Skill clicking is not the key(board)

[Spucke.4163]

I've noticed while watching streams people are clicking their skills instead of using keybinds. Those people looked very overwhelmed in endgame content (fractals, raids, strikes). In my opinion skill clicking is very ineffective because you lose a lot reactive capabilities. So how common is skill clicking?

Edited October 27, 2022 by kaese.8765

[DeanBB.4268]

How could we possibly know? Any info gathered here would be anecdotal, at best.

[neighto.7386]

8 minutes ago, kaese.8765 said:

 in my opinion

That's all there is to this post.    Its your opinion..... What may not be effective to you may be for effective others... No two people are the same in regards to playing.   How dare people play the game other than how you want them to OP  /smdh

[Cuks.8241]

I cringe a bit when I see a streamer or someone on youtube click skills potentially judging/reviewing the game. You kinda expect reviewer to know how to play.

On the other hands there are players that can get very good even with clicking so dont want to label them as bad right away since well they might just be better than me.

[Spucke.4163]

42 minutes ago, neighto.7386 said:

That's all there is to this post.    Its your opinion..... What may not be effective to you may be for effective others... No two people are the same in regards to playing.   How dare people play the game other than how you want them to OP  /smdh

It's not just my opinion, it's a fact. For example if you click "Well of Darkness" with necromancer then you have to move your mouse to the position where you want it to be casted. Then you click again to use it. With keybind your cursor is already on the position and boom you cast it immediately without moving your cursor alot. Keybinds will always be more efficient. Standard keybinds are not fine for everyone. This is a good guide :

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDjEts07ekg

Edited October 27, 2022 by kaese.8765

[Gibson.4036]

I've noticed while reading posts people are starting sentences with lower case letters instead of using capitals. Those people looked very overwhelmed in forum wars. In my opinion lower case letters are very ineffective because you lose a lot of readability. So how common is the lack of the [shift] key?

Edited October 27, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[JTGuevara.9018]

On 10/27/2022 at 2:09 PM, kaese.8765 said:

i've noticed while watching streams people are clicking their skills instead of using keybinds. those people looked very overwhelmed in endgame content (fractals, raids, strikes). in my opinion skill clicking is very ineffective because you lose a lot reactive capabilities. so how common is skill clicking?

I don't know what you're talking about, I've played gw2 for 10 years and I click to this very day. While I do use the keyboard for movement and skills, I'm not doing it for the camera. Especially since the camera options lend themselves quite nicely to using a mouse.

As for being overwhelmed, is it not possible that these streamers are either newer players or don't play as well while simultaneously streaming? Believe me, I've played while speaking on VOIP to friends. Not the easiest thing in the world! That's a lot of brain power scattered into different places!

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

14 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

I've noticed while reading posts people are starting sentences with lower case letters instead of using capitals. Those people looked very overwhelmed in forum wars. In my opinion lower case letters are very ineffective because you lose a lot of readability. So how common is the lack of the [shift] key?

Writing upper- and lower-case words requires knowledge of the vocabulary and whether it is used as a name or not. Buttonpressing requires knowing your skills, the effects and have memorized which button is where. It often also requires a special customized key-map, opposite to the default settings.

Conclusion: You can only utilize what you truly know. If it ends up with a huge guessing game, doing it the simple way leads to less problems.

I'd rather have a clicker in my party than an hyper-active button masher who's stun-breaks are never ready when needed.

[AliamRationem.5172]

38 minutes ago, neighto.7386 said:

That's all there is to this post.    Its your opinion..... What may not be effective to you may be for effective others... No two people are the same in regards to playing.   How dare people play the game other than how you want them to OP  /smdh

People can play how they want.  That doesn't change the fact that keybinds and mouse buttons are objectively faster inputs than clicking.  You can be effective clicking your skills, but you'll be more effective if you don't.  But do whatever you want.  It's just a game, right? 

[Freya.9075]

Streamers are managing a lot while playing. They may be stressed about their stream and making sure their viewers enjoys it. Making sure the stream is working as intended in case of technical issues. They may have to moderate the chat. They are talking while focusing on the game. They are thinking about content and playing the game at the same time. Multitasking is not easy for everyone. If they look overwhelmed I highly doubt it’s the skill clicking 

[Spucke.4163]

3 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

People can play how they want.  That doesn't change the fact that keybinds and mouse buttons are objectively faster inputs than clicking.  You can be effective clicking your skills, but you'll be more effective if you don't.  But do whatever you want.  It's just a game, right? 

No doubt. I don't judge anybody. But some people are very emotional when i state a fact.

[Cuks.8241]

10 minutes ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

I don't know what you're talking about, I've played gw2 for 10 years and I click to this very day. While I do use the keyboard for movement and skills, I'm not doing it for the camera. Especially since the camera options lend themselves quite nicely to using a mouse.

Usually a "clicker" is someone that clicks skills with the mouse cursor on the skill bar instead of pressing the shortcut either on keyboard or mouse. Its not only that the camera lends nicely to the mouse its actually locked to mouse wheel (at least zoom) in this game which is actually a shame because I usually utilise those for other shortcuts. On the other hand most other games dont mess with your camera as gw2 does.

And its definitely objectively slower to click. It just takes more actions and you also need to move mouse cursor while you will want to use it for precise targeting/ground targeting. Also this game has these nice fast release option for ground targeting which really fastens the ground targeted skill use.

[DeanBB.4268]

There's clicking, then there's clicking. Are they clicking every single skill, or keyboarding most but not all? I play a lot of characters, and am an old guy, and use a razer keypad rather than the keyboard. So I only have F-keys 1-3 mapped and have to click any F4 or F5 skills due to the keys I've chosen to have readily available. The rest are on the keypad, though. I still find myself clicking some utility or whatnot on occasion simply because I have to look at it to remind me what skill is there. Of course, I mis-key skills as well, hitting 7 instead of 8 and whatnot.

Works for me, I think I do ok.

[Sobx.1758]

While skill clicking is obviously less efficient than using proper keybinds, I don't really care if someone does it and not sure why anyone should care, perhaps outside of some of the cases where people are struggling/trying to improve but can't (which can easly be at least partially related to clicking on the skills with their mouse). If someone is fine with clicking on their skills then I don't see the issue.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I'm ambidextrous and I either press keys or click skills depending on which hand is not already performing an action. There's no way to easily eliminate skill clicking entirely, you have to bind every action in the game to the WASD area or have a specialised mouse, although I've seen people do both, but under normal circumstances reaching anything beyond about 1-5 and F1-F4 is a struggle when you have small hands.

 

Clicking skills also casts them differently to keypresses if they're targetted, immediately casting them at your location, which is used to save time in complex rotations by eliminating movement animations, etc.

 

I agree that someone clicking all their skills is inefficient but the mouse has a purpose and forcing yourself to do everything with one input device when you have two isn't a boon, its a deliberate handicap. You have two hands and two devices for a reason and you should be using them both to their full potential.

Edited October 27, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Gibson.4036]

16 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

I'm ambidextrous and I either press keys or click skills depending on which hand is not already performing an action. There's no way to easily eliminate skill clicking entirely, you have to bind every action in the game to the WASD area or have a specialised mouse, although I've seen people do both, but under normal circumstances reaching anything beyond about 1-5 and F1-F4 is a struggle when you have small hands.

In general, if you bind your movement keys more centrally, you can get all time sensitive inputs within two keys of them. I use W/E/R for movement, my son moved his even farther in to the keyboard.

But a gaming mouse is an amazing thing. I got my first one recently. Just putting a few things on thumb buttons like profession skills, mount commands, and take target has been an amazing upgrade.

Edited October 28, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

12 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

In general, if you bind your movement keys more centrally, you can get all time sensitive inputs within two keys of them. I use W/E/R for movement, my son moved his even farther in to the keyboard.

But a gaming mouse is an amazing thing. I only got mine recently, and just putting a few things on thumb buttons, like profession skills, mount commands, and take target has been an amazing upgrade.

I also usually suggest to anyone who is disabled to use foot pedals as well, as they're easy to get and help immensely with movement in the game (strafing etc.) without stressing the hands even more.

Edited October 27, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Farohna.6247]

As long as things die /shrug

[Warscythes.9307]

I don't really care, you can press keys with your elbow if you want as long as you can do the content.

[Cuks.8241]

1 hour ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

There's no way to easily eliminate skill clicking entirely, you have to bind every action in the game to the WASD area or have a specialised mouse, although I've seen people do both, but under normal circumstances reaching anything beyond about 1-5 and F1-F4 is a struggle when you have small hands.

Thats actually a miss conception. It is actually very easy and fast to get used to binds.

You bind everything and never ever click again anything. Ever. You intend to click? NO! Find that button.

The first hour you might feel dumb because youll be just standing there looking silly while you try to figure out what to click. But the progress is fast.  Time to adapt will probably depend on how adept you are in the first place but it becomes natural very fast.

Gw2 has decent amount of button but not that many.

[mungozen.2379]

30 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Thats actually a miss conception. It is actually very easy and fast to get used to binds.

You bind everything and never ever click again anything. Ever. You intend to click? NO! Find that button.

The first hour you might feel dumb because youll be just standing there looking silly while you try to figure out what to click. But the progress is fast.  Time to adapt will probably depend on how adept you are in the first place but it becomes natural very fast.

Gw2 has decent amount of button but not that many.

How many professions do you have Keybinds setup for?  One of the issues I have run into is optimized keyboard layout for one build doesn’t always translate well to another profession build. Is there a way to have per character/per build keyboard layouts?  

Edited October 27, 2022 by Mungo Zen.9364

[Doggie.3184]

It is indeed a fact that hotkeys will be faster than clicking but then again some people don't even have hands or arms and still play MMOs so people can do whatever they feel they need to do, really. 

(also it's common practice that gaming 'journalist' aren't good at the games they review😅 that's why "journalist mode" is a thing/meme)

Edited October 27, 2022 by Doggie.3184

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

33 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Thats actually a miss conception. It is actually very easy and fast to get used to binds.

You bind everything and never ever click again anything. Ever. You intend to click? NO! Find that button.

The first hour you might feel dumb because youll be just standing there looking silly while you try to figure out what to click. But the progress is fast.  Time to adapt will probably depend on how adept you are in the first place but it becomes natural very fast.

Gw2 has decent amount of button but not that many.

Your experience is not the experience of others. Everyone does things their own way and in their own time, and some ways are better, but ultimately what is best is what works for someone.

 

I have small hands and I can't reach that many keys, and mount keybinds alone take up half the keyboard.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

7 minutes ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

How many professions do you have Keybinds setup for?  One of the issues I have run into is optimized keyboard layout for one build doesn’t always translate well to another profession build. Is there a way to have per character/per build keyboard layouts?  

As someone who plays every profession, this is a big problem for me. Especially when I need to remap a key belonging to one profession but remapping it would mess up the rotation on another profession.

[Parasite.5389]

2 hours ago, kaese.8765 said:

It's not just my opinion, it's a fact. For example if you click "Well of Darkness" with necromancer then you have to move your mouse to the position where you want it to be casted. Then you click again to use it. With keybind your cursor is already on the position and boom you cast it immediately without moving your cursor alot. Keybinds will always be more efficient. Standard keybinds are not fine for everyone. This is a good guide :

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDjEts07ekg

no... this IS your opinion

also, skill clicking a ground targetted skill, drops the target on your feet, this is incredibly useful if you're trying to drop wells on your party in group contents, especially for classes like Specter.