Keyboard/hot bar set up for monk?

[mobrien316]

I have been having a lot of trouble finding a good setup for my hotbars/hot keys for my level 6 monk. I'm sure the problem is that I'm used to simply hitting "attack" most of the time with my other melees and occasionally hitting the trip, stun, or cleave buttons. Trying to set up finishing moves is really a pain at the moment.

I only have a regular keyboard.


Any help would be appreciated.

[Missing_Minds]

I have been having a lot of trouble finding a good setup for my hotbars/hot keys for my level 6 monk. I'm sure the problem is that I'm used to simply hitting "attack" most of the time with my other melees and occasionally hitting the trip, stun, or cleave buttons. Trying to set up finishing moves is really a pain at the moment.

I only have a regular keyboard.

Any help would be appreciated.

What sort of mouse do you have?

Are you a keyboard and mouse player, or strict keyboard?

How many hotbars do you have up on your screen now,
how many will you allow yourself maximum?
How many full bars can you handle that are fully hot keyed?

[mobrien316]

What sort of mouse do you have?

Are you a keyboard and mouse player, or strict keyboard?

How many hotbars do you have up on your screen now,
how many will you allow yourself maximum?
How many full bars can you handle that are fully hot keyed?

I have a keyboard and a three-button mouse. I don't care how many bars I have on the screen; some of my characters have 12. I have four keyed hotbars at the moment. (keyboard 1-10, number pad 1-10, and two with letter keys.)

[gDra]

I am using 4,5,6,7 for Ki Strikes (Earth4+3,Fire4+3)
H for Light Ki Strike, F and G would be available too. But honestly I don't bother with finishers (other then buffs). It may be different on a dark monk, but the light finishers seem weak.

[Ttizz]

Everyone has their own preferences, but the setup that has always worked well for my dark monk are as follows:

Stunning Fist: F
Quivering Palm: G
Touch of Death: E
Fists of Darkness: Q
Finishing Move: Cntl+F

I have a Razer Naga mouse and use the 2 button for Shadow Fade, 9 for Abundant Step and I believe 8 for Dance of the Water Strider.

[Asanarama]

I'm probably the only person, um, unique enough to have encountered this particular bit of confusion, but I'll mention it, just in case. When I first tried monk I was in the habit of first stripping the default action bars of newly-rolled characters and then putting stuff where I wanted it. I failed to realize that you could put the main finishing move button on an action bar, having dragged it off the action bar without realizing what it was. I thought you had to put each individual finisher in its own spot. So yeah, just making sure you realize that. I think you can hit a + to expand and see all the individual finishing moves, but you only want to put the main button on your action bar. It'll automatically do whatever finisher you've done the right combo for.

[BOgre]

I have been having a lot of trouble finding a good setup for my hotbars/hot keys for my level 6 monk. I'm sure the problem is that I'm used to simply hitting "attack" most of the time with my other melees and occasionally hitting the trip, stun, or cleave buttons. Trying to set up finishing moves is really a pain at the moment.

I only have a regular keyboard.


Any help would be appreciated.

I had similar troubles when I started playing a monk. My solution was not very elegant, but it works for me.



On the left I have the combos for a few key finishers like Grasp the Earth Dragon and such, I click 'em with the mouse when needed.
On the right I have the top 3 bars (1, 2, and 3) set up almost identically, with Stun, Jade and QPalm in the same places, as well as the generic Finisher button. Each bar then has a different #3 and 4. I'll switch bars using Ctrl+(1,2,3) depending on the situation. That way, I always have access to my basic strikes, the Finisher button is always in the same place, and my specific strikes are alwasy 3 and 4... make sense? As I said, it's not very elegant, but it helps me to keep my keypresses fairly simple regardless of the situation.

[Schmackdown]

I use a gamepad, but that's pretty much the same as using a keyboard, just fewer available buttons, so my approach should work for a KB/mouse user.

Instead of trying to map strikes to keys, I map the ten keys and combinations I find easiest to pull off to slots 1-10 of the active hotbar. I then map other keys/combos to bring up logically grouped hotbars- one for melee, one for curatives, another for stances, yet another for buffs/equipment/clickies, etc. The ten "action" keys stay the same, but their functions change. A keyboard user could just map 0-9 on the ten-key and be done with it.

This method allows me to keep just two bars visible. One has ten direct-mapped keys/combos that have cooldowns, allowing me to keep track of what is available. It is never in focus because it does not need to be. The other bar is active, and rotates as I need different abilities.

This setup allows me to roll off all of the combos required for finishers pretty easily. No, none of them are very impressive, but some have their uses. Freezing the Lifeblood vs. humanoids is quite effective, and Pain Touch is one of the most underrated aspects of a dark monk, imo. On the light side, if you are using Fists of Light and Unbalancing Strike all the time, why not just throw in a cold strike and have a Heavens finisher prepped for the casters?

As someone else mentioned, there is never a need to slot the individual finishers. Just slot the generic finisher icon, and it will replace the generic red icon with the symbol for whatever finisher you might have available. I keep that slotted on my primary melee bar and nowhere else. If you are using hotbar spots for each finisher, that's a number of possible spaces to recoup right there.

I have found that focusing on only ten keys or combinations allows me to use them a lot more fluidly, which in turn allows for much better manipulation of my Ki stack. It also keeps the screen uncluttered.