I like the look of your system; it’s very similar to the one I’m working on at the moment. But more about that later...
But first a little about the layout I used... as mentioned in the first post very little of this is my innovation.
Healing and Defence:
All of my healing, literally, ALL of it is on the numerical key pad (on the right). These keys are all macros, so you just have to press them for the action to trigger. Potions, pipes, herbs are all on the right as macros. In addition, my most common defences are all over there. Pentacle, fullparry, sata, levitate, deaf, blind, aloofness, acrobatics, are all macros on the numerical keypad.
Within the keypad, they are organised so that I am able to chain them quickly. For example, I can sip health (1), smoke malloran (5) and fullparry (9) in quick succession – very useful against knights who are trying to land a JJ in the gap.
To get enough variety, I use the alt, ctrl and shift keys as modifiers. This gives me a total of 15 x 4 (60 macros) – plenty for most situations.
Attack:
This depends on the class I’m playing.
Assuming I’m playing a class which is fairly low on attack variety (knights for example) then I try to make it mostly macros on my left hand. For example, Alt-S = scythe, Alt-1 = JJ, alt-W web... etc. etc. This is great for very twitchy classes where timing is more important than variety.
On a Ranger I use a slower but more varied layout. Using key combinations, for example 1<letter> spits and 2<letter> stabs, e.g. 1m spits mandrake, 1n spits nann, 2m stabs double mandrake, 2n stabs nann+phoros. Generally I’ve found that being able to put specific combos together on a knife in the middle of a fight is unnecessary. So if I REALLY need to land a phoroz then I don’t mind if I also land a nann.
Defences:
Oddly enough I use the same for defences which I toggle on and off as I do for attacks, only the reverse. For example, netdodging on is n1 and netdodging off is n2. Likewise, autowake is w1 and autowake off is w2. While this isn’t very logical, it’s the natural position for my fingers when I’m spitting and stabbing so it reduces hand movement. I even keep the same standard when I don’t really need to remove the defence, for example i1 is still sipping immunity potion, even though I would rarely want to remove it.
Movement:
One area where I’m above average in Avalon is my movement, people I have fought against comment that I move well (oddly enough Cordon even identifies one of my seconds after I fought him – based on how well I moved).
But, I move with n, ne, e, se, s, sw, w, nw... I type them and press return! Old school! And oddly enough, given that I touch type, this works perfectly well. Sprint is sp<dir> spn being sprint north, spe being sprint east etc. Gallop is so<dir> so son being gallop north, soe being gallop east etc.
The exception being movement that is one-off... for example flipping in stealth. In that situation I actually use the F keys to modify (for the next command) the behaviour of the numerical keypad. Flip North is F1 followed by Numeric Key-Pad 8. I use the same system for other one-off directional commands, like stonework, or shooting a bow, or pushing.
Beyond that, I guess I’m fairly normal.
This keyboard layout really came into existence when I was playing a Knight and for that it worked perfectly. It allowed me to focus on healing and defence (with the massive variety of cures you require on the numerical keypad) while turning the ‘normal’ or common attacks into left hand macros – very responsive if ultimately a little limited in variety. That system evolved into the layout I used on Ender, ultimately I think Avalon would be best played on two numerical keypads – with keys on each potentially modifying the behaviour of the other. However, at the moment that is a pipe dream (oh and sometimes it’s nice to be able to chat).
