How do you hotkey your spells

[LordEricoftheDragons]

Basically how do you sorcs hotkey all your spells? The only hotkey I keep the same is MM in slot 2 that way it's easier to spam instant damage with no miss/save.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I have 10 spells assigned to one of my tools bars....and used the keymapping options to tie them to my numberpad keys.

These are the spells I use the most in combat. I don't put buffs there, although Displacement and haste are common enough.

[Desteria]

Bar focus swaping keys removed

Bar 1 is set to numbers 1-10
bar2 set to ALT+ 1-10
bar3 set to ALT+ q-p
bar4 set to CTR+ 1-10
bar5 set to SHIFT+ 1-10

On my SORC
Bar 1 is primary spells
Bar 2 first part is some ste up spells Disco ball and the like the short buffs I might want to cast on the fly, Displacmetn, Haste, Fire sheild cold second half is reasist energy
Bar 3 is heal scrolls, ___, Mind fog, Symbol of pain, acid fog then Prot spells
Bar 4 Buffs and Metamagics
Bar 5 CSW wand then Primary hand weapons/Sets I wand to swap fast Is sup pot and Grene steal weapon, then some of the Styaf of arcane power spells, MCMW scrolls, a few other spells.

Bar 5-10 are gear for swaping clickys i do need need to use when my right hand is busys on my movment keys ie fre eto use the mouse, less used scrolsl like DDoor, oh and my telaport locations dotn want to miss cast them mid raid some time , Gtelaport scrolls and the like.

Some of these setting are hold over form my EQ days 5+ years (over 400 days played) of casting spells with numbers or ALT+numbers, and useing the number pad for movment set very deep habbits.

[unionyes]

My primary individual damage spells are on keys F, G, V, C, and B. My instakill and/or AOE spells are on O and P. This allows me to twitch cast scorching ray, ottiluke's freezing sphere, etc with my left index finger. My right hand hovers over O and P, which usually has Firewall slotted for O and Finger of Death for P. Dancing Ball is usually keyed for Number Pad 0, because I don't cast it a lot but need to be able to swat at it and hit it without looking.

Depending on the quest I may change them up. When in Gianthold Tor or Madstone Crater, I put Flesh To Stone in the F slot, basically it is whatever spell I need the most often. And in Reaver, I put PK into the O slot rather than Firewall, and alternate between FOD and PK (O and P keys) for the elementals.

Buffs, and spells I don't cast a lot like Lightning Bolt, Magic Missile, don't get hotkeys mainly because I don't use them that often. All my buffs in my personal buffing 'routine' are on one hotbar, so I can start at the top and just click down the line with my mouse.

Edited to add almost forgot Haste, which is always on K, so I can throw it out without thinking about it.

[MrCow]

I just have my numberpad from 1-9 hotkey'd to the first 9 things of my most used hotbar. I tend to still use my mouse and click on the hotbars regardless...

[Yoseph]

I use the 0-9 hotkeys for all my offensive spells and keep some buffs on a different hotbar. I also have my three most common spells (PK or Fireball, Schorching Ray, Repair) keyed to three buttons on my mouse for easier casting.

[Catlyn]

I have 3 hotbars up on my main screen and that is it.

I have 1 hot bar off to the side that holds my useful stuff like remove fear pots, assorted scrolls, hot swap combat equipment.

I have 1 bar on the bottom that holds my different weapon sets - i.e. spell pen, sup pot, dual puncturing, etc

Lastly, on the bottom I have the active hot bar. This hot bar corresponds to my 1- 0 keys, but i usually only put combat spells in the 1 - 6 slots. I then use my mouse (Logitech revolution) thumb to scroll through my hot bars. I group my spells on a hot bar based on what they do. Bar 1 is my default not know what is coming with PK on 1, FOD on 2, FTS/Disintegrate on 3, wof on 4, FTS/Disintegrate on 5, etc

Hot bar # 2 (1 thumb click up) is CC bar with web on 1, sf on 2, mind fog on 3, ball on 4, wof on 5

Hot bar # 3 (Another thumb click up) is ray bar with MM, Disint, Polar ray, etc.

Hot bar #10 (1 Thumb click down from main bar) is buff bar with HSAte on 1 (used in combat lots) Displace on 2, all the way to 10 with other buffs like rage, blue, gh, jump etc

Hot bar #9 (1 More thumb click down) is my resist / Prot bar

the other buried hot bars have my spare wands, or non combat equipment slots.

Frees up lots of real estate on the screen, yet with the rapid thumb switch between bars, I can get to any spell quick and easy. I had a few miscasts when I first switch to the mouse, but now I love it and can cycle to the right bar, cast a spell and be cycling to the next before animations are done. I keep my one hand on the mouse and the other hand on the movement keys / 1 -5 and have had good luck with it.

I do the same thing on my other characters but my casters (Sorc, Wizard and 2 clerics) see the most benefit from it)

[Mudder]

I use an X-Box Controller:

I Key Map Previous Bar to D-Pad Down, Next Bar to D-Pad Up.

LOC is the Key Equivalent of the Location on the Bar
CONTROL is the specific control on the X-Box Controller
AFFECT is what's stored at that location
Shift is mapped to the top left trigger of the Xbox controller

BAR 1 - FIRE
LOC CONTROL AFFECT
1 Back Maximize
2 Shift Back Heighten
3 Start Haste
4 Shift Start Scepter of Superior Inferno/Scepter or Superior Fire Lore
5 X Button Wall of Fire
6 Y Button Fire Ball
7 B Button Scorching Ray
8 Shift X Solid Fog
9 Shift Y Cloud Kill
10 Shift B Web

BAR 2 - COLD
LOC CONTROL AFFECT
1 Back Maximize
2 Shift Back Heighten
3 Start Haste
4 Shift Start Scepter of Superior Glaciation/Scepter or Superior Ice Lore
5 X Button Niacs
6 Y Button Cone of Cold
7 B Button Otto's Cold Thingy
8 Shift X Solid Fog
9 Shift Y Cloud Kill
10 Shift B Hypnotise

BAR 3 - INSTAKILL
LOC CONTROL AFFECT
1 Back Maximize
2 Shift Back Heighten
3 Start Haste
4 Shift Start Scepter of Spell Penetration/Scepter or Superior Potency
5 X Button Flesh to Stone (not really instakill)
6 Y Button Phantasmal Killer
7 B Button Disintegrate
8 Shift X Solid Fog
9 Shift Y Cloud Kill
10 Shift B Web

BAR 4 - UNDEAD
1 - Back Maximize
2 - Shift Back Heighten
3 - Start Haste
4 - Shift Start Sheild/Holy Mace
5 - X Button Wall of Fire
6 - Y Button Command Undead
7 - B Button Scorching Ray
8 - Shift X Web
9 - Shift Y Cloud Kill
10 - Shift B Halt Undead

BAR 5, BUFFS AND STUFF
1 - Back Extend
2 - Shift Back Displacement
3 - Start Haste
4 - Shift Start Dimenstion Door
5 - X Button Resist Fire
6 - Y Button Resist Cold
7 - B Button Resist Electricity
8 - Shift X Resist Sonic
9 - Shift Y Resist Acid
10 - Shift B Magic Missles

So, from Bar 1, to cast a heightened PK, followed by un-heightened Cone of Cold, using Ice lore:
Down, Down, Shift Back, Shift X, Up, Shift Back, Shift Start, Y

But for Solid Fog, followed by Maximized Wall of Fire:
Shift X, Back, X

It gets sloppy when you try to get tricksey with it. Usually I stay on one bar for a while depending on the situation. I also detach bars with common spells that don't require a quick twitch, i.e. buffs

Notice that I will repeat common spells/actions on all bars so regardless of which Bar I'm on, the "start" button is always "Haste"

I usually run with 4 seperate bars on my L14 Sor:
One for spells (controller accessible), 2 for my gear/clicky layouts (mouse acccessible), and 1 for fast access to Potions/Scrolls/Wands (mouse accessible).

[GeneralDiomedes]

F1-F6 and 1-6 are hotkeyed as my offensive spells that need to be cast in a reponsive manner. This is just because I find it faster to move my fingers up from WAD rather than sideways. I load these up with whatever I think will be cast most often in the upcoming quest. Of course, certain spots are always reserved for certain types of spells, i.e. '1' is always a healing spell.

My weapon/shield combos are RFV/TGB and are the same on all characters, melee or casting. I find that makes it easier to not get fumble fingers in the heat of things. For my caster, this will include things like scepter combos, returning weapons, staves and a shield for blocking.

Meta toggles are on the extra mouse buttons. This has worked out really well and I'm currently looking for a good gaming mouse with more than 2 extra buttons, since I now have 3 metas that I use regularly.

Most everything else I find it's faster to click on it. I think I have a couple of slots open for F7/F8 that I can drag clickies/scrolls to when I want to manually target them.

The ALT/SHIFT combo idea sounds interesting, I might try it out.

[Kraldor]

I have a 5-button mouse so I use the left side-button as a modifier key. All the spells that need to be shot off as quick as possible are hotkeyed - everything else is along the top of my screen (buffs, persistent AOE's)

Spells:
1 - Scorching Ray
2 - Chilltouch
3 - Fireball
4 - Magic Missle
5 - Wall of Fire
Mod + 1 - Haste
Mod + 2 - Hypnotism
Mod + 3 - Phantasmal Killer
Mod + 4 - Cloudkill
Mod + 5 - Web
Mod + C - Finger of Death
Mod + E - Cone of Cold
Mod + F - Mass Suggestion
Mod + Q - Disintegrate
Mod + R - Flesh to Stone

[PhoenixRajoNight]

The best way to setup your hotkeys is actually very simple. Setup your hot-bars to 1 - 0 on your keypad, then set-up your numpad as your hotkeys. Now u can click from hotbar to hotbar with your number keys and use your hotkeys in each of those rows corresponding to your numpad keys Num1 - Num0. If you use a laptop and dont have a numpad you can go to walmart and buy a wireless numpad for 25$.

It took me 5 key-mappings to figure out the keymapping but now i love it, but i am waiting for tubine to fix the modifier key problem, before we got hotbars 11-20. Which I dont need yet execpt on 1 char. The way I setup my stuff is pretty much the same on all my chars, and makes it easier to remember. Hotbar 1 changes from char to char but the rest stay pretty much the same. Hotbar 1 is for main bar for fighters its weapons and last 2-4 spots are for healing depending on wands and lay on hands availabitlity, clerics its my heal bar spellies its speel socus weapons and a few targeted dam spells. Bar 2 is my aditional weaps that i switch to ocasionally and not as much as the primary set on fighters, on spellies its my aoe bar, clerics i leave empty, bar 3is misc item switching, ff pap di ua other things i might wanna switch out. bar 4 is my debuff removal potion bar, bar 5 is my debuff other player bar if access, wands/spells dc's, bar 6 is resist/prot bar, bars 7-8 are buff bars potions spells wands depending on the type of char, bar 9-0 are skill and feat bars and downtimebars like empower spell feat defensive fighting search pick disable sneak and such, but as u can see first 2-3 bars somewhat vary but i try to keep uniformaty to remember some keys better.

[rimble]

I tend to map spell combos:

Q then Alt-Q gives me a Dancing Sphere then a Web in it.

F then Alt-F gives me an Acid Fog with a Wall of Fire in it.

Instakill are next to each other on Alt-2 and Alt-3 (PK and FoD, respectively).

Stuff like that.

[Desteria]

I tend to map spell combos:

Q then Alt-Q gives me a Dancing Sphere then a Web in it.

F then Alt-F gives me an Acid Fog with a Wall of Fire in it.

Instakill are next to each other on Alt-2 and Alt-3 (PK and FoD, respectively).

Stuff like that.

ya thats kinda how some of mine go 1 = fod Alt+1 = PK

some grew to set spots befor the combo existed and i;m to used to them so if i move them not i just always cast the wrong spells....

just like on my cleric 1 = destruction to be the same as my sorcs primary insta kill

[Yoseph]

I have my offensive spells on my 1-0 hotbar. Starting from 0 and working left I got Wall of Fire, Cone of Cold, Scorching Ray, PK, Dismissal, Fireball and MM. I have a five button mouse and the two buttons on the left side are mapped to 7 and 8 for PK and Scorching Ray. Depending on the quest I will swap spots on my hotbar and put the best spells for the quest in spots 7 and 8. This allows me to target and cast quickly and constantly without having to take my hands out of their normal position. I also have my mouse wheel button mapped to F12 which is my highest level repair spell. Using the mouse buttons for casting and healing has saved my bacon many time. The bonus is I only started using the mouse buttons when I created my Sorcerer, but now I have the 7 and 8 spots setup for stuff like Trip, Hold Monster, etc on my other characters. Definitely recommended.