What are your keybinds for Engineer?

[Telgum.6071]

I want to get into Engineer, but coming from playing classes with almost no F skills (Revenant, Warrior, Thief and Necro) this toolbelt thing seems very unwelcoming, so I'd like to get an idea of what is the way to go of engineer players.

I also accept general advices and suggestions from the Engineer crew

[Alcatraznc.3869]

F1-F4 are fine as they are so I didnt change them. However F5 (which is your elite tool belt for core and specialization belt skill for other) is a bit annoying so I binded it on Q. I think Mechanist introduces F6 and F7 key, and since these are also pretty annoying I binded them to C and V. It's arguably not perfect but it is easier to reach than F5-F6-F7 so in the end, if you have another keybind in mind that is easier to reach for you, then just use them instead.

 

It has nothing to do with keybind but I recently changed the ground targetting option to instant so that when I press a ground skill, it will shoot at where my mouse is pointing before the shot is triggered. It is pretty handy when for instance you aim at 1000 and then your target blink 500 closer to you. Instead of shooting twice, you can just move your mouse to the new location and it will shoot there. Very convenient when using mortar and grenade kit. However, it no longers highlight the radius on the ground so you'll have to get used to it. In PVE it is whatever however in PvP it improved my aiming by a lot (still hard to use for me though lul).

[MrForz.1953]

Here. The toolbelt skills are untouched except for the fifth-one/class-mechanic that I bound to T. 

[SeTect.5918]

My weapon skills are 1-4 and the 5th weapon skill is on "R" for me.
My heal skill(6) is on "Q".
My 7 is on "C".
My 8 is on "T".
My 9 is still on 9 (I click it with mouse).
My 0 is like @MrForz.1953' on "G".

My F1 is on "E". (Bc I ll play mechanist and mechanist F1 has far lower cooldown than mechanist F2 and F3)
My F2, F3, F4 and F5 are still on F2,F3,F4 & F5. bc i click them with my mouse.

As I can see all 3 that commented have F1-F4 unchanged or F2-F5 unchanged.
Since this post is about F skills, I d suggest to think around which of these skills u use the most and then u can decide on which one/two/three you put the letters.
On holo ist most likely photon forge activate/deactive.

However its also dependant on the keyboard. I live in germany so I use a german keyboard obv.

You may test some letters for several skills and look if it fits to u.
I think everyone here will have other letters on their skills.

Edited January 2, 2022 by SeTect.5918

[The Boom.6538]

1-5 skills remain the same

heal skill is on Q 

7,8,9 become E,R,C

Elite becomes X 

F1-F5 become shift+Q,E,R,C,X

just a preference I don’t want to move my hand away from wasd movement keys and I get hit Shift with pinky pretty easily.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

I left F1-F4, and I changed F5 to G, it's easier to reach. 
I was experimenting with changing F1-F5 to Shift/Alt+ Q, E, R, T, C which was more of a problem than a solution.

[Kuma.1503]

Wierd... 

My movement keys are WERD instead of WASD. I do this because I can comfortably lay my hand across the QWER keys and move forward, right, and left without moving my hand. I bind Q to auto attack so I can easily move and attack without moving my hand. 

My 1-5 keys are, in order Q , 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 

5 is about face.

So if i want to do Acid bomb moving forward, all I have to do is take out Elixir Gun then press 5 and then 3. 

My utility skills are, in order 

G, S, F, T, C. 

Every button is comfortable to hit with minimal hand movement, which helps a lot during frantic kit swapping. The exception is my Elite, which sits on the C key. That takes a bit of a stretch, but you tend not to use your elite too often, so this is fine. 

For my F skills, i took a bit of inspiration from my old WoW keybinds and use modifer keys instead of F keys. Aint nobody got time to reach all the way up to F1-F7. That's way too far on my keyboard. 

F1 is Alt + D

Why?

No other reason than because it was a common keybind for me in WoW and I got used to using it. D is one of my movement keys, and to hit alt, all I have to do is move my thumb, so i don't actally have to reposition my hand at all to use it. 

My proffesion skills are, in order

Alt + D, Shift + 1, Shift + 2, Shift + 3, Shift + 4 

The shift modifers are easy to use because I just have to move my pinky off of Q down to Shift then press my number keys as usual. This comes in handy when playing Ele because I can attunement swap while keeping my fingers resting near my weapon skills. 

Some miscilanious Keybinds

A is dodge.

If i want to move while dodging I literally just have to move my pinky and my hand can continue resting on the movement keys. 

If I want to jump dodge, I just press space with my thumb at the same time. I can jump dodge in any direction without having to move my hand. 

 

Stow Weapon is Alt + F. It was the button I put my "kick" or "interrupt" spell on in WoW so it makes sense that I would use it to interrupt my own abilities. 

Weapon Swap is Alt + Q. Pinky moves down to alt. Ring finger moves over to Q. Hand barely has to move. 

 

The reoccurring theme is I tried to structure my keybinds so my hand doesn't have to move much. It lets me combo much smoother and swap between my kits more effortlessly. It would be a pain with the default keybinds because I'd have to move my hand over to the 6-9 keys and waste valuable seconds. With kit swapping it would be a deal breaker, so I'm glad I set things up this way. 

 

Edited January 3, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[Orack.4825]

On 1/1/2022 at 10:14 PM, Telgum.6071 said:

I want to get into Engineer, but coming from playing classes with almost no F skills (Revenant, Warrior, Thief and Necro) this toolbelt thing seems very unwelcoming, so I'd like to get an idea of what is the way to go of engineer players.

I also accept general advices and suggestions from the Engineer crew

TBH no one play with the same keybind, the only rule about keybind is : They have to be easy for you.
Put important / most used skill on the close one and the rest a bit around.

For exemple I've unbind the "Weapon-swap" keybind who was ² and put it in the holoforge instead since engi can't swap weapon in combat. I also don't need keybind for auto-atk since I play in action-mod.

Here is a screen of my setting, try many and find your own :)

My Keybind
 

EDIT :
(I've an Azerty Keyboard, I note it cuz I realize most people here play in Qwerty ^^)

 

Edited January 3, 2022 by Aznarb.6347

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

My biggest recommendation is to rebind autoattack to something around WASD (I use R in particular). Some Engi kits like Grenades don't do autos properly and this is a vital change.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

I've only connected some of the buttons to my Logitech G502. In addition, I use a special build-setup for all of my characters.

Mouse-Buttons
RED = Elite Skill (0)
GREEN = Weapon Swap (^)
BLUE = Utility Skill 2 (8)
BROWN = Special Action Key

The BLUE mouse-button is my panic-button. Every build I use has its stun-breaker in that slot. That means whenever I get a CC, my muscle-memory breaks me out of trouble instantly. In Addition, the Bond of Faith mount-eject is also on that button.

On the Engineers, the Elite is mostly the Mortar Kit. If that is the case, I run tools-traitline with streamlined kits. With the proper muscle memory, I can equip the kit and disarm it with both mouse buttons (RED + GREEN) extremely fast. Right before the burst phase begins, so I can use the + 5 % damage boost from Object in Motion (Scrapper). 

Special Action Key on the mouse-wheel-CLICK is a game-changer. No matter where I have put the key on the keyboard, I never managed to reach it in time. But with this setup, one finger is always on the mouse-wheel. If the skill was just a little more responsive.  

Personal preferences:
- If you want to control your engineer without breaking your fingers, I recommend you learn to walk with the mouse. It is awkward at first and takes some time to get used to it. But once you have mastered it, you automatically swap to mouse-movement, whenever your left hand is busy using skills.

Spoiler

If you hold left and right mouse-button, you run forward.
If you hold the right mouse-button for the camera and only tab the left one, you do small steps. It can be done rapidly without triggering the dodge at all. Very helpful in JPs.

- After 15 years of MMORPGs, I prefer keyboards with high buttons over flat keyboards. The flat ones are easier for writing, but the higher buttons lead to a lot less wrong-button pressing.
- Mousepad makes a difference.
- Cable management with the mouse is a bit challenging. An option I have tried a few months ago, which surprisingly works great: cord from above. I simply have a box in front of my mousepad, the cable reaches from the PC over the box down to the mouse.
- If your mouse software supports DPI adjustments, try a little higher than normal. Our modern screens are rather larger, scrolling through the screen can take a while. My current mouse-radius on the pad is 4x4 cm. Do not worry about the precision, you can get used to it rather quickly. 
- Try binding dodge to a single key. If you can, bind it to an additional mouse key.
 

Something funny to try:
- If you have a mouse with extra buttons, use two of them for ALT and SHIFT
- 1-6 = DEFAULT Buttons
- 7 = ALT + 1; 8 = ALT+2; 9 = ALT +3; 0  = ALT+4; Special Action Key = ALT+5,
- F1 = SHIFT+1; F2= SHIFT+2; F3= SHIFT+3; F4= SHIFT+4, F5= SHIFT+5
Looks crazy, takes a while to learn it. But you can rest your left hand in one position and never risk a wrong-button-press every again XD. 

I have also seen an exotic setup where WASD was relocated to the middle of the keyboard, S = G. Using 7-U-J-N together with ALT, SHIFT and CTRL on the mouse for the skills, utilities and toolbelts. 

[Melkino.8609]

Keybinds

I play on a keyboard without a function row (Magicforce 68), so the toolbelt skills are shift+numbers. M4 and M5 refer to my mouse's two side buttons. Dodge is Z, weapon swap is X, special action is R

[The Boz.2038]

Skills 1-5 are 1-5. 6-0 are Shift+1-5. F1-5 are Alt+1-5. Dodge is on a mouse side button. Stow is on Q. Switch on Shift+R.

[Calen.8945]

For me, the 1-5 are Q, E, R, F (The '1' key is the left click so I don't need to bind it.) The utility skills are 1-4 and M5. The Toolbelt is Shift + QERF and M4

[Custodio.6134]

For me (WvW-Heal-Scrapper Main) it´s standard keybinds (1-0 and F1´F5).

However, those keys are partially bound to mouse-buttons. 

1-6 is standard (since i can still reach 6 pretty well with my left hand, and often use movement with M1+M2 anyways)
7 and 8 are bound to a thumb-button each
9 is middle click
and 0 is bound to a seperate extra-button which is placed next to my M1 (left mouse button) 
 

[WhoWantsAHug.3186]

I've mained engi since release, but never quite enjoyed holosmith until i got a razor naga and bound f5 to my mouse. I'd highly reccomend an mmo mouse so you don't use modified keybinds. 

Switching to ESDF for movement also helps a ton for adding more keybinding options. I also highly reccomend this. 

Edited February 7, 2022 by WhoWantsAHug.3186