Use of Hot Keys

[DME543]

:rolleyes: Can someone give me tips on how/why to use hotkeys. Does it make gaming any easier.
Thanks from a newbie...

[Scipio]

Hot key can make a big diffrence to the way you play the game.

First there is the hot bar for me the one through three keys are great. the fourth key is useful.

But the best hot keys are the ones I set for my mouse buttons (my mouse is a 5-button so I get an extra 3 buttons even if you only have a three button you ll still get one). You can set them up in the options-key mapping area scroll down most of the way and you will see it.

this will give you a quicker response time if your a caster and for a fighter it will make your trip/sunder/stun attempts/cleave flow like water

[Locathus]

I use the hotkeys somewhat less often than some others, but they still come in handy.

For example, all of my chars have potions hotkeyed to "1", so if I'm ever in trouble I pretty much automatically pop back a potion.

For my cleric, I use the hotkeys to heal - I usually click on the character name and then hit the appropriate healing spell key (2 for Cure Light, 3 for Cure Moderate, etc.). I started doing it at a relatively low level and noticed a big improvement in my response time.

For my fighter and rogue, I use the hotkeys for weapons - I usually have a good idea of which I'm going to use in a given quest and set them up ahead of time by dragging the appropriate weapon to my main hotbar. It cuts down on the time to switch back and forth, which is really nice in quests with oozes and undead mixed together, for example, and still allows for flexibility since I can easily change what the hotkey is tied to.

For my wizard, I don't use hotkeys often, but some people like to have their most common spells hotkeyed. One of these days I'm probably going to get around to doing it too - it just makes sense.
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[Aranticus]

i only run around with 1 hotbar, using buttons 1-0 for individual hotkey-ed item, skill or spell. i also use - and = to cycle thru my hotbars. i arrange in such a way that the most used icons are on bar 1, the next 20 on bar 0 and bar 2.

[tihocan]

Hotkeys are a must for me.

I changed the movement keys to ESDF instead of WASD. Jump on Alt and block on Space bar... now it gives me a good bunch of bindable keys I can have easily access to: Q, W, R, T, A, G, H, C, V, Shift

[Strakeln]

Like someone mentioned above, mouse-mapping is a great way to go. Don't forget you can also use meta keys with your mouse. For example, the "back" button on my mouse ("button 3"?) is mapped to the cure light spell, ctrl-back ("ctrl-button 3"?) is mapped to a cure mod wand.