Post your Bard keybind - Phoenix Freeshard

Bards are always in need and I feel like sharing our "smart" qbind solutions might help some new fella bard.

Disclaimer: I use AHK to assign to a single button a spell that goes on an enemy target or a friendly one and to bind the mousewheel.

Movements:
Spacebar: face target;
A: backpedal;
S: forward;
D: stick;
Middlemouse: autorun;
Tiddle: jump;
V: sprint;
Z: strafe left;
X: strafe right;

Camera and unit selection:
Alt: camera reset;
Ctrl 1, 2, 3, 4, q, w, e, r: party members
Tab: nearest target

Actions:
Q: aoe amnesia / small heal;
W: aoe mezz casted / heal mezz;
E: single amnesia / cure disease
R: single mezz casted / cure poison;
T: rezz;
F: Dd shout / big heal;
C: side snare + followup + anytimer
Shift Z: Moc;
Shift X: Purge
Shift C: confusion;
1: insta single mezz;
2: insta aoe mezz;
3: dd charge;
4: SoS;
5: Pom song;
Mousewheel up: speed song;
Mousewheeldown: endu song;
F1: out of combat heal pot + in combat heal pot;
F2: out of combat mana pot + in combat mana pot;
Ctrl Z: tasty chunck mana charge.

Every castable spell button comes also with harp weapon swap, and side snare comes with weapon swap.

I'd like to know your solutions, especially your sprint action bind. I'm used to V but I always found it annoying to stretch to.

Thu 14 Nov 2019 4:13 PM by Mouette

Thanks for sharing.
I'm currently leveling bard and I was wondering what kind of kind bind people use today.

As I play more than one toon, I won't like to rebind my keyboard all the time, so I will have something that can be used with multiple toon.
So my wasd for forward/back turn and qe for starff. I use the mouse in auto run, but don't auto run all the time and moving forwad by pressing two mouse button feel weird.
f for face
ctrl+f for follow
crtl+c for stick
c for run lock
v for sprint
space for jump
` for combat mode.
I think it is one of the default layout. I have been using this since I was young and stupid and I don't feel like switching to more mouse forward/backward, or autorunning all the time.

camera span button 1
Mouse view button 2
reset camera with the button on the side of the mouse.
This is very handy while runlock to look around and quicly reset camera while keeping my hand on the spell keys.

For the qbar. The first qbar , row 1 for offensive and the row 2 for defensive. The row 2 is qbind to various out of reach key, and with the help of AHK, when pressing 1, it call the 1 from row 1 and row 2 simultaneously.

I have not yet decided what offensive/deffensive will be mixed together.

The song are on the alt qbar and I can easily call them with alt+1 alt+2 for speed/endu twist. This is the most confortable thing I have find so far. While I like the mousewheel, I prefert to have my mouse dedicated to turning and camera mouvement.

I which I could use the ctrl qbar with something else than ctrl. Maybe space bar or b. So with my hand on the numbers, my thumb could easily have access to more spell if needed.

I try to limit the number of ahk used.
As I bard, I never feel the need melee. I prefert to interupt caster/healer with the instant, or look around for any adds. But that because I was playing bard with guild mate and we were between 8 and 24. So I guess bard doing melee are the one playing smallman.

Thu 14 Nov 2019 6:05 PM by vxr

bigne88 wrote: ↑
Thu 14 Nov 2019 2:31 PM
Bards are always in need and I feel like sharing our "smart" qbind solutions might help some new fella bard.

Disclaimer: I use AHK to assign to a single button a spell that goes on an enemy target or a friendly one and to bind the mousewheel.

Movements:
Spacebar: face target;
A: backpedal;
S: forward;
D: stick;
Middlemouse: autorun;
Tiddle: jump;
V: sprint;
Z: strafe left;
X: strafe right;

Camera and unit selection:
Alt: camera reset;
Ctrl 1, 2, 3, 4, q, w, e, r: party members
Tab: nearest target

Actions:
Q: aoe amnesia / small heal;
W: aoe mezz casted / heal mezz;
E: single amnesia / cure disease
R: single mezz casted / cure poison;
T: rezz;
F: Dd shout / big heal;
C: side snare + followup + anytimer
Shift Z: Moc;
Shift X: Purge
Shift C: confusion;
1: insta single mezz;
2: insta aoe mezz;
3: dd charge;
4: SoS;
5: Pom song;
Mousewheel up: speed song;
Mousewheeldown: endu song;
F1: out of combat heal pot + in combat heal pot;
F2: out of combat mana pot + in combat mana pot;
Ctrl Z: tasty chunck mana charge.

Every castable spell button comes also with harp weapon swap, and side snare comes with weapon swap.

I'd like to know your solutions, especially your sprint action bind. I'm used to V but I always found it annoying to stretch to.

Nice of you for sharing.

A: backpedal;
S: forward;

This would drive me crazy. Maybe A for back and Q for forward, but having back and forward horizontally aligned instead of vertically......

Thu 14 Nov 2019 6:09 PM by Roto23

Don't all bards just map everything to Insta amnesia?

Thu 14 Nov 2019 8:57 PM by Sepplord

Mouette wrote: ↑
Thu 14 Nov 2019 4:13 PM
[...]

Do you use the turn keys often?

I had the same (basic) setup very long, until i got rid of turning, put Strafe on a/d which opened up Q and E for keybinds.

Now Q/E are my most used Skills on all chars

Thu 14 Nov 2019 10:10 PM by bigne88

vxr wrote: ↑
Thu 14 Nov 2019 6:05 PM
bigne88 wrote: ↑
Thu 14 Nov 2019 2:31 PM
Bards are always in need and I feel like sharing our "smart" qbind solutions might help some new fel

Nice of you for sharing.
A: backpedal;
S: forward;

This would drive me crazy. Maybe A for back and Q for forward, but having back and forward horizontally aligned instead of vertically......

It sounds awfull indeed, but it actually came natural pretty fast. I have this combo of buttons cuz it helps with the ghost-walk trick when you try to land a side or back style on a target sticking you.

How many times do you strafe or jump during a fight? Not that often. If you strafe you go slower, so it is really the worst thing you can use, ever. I never jump too.

Long time ago I had the greatest daoc advice: try unbind your strafe buttons and you will discover that you actually dont need them at all.
Strafing is 100% bad, because it makes you slower.
Unbind them and you will free up 2 comfortable buttons.
If you aren't a melee class you could even unbind backpedal. Why backpedaling slowly when you can turn?
Second biggest advice was to bind the /face to the most comfortable qbind.

Fri 15 Nov 2019 8:01 AM by Mouette

Sepplord wrote: ↑
Thu 14 Nov 2019 8:57 PM
Mouette wrote: ↑
Thu 14 Nov 2019 4:13 PM
[...]

Do you use the turn keys often?

I had the same (basic) setup very long, until i got rid of turning, put Strafe on a/d which opened up Q and E for keybinds.

Now Q/E are my most used Skills on all chars

The turn key are used to stop facing a target without moving so I can continue to cast. Is there another way to stop facing without moving forward or backward ?

Fri 15 Nov 2019 8:41 AM by Sepplord

Mouette wrote: ↑
Fri 15 Nov 2019 8:01 AM
Sepplord wrote: ↑
Thu 14 Nov 2019 8:57 PM
Mouette wrote: ↑
Thu 14 Nov 2019 4:13 PM
[...]

Do you use the turn keys often?

I had the same (basic) setup very long, until i got rid of turning, put Strafe on a/d which opened up Q and E for keybinds.

Now Q/E are my most used Skills on all chars

The turn key are used to stop facing a target without moving so I can continue to cast. Is there another way to stop facing without moving forward or backward ?

Hmm good point, mainly played support/melees lately

no idea. What happens when you face without target, maybe that breaks the face (but would come with other problems, so not really a good solution either way)

Fri 15 Nov 2019 10:02 AM by Freedomcall

You can jump to break /face without cancelling your casting.
Doesn't work in water, but it really helps on ground.
Jumping can make an enemy targeting you a bit more difficult, too.
I jump a lot when playing caster/supporter.

Strafing is bad for melees, imo, especially on 1v1.
There is a rr10+ ranger who makes 'miss 100%' everytime i encounter him because of bad strafing.
Stick+strafing sometimes work, but it depends too much on your enemies' movement.
There is always possibility for 'miss 100%' on enemies that are moving.

But I think it is needed for caster/supporter.
They need strafe in keep/tower fight, where you have to repeat moving from merlons to embrasures for hide/cast.
And I personally use it when my grp encounters enemy grp in open field before push/kite.
Standing still makes enemy target me too easily, and running around crazily with speed 6 not only makes enemies hard to target me but also makes me too difficult to target them.

So I just strafe instead in those situations.
Not sure how others do, but I think it works pretty well for me.

Fri 15 Nov 2019 10:38 AM by bigne88

On my eld, thanks to AHK, I binded the jump button together with the disease spell and nuke spell.

Sat 16 Nov 2019 2:20 PM by Toss

How can you bind 1 key to do 1 offensive/1 defensive skill?

Sat 16 Nov 2019 3:05 PM by vxr

Toss wrote: ↑
Sat 16 Nov 2019 2:20 PM
How can you bind 1 key to do 1 offensive/1 defensive skill?

OP States that he uses AHK (AutoHotKey). AHK is a program that will allow you to macro buttons to do multiple commands.

Sat 16 Nov 2019 5:51 PM by bigne88

Toss wrote: ↑
Sat 16 Nov 2019 2:20 PM
How can you bind 1 key to do 1 offensive/1 defensive skill?

There is a guide on youtube by Obelix. In the vid's description, there is also a sample.
Sounds difficult but it is not at all.

Sun 17 Nov 2019 11:41 PM by Campjr

Mouette wrote: ↑
Fri 15 Nov 2019 8:01 AM
Sepplord wrote: ↑
Thu 14 Nov 2019 8:57 PM
Mouette wrote: ↑
Thu 14 Nov 2019 4:13 PM
[...]

Do you use the turn keys often?

I had the same (basic) setup very long, until i got rid of turning, put Strafe on a/d which opened up Q and E for keybinds.

Now Q/E are my most used Skills on all chars

The turn key are used to stop facing a target without moving so I can continue to cast. Is there another way to stop facing without moving forward or backward ?

Jump

Sun 17 Nov 2019 11:42 PM by Campjr

bigne88 wrote: ↑
Thu 14 Nov 2019 10:10 PM
vxr wrote: ↑
Thu 14 Nov 2019 6:05 PM
bigne88 wrote: ↑
Thu 14 Nov 2019 2:31 PM
Bards are always in need and I feel like sharing our "smart" qbind solutions might help some new fel

Nice of you for sharing.
A: backpedal;
S: forward;

This would drive me crazy. Maybe A for back and Q for forward, but having back and forward horizontally aligned instead of vertically......

It sounds awfull indeed, but it actually came natural pretty fast. I have this combo of buttons cuz it helps with the ghost-walk trick when you try to land a side or back style on a target sticking you.

How many times do you strafe or jump during a fight? Not that often. If you strafe you go slower, so it is really the worst thing you can use, ever. I never jump too.

Long time ago I had the greatest daoc advice: try unbind your strafe buttons and you will discover that you actually dont need them at all.
Strafing is 100% bad, because it makes you slower.
Unbind them and you will free up 2 comfortable buttons.
If you aren't a melee class you could even unbind backpedal. Why backpedaling slowly when you can turn?
Second biggest advice was to bind the /face to the most comfortable qbind.

strafe is a false movement in almost all scenarios. First advice I give to anyone is take off strafe,learn to noqeueue, and Jump after you face

Mon 10 Feb 2020 11:52 PM by Fribrand

bigne88 wrote: ↑
Thu 14 Nov 2019 10:10 PM
It sounds awfull indeed, but it actually came natural pretty fast. I have this combo of buttons cuz it helps with the ghost-walk trick when you try to land a side or back style on a target sticking you.

What is the ghost-walk trick?

I have heard people talk about how easy it is to hit people with a side style but I have not been able to do it.