What do you bind your side buttons to?

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rorie

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It's always a bit baffling to me to hear that people don't bind their side/thumb mouse buttons to stuff, so I'm curious if there are any of you who don't, or what you do bind them to? I would have a hard time using a mouse that didn't have at least two buttons near my thumb, and I usually rebind those to something critical when I don't want to bring my WASD fingers off the button to use them.

In WoW I usually have a tank pulling skill (Avenger's Shield/Black Ox Statue/Gorefiend's Grasp/etc) to one button and autorun to another. In FPS games it's almost always one button for melee attack and one button for throwing a grenade, assuming those are bindable. Recently I rebound the two buttons in Divinity Original Sin 2 to rotating the camera. I'm always curious to hear new things; do any of you have any bizarre things you bind these too?

I recently got a mouse with a sixth button that's not super accessible that I bound to screenshot, which seems handy!

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Zeg

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#2  Edited By Zeg

The only time I really bound the two I have to something specific was for Team Fortress 2 and Terraria. In TF2, I had build sentry and build dispenser on there, mainly for when I was playing mini-sentry engineer for dropping sentries super quick in combat. Terraria, I put the grapple hook for convenience, though at the time (and last time I played) Terraria didn't recognise the buttons so I had to run it through an Autohotkey script to fake the mouse button as 'e'.

Sometimes I'll bind them as an alternative to mouse 1/2, mainly for something like Minecraft where you hold the mouse buttons down a lot, just to give my fingers a rest for a while.

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BladeOfCreation

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I've never been one to go for the fancy mouse options, so as long as I have one thumb button I'm okay. I pretty much exclusively use it for melee attacks in FPS games. I tried to use the other thumb button for push-to-talk with the mic, but I had trouble just hitting that button by itself. In non-shooter games, like MMOs where I'd be running Skype or something, I'd use it as my mic button.

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Justin258

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I've been replaying Skyrim and one of my side buttons is the powers/shout button.

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Draugen

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I only really bind one of the two buttons on my mouse, since it's a bit cumbersome to reach the furthest one. But the one I do bind, I use for melee.

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euantor

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I mostly play FPS games with a mouse, most other games I play with a controller. In the case of an FPS I too bind melee to the top side button, and grenade to the bottom side button.

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BeachThunder

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I have one of these:

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A lot of games don't seem to support the < one as a unique button, but I use the > button for crouching. It bums me out when games don't let me do that.

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TobbRobb

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Depends on the game a lot. In shooters with 2 primary weapons, I'll put their hotkeys on the side. In CoD I put the sides as melee/grenade. In MOBAS the side buttons are item activations. In games with autorun I want it on the mouse... It just usually ends up being a key that I want more conveniently placed than default, kinda take it as a case by case.

In Starcraft I didn't bind anything. And at this point I probably couldn't relearn new keys without losing my mind. Not even sure what I would change in that game though. Feels really balanced in left hand/right hand use already.

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orionx65

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Autorun and mount in games that have those features. In games with turrets/tanks/aircraft I usually bind them to turning for maximum turn speed so I don't have to drag the mouse when I need to turn fast.

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deactivated-60481185a779c

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It's different in every game but sometimes it helps me to remember if I bind the closest/bottom button as a "passive" action and use the furthest/top button for something more active. This translated well in something like Diablo.

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Ravelle

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#11  Edited By Ravelle

To nothing haha, I always tend to click them by accident. You also have to make a weird thumb movement to click them which I'm not really fond of.

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Wemibelle

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#12  Edited By Wemibelle

In MMOs, I generally stick either cleanses (on healers) or interrupts/stuns (on tanks/DPS). It's what I've done since WoW and it's just stuck as the most comfortable thing. MMB is autorun. In FPS games, I will often stick melee on the thumb button, depending on how important it is in that particular game. For the vast majority of games, however, I don't use them for anything, unless I find a need for an easily accessed key and want to shift a bind.

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Ezekiel

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Sometimes, I change the middle mouse button action to MB4.

In Max Payne 3, I bound the laser toggle and the drop gun function to MB4 and MB5. I need quick access because lasers suck in that game. Would have been nice if they had included other attachments, like grenade launchers.

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deactivated-63b0572095437

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I've got both as my push to talk buttons. One for Discord, the other for in game voice chat. I don't use in game voice chat very much, and I've been out of the MMO game for a while.

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forteexe21

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Its currently in back and forward when using a browser.

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theuprightman

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The only time I have really used the side buttons on my R.A.T. was to bind one to the heavy attack in the Witcher 3. It worked super well for me.

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GundamGuru

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My Deathadder is an older model that I've had for a few years now, but I exclusively use the thumb buttons for DPI up/down. It's something I'd look for on the next mouse (dedicated DPI switch) because I miss my forward and back buttons dearly.

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FacelessVixen

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When I tried to use a basic mouse for gaming, the thumb buttons were mainly used for crouch and some other action depending on the game, if I could change the bindings for that matter since some games don't notice them. As someone who was used to controllers at the time and preferred them because of how quickly accessible each action is, learning mouse and keyboard for certain genres, mainly shooters, was a very cumbersome experience. The extra accuracy wasn't worth it if I kept stumbling trying to get back to WASD after trying to remember what Q, E, Z, X, and C do. But I upgraded to a Logitech G300s mouse over a year and a half ago and it's given me the best of both worlds.

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Almost every game has a profile in addition to my in-game rebinds to make every game I play with mouse and keyboard have similar if not the game controls.

Ambidextrous designs really need more credit.

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Sinusoidal

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I have monster hands and side buttons are uncomfortable for me.

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FireBurger

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I mostly play FPSs on PC, so I usually bind middle mouse to melee and the two thumb buttons to my primary/secondary weapons.

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Dave_Tacitus

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Back is crouch and forward is sprint for me. Always.

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isomeri

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I never bind or use the extra buttons on my mouse.

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jaqen_hghar

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Duck/crouch or dodge in games that doesn't have a crouch. It's the one thing you usually have to do really fast in games while also doing other stuff, so it's the most useful thing to have on my thumb.

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UlquioKani

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Usually crouch. Also whatever is on Mouse 3 because I don't like having to press the scroll wheel.

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Franstone

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In FPS games I bind my closest thumb button to melee and another to switch firing modes. I bind grenades to middle mouse button/mouse wheel click.
I have a Logitech G502 with that nearly unreachable thumb button on the middle of the left side which is set to a super low DPI setting when held for sniping. It's tough to reach in the heat of battle so I rarely use it. If the button was set back like 3/4 of an inch I'd be happy and use it all the time.

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xkkzz

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I don't always use them, but the dark souls games practically require them. Otherwise you're stuck trying to press a key to block and parry. I think I actually had to use a mod or autohotkey to get the buttons to work how I wanted on DaS 1 and 2, so I can understand why a lot of people say the game isn't good on mouse and keyboard... it's good with side buttons though!

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Casepb

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I always use it as melee. In MMOs I usually use it as either a heal, oh shit button, or escape/movement ability.

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poveren

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I yet to see any use for mouse side buttons in games that I play, keyboard works just fine. I purposefully bought a razer abyssus because it doesnt have any extra buttons.

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monkeyking1969

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My mouse has no side buttons, and I don't play too many games on my computer. But if I where to bind them, one would be "hand me a beer" and the other would be "get a kitten".

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Vamino

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I bind the "forward" side mouse button so that it moves my focused window to the other monitor (through DisplayFusion or similar programs). Something my friend turned me on to and that I don't think I could do without now.

Then using my mouse software I turn that off in games, and that button is then my push to talk in, say, Overwatch.

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CouldbeRolf

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The "back" button is usually auto-run. "Forward" isn't used much (sometimes a instant ranged attack for pulling and such in mmos), but I might bind crouch to it in Destiny 2 to easier use the dodge move on hunter (double tap crouch).

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MeierTheRed

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#32  Edited By MeierTheRed

I never end up binding them to anything. They always feel out of place for me to use. I guess my hands are weird that way.

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emumford

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If i'm playing WoW, i'm rocking my left-handed Razer Naga and all twelve of the thumb buttons are bound to a grid hot bar I have set up in my UI to mimic the location of each button. Most of it is a mix of utility spells (cleanse, PW: shield, levitate, life grip) and annoying toys, trinkets, and mounts. I've been playing a healer for a good bit in wow lately and with the use of clique I can toss out these abilities rapid fire on my party/raid if needed.

If i'm not playing wow i'm using a different mouse, mostly to help prolong the life of the LH naga, but also I don't feel like I can perform very twitchy fast response movements with it. I've got some hybrid optical/ laser mouse for everything else, it's another razer mouse product but I can't remember the name off the top of my head. It's a bit smaller and ambidextrous so it works great for me considering I'm a left handed mouse user.

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ripelivejam

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#34  Edited By ripelivejam

I've wanted to rip them out of my mouse for mistakenly making me go back a page when I was filling out a form or something, but I've also been to lazy to remap/disable them so I guess it's on me.

Never thought about doing it for games, though. Never felt the need/the lazy thing.

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DodoBasse

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#35  Edited By DodoBasse

In PUBG I use one for switching firing modes and one for auto-sprint, though I think I'll change the ladder to something I use more often. Usually I'll use it for something that requires fairly quick reaction, but is not super common (like changing firing modes).

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applegong

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They really do nothing, only for me to click in frustration when I do something stupid in games.

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ajamafalous

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#37  Edited By ajamafalous

Mouse5 (forward button):

  • push to talk in whatever third voice chat client I'm using
  • grenade if it's a single player FPS

Mouse4 (back button):

  • push to talk in-game in a multiplayer game where I need/want to communicate with my team
  • melee in FPSs where I don't need to talk to teammates

Sometimes I bind M4 to other stuff but that's on a per-game basis. M4 is bound in Path of Exile, M4/Shift+M4/Ctrl+M4 are all bound in WoW, etc.

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lobster_johnson

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I usually play with a controller but for games I am playing with a mouse (strategy or point & click generally) I put just about everything on the mouse because my hands don't know what keys I'm on on a keyboard and my eyes are busy. I hate keyboards for gaming.

Anyway it really varies from game to game but I like to put inventories or quest logs or something on the side. Or the menu. I think in XCOM I used the side buttons to go up/down a level. I have a Roccat Tyon and the buttons beside left/right click are actually handier than the side buttons, so I tend to keep those for more important actions, though this thing has so many buttons I'm often spoiled for choice.

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NTM

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I've never actually had one of those mouses (I've never built a gaming PC, or had a PC powerful enough to justify having one), but I would definitely bind them if I had one. Maybe to reload or an action button. I love mouses for gaming, but keyboards kind of suck to me (in comparison to a gamepad that is). I know a lot of people say 'but you can bind it to so many things compared to the limited controller buttons!' but no. Now, if they made a pressure sensitive keyboard, then that'd be cool to me. I know I'm going off-topic here, but if keyboards allowed for more precise movement of the character in games, especially in sneaking games, then that'd be great, instead of the typical 'walk' option. The only game I thought did this better on PC was the original Splinter Cell games, where your movement speed was dictated by the scroll on the mouse.

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enemymouse

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Front and back thumb buttons. Only game I bind specially is WoW. I just bind to 2 slots on the action bar so every character can easily drop in the skills they need. Also middle mouse click is auto run.

Front button is usually any forward action like blink or jump. Back is any defensive action like frost nova or hunter's backward jump. Super easy to remember.

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flasaltine

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Push to talk

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Tom_omb

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#42  Edited By Tom_omb

Nothing. And I get annoyed when I accidentally hit the back button when I touch my mouse to wake my screen while Chrome is open on a paused video.

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Captain_Insano

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Only just started binding 'Crouch' for PUBG.

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Gavwow

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When I had a razer mamba I used the front side button for discord push to talk and the back button for in-game (CSGO, PUBG etc) push to talk.

However, I've just gotten a Corsair Scimitar which has 12! side buttons, so I'm using those for push to talk as well as healing items and free look in pubg.

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Pezen

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The last time I played a computer game that needed some buttons was Dota 2 and I used the two side buttons on my mouse for the opening the shop on one and my mind says I had the leveling up on the other but I don't remember how levels work in Dota 2 so maybe it was something else. But most games these last few years I played on the computer weren't really ones that needed so many buttons that they ever mattered.

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eccentrix

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#46  Edited By eccentrix

I remap my keys in a way that works for me, but that I don't hear people talking about. It's designed so that the left hand/keyboard controls movement and the right hand/mouse is for actions. Middle mouse button is reload, the left side button is use/interact and the right side button is flashlight/melee. The only exception is if both melee and flashlight are available, in which case melee gets priority on the mouse and flashlight gets put on F. I never have to stop moving or move my fingers awkwardly around the keyboard to reload or interact with anything.

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Haruko

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Front button for melee or grenade and back for melee or push to talk

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marblecmoney

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In shooters I will usually bind the closer button to melee, and the further button to push-to-talk. I like having the in-game push-to-talk on a button I won't accidentally press, but that I will remember when/if I need it.

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vasta_narada

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I have my 12 side buttons bound to abilities in FF14. I usually use two or three for chat shortcuts or something in other games.

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PeezMachine

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Like many other folks here, it's usually some arrangement of melee/grenade/PTT. I've been playing Vermintide lately and I've got the lower thumb button set to dodge (did the same in Guild Wars 2).