I find that the best hotkey setup for a caster class is to put spell gems 5 through 8 in hotkeys 1 to 4. That lets you cast any of your spells with 1/2/3/4 (in the hotkey bar) or alt+1/2/3/4 (basic keys for first 4 spell gems). You don't want to be reaching across the keyboard for alt+8 while trying to strafe-juke away from a rogue or something, and you also need spare hotkeys for instaclicks, pumice, /hidecorpse all and so on. You'll have a spell hotkey setup that looks something like this:
Spell gems -- access key
(1) Heal -- alt+1
(2) Dispel -- alt+2
(3) SoW -- alt+3
(4) Gate -- alt+4
(5) Nuke -- 1
(6) DoT -- 2
(7) Snare -- 3
(8) Root -- 4
Your hotkey bar would look something like this:
[1] Nuke
[2] DoT
[3] Snare
[4] Root
[5] Assist group's MA
[6] Various utility such as tracking or racial hide skill
[7] Clicky
[8] Clicky
[9] Clicky
[0] /hidecorpse all
If you constantly have to lift the heel of your hand off the desk or bottom of your keyboard/laptop, your hotkey setup is bad. If you have to type something in a hurry while fighting, such as assist/hidecorpse, you don't have the right hotkeys. If the first bar isn't enough, put less crucial hotkeys in bar #2 and switch back and forth with shift+1/2 - consider putting insta-clickies there so you don't have to reach for 8 and 9 every time you get dispelled. Don't waste hotkey space on auto-attack, map that shit to Q.
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