Belkin N52

[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.[/font]

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.[/font]

Hah, same here.[/quote]

same same