18 replies to this topic

[ImmortalSol]

Diablo is currently, mainly a point-and-click action hack-and-slash game, however, I've learned recently that the best and most optimal way to play as a character that is constantly kiting and evading objects, is by making the usage movement, their primary tactic, not by using your mouse, but rather your keyboard.

By default, Blizzard has set all players keybinds a certain way, and you'll notice the Move command is actually not set and your Skills are binded 1-4. Since left-clicking allows players to move, and it's the most common way someone can think of moving, especially in a game where your attacks are activated by clicking on them. This works relatively well for characters that melee, like the Barbarian and Monk, the only movement required are from one monster to another, there's no evading at most times. But ranged characters are different, currently, I haven't actually seen any well-known players to show themselves playing with the move command as a primary concept, especially a DH.

You will come to realize, if you have any idea already how the DH should be played, that binding your move command to W, and your skills from 1-4 to ASDF (or anywhere next to W) instead is the best way and also the easiest way to play. Those that are still using left-click movement can play well still, however, it should become apparent that this is the better way to play.

For one, I find it less stretching your fingers on the keyboard (from 1-4 to shift) and more relaxed, but also, it's not practical to move with W and use skills binded to keys that are above it, as you need to be able to move and activate skills while moving. If you've played other games you obviously know about WASD gaming, using the move command on this as W makes it very similar, allowing you to seamlessly move and attack much more efficiently, as well as navigate through mobs easier, as you ignore everything and slip through all the monsters. I think if you try it you will notice the many aspects it makes much simpler and faster.

Like one thing I'll give as an example now, rather than kiting by left-clicking back and right-clicking to cast your hatred spender, you're holding W and simply right-clicking in the direction you want to shoot and then moving the mouse behind you to run away. Once you master this you can never stop moving and shot your projectiles by spinning around and then immediately spinning back. You can also cluster your projectiles by running with it, in particular, ball lightning, much better as you don't left click to move again after each shot, by holding move command you're always moving making you run with all your shots immediately after shooting.

Once you continue to practice and integrate move commanding to your gameplay, as I have been, you'll be able to switch between two different states extremely effectively, by becoming offensive and casting clusters of projectiles and running continuously toward your target or becoming defensive/evasive by never stopping movement, you'll never be touched by another AOE casted by elites because you don't even have to react to it, you're extremely dynamic by moving at all times, dodging everything like the DH is meant to.

To me, this means whoever else that doesn't make use of move command as a DH should be labelled inexperienced because you just cannot play as effectively and efficiently and fluidly by making use of left-click move commands.

If you want to be a real pro at DH, you can all thank me later.

[Bleu42]

OR,

or

Get a naga mouse. All my left hand does is hit alt / shift / tab when I need it. I use my thumb for all my attacks, most defiantly the fastest way to play.

[ImmortalSol]

Or, use my method and use a 5 dollar mouse like me and still play like a pro.

Using a naga or not, merely the fact that using move command on your keyboard instead of moving by clicking with your mouse (making sure you don't accidentally click a monster) is much more reliable and practical. I'm sure if you picked up moving with your keyboard if you don't already you'll find playing even easier.

There's almost no need to use shift if you use the move command, AND if you use shift you probably use left-click move, therefore you're making many more, less efficient clicks verses move command, AND your movement dynamics and position are also stunted by left-clicking each time you want to move.

Edited by ImmortalSol, 18 November 2012 - 05:22 AM.

[maka]

ImmortalSol, on 18 November 2012 - 05:00 AM, said:

To me, this means whoever else that doesn't make use of move command as a DH should be labelled inexperienced because you just cannot play as effectively and efficiently and fluidly by making use of left-click move commands.

If you want to be a real pro at DH, you can all thank me later.

Oh noez!

[ImmortalSol]

I said that flat out like that, but what I was trying to suggest was that everyone, even if you are an experienced DH by regular definitions, with good gear, good builds and whatnot, that without making use of this technique, you'll never be as efficient and effective as you can be. Therefore, people that have yet to figure this out should by this point be considered inexperienced compared to those that are starting to make use of this technique.

I urge you, if you're a DH (or not, I don't know how beneficial this is to other classes) to try this and compare it to when you used left-click movement and then you'll understand what I mean. All DHs should play like this.

Edited by ImmortalSol, 18 November 2012 - 06:17 AM.

[maka]

I actually will give it a shot, and it's a good tip. I just didn't appreciate the tone.

[ImmortalSol]

Yes, it does sound a bit crude if you read it out of context to what I said after that. My bad, I just didn't bother or couldn't figure out a good way of expanding on that pointing out what I meant until after you pointed it out. I'm glad you'll try it out, let me know how it goes.

Like me for example, I only started using this just today, and I've already gotten used to and fallen in love with it (lol) and I'm a level 60 paragon level DH. So even though I'm experienced by all means of level, I didn't figure this way out until level 60. I also know level 100s that haven't tried this either.

Edited by ImmortalSol, 18 November 2012 - 07:06 AM.

[Mob_Dylan]

Hmmm, was skeptical at first but thinking about it some more, I think ill give it a shot.

Edited by Mob_Dylan, 18 November 2012 - 07:51 AM.

[Mob_Dylan]

Tried it, its pretty hard to get used to. Just need to practice

[m4st0d0n]

What works for you might not work for everyone else as all are not equal.

I use asd for skills from start as 1-4 are hard to reach and uncomfortable. At one point, early in Diablo 3, when skill actually mattered, I tried the move bind, and I found that I can't get used to it. I saw the theoretical advantages, but in practice it was too much hassle, as I still had to move the mouse to the point i wanted to go. Stutter-shot is actually harder to time when you have the move button on a separate arm. I can imagine a convenient third button on a mouse for this purpose though, but I found Mouse3 (wheel) hard to press, and Mouse4-5 not responsive enough on my hardware.

Now I moved away from Ball Lightning, and use insta-gibbing skills, like multishot and impale (at 75% crit those oneshot everything quite reliable), I don't even need to cluster projectiles.

Also "inexperienced" is not the right word. As you said you are using these binds since yesterday. I've tried it months ago. Now I got over a thousand hours played in Diablo 3, 3 maxed chars in Diablo 2, and one in Diablo 1, and according to you I'm still inexperienced, just because I didn't find your control scheme useful? The control scheme I use is well established, and it's well practiced into my muscle memory. Go grow a beard...

Edited by m4st0d0n, 18 November 2012 - 08:32 AM.

[Eazy]

What if I actually learned how to play on my old control scheme and I like it?

[ImmortalSol]

If only I could showcase how it looks playing with move command instead of clicking. So much smoother and faster. Don't get me wrong, clicking is fast too, I was plenty fast at that, fastest you can be, but move command is faster.

Experience is indeed not the right word. Inadaptability is, however. After such long gametime, you've probably gotten very used to your own methods, change might be difficult, but just looking at it from a fresh perspective, if two people completely new tried both ways, this way would be easier to learn as well as more efficient in the long run.

It took me around 100-200 hours of playtime of any game (DIII and Starcraft) to master it. I've played for about 400 and prior to this I had mastered clicking to move with my mouse, but just recently I've adapted once more, to be even better. Just considering the raw output of each technique, using the move command is faster as well as simpler. If you put a good 50 hours practicing this way and trying to do runs as fast as you can, you'll be able to master it and perhaps you can grasp how it works better.

I'm sorry to everyone that perhaps felt offended for me saying that if they didn't do as I suggested that they were inexperienced, it was just a ploy in a way for you to perhaps give it a try. If it doesn't work for you, no problem.

And for those that think it's too hard to change from the way they did things to this new method, I'm sorry as well, I was actually a "fan" of WASD and used it a lot, therefore I assumed others would be able to adapt to something exactly like it, in Diablo, as well.

Edited by ImmortalSol, 18 November 2012 - 09:04 AM.

[Eazy]

I'm not telling you're bad player, but could you show us your DH? You know, people would believe someone with quite good gear that he has right.

I'm going to give it a try. I'll tell you tonight how it feel like.

Edited by Eazy, 18 November 2012 - 09:12 AM.

[ImmortalSol]

The thing is your gear shouldn't determine how good you are, how often you die and the amount you level/time you play shows how fast you progress therefore how skilled you are at playing, and also, of course, anyone can suck at the game and either get lucky and find a super good drop and become rich or simply be rich in real life and buy the gold and be "good".

All I can say is I have around 170 hours playtime on my DH with level 61 paragon. My DPS is only 100k, but I make the best out of that dps as well as be as efficient as I can be by using move command. Also, I have theoretically, the currently best gear set your can have, which is widely known. I focus on crucial DH stats like Max Disp, CC, CD, AR, Vit, LRegen, HatredRegen. So aside from what I'm claiming to be the best way to play, I also am decently knowledgeable of the current DH methods.

Like I said before, you may have super high dps and super crazy gear, but that doesn't make you good in a skillful way in terms of when you are in the actual game playing. In fact, the better your gear, probably the less skillful you need to be, cause everything just dies faster. All it means is that you are good at managing your character, either cause you were lucky or you found some very nice way to profit through the AH, etc... as a good DH, you could still not be very good at the AH, and the same vice versa.

Anyway, I'm not saying I'm some big shot DH that knows better than any other DH and that everyone should do what I say, but I'm just suggesting, and trying to show that compared to the commonly used method of click-moving, that it's actually more effective to use move command and people that want to have an easier, funner time playing DH, to try it out.

I want to post my DH but I can't post links yet.

It's nothing special, but with the relative playtime, and no special luck or RMAH, I think I got a pretty good set. And once more, I think due to the way I play, I can level just as fast or even faster than other people with better gear than me, certainly making the best use of the gear I have.

What I've tried to point out as well is that, two people with identical gear, the one using move command would have an easier time, be more effective and play faster, just by a slight amount, but it adds up.

Edited by ImmortalSol, 18 November 2012 - 09:40 AM.

[ailoze]

Uhh, so all you are suggesting is to use the move command as DH? I think anyone who played glasscannon @ release knows that, since you would die all the time due to accidentally clicking destructibles while kiting. At least I did a couple times, and since then my "move" is bound to my midle mouse button.
Anyway, I guess it's useful for those who ran into this kiting problem and didn't try to solve it.

Also, don't go bragging about skill and all that stuff. It's Diablo, gear is what matters here. Sure, being smart and skilled helps at all gear levels, but the better gear you have, the less beneficial it is.

[ImmortalSol]

That's what I said. Skill doesn't matter, but it does help, if two people with identical gear were pitted against each other. It's most useful to use move command, I'm glad you knew as well. That's great. But I never bragged, I just said that it's better to be skillful because it does matter when you play, especially as a DH, where positioning and evasive maneuverability matters.

Edited by ImmortalSol, 18 November 2012 - 10:31 AM.

[Speaker]

The first thing I did after logging into diablo 3 the first day the game came out was change the skill keybinds from 1234 to qwer and potion to a.  Second I made the move key the spacebar and have never switched back.  I changed the cancel chat button to d.  Why waste such a good keybind as the spacebar for something so stupid?

In fact, I wish I could remove the movement from left clicking altogether.  It just screws me up when I'm aiming somewhere and my character starts moving.  Like wtf?  What happened to customization?  Once you start using a movement key there is no need for the left click movement.

[ImmortalSol]

Potion binded on Mousewheeldown ftw. Movement with W is perfect for players that have played WASD games.

[Nehalem1228]

I only have move bound to spacebar as my custom bind.

I am on Zealot on that anti-auto-binding-move for left-click, it's annoying that skills react differently when it is on left-click vs elsewhere