Thereare over 50 Hotkeys spread across the keyboard in WC3, and with the Default Hotkeys Setup each race is different. The main ones are the Spell & Action Commands in the bottom corner like: A for Attack, B for Build, F for farm, P for Peon, M for Move, and many more for each unit and spell. Other Hotkeys include Unit # Grouping Modifiers (Ctrl, shift, tab, etc), and the Inventory Items (on the Numpad).
The more you move the mouse to click those Command icons, the less your focusing on your Unit Micro. This guide will help improve increase your APM (Actions Per Minute) accuracy and efficiency with Customkeys.txt and AHK. This is NOT considered cheating or hacking.
In the example image above, you can see how Improved Hotkeys differ from other common setups. Most people know the Grid Align Setup but, I do not like those because it sets the spells to ZXCV. I fixed it around so the spells are now QWER, Attack/Stop/Hide remain A/S/D and move is Z (for Zurround!) it's the same for every race, hero and units, great for playing random! This way is more like LoL or HotS with unit spells closer to the # keys, and it works well with inventory item switcher too
You can get these Customkeys.txt here from the Download button on Pastebin between raw and embed, right-click choose Save As make sure to place it in your Documents\Warcraft III\CustomKeyBindings\ folder -OR- C:\Program Files\Warcraft III\ depending on your version, and in the WC3 game Options menu click Enable Custom Keyboard Shortcuts
Since WC3 is a bit older, some of the Hotkeys were ignored and left out from Customkeys.txt so you have to use something like AutoHotkey for Inventory Items, it's the same as Warkey but lets you swap ANY key, swap inventory hotkeys so T = TownPortal G = Potion etc, also disables WinKey or Alt+QQ from closing game, and NumLock pauses the Script on/off for chat.
Read instructions carefully: First install AHK from Autohotkey.com its quick and easy. Copy my TXT script over to a new AHK file, or download and rename to .AHK instead of .TXT then place it in your WC3 folder and create shortcut on desktop, right-click on shortcut properties to Run as Admin. You should probably get Customkeys.txt first.
AHK can do a lot of cool things like swap mouse buttons too, helps if you have a multi-button mouse. My favorite is swap Ctrl with the Spacebar, I left this as optional incase some people didn't want it, but you just have to go to the bottom of the AHK script and edit the following lines
Positioning techniques are vital to winning battles. Microing in small narrow areas is not easy, if Ranged units are infront or blocking Melee units, you could lose to a weaker army. Auto-Formation (Alt+F) can be switched Off/On. Most players keep Formation Off so units move faster across the map. If you have Formation On you will not be able to retreat as quickly, but Formation is helpful at certain points of attack.
You must manually set your Group #keys using Ctrl. Always add units and buildings to a # when constructing. You can use the building #s to train units while attacking or creeping, without moving the screen back to your base.
Thats just a general idea, use what you feel comfortable with. With over 12 in one group, combine some or change it up depending on strat and army size. Try different variations, but never mix melee with siege. You can also use 4 as air and 5 as siege, but thats a lot of keys and you probably don't need that many groups.
If you have any questions please contact me on Reddit and I'll try to help, I know some people don't like switching hotkeys but, just give it a few days of practice to sink in I hope these help glhf :)
Do someone has any any idea why the custom hotkeys are not working, even after repair and manual change? Would be grateful if someone has a solution, or a programme to set up custom keys again, since the official base hotkeys for TFT are really badly aligned.
I just helped somebody fix this issue with the latest patch and he got it working by reinstalling his game and placing the customkeys into the default location (not the x86 folder) but I suppose it may be different for everybody as this game has weird quirks that vary from person to person
Hey,
the grid layout in starcraft 2 enabled me to really enjoy it as I did not have to jump around very much on the keyboard. It would be great to have that in the wc3 reforged version.
Cheers,
Koronis
Awesome layout, almost what I wanted for WC3 from MOBAs.
I noticed, you have changed position for buildings.
What was the reasoning behind it? Necessity of building + comfort like Q for Burrows which we build all game long?
Are similar buildings from different races situated on the same keys (shop, first barracks, etc)?
Q is the most used hotkey when using the above Grid setup (QWER). theres other setups that place spells on ZXCV but not many people like that setup (as explained in the guide). I figured since Q is easier to reach than Z, since its closer to the # keys.
how many extra buttons are on your mouse? most people just put Hero1 and TP on the side buttons, having 5-6 extra buttons on your mouse is not very easy to use with just your thumb, TYGHBN is probably easier
Your 2 extra mouse buttons are best used for Hero1 and TP, like I already said. If you want to change it go ahead, thats your choice. If you want to swap the inventory hotkeys to ZXCVGH you can do that, but it would conflict with the rest of the Grid alignment
In WC3, theres 6 inventory hotkeys (the first is usually TP). Your TP can get binded to your mouse, along with another inventory hotkey, but I recommend players have Hero1 along with TP on their mouse.
Swapping Move to M is a bad idea IMO. if you are trying to trap/surround a hero/unit, you dont want to be reaching half way across the keyboard to hit M. If you are using QWER for spells its much quicker to hit Z before you can reach over to M.
ZXCVG are not ON 4 and 5, but WITH them = 7 keys in total.
4 and 5 are other items.
In WC3 we have even less items, only 6, so one of my side mouse buttons will be free.
Players use on of side mouse buttons for Hero? I guess for the Main Hero. And what about other 2 Heroes? F2 and F3 still?
Right, using Move to surround is better than RMB. Usually players use Move (or Z) to bring their units in closer around the unit, and then they might even manually select one single unit to close any gaps. Hold and Patrol can be useful during battles, too.
I suppose if you really wanted to, you could move Hold and Patrol so inventory can go on XCVGHT or something (maybe even with B on build), but then again, it would be a lot of work to reconfigure everything for very little benefit, and it may even cause overlapping issues
You can have Hero1 and TP on your mouse, or you can change it so 2 inventory slots are on your mouse. It doesnt really matter, if you prefer 2 inventory on your mouse instead of Hero1, thats fine too. You can also use F1-F3 for heroes too. But either way, I still think TYGHBN is best placement for inventory (along with Hero1 and TP on mouse) as I explained in the guide above.
You just have to accept that as an older game, WC3 doesnt have all the modern conveniences of hotkey configuration. Hopefully Reforged will improve the UI for reconfiguring everything, but I wouldnt expect it to be exactly like Dota2
Do this to all them you want changed save then like I said earlier, delete the .txt. one and copy paste CustomKeys rename it to CustomKeys.txt So both are their with the same scrypt. The reason I said copy paste it is because for some reason if i only do one it doesnt work.
is it really that difficult? all you have to do is copy the .txt file into your document folder, most people just use my pre-set QWER aligned hotkeys, and if its not good enough you can always use warkeys to edit them further
both Attack and Stop are unchanged (A and S respectively)
build = Q and farm = Q and Brax = W and Tower = A
tier 1 buildings on top, tier 3 at the bottom, and its the same for every race
its all written in the guide if you actually tried reading it kind of annoying re-writing all this for somebody when its already written on the guide
The only temporary workaround that definitely helps for now is to open the keybindings in WoW and set the same key you used before again as Key 2. This will allow you to use the same hotkeys as before and can be reverted once the issue is resolved.
This needs to be fixed asap, please. This is a pain for anyone with a different language than English, using keybinds apart from 0 to 9. Also you may want to test these kinds of things in the future before pushing a patch. A tip would be to hire some more QA-testers.
I have a similar issue, Im using an English layout keyboard but since the patch the only keybind its killed for me is the # key which is a main bind for me as I use the right hand side of the keyboard. Works fine on Classic servers.
These Customkeys can be a small tool, script or text file called Customkeys.txt that has to be placed in the Warcraft 3 files to make it running! Unfortunately, the Warcraft textfile is not capable of switching item hotkeys, but the cool thing is: This guide helps you to make this happen! ?
Unfortunately, our good old lovely Warcraft 3 does not have any smart solution to edit these internally inside the game. But because of the high request of Warcraft 3 ladder players and Dota 1 gamers, tons of solutions grew up to exactly match this issue! Help is here guys, enjoy! ?
To get the full control over all hotkeys in Warcraft 3 a supporting tool is necessary to bring all modern features into the game. With Autohotkey any combination can be switched and configurated. Follow the steps below to simply set up Warcraft 3 item hotkeys.
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