Keybindings Tips

Let's get the hardest part out of the way first: your keybindings from when you were six years old probably suck. Yes, you grew up with them. Yes, you've been using them for years. No, that doesn't mean you should keep them forever.

Why do keybindings matter?
I could say something here about how good keybinds will make you a better player through improving consistency by lowering fat-finger inputs and decreasing time between strokes, being able to react faster, and all that jazz, and while all of that is true, the most important part of good keybinds is, in my opinion, the effects on your physical health. Wrist injuries and carpal tunnel are very much real things, and given the average age of the ML population (players who played as kids and are now pushing 30), these are important things to consider. This is a grindy game where you're expected to play multiple hours in a single sitting, and hundreds if not thousands of hours over the course of your time on the game; you want to make sure if you're spending thousands of hours repeating keystrokes, you're doing it in an efficient and ergonomic way.

But yes, it will also usually improve your mechanics and generally make you a better player, too.

The basics
Let's start with three simple rules (Heatmapping, Chaining, and Risk Mitigation):

• Heatmapping: the more frequently you have to press something or the more important it is to use at a moment's notice, the closer it should be to the center of your resting hand position. Additionally, the less frequently you have to press something, the farther it should be from the center of the resting hand position.
  • For most players, especially those coming from other games, this will usually be centered on "W", as it's the natural resting key for your middle finger in a standard WASD set up. You do not have to use WASD, but it's a natural hand position and commonly used for a reason; whatever natural resting state you use, center your keybinds around your middle finger, as it's the strongest of your fingers and the most suited to constant abuse.
  • Frequent inputs include primary attacks (Triple Throw, Hurricane, Brandish) but can also include important utility such as Dispel or mobility such as Teleport and Flash Jump. For most players, these would correspond to the keys QWER.
  • Infrequent inputs would be things like long duration buffs (MW20, Sharp Eyes, Speed Infusion). Good options for keys for these would be ZXCV, TY, or GH.
  • "Emergency" keys that need to be hit at a moments notice do not need to be located in a primary resting location, but should be close enough that you're ready to hit them at any moment (Holy Shield, Magic Guard, Dark Sight, Snatch). Good keys for this would be ASDF.
  • Keys that do not need to be input frequently and you're worried about fat-fingering due to their potentially negative effect on gameplay (Heal, Mount) can be placed on the number row, as it's uncommon to accidentally hit these when in a WASD set up.
• Chaining: any inputs that are expected to be used back-to-back should be placed so they utilize different fingers.
  • Example: Buccaneer Barrel Combo chaining will use three inputs:
  1. Barrage+Barrel Macro
  2. Attack
  3. Dragon Strike OR 3x Flash Fist OR 3x Energy Drain OR Energy Orb+Energy Drain Macro

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  • Since it's three inputs in a 1>2>3>1>2>3 pattern, you want to be using multiple fingers so you're not tiring one single finger out by constantly moving around. Since this is a frequent combo, we'll utilize Rule #1: Heatmapping to try to utilize our three strongest fingers: Index, Middle, Ring. The order doesn't matter and is up to you, but it's good to have each of those 3 corresponding to one of those keys. You'll notice under 3 that you can have a LOT of different inputs used for the chain depending on the situation; as such, the finger for 3 requires a decent amount of flexibility to cover those options, and as such I would recommend the Index finger, as it has the most keyboard real estate available to it and a lot more room to move.
• Risk Mitigation: any inputs that would be detrimental if fat-fingered should be placed in areas where the risk of accidentally inputting them is minimized, but the accessibility is still maintained if needed in an emergency.
  • Frequent Use: Hero's Will, Heal, Holy Shield, Mount
    • These are skills you'll be using relatively frequently, and thus need to be easily accessible, but can have negative consequences if used as the wrong time. Try to keep these locations consistent across classes so you build up the mental association with being careful with their specific keys.
  • Infrequent Use: Echo of Hero, NPC Chat, Resurrection, Time Leap
    • These are skills you won't be using frequently, and as such can put them in "safe" locations where you won't ever be at risk of fat fingering them, away from your normal resting hand positions.

Now, how do we go about building a keybinding set up? Here's some personal tips:

• Get rid of chat keybindings. You can hit Enter and Tab to cycle through chats; keybinds are important real estate that you don't want to waste on something as unimportant as opening a specific chat.
• Move useful Window keybinds to the right side of the keyboard, outside normal reach but where they're still easily accessible during downtime (World Map, Item, Equipment, Skill, Ability, etc)
• Try to keep important Cooldown skills on your quickbar for cooldown tracking, then put the skill in a macro and place it normally with the rest of your keybinds for easy access.
• Try to think of your future use-cases ahead of time. Are you planning on multi-attacking? Then make sure to keep "Alt" clear and line up attacking and buffing keys so they're consistent across classes. Are you planning on selling a lot of leech or farming a lot? Then make sure "Pick Up" is relatively easy to access. Is your Bishop going to be used as an attacker, farmer, or support? Answers to questions like these can help inform keybinding decisions.
• Try to stay consistent across games and classes (assuming you don't have stupid keybindings you're copying). For example, if you come from League of Legends, "R" = Ultimate, so it's intuitive for some players to have a big skill on there such as Meteor/Blizzard/Genesis. If you play other MMORPGs and utilize an "oh shit" emergency button, make use of that here, too!

Let's take a look at some examples from my own personal keybindings.

This is a very standard Attacker keybinding set up with just basic heatmapping implemented.

• Main Attack (Hurricane) on "W"
• Important Buffs (Booster = Z, Hamstring = S, Puppet = D, Sharp Eyes = C, Concentrate Macro = V, Soul Arrow = G, Focus = H, Phoenix = 5, MW20 = Y) on peripheral keys that are still easy to access
• Important manual pots (Honster = R, ACP = Shift, Ginseng Root = Ctrl) on peripheral keys that are easy to access
• Keys I don't want to fat finger (Mount = 4, Hero's Will Macro = T, Echo of Hero Macro = 6) on "safer" peripheral keys
• Situational Attacks (Strafe = 1, Inferno = 2, Arrow Rain = A, Dragon's Breath = E, Arrow Bomb = F) on easy to access peripheral keys
• Unimportant manual pots (Cider, Avoid Pots) and long cooldowns (Echo, Will, Concentrate) located on the quick bar for easy tracking

For most attackers, there's not really any need for anything fancy, and it's pretty easy to build keybindings just based on how often you need to press something.

Let's take a look at a more combo-based utility attacker next.

These keybindings are going to be quite custom and will vary wildly from player to player, as being able to combo things together fluidly and access important utility when needed will look differently player to player.

• Main Attack (Demolition) on "W"
• Important Chains (Barrage/Barrel Macro = E > Attack = Q > Barrage Filler: Orb/Drain Macro = 3, Dragon Strike = D, Flash Fist = 2, Drain = 1) spread so that I can alternate fingers for inputs and buffer the next input in the chain ahead of time
• Utility Attacks (Corkscrew Blow = S, Snatch = F, Barrage = E, Backspin Blow = G, SSK = X) on easy to access peripheral or primary keys
• Important manual pots (Honster = R, ACP = Shift, Ginseng Root = Ctrl, MP Recovery = h) on peripheral keys that are easy to access
• Important Buffs (Booster = Z, Barrel = A, Speed Infusion = C, Super Transformation Macro = V, MW = Y) on peripheral keys that are still easy to access
  
• Keys I don't want to fat finger (Mount = 4, Hero's Will Macro = T) on "safer" peripheral keys
  
• Keys I REALLY do not want to fat finger under any circumstance (Time Leap = Pup) tucked away far from everything
• Other manual pots and cooldowns on quick bar for easy tracking

Finally, lets take a look at a pure utility character.

Like the combo-attacker/utility-attacker set ups, these are going to vary wildly from player to player depending on what part of the kit you're planning on utilizing the most. For me, my Bishop has very little emphasis on attacking, whereas its primary jobs are Dispelling and Shielding.

• Spammable Utility (Dispel) on "W"
• Situational Attacks (Big Bang = 1, Angel Ray = 2, Genesis = R, Shining Ray = F) on peripheral keys
• Situational Utility (Heal = 3, Holy Shield = D) placed on peripheral keys. Heal placed farther away to minimize fat-finger chance, Shield placed closer to core so it can be hit at a moment's notice.
• Other buff, cooldown, and pots placed according to heatmapping similar to other characters.

You'll notice some things stay consistent across all three characters, despite wildly different use cases and skillsets. The in-game window keybinds (World Map, Item, Skill, Ability, etc) all remain consistent, as do Jump, NPC Chat, Pet food. In addition, I try to keep consumables consistent (ACP, Ginseng Root, Honster, Ginger Ale) where possible, as well as universal situational inputs such as Attack, Mount, Hero's Will, and Maple Warrior. Keeping all of these inputs consistent across classes helps build muscle memory and make playing them more intuitive.

Conclusion
You do not have to rebind your keybindings if you don't want to. I know a large amount of players will look at all of this and say "Well, I'm already used to my keybindings and it'll be so much work to change them."

Yes, changing your keybindings from something you've used for years sucks. I won't even try to deny it. Those muscle memories you've built up, the natural responses and habits, they take time to break. But that being said, many of these new habits can be formed within as little as 10-20 hours of gameplay, often even less for many players. When you're looking at playing 100s, or 1000s of hours still in the future, such a small investment can pay huge dividends. I firmly believe that changing your keybindings to be more ergonomic will be both better for your physical well-being and will help build the foundation for more skilled gameplay.

For anyone who is interested in changing your keybindings, I hope you find this guide useful and are able to utilize the tips here or use my own keybindings as inspiration.