How to use Strafe!

1) Press and hold the Strafe key
2) Move your mouse and notice your knight is no longer staring at your cursor
3) Click on the ground; the knight is now strafing in that direction.

...

4) use WASD movement instead of click-to-move, and forget the Strafe key exists

The strafe function allows your knight to face the same direction regardless of what else is happening in the game. For instance, your knight can face forward and run backward if you use the strafe button.

If you use the mouse to move then the strafe button is invaluable and makes things like kiting possible. But, the strafe button is useless if you use wasd or the arrow keys to move (although your knight still strafes when you hold down the button.)

Personally I have the strafe function unmapped. I use wasd to move and use the mouse to attack, block, and change weapons.

I was confounded when I saw what default buttons the game suggested for me. Left click is move, right click is attack and X is defend? Who plays like that?

Yeah, I remapped both attack and defend to my mouse and got to using WASD within 10 seconds of emerging from my drop pod. This game is far too skill-based for people to be farting around with click-to-move. That sort of thing wouldn't pass muster in a click-and-kill game. It was barely serviceable in Diablo, let alone here.

Use WASD. Do not use click-to-move.

Every keyboard/mouse player should be using the setup Fazan describes. It should be the default.

Dirt, I have to ask you, then, how you are able to shoot and/or slash in a direction different to the one you're moving in. The simplest example I can give is backing away from an enemy while simultaneously shooting at said enemy. Additionally, the charged attacks of practically any sword I've used is directional (even Calibur, as it it performs a little hop in the direction of the cursor), and I'm not sure how that works with click-to-move.

I don't question people's right to play with whatever key settings they like, but in a game of this nature, I firmly believe that the default should be WASD, as that's both much faster and much more accurate.

'' I firmly believe that the default should be WASD, as that's both much faster and much more accurate.''

That's personal opinion.

Someone else could say another setup is much faster and much more accurate.

I use WASD and a mouse. :P

It doesn't need to be more accurate.

I didn't say it did, but that's what he claimed~

...as that's both much faster and much more accurate.

Also, I play with a very high DPI setting on my mouse (I use a Logitech G500 Gaming Mouse) and it allows me to throw my mouse all over the screen at the slightest twitch. It's something I've developed while playing various first-person shooters and other games extensively. I'm extremely familiar with how my mouse handles and am very confident in my ability to be quick and accurate with it.

I definitely agree with you on guns. Like I said in my post, I use WASD for guns because moving with the mouse just isn't viable while trying to keep your distance and shoot.

WASD isn't more accurate as a movement scheme, but there's very little in Spiral Knights that requires precise movement. The game world is split into a rather large-square grid which gives much leeway and the game lacks any platforming. Eight-directional movement is more than accurate enough for this.

What WASD+Mouse is more accurate with, however, is shooting while moving. In Spiral Knights, your aim is independent of your movement, which gives the knight unprecedented freedom of action, especially with a gun. Crucially, the game more or less expects you to be controlling your movement AND your aim simultaneously, something that the Strafe button does not allow you to do. In fact, here's an example of something I don't think you can do with the Strafe key: Circle around a gunpuppy faster than it can turn, shooting a pistol at it the entire time. To do this, you need to control both your movement direction and your aim constantly and simultaneously.

If anyone's interested in seeing a top-down shooter done horribly wrong, look for Millennium Soldier - Expendable:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd3n6Sw_FD8

This game has the worst controls I have ever seen, and I've seen some bad controls. You control solely with the keyboard (at least the second player in co-op does), and you control via forward, back, left and right rotate, as well as left and right strafe keys. You shoot where you're rotated to look, and doing any of the fancy footwork we take for granted here in Spiral Knights puts your fingers in a knot.

Have you even tried playing like that? Silly question. You obviously haven't if you're making that suggestion. It is impossible to play Spiral Knights with a console controller.

@dirt

Really, I've had great luck with a dual analog gotten me through many a jelly king.