Learning To Keyboard

[matteoxyz]

Has anyone managed to switch to using keyboard after always using controller, for years. I'm trying to do it and it is soo foreign and strange. I healed one Thornmarch and nearly had a coronary. I am amazed that people manage to mechanics with WASD...

[Kitfox]

Adjusting is going to take a couple of weeks depending on how much you play.

[Nixxe]

It should come as no surprise that it's difficult to you when you're used to the other system entirely. Just give it time. Controller is almost certainly only equal to keybinds at best.

[Ryaz]

It'll just take time and practice to get your muscle memory down. I remember years ago back in vanilla WoW, I was a clicker. Took me a few weeks of practice to final learn how to use the mouse to turn and move forward while using the keyboard to strafe and for all my hot keys. Now it's second nature.

It just takes time... To do it, to do it, to do it, to do it right, child. (Yes, this is a George Harrison reference).

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Yes. I converted last year after like 25 years of using a controller. What I did was simple things like running through the city and hitting target dummies just to help develop muscle memory. It does take some getting used to but nowadays I actually prefer it. Going back to older games like Mass Effect felt better despite having only ever played them on console before.

[Rongway]

I healed one Thornmarch and nearly had a coronary.

Healing is the most demanding role for keyboard players, because of how much party/alliance targeting they have to do. You'll need to come up with an effective way to target party members and mobs when you heal. Personally, I prefer mouseover heals with the spells bound to chords that include mouse buttons. Other options are using your right hand to tenkey target or bind your targeting keys to chords to put them all in reach of one hand (e.g. F1,F2 for tank1, tank2; aF1-aF5 for DDs 1-5; shF1,shF2 for self and healer buddy).

DDs and tanks can easily be controlled with keyboard only, provided you have redundant movement keys, so that you can move with either hand or both.

[Claire_Pendragon]

To me, its much easier to switch to keybord, if u dont use the mouse.
I also suggest changing keybord buttons into the gamepad equivalents, to help consolidate the number of buttons you need.
(Normally I play on controller for MMOs like WoW, but with the built in controller optiosn limiting button configuration and modifier settings, I find it harder to use than most MMOs. Except targeting, which I feel has always been better in XI then XIV.)

ASDW for movement seems like a D pad, so nothing new there. Its the arrow keys I use as a camera that took a bit to get used to, and even more so, QERF for the tab monster/party member, feature that the Dpad had on the controller.
Switched jump to cntrl spacebar, so normal spacebar can be my "X" button equivalent. (Sucks for cutscenes, as it makes a pop up come up every time now)
I then set all my abilities to the num pad, and ALT num pad.
Some lesser used abilities like mounts to the numbers above ASDW. (1-0)
the 6 buttons between the keybord and numpad are commonly used buffs. (insert, home, pageup, delete, end, page down)

all of this takes soem time to get used to, like people have said.

pick a new class, and go level it up for a bit from the lowest level, or go to palace of the dead.
eventually it will get easy.