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My keybinds are a haphazrd mash of buttons placed as I realized I needed a new binding for another spell over the years. They are a mess, and some critical spells are in some pretty terrible places. I know at some point, I'll need to completely revamp them and learn all new binds, but I'm terrified of the learning curve.

Any tips and/or tricks for adjusting to a completely redesigned layout?

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7 Answers

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I agree with several of the other answers but I wanted to post to simply say, practise practise practise.

You are basically trying to relearn muscle memory as well as retrain your brain, and in my experience this is best done through repetition.

Whether you change every keybind you have, or one per week, you need to make sure the new ones stick, and that means using them a lot until they are in muscle memory. Repetition is the key to learning. Repetition is the key to learning. Repetition is the key to learning.

So when you change binds, go into battlegrounds, do Wintergrasps, do heroics, smack a training dummy, and lather, rinse, repeat. And then do it again.

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Just FYI, you spelled practice wrong ;) – Wridel Nov 3 at 19:01
Actually both are acceptable: google.com/search?q=practise+practice – Wikwocket Nov 4 at 4:42
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If I go for a complete overhaul, I get my butt into the battlegrounds. Standing in front of the tackling dummy is fine to check for basics. But I have found that unless there is some pressure, then it just doesn't count. Battlegrounds give me a little pressure, but if I mess up, I am not wiping the raid.

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I agree with this completely. BG's are great for this, as are skirmishes and Wintergrasp. I think it's best to just go cold turkey. Try to do it at the end of a raid week. For example, if you raid Sunday-Thursday, put the new keybinds in on Thursday night and grind with them on Friday/Saturday. Once you start, you can't go back, it'll be just as bad reverting as staying with new ones. – Takkara Oct 21 at 13:01
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BG's are also great for testing out new UI layouts, for the same reasons and because you can fill your party frames with people. – Wikwocket Oct 21 at 13:43
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Rebind a few at a time. In my experience it's easier to adjust to a few things at a time than throw a huge revamp in your face. Perhaps start with your primary nukes and one or two less used spells.

Or, if you aren't going to be using some former keybinds, double-bind the spell to both keys until you've trained yourself to use the new one. That way, in a panic or a clutch, you won't be in trouble if you go back to your habit of hitting the old key only to remember too late that you've rebound say, iceblock from 5 to G (example of course). On my priest I actually have Guardian Spirit permanently bound to two different keys. Paranoia I think.

Lastly, regardless of whether you ease into new binds or just throw everything out the window, practice using your new buttons in low stress situations - heroics or training dummies. Teach yourself the new binds again. That way you're not fresh in a raid or bg or arena fumbling for your keys instead of dpsing, tanking, or healing.

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Stand in front of a target dummy and practise with your new bindings. If you want a randomly moving target practise on the active Tournament Champions outside CC.

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there is also an addon called HelpMeKeybind that can be found on curse or wowui.

it helps a lot for learning new keybinds and getting your reaction speed up on your current ones, in a minigame fashion

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WoW (heh), that's a pretty cool addon. It reminds me of those typing games that came out when PCs first became popular. Practically though, since I don't have a lot of time to play I practice new keybindings on mobs a few levels lower than me because I learn best when I'm making mistakes that matter. :) – bookworm13 Oct 22 at 18:25
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First, change it all at once or don't, and don't look back until you've shown that your new bindings are worse. I haven't yet had to do a keybinding overhaul, but I have moved important things around.

What I tend to try to do is pug an easy Heroic -- typically UK or Nexus. Something that it's rather hard to foul up, and try it there. Make sure to use ALL the keybound abilities at some point, just to help teach you where the buttons are. Make sure to have visible ActionBars with the keybinding hovering over the button (if it's for spells). Otherwise, it -will- come, and it, at least for me, doesn't take too long. Again, pug runs (or guild runs where you're letting them know what's up) are great for this.

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Since you are taking the plunge, I'd also suggest messing with an action bar mod like Bartender4 or Dominoes.

When I decided to revamp ALL my characters to standardized as much as possible keybindings for healing/AoE/racials/anti-fear actions, I modified my keybindings to match my physical keyboard layout. I actually use my numpad keys as well as my normal number keys because I can only use so many shift/ctrl/alt modifiers before my hands start to cramp up. So I made a action bar 3 wide and 4 tall to match the numpad. That way I don't even have to remap in my mind which action bar button corresponds to which physical button.

Of course using the numpad for actions is not recommended if you circle-strafe or jump shot a lot as you have to take your hand off the mouse, but it works well enough for me .

I'll also suggest trying out using your arrow keys to keybind to auras/stances/forms (with modifiers if you need more than 4) to free up some key space.

Edit: If you're going to downrank an answer at least say why. Hopefully its something better than "that idea doesn't work for me".

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Thought I didn't downrank, one reason someone might have is simply because the question is "How do you adjust to a new one", not "how do you select a keybinding setup." As such, your answer is unrelated to the question, it seems. (I downrank for incorrect/misleading answers, but not simply unrelated ones.) – Christopher Schmidt Nov 3 at 18:43
Thanks for the comment, though I do think that mirroring the physical numpad layout helps me adjust to new keybindings. This got tested last night when I dusted off a long-neglected warrior and had no muscle memory at all for any actions. Just being able to look and not do a mental translation helped me pick it up faster. – bookworm13 Nov 3 at 18:50

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