Belkin N52

[defactoman]

I just got a N52 (tournament edition, basically same thing but glows blue) and Im a bit overwhelmed about how I Should use this. So im looking for a little advice from the people who have been using it for a while. For instance, with your left hand on the N52, does your right hand use the whole keyboard, the keypad, just the WASD area. Just any general advice you can throw my way would be awsome since im so used to WASD/Mouselooking.

[sicsid]

I used to have one of these back in the Counterstrike days. I have since kicked myself for returning it since i could use it for wow now :P

Back in the day, you could set up what keys the n52 will have, so you can set it up to have different keys. If i remember correctly you can adjust what key presses will be broadcasted, so you could pottentially set up all your
keys that are out of reach (ie: num keys, [ ] \ '; keys) and have them at close reach.

As i mentioned its been years since i had one, so more info from someone who uses it may be good for both of us :P

Seems this probably didnt help at all.

[aboron]

I'm usually running with my right hand on the mouse. It's the kind with extra buttons so i can map modifiers on it.

I only touch the keyboard when chatting.

[Drak41]

Left hand N52, right hand mouse, keyboard for chatting

N52 is mapped to 1 to =, keys 14/15 are M(map)/T(target)

Dpad I only use for WSAD, disabled the other points on it as they caused problems in WoW

the button above the Dpad I use for shifting states, normal/shift/alt (I have the N52e and it only has the 3 states)

if you use Bongos 2 (action bar addon) you can setup the action bars to reflect the layout of your N52 eg:

12345
67890
-=

then another bar for Shift and Alt, this lets me see which buttons I should be pressing :)

[Monkeymoo]

This is my setup that I use after experimenting with quite a few layouts.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v360/c0tto/NostromoSetup.jpg
01-10 keys are your first 10 buttons on your action bar.
11 - (F) Assist key
12 - (Alt-F1) Pet Attack
13 - (-) Button 11 on your action bar
14 - (Ctrl-; ) Autorun
The second mouse wheel I use as the F2 and F3 key depending on whether I roll it up or down. If I roll it down (toward me) all the alts follow the toon on the screen I'm on. If I roll it up, I set it for instant damage. For example, on my locks, if I spec for it, I'll set that to Shadowburn. If I was playing mages I might set that to an instant damage such as fire blast.
The Direction pad is set so I can steer my character. Being able to do this with my thumb is very useful for strafing and letting me select things with my mouse.
The space key is set for jump.
The F12 key is to have all my characters mount up. In the past, I have also used that as my Ventrilo button and that worked well also.
I use keyclone, and using this and the mouse makes it very easy to set up a 'white-list' and only pass through the buttons I use.
Hope this helps!

[Dooz]

Belkin Forums have a tremendous amount of advice and tips. I use the n52te, really couldn't see playing without it. You can toggle between three different key maps. The light lets you know which map your on. I remapped the wheel to letters on the keyboard. If you add the alt, shift, and alt:shift modifiers to those wheel "keys" you have twelve extra keys right there.

[Naysayer]

How I make the best use of the n52.



I bind the d-pad to
forward
strafe left
strafe right
backwards

Use your mouse to turn your character left and right. This allows you
expert use of strafe and turning, nothings faster or more accurate imo.
If you can't move forward and strafe by pressing diagonally on the
D-pad, something isn't set right and you may need to clear the bind set
to the diagonal angle in the n52 editor. Sometimes I do, sometimes it's
worked without changing it. I use the arrow keys in the WoW keybinds,
and WASD are unbound.

Bind all of the other buttons to what
abilities you feel comfortable with. I don't use the different states
and shifting and all that jazz. What I do is bind a full layer of
skills to all my n52 buttons, and then bind a second layer that mirrors
the first but this time I add shift to each one. For example the top
left n52 button is "F1" on the n52 editor, and in game I have stealth
keybound to "F1" while Vanish is keybound to "Shift+F1". Now you're
probably wondering why shift? Well, it doesn't have to be shift
specifically, it can be any key actually, but here's the reason I use
shift. I have a 5 button mouse (logitech m510 or something) and that
mouse has a button that is located where your thumb rests on the mouse.
What I do is bind that thumb key to "shift" in the mouse control
options. This allows me to use my n52 keys for a full set of binds(aka
F1= stealth), and then when I hold down that mouse-shift thumb button
and press an n52 key it uses the skills bound to the n52+shift (aka
shift+F1= vanish). So I double my n52 with a simple thumb press which
is easily done even while jumping, turning 180 degrees in mid air, and
firing off that concussion shot like a pro.

Now, I'll tell you right now that the change from WASD to using the nintendo D-pad is not
an easy one. It's like learning to walk all over again, pun intended,
but the upside to enduring a week or so of mistakes during the learning
curve is astronomical in terms of speed and freedom in a fast paced
twitch game like WoW pvp. Not only do you free up some keys, but you
can now easily access those keys while strafing, jump-turning, and
moving in general. Take, for example, your index finger. I'm going to
assume an extremely large population in the game uses their index
finger to press the "D" key in a WASD configuration. This "D" key is
usually set to "turn right" for keyboard turners and "Strafe right" for
mouselook turners. This forces them to use other fingers to access
abilities while holding down the "D" key with their index finger. That
can get awkward, it did for me at least, especially if the ability you
need is bound to say #6. Most people will stop strafing to use that key
or stick to a smaller array of abilities set to keys a little more
accessible to their WASD movement keys when on the move. Basically,
they are using 3 fingers to move the way you do with 1 thumb, and your
thumb never has to leave the d-pad.

In the end, you'll have
30+ abilities hotkeyed within a few inches of each other and all four
fingers available to use any of those abilities when needed. This
includes when you are on the move and using skilled maneuvers such as
jump-turning to fire off skills at pursuers or in the middle of a
circular mouse-turn strafe.



This last part is going to
list a few other keybinds I use that I've found improved my game, but
are unimportant to the n52. Like mentioned before I use a logitech
gaming mouse (m510 or something, I apologize for not having the
specific name) and this mouse has 5 lots of configurable buttons. Shift
is set on my thumb button, but I also use a few other buttons as well.
I set the mousewheel-up button to "target nearest enemy" and
mousewheel-down to Target self or nearest friendly. I also set the
button just below the mousewheel to my jump and I access this easily
with my index finger just as you do your mousewheel. This allows me to
switch targets by using the wheel and having the jump button on my
mouse allows me to use abilities on my n52 while I jump with my mouse
hand. It gives me a little more speed than pressing a jump key on my
n52 and then pressing an ability on my n52 would.

Well, that's the meat and potatoes of how I keybind and access those binds. I've
found nothing faster that allows as much freedom of movement while
still allowing 30+ keybinds so easy to reach. If this helps anyone else
improve their game with the N52, it was worth the time to type. Good
luck! :thumbup:

[shaeman]

Shift
is set on my thumb button

Well this single quote may just result in me breaking out my N52 again.

I used it extensively in solo play, never really used it with multiboxing. Love the idea of the ability to access shift keys, using the mouse button.

It also got me thinking I could use one of the mouse buttons to switch mode on the n52 (I hate pressing the button provided on the N52, it just doesn't seem accessible.)

[Naysayer]

Shift
is set on my thumb button

Well this single quote may just result in me breaking out my N52 again.

I used it extensively in solo play, never really used it with multiboxing. Love the idea of the ability to access shift keys, using the mouse button.

It also got me thinking I could use one of the mouse buttons to switch mode on the n52 (I hate pressing the button provided on the N52, it just doesn't seem accessible.)This is my mouse.

logitech mx-518 ('http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/mice_pointers/mice/devices/187&cl=us,en')

A few close up pics there, and you can see the thumb button and how nicely it aligns with your thumb. The small buttons on top, regularly used for altering the mouse sensitivity, are what I use for my jump, but I would say that it would also be perfect for changing shift states on the n52 as well. Not a bad price $50 for one of the most accurate and manageable mouse available.

[5fingersofdoom]

Biggest help in the beginning is to simply learn how to toggle between the different keystates as Drak stated previously.
Myself I have your shift key,ie thumb down button to redshift me,once here I use all my F' Buttons for extra controls,round red button for jump.
I dont use the scroll button for anything v.important,blink,or flametongue rockbiter,aspect of the pack ,you get the idea.
Oh and yes disable the diagonals on your thumpad :) .
I also have an MX-518,although here I use the top 3 buttons for my main shooting macros,(and Naysayer try binding the round redbutton for jump on your N52,its intuiative and much easier).

[Naysayer]

Made some edits to clean it up and be a little more clear and specific.


For some reason my Red button is very hard to press, so I never really used it before I started boxing. I guess they did that because it would be one of the most used button in a FPS and you'd wear it done quickly. For the last few months though, I've been using the Red button for "follow" for my clones and I use it quite frequently. It's probably my most used n52 key these days and I don't notice it having any resistance anymore so I guess they did a good job designing that little Red button.

The only reason I wouldn't use it for changing shift states, jumping, and such is because you have to take your thumb off of the D-pad to use it, thus stopping your movement, which is a big no-no for me. This goes for the Shift state thumb pad as well. If the hotkey I need is in a different state and I'm trying to kite someone decent, I can't stop moving to switch states so that's why I like using the shift button on my mouse and never bothering to switch states. There's no need imo, you have your 14 regular hotkeys and then another 14 while holding shift on the mouse. 28 binds is enough for most classes, and you can actually add another 14 by binding the other thumb button on the mx518 to Control. This isn't including the few other misc keys on the n52 that you can set, like the mousewheel, red button, and shift state thumb pad. I figure I have 32-34 abilities binded with the n52 and using mouse shift+. This is a mutliboxing forum though, and multiboxers are keybind maniacs at times having 50+ keybinds so I'm not going to discredit n52 state shifting. It's got to be amazing for people who need 50+ binds.

This is just my preference though, I'm sure some people could easily hit an autorun key to help them continue moving without pressing the D-pad at times that they need to shift states. It's just not efficient to stop moving with the D-pad in order to switch states to use an ability imo.

[5fingersofdoom]

You don't just use your mouse for kiting?
For me the transition is so fast there's no pause at all.
its funny though how we can all be using the same gear and each have our own particular quirks;p
Disregard what I said then,seems like you have it all setup perfectly. :)

[shaeman]

The only reason I wouldn't use it for changing shift states, jumping, and such is because you have to take your thumb off of the D-pad to use it, thus stopping your movement, which is a big no-no for me
I can help with this :)

I tend to press both mouse buttons when I do need to stop moving using the thumb wheel - it keeps you moving and can be seemless when you get used to swapping between them.

[Naysayer]

Another example of how I use my n52 with mouse shift is:

On my mage, I have the top right n52 key set to regular frostbolts. I then have that key plus shift on my mouse set to rank1 frostbolts. This let's me memorize that key as my frostbolt key, but if I need to fire off a fast one as a snare on a warrior or rogue than all I do is hold down shift on my mouse thumb button while pressing my normal frostbolt key. There's no shifting states or delays at all.

I do the same with Arcane explosion max rank and AE rank1. Frost nova and my water elemental freeze nova share the same key separated by shift. Makes it much easier to commit keys to memory.

[Naysayer]

The only reason I wouldn't use it for changing shift states, jumping, and such is because you have to take your thumb off of the D-pad to use it, thus stopping your movement, which is a big no-no for me
I can help with this :)

I tend to press both mouse buttons when I do need to stop moving using the thumb wheel - it keeps you moving and can be seemless when you get used to swapping between them.That's a great suggestion, but I use mousewheel-up and mw-down to change targets. People who Tab would definitely be able to take advantage of that though. If I ever decide to revise my keybinds to include shift states I'll key that one in mind. One problem I have with it though is that I'm not sure many other games allow movement with L&R mouseclick holding like that. I've used my setup in several mmo's (Ultima online, SWG,lineage2, ect) so I've just carried over my playstyle over the years into WoW. I only bring this up because I'm switching to Warhammer today and I'm hoping my setup converts the same way it has for every other mmo I've played. Maybe L&R mouseclick holding works in Warhammer and I'll give state shifting a shot, but from what I've seen in videos there's not enough abilities to even cover one n52 set of keys anyway.

Thanks for the tip, always good to learn how other people run their setups. Best way to improve your own imo, and I'm not over exaggerating when I say keybinds can make or break a great pvper. There are lots of extremely skilled players out there with bad keybinds sitting in the 1600's while average players with extremely efficient keybinds are in the 2000's.

[moji]

I tried an n52te and really didn't like it. Didn't seem well thought out with some of the buttons. the Dpad was way too stiff and clunky to use, the thumb button was too far toward my palm and needed to be hit dead center, so half the time it didn't register, and the orange button above the pad was really mushy. I can see the advantage of moving with just a thumb, but the product really didn't work right for me.

I realize this isn't a product review thread, just my opinion on it.

[elsegundo]

my setup is as follows:



D-pad
left - q
right - e
up - w
down - s



button layout (from top to bottom, left to right):
row one: 6 , 7 , 8 , 9, 0
row two: 1 , 2 , 3, 4 , 5
row thre: tab , alt , - , =



the big orange button is useless. and the thumb button is mapped to the space bar.

i use macros that utilized the alt button and conditions in game such as stealth, mounted, stance, and pet. use tab to target. everything else can be done on keyboard or by clicking.
an example of a macro that does four different things (dismount/leaveflightform, go to catform, stealths/unstealths, powershift):
/cancelform [form:5]
/dimount [mounted]
/cast [noform:3] Cat Form; [mod:alt] !cat form; prowl


keyboard sits on desktop in front of monitor; n52 and mouse on pullout keyboard drawer below the keyboard. lol.

[Naysayer]

keyboard sits on desktop in front of monitor; n52 and mouse on pullout keyboard drawer below the keyboard. lol.Hah, same here.

[Harem]

I love my n52. I actually have 2 more sitting on the shelf to replace my first when it goes bad :)

A couple things I had to do...

First - I used double stick tape to tape mine down to the desk. The orange button is so stiff that pushing it often results in me pushing the controller around my desk. Taping it down made it a fixture. You have to take the rubber mat on the bottom off first because if you tape it to that it will tear off the bottom of the n52. Just bare metal on the n52 to the desk.

Second - In trying to shorten/flatten the learning curve I modified Bartender 3 to give 8 bars of 15 buttons instead of 10 rows of 12. Then I was able to configure bartender in game to show only 14 buttons in three rows (just like the n52) buttons 13 and 14 are "[" and the "]" keys respectively.

Now once I had the buttons laid out on the screen it was easy for me to get used to it. The buttons on the screen directly related to the buttons on the controller.

Bartender lets you page different bars with different modifiers (alt,shift, and ctrl). I use a Logitech G5 mouse and the wheel tilts left and right in addition to down and scroll. So I put bar 2 to the left of my main bar and bar 3 to the right. I use the wheel tilt left for SHIFT and bartender shifts bar 2 (from the left) into the main buttons, I use CTRL on tilt right and it pages bar 3 into my main bar. So I can see several bars and can page them into the 'main slot' and I still have the one-to-one correlation from screen to buttons (4 bars of 14 buttons - default, shift, alt, ctrl).

I use the orange button to shift state only while it is held down (momentary as opposed to toggle). The shift state buttons become F1 - F12, L, M ( I quickly replaced F4 with J - you know why ;) ). I use the bottom row (F11,F12,L,M) for Quest log, Map, character screen and bags. I use F1 -F5 for party member selection and F6-F10 for pets of the party (never used it this way but that was the plan when I set it up and just haven't changed it) - But I DO use Alt-F1 through Alt-F9 for marking mobs when I tank. With target tabbing on my mouse wheel I can mark up a group of 5 mobs that have aggro'd us almost before they even get to us. People have accused me of having some automation before because I do it so fast - lol.

Arrow keys on my dpad for moving (frees up my wasdqe if I want to use them for something else- but I don't) and left and right arrows strafe left and right, I turn with my mouse.

A multi-button mouse and a N52 are an awesome combination. I use the close thumb button for ventrilo push-to-talk and far thumb button for ALT.

I'll do a small video and post it here when I get home this evening to make this make more sense.

If you use the tape idea to secure your controller then make sure you get the angle right so your wrist is straight, after several hours you'll notice if its at an uncomfortable angle and that 3M double stick tape doesn't come off easily.


Also, I'm using the older N52 (non-te). I cannot use anything on my N52 mouse wheel because it will, at some point, lockup on me and stop functioning (just the mouse wheel). This has happened through two different computers over the years.

[Dooz]

keyboard sits on desktop in front of monitor; n52 and mouse on pullout keyboard drawer below the keyboard. lol.Hah, same here.

same same

[Fef]

Now, I'll tell you right now that the change from WASD to using the nintendo D-pad is not
an easy one. It's like learning to walk all over again, pun intended,
but the upside to enduring a week or so of mistakes during the learning
curve is astronomical in terms of speed and freedom in a fast paced
twitch game like WoW pvp.

Brilliant description. Thanks a lot.

You had me convinced. I'll give your setup a serious try.

For the moment, I am using my nostromo with shift states. The normal state includes the WASD keys for movement (I never could get away from that, remains from my FPS times), some usefull stuff like Open All Bags and a few attacks. Then I shift states with the n52 to get a brand new "page" of attacks or heals. In that states, stupidely, I cannot move anymore. Really not efficient. My mouse thumb buttons are used for things that I can easily do without. Assigning shift and control to these buttons is a brilliant idea.

[not5150]

awesome tips... my n52 has been gathering dust for more than a year. I'm going to bust it out now.