hit “=” ? That’s time lost and damage taken. Now suppose you move your hand back, but you’re one row off? You try to run forward but nothing happens. Now you’re fumbling, your fingers are getting fat and clumsy while your character is dying.

There are two obstacles Rogues must overcome to be successful: “Keyboard-turning,” and “clicking.”

Keyboard-turning is the practice of turning with your keyboard. Big surprise, eh? Keyboard-turning fails because it is slow. If you don’t get it, try this experiment: Using your keyboard, turn to your right. Turn forward. Look up. Turn completely around and look down.

Now, holding down your right mouse button and, using your mouse to turn, do the same thing. If you’ve never used a mouse to turn before you might be flinging your character all over the place – but you should still be able to see how much faster using the mouse to turn is. It will feel awkward at first, but over time this kind of motion will become second-nature. You can turn down the mouse sensitivity in the Interface Options menu if its default setting is too high for you.

I think the best way to learn mouse-turning is to play a couple of first person shooters. If you don’t want to do that, though, I suggest you immediately change all your turning keys to strafing keys. Strafing, if you don’t know, is another word for sidestepping. Your character will move left or right, but will still face forward. Getting rid of your turning keys forces you to use your mouse.

You’ll probably get frustrated but keep at it. You’ll adapt, and you should already be playing better - even if it feels a bit clumsy.

Clicking is the practice of clicking on your abilities onscreen rather than hitting a key on the keyboard. If you move your mouse over to the stealth icon every time you use stealth, you’re doing something wrong. Clicking is a nightmare in player-versus-player combat, because it forces you to sacrifice movement. Every fraction of a second that you’re not mobile adds up to more damage taken and less damage dealt. In order to compete, a rogue must have full freedom of movement while simultaneously using his abilities. Your hand must never stray from your movement keys, but you also need to be able to do everything.

And now some of you must be thinking, “How in God’s name is that even possible?”

It’s no small task. You have dozens of abilities but a very limited number of viable keys. You’re probably using the w-a-s-d keys to move around, so all your function keys are out of reach. Reaching the seven key without moving your hand is damn near impossible. You lack ring-finger dexterity, so hitting z twists your hand into an inhuman claw.

The time has come to do something most gamers work hard to avoid – think.

The first step to keybinding is to list your abilities into prioritized groups. Your list may be different from mine, depending on your build, but this should give you an idea of how to go about it.

Level 63 Undead Rogue – Mutilate / Sub build.

Stealth

Most commonly used attacks:
1 – Cheap Shot
2 – Mutilate
3 - Kidney Shot
4 – Gouge
5 – Eviscerate

Frequently used alternatives:
1 – Sap
2 – Garrote
3 – Throw
4- Sinister Strike
5- Rupture
6- Ambush

Oh ****! abilities:
1 – Blind
2 – Vanish
4 – Bandage
5 - Healing Potion
3 - PvP Trinket
4 – Will of the Forsaken racial
5 – Evasion
6 – Sprint
7 - Kick

Raid abilities:
1 – Slice and Dice
2 – Rupture
3 - Expose Armor
4 – Feint

If you haven’t been keeping count, that’s twenty-two things (rupture appeared twice) you need to be able to do without moving your hands. I’m not even counting everything. I have Envenom (won’t use it though ‘cuz Mutilate), I’ll be getting Deadly Throw and Shiv soon. And then there’s a pile of non-combat abilities – lock-picking, poisons, cannibalize, disarm trap . . .

In the immortal words of Douglas Adams, don’t panic.

We’ve got this.

When faced with the plethora of abilities we have, some people start buying specialized peripherals – mice with eight buttons. Nostromo game pads. If you’ve got the cash and want to give these things a shot, go for it. Choose wisely - a lot of these devices tend to be cheap gimmicks that work poorly. I’m here to say, though, that you don’t need those things. A standard qwerty keyboard and two-button + wheel mouse will do the job just as well as anything else.

Keybinding tricks part one: Mouse of DOOM

Look at what you’re working with here. Left. Right. Wheel. A humble device, yet its potential is vast. Your right button is now relegated to turning. Your left, clicking (let’s face it, you still will need to click stuff). But the mousewheel – what is it up to right now? Zooming the camera around? Gah! How lame.

The simple truth is that your mousewheel is the most versatile AND accessible key you have. On its own it functions as three keys – up, down, and click. Now add shift, alt, and control. The mousewheel can function as a whopping twelve keys.

Blizzard has down a great job of creating a “smart” camera. Your view automatically adjusts itself whenever you enter or exit a space. Being able to zoom in and out is great, but it shouldn’t be your highest priority. Remap camera zoom to Ctrl + mousewheel up/down. Control is the most awkwardly placed of the three function-altering keys. Go ahead and use it for your camera, thereby freeing up the other nine possible combinations. This is how I mapped my stuff:

While Stealthed

Mousewheel Up = Cheap Shot
Mousewheel Down = Sap
Mousewheel Click = Distract

Shift + Mousewheel Up = Garrote
Shift + Mousewheel Down = Ambush
Shift + Mousewheel Click = Not Bound

Alt + Mousewheel Up = Pick Pocket
Alt + Mousewheel Down = Throw
Alt + Mousewheel Click = Not Bound

While Unstealthed

Mousewheel Up = Mutilate
Mousewheel Down = Eviscerate
Mousewheel Click = Blind

Shift + Mousewheel Up = Gouge
Shift + Mousewheel Down = Kidney Shot
Shift + Mousewheel Click = PvP Trinket

Alt + Mousewheel Up = Sinister Strike
Alt + Mousewheel Down = Rupture
Alt + Mousewheel Click = Will of the Forsaken

With this configuration I am able to handle the vast majority of combat without, quite literally, having to lift a finger. If you were to watch my hands while I was out questing, it would look like I was hardly doing anything at all. This is great. This is economy of motion at its finest.

Note that all of my most commonly used attacks (with the exception of an unstealthed throw) made it onto my mouse. Also note that my twitchiest “Oh ****!” buttons made it there as well (I use twitchy to describe abilities where being as fast as possible is crucial).

Of course you combat and lolstep rogues are going to have completely different keybindings. But you can use the methods I just described to figure out how best to map your mouse.

Keybinding tricks part two: Keyboard of DOOM

With all of your grunt abilities out of the way, examine what’s left. For me it is:

Stealth

Frequently used alternatives:
1 – Throw (unstealthed)

Oh ****! abilities:
1 – Vanish
2 – Bandage
3 - Healing Potion
4 – Evasion
5 – Sprint
6- Kick

Raid abilities:
1 – Slice and Dice
2 - Expose Armor
3 – Feint

That makes eleven things left to map. Now put your hand on your movement (wasd) keys and fool around. Check how far you can reach with individual fingers without moving or contorting your hand. If you’re like me, the numbers 1-5 are no problem. Also, my index finger dominates. It feels the strongest and most accurate, so it would be smart to utilize the keys closest to its resting place on d. So here I’ll list the good keys and fill the blanks:

1 = Stealth
2 = Bandage
3 = Vanish
4 = Evasion
5 = Sprint

E = Slice and Dice
R = Expose Armor
F = Kick
C =Feint

Shift+E = Throw
Shift+R = Healing Potion

And that’s it! Also there’s plenty of room to expand.

Hopefully I’ve shed some light on techniques that will help you get past your keyboard-turning, screen-clicking, noobish ways. From here on, your hands and eyes should stay put when you’re in battle.

I know that I left a lot of stuff out, such as a key to get on your mount or to open all your bags. Well, that’s what those F1 – F12 keys are for.

Once you’re comfortable with your keys, once you have them memorized, you can pretty much just hide your action bars. I like to keep my screen as sparse as possible, so all I have left in the way of buttons are my long cooldowns and my consumable – just so I can keep track of them. But really, Theo’s handling the User Interface topic on his own thread a couple posts over.

I'd suggest this getting a link in Nooble's sticky. Very useful information that I don't feel like typing out over and over again.

Keyboard turning is pretty tragic. I wish I still fought keyboard turners in arena like I did in the first week.

One thing I do is practice jumping over people and spinning my trackball in 180s. Just to see how fast I can spin to face someones backside :D. Personally I couldn't play with out my trackball I have a really fast spin around now. When some one is chasing me in arena I can tell what caliber player they are by quickly doing a 180 with my mouse to run straight through and behind them hitting them with a mutilate or gouge to either do damage, confuse, or get away from them. Spinning is not just for LFP any more. :D

Thank you for the terrific post! I learned a great deal reading this. I know I always read the stickies, this should be included

Thank you for the post!

I figured out mouse movement very early on, but keybindings are still something I struggle with, and I haven't put a lot of work into it. I'm going to try binding my scroll wheel now and see how that goes.

Well said...Rate up!

Eon- a few questions:

1. Are you suggesting to map one of the mouse keys to moving forward or are you saying keep it as Bliz has it, that you must hold down both to move but only the right one to turn?

I didn't read anything saying that or suggesting otherwise, just figured I'd ask.

2. And this is a (potentially stupid) question to everyone, not just Eon- When you're gaming with a 3 button mouse (left right and wheel) do you have 3 fingers resting on it or 2?

Ever since I've used a mouse with a wheel I've always used two fingers on, but with remapping abilities to the wheel I wonder if it would be better to use 3 fingers than two (especially with, in your example, Blind being so close to Muti/Evis). I feel that with two fingers, using the mouse wheel is not only a bit imprecise, but would take my finger off of the turning button, thereby limiting movement. Is this just me being a mouse-noob, or is this normal?

3. As this is (hopefully!) going to be linked in Nooble's FAQ, would a kindly combat rogue please suggest their key bindings so Eon can edit them in? Preferably an "elementary" combat rogue set of key/mouse bindings that would be easy for everyone to use. (No offense Theo, but I think the learning curve to use your extreme mouse mapping for someone who keyboard turns would be sharper than would be a middle step, such as Eon's suggested Muti map)

This should absolutely be made a Sticky, either as a sticky itself or as part of Nooble's guide. I have a number of Alts of different classes and have done my share of lurking on these forums, but Nooble's guide is still the best class guide I've ever seen- on Alla and on other boards. Key/mouse mapping is, sadly, almost non-existent in every guide. As somewhat of a newb myself, I know keyboard turning is wrong, but this is the first guide/person to come out and say, "keyboard turning is wrong but here is how to not only ween yourself away from it, but also a suggested remapping of all your skills to make you the best rogue you can be."

Eon- You're awesome. I'd rate you up if I could.

My apologies- I think when I read that everyone was against Keyboard Turning, I accidentally read it was people being against using the keyboard at all for any movement ever. Obviously this is not the case, as what I gather now is that the keyboard should be used for forward/backward and strafes, and that the mouse should "only" be used for actual turning (and obviously mapped abilities). My bad.

As to your response to 3- I just meant to provide an example as you did in this guide for combat. Obviously I (and hopefully others) would remap stuff after trying out the suggested layout. I solely want a starting point based on skills in combat instead of Muti.


On a side note- I lost my rating abilities when I called you a failure several posts (weeks?) ago. Consider this as formal an apology as you can on an Internet forum. Having written this, you're obviously not a failure. This is hardly me pleading or anything of the sort, but I am not foolhardy enough to believe that I cannot be wrong and in the aforementioned case I was both wrong and rude.

/bow

Now that you say it, I don't think you're the first person on this thread to get that mixed up. Looks like I need to do a bit more clarification on the main post.



I'm on it.



I appreciate it, but really its not necessary. You weren't particularly mean in that post, and people with thin skins don't last long on the rogue forums.

Rate up for you.


Edited, Sep 18th 2007 12:55pm by EonSprinter

No it isn't >_>

I have a two button mouse + wheel, and my habitual hand placement from the beginning of my mousing days when I was 4 y/o says index and ring fingers on buttons, middle finger on wheel.

It's easy as pie, and if I need to keep running forward and move my left hand to another key away from WASD, I just click down both buttons and proceed. :P

I don't do this when I need to strafe, obviously, but it's far from impossible.

My biggest problem using the mouse to move is, to many times when I'm going after my next target, I go to turn or move or whatever, and end up losing my target cause my mouse action causes me to target whatever is on the ground near where I am. Mostly a problem PvE cause there is always a "clickable" dead mob, Sometimes PvP though if there is a dead player that hasn't released yet. Aggravating.....

I've always had some issues moving while doing abilities, because I am one of those mouse runners. I knew about keybinding, but never really thought of using the mouse to the extent of that many abilities. I think while I do my dailys tonight I am going to try it out on some of those flayers in the mines. It also means I wont be shifting to page 2 or 3 of my hotbar. Great post Eon.

is it impolite to

/bump

my own thread?