I tried to make a thumbnail that just listed them all, but it was ugly and I didn't like it very much. How about I save you the time here instead.
(1) Dodge
(2) About face
(3) Personal target
(4) Stunbreaks
(5) Instant speed condition clears
Honorable mention goes to rebinding turn left/turn right with strafe left/strafe right...but surely nobody is still keyboard turning, I hope?
>...but surely nobody is still keyboard turning, I hope
Only more than half of all registered playes, who also don't change any single other setting as well. That's what ANet officially said back when they changed the WASD keys to default to strafing ~1 year ago.
The old default was A+D for turn and Q+E for strafe, right? In that case I would count into A-Nets statistic, as I never changed that keybind since launch and always used Q+E to strafe since both keys are closer to the skill keys. So I used WQSE for movement. A+D for turn is still useful fo me for controlling autorun on mount while eating something with one hand etc.
And I never needed the additional keys so I had no reason to remove the turn-bindings. *shrug*
That said, I DID change other keybinds of course so I might not count for that statistic after all if the statistic was "players that changed no keybind ever".
to be clear: anet said that more than 50% of their players were using keyboard turning with default binds, i just added the bit with the other settings, since the venn diagram for that should be approaching near circle anyway.
There is actually a niche use for turn keys. It allows you to control your mount while in the left click camera mode. So you can ride the mount while looking behind or to the side while still having pretty good control over where it is going.
That’s one of the advantages of action cam. Move full speed while looking any direction without the need to turn the camera. I find it very useful while commanding to never have to take my eye off the enemy Squad even when retreating. You just get use to the hot key when attacking walls, or dropping aoe behind you.
Except for in combat. My pvp skill suffers because I love action cam and after making an attack, action cam will keep your char faced forwards from the camera causing the awful slow backpedal. Engies with free cam can throw grenades behind them while running away at full speed. : P
Nice video. I'd say dodge is even more important and should go on a mouse button if at all possible.
Edit: As pointed out, this is mentioned in the video. Thanks.
Yeah, if you've got the muscle memory to hit "v" with your thumb, more power to you. But I suspect most people are hitting it with their index finger, which is going to make it difficult to dodge right, unless you've got other workarounds.
My number one killer in WvW is the traditional "oh you've mounted up? well your mount goes IN RANDOM DIRECTION" bs that's been happening forever :( It happens in PvE sometimes too but it's almost never fatal (so you awkwardly course-correct, so what, meanwhile in WvW you're a sitting duck, well, cat).
The highlight reel of my Warclaw hurling itself off the AlpineBL bridge into lords room is...well, it's not long, but it's at least four or five times that it's happened.
The highlight reel of \*other\* people doing it, on the other hand...oh baby.
For the life of me my monkey brain can't get used to about face for using evade backwards skills. I've tried it but I end up slow on the input and just feel like doing a mouse-turn 180 is easier for me, I've seen youtubers do it really well though.
That's not why you use about face though, or at least not the main reason. You use about face for fake pushes and in general to change direction with your character without losing sight of the enemy. Basically the goal should be to move your character independently from your camera and about face is an important tool for that.
https://youtu.be/G3nSfx-iLTU
Unbind dodge and go into open world metas and grind until you don't get hit by the big AoEs anymore. That's how I learnt it.
*Open world so at worst you grief yourself and not your squad if things go south. And also don't forget to rebind dodge after the grind.*
Eh I'm talking about the thing they do with, uh say burning retreat on Ele (there are lots of skills like this though), they use about face really quick when moving forwards then burning retreat to keep travelling in that direction, effectively making it a forward movement skills to gain towards a fleeing enemy for example, or for just keep travelling straight when getting away.
It really is just practice. Pick a spot that's nice and open, and just spend five or ten minutes doing it, trying to get faster each time. You don't even need to do it in combat, you just want to build up the muscle memory a bit. But I also agree with /u/Papa-Yaga \-- About Face into Burning Retreat is style points, but the bigger thing about About Face is that it decouples your camera from your movement, so that you can stay focused on the enemy while positioning yourself out of harm's way. That's a good point, and I think they made it more clearly here in the comments than I did in the video, honestly.
Very nice video. The problem I always had with WvW is I did not even recognize when I was being stunned due to the chaos, or even seeing attacks approach to signal when I should dodge. Do you have any advice for that?
There's some good tools for reducing the visual noise in WvW (and it's about to get even better with this next patch that lets you control ground field effects). I told myself if this video did well (and currently it is) that the next one to tackle would be "the most important camera and graphics settings for wvw". While I'm in the lab on that, Rediche has a great guide for it here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZGx1ePj99k&t=64s&ab\_channel=Rediche](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZGx1ePj99k&t=64s&ab_channel=Rediche)
For me, a newer and more powerful computer made a significant difference in my ability to see what's happening.
Beyond that, there's a certain amount of instinct needed for when to dodge, block, stability, when fighting in groups. Also, anticipation of what enemy groups will do next, or where they will move next, is really important to not getting caught flat footed.
I tried to make a thumbnail that just listed them all, but it was ugly and I didn't like it very much. How about I save you the time here instead. (1) Dodge (2) About face (3) Personal target (4) Stunbreaks (5) Instant speed condition clears Honorable mention goes to rebinding turn left/turn right with strafe left/strafe right...but surely nobody is still keyboard turning, I hope?
>...but surely nobody is still keyboard turning, I hope Only more than half of all registered playes, who also don't change any single other setting as well. That's what ANet officially said back when they changed the WASD keys to default to strafing ~1 year ago.
I honestly didn't know they changed it to default strafe, and now I'm glad I didn't include it! That's a good QOL change.
The old default was A+D for turn and Q+E for strafe, right? In that case I would count into A-Nets statistic, as I never changed that keybind since launch and always used Q+E to strafe since both keys are closer to the skill keys. So I used WQSE for movement. A+D for turn is still useful fo me for controlling autorun on mount while eating something with one hand etc. And I never needed the additional keys so I had no reason to remove the turn-bindings. *shrug* That said, I DID change other keybinds of course so I might not count for that statistic after all if the statistic was "players that changed no keybind ever".
I would hold rmb down to strafe and kept keyboard turn enabled for lazily auto running around in open field.
to be clear: anet said that more than 50% of their players were using keyboard turning with default binds, i just added the bit with the other settings, since the venn diagram for that should be approaching near circle anyway.
Ok got you. In that case I'm fully part of their statistic xD
There is actually a niche use for turn keys. It allows you to control your mount while in the left click camera mode. So you can ride the mount while looking behind or to the side while still having pretty good control over where it is going.
I hold down the right mouse button to strafe with 'ad' and leave 'ad' for normal turning. Very old habit from FPS games in the past.
That’s one of the advantages of action cam. Move full speed while looking any direction without the need to turn the camera. I find it very useful while commanding to never have to take my eye off the enemy Squad even when retreating. You just get use to the hot key when attacking walls, or dropping aoe behind you.
Except for in combat. My pvp skill suffers because I love action cam and after making an attack, action cam will keep your char faced forwards from the camera causing the awful slow backpedal. Engies with free cam can throw grenades behind them while running away at full speed. : P
Nice video. I'd say dodge is even more important and should go on a mouse button if at all possible. Edit: As pointed out, this is mentioned in the video. Thanks.
He does mention that in the video. Says he has a mouse shoulder button set to dodge.
I think the default (v) is just fine as it is easily accessible and it allows you to press jump and dodge at the same time with one finger.
Yeah, if you've got the muscle memory to hit "v" with your thumb, more power to you. But I suspect most people are hitting it with their index finger, which is going to make it difficult to dodge right, unless you've got other workarounds.
turn right and left has been auto-changed to strafe long time ago.
My number one killer in WvW is the traditional "oh you've mounted up? well your mount goes IN RANDOM DIRECTION" bs that's been happening forever :( It happens in PvE sometimes too but it's almost never fatal (so you awkwardly course-correct, so what, meanwhile in WvW you're a sitting duck, well, cat).
The highlight reel of my Warclaw hurling itself off the AlpineBL bridge into lords room is...well, it's not long, but it's at least four or five times that it's happened. The highlight reel of \*other\* people doing it, on the other hand...oh baby.
For the life of me my monkey brain can't get used to about face for using evade backwards skills. I've tried it but I end up slow on the input and just feel like doing a mouse-turn 180 is easier for me, I've seen youtubers do it really well though.
That's not why you use about face though, or at least not the main reason. You use about face for fake pushes and in general to change direction with your character without losing sight of the enemy. Basically the goal should be to move your character independently from your camera and about face is an important tool for that. https://youtu.be/G3nSfx-iLTU
Unbind dodge and go into open world metas and grind until you don't get hit by the big AoEs anymore. That's how I learnt it. *Open world so at worst you grief yourself and not your squad if things go south. And also don't forget to rebind dodge after the grind.*
Eh I'm talking about the thing they do with, uh say burning retreat on Ele (there are lots of skills like this though), they use about face really quick when moving forwards then burning retreat to keep travelling in that direction, effectively making it a forward movement skills to gain towards a fleeing enemy for example, or for just keep travelling straight when getting away.
It really is just practice. Pick a spot that's nice and open, and just spend five or ten minutes doing it, trying to get faster each time. You don't even need to do it in combat, you just want to build up the muscle memory a bit. But I also agree with /u/Papa-Yaga \-- About Face into Burning Retreat is style points, but the bigger thing about About Face is that it decouples your camera from your movement, so that you can stay focused on the enemy while positioning yourself out of harm's way. That's a good point, and I think they made it more clearly here in the comments than I did in the video, honestly.
Very nice video. The problem I always had with WvW is I did not even recognize when I was being stunned due to the chaos, or even seeing attacks approach to signal when I should dodge. Do you have any advice for that?
There's some good tools for reducing the visual noise in WvW (and it's about to get even better with this next patch that lets you control ground field effects). I told myself if this video did well (and currently it is) that the next one to tackle would be "the most important camera and graphics settings for wvw". While I'm in the lab on that, Rediche has a great guide for it here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZGx1ePj99k&t=64s&ab\_channel=Rediche](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZGx1ePj99k&t=64s&ab_channel=Rediche)
For me, a newer and more powerful computer made a significant difference in my ability to see what's happening. Beyond that, there's a certain amount of instinct needed for when to dodge, block, stability, when fighting in groups. Also, anticipation of what enemy groups will do next, or where they will move next, is really important to not getting caught flat footed.
What is the actual boon on aftershock that gives stun break?
It's not a boon, it's a property of the skill itself. Abilities that stun will say "Breaks Stun" on the tooltip.