Controlling World of Warcraft - Keyboard? Mouse? Joystick?!
iTZKooPA on Tuesday, January 13, 2009 - 55 Comments Tags: Addons, Addons, arrows, controlling wow, customization, default layout, mouseclicks, one-handed gaming, play styles, ventrilo, wasd  Via an overzealous nerd with shoes from the 80s |
Generally speaking, watching another person play an MMORPG can be incredibly boring. PvP matches and raiding aside, the audience always knows what will happen, the avatar will kill the mob with plenty of HP to spare. World of Warcraft is no different in that respect; thank god for WoW's customization. Rather than watching the shining graphics on the screen, I watch a player's hands to see how they have mapped their keys for their personal settings. It has proven to be far more interesting.
For every type of player that exists in Azeroth, there is a type of play style. One of the best warriors – one of those people you'd hate on Ventrilo though - I have had the privilege to play with moved around with the arrow keys, mapping his abilities to keys in the area. A hunter from our guild didn't hit any hotkeys, relying entirely on mouseclicks. A pair of my druid friends are a clear case of convergent evolution, mapping all of their healing keys as close to WASD as possible, including Q, E, R, F, G, C, V.
My brother, a Holy Priest from the beginning and a RTS master, only used 1-5 for his spells. Five spells isn't enough for any class, let alone a Priest. He simply would hit Shift 1-5 to change his bars as needed, effectively giving him 25 keys to play with. His “uber-micro” from his Red Alert and Warcraft III days are what enabled him to keep up with the required speed necessary to be a main healer. Those frantic keystrokes and movements to flip his bars to the correct spells at precise moments was stunningly beautiful.
And here I am, a fourth alternative to the default layout. I have applied a few tricks from my RTS playing days as well. The ability to hit CTRL, Shift and Alt with ease – years of training - frees up the rest of the keyboard for use with macros. In an attempt to give 1-6 as many uses as possible, I chose to map CTRL 1-6 and Shift 1-6 to additional bars instead of their default actions. The new keybindings allow me to keep spells, abilities and macros on my top and side bar, but avoid the need to mouseover to them. Mousing is for newbs. My personal attachment to palming CTRL has lead me to only purchase keyboards with raised keys and after I have played with them in meatspace. On the flip side, my mouse requirements are incredibly basic.
Do you guys go about your business with the default layout, or have you changed the title's key layout as much as your User Interface? Are you a mouseclicker or do you have a gear out mouse with as many inputs as a keyboard? What is the craziest play style you have witnessed or heard about? Heck, I even use ` (the key next to numero uno) for Stealthing.
Reader Comments (55)
i use E S F C, and mouse click. I have chain heal on number 4.. and that's pretty much it.
i use arrows and numberpad and 5 button mouse.
I am a ret pally and I have keys 1,2,3 set as my judgments while mouse clicking my blessings and seals and anything that has a time buff. The rest of my number bar is set to exorcism, holy wrath, consecration, hammer of justice and I change the order depending on the mobs I will be facing (humanoid, undead, etc..).
I'm kind of a noob still and even if I wasn't it would still be the same just because I'm not very fast with the keyboard outside of the standard text keys.
I am a warrior and i am a mouse clicker and please dont call it noobish you are so ignorant i mean you can do the same thing with a mouse as you key clickers do we just master it so it works the same. Im not hating on your play style so dont hate on mine.
I also use ctrl and shift modifiers on keys to try and keep it to the left side of the number row as possible. I try to keep my right hand on my mouse at all times.
For things like buffing, rezzing pets, and other not so time critical actions, I'll bind them to the number pad.
Seriously though, clicking IS for noobs. It may be hard at first but it's worth putting the effort into getting used to using keys.
I can't believe people can enjoy clicking - I would feel so far removed from the game. The game would be all about clicking on little boxes instead of just watching what's going on inside of the game.
I use a combo of several different methods. WSAD, some hotkeys, CTRL + 1-5, etc.
I keep hitting the desktop button when Im healing instead of ALT though though so I may need to come up with an alternative method.
I'm a prot pally, so i dont need a ton of spells. i just use 1-5 for exorcism, holy shield, avengers shield, shield of the righteous, and hammer of the righteous. my judgement of wisdome is mapped to my "f" key and when i need a potion or something i use "shift+2." i just use PallyPower for buffs. oh, and using a mouse isnt necessarily noobish. if someone was just getting into the game or was rather young (like my 10 year old mage cousin) mouse clicking might be necessary.
Mouseclicking all of your spells is slower, it isn't a dispute, it is fact. It is much faster to hit 1 and then 5 than mouse between them, while trying to keep your eye on the action. That being said, certain classes (ranged DPS) can pull it off without much of an issue.
"oh, and using a mouse isnt necessarily noobish. if someone was just getting into the game or was rather young (like my 10 year old mage cousin)"
That is like the definition of noobish...
I like how you manage to come up with different articles so often rather than beating a dead horse like other blogs.
Ah, it is very interesting to see how others play WoW instead of watching the screen.
As for myself, i had most of my abilites 1-6 and the keys just below them. The less my left hand has to do to hit a key(s) the quicker i am. Now, incredibly over christmas my wife fed my WoW addiction and purchased the n52te www.n52te.com (it wasn't even on my christmas list) I love it. I am still working on it and creating new macros to improve, but it was quick and easy to memorize.
Now my brother after some digging is using his X-box 360 controller to play. There are demo's online on how to hook it up, then it is just setting the buttons and getting it down. He is still working on it as he is a tank and some instances he just isn't quick enough yet, but I know it won't take him too long.
Looking foward to what other do with there setup for WoW.
I tend to use key near my hands so I don't have to move them much during play.
So 1,2,3 and Shift 1,2,3,q,e for attack spells (I'm a Shammy)
The rest of my spells (buffs, totems, heals) are bound to my mouse keys, I bought a Logitech MX Revolution especially for that and everything i keybinded (Middle button, side buttons, side wheel and side wheel click with some Ctrl, Shift and Alt for additionnal spells.
For the second question, I hear of a way to play WoW with a Wii Remote :D (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkX1oQsvNe0)
I use WASD and for leveling use WASD to move and the number pad plus alt num pad for spells and abilites. though while healing I use Clique and Grid, which is just me clicking the frames
I am like that hunter you talked about which is funny because i too am a hunter. i ususally use the mouse to click on what i want but occasionally use the hot keys. but with a new mouse on the way with progamable buttons i will have to adjust
I have played several classes and i effectively use the
hotkeys 1-0 to set my attacking/tanking rotations
so its an easy 1, 2, 3, 4 and so forth, occasionally repeating the lower numbers when cool down is complete before i start over back at 1
I find this method extremely simple and easy to use and efficient
As for buffs or other skills that are not needed 'in the heat of the moment,' I keep them on the sidebars and click when needed
Honestly I don't know what the hell I am doing, has long as I kill some undead dudes I cool
I'm an enhancement shaman, so I have lots of buttons to use. The standard Blizzard UI doesn't have enough space for all of the skills I use, so it's just not possible to keybind everything. I use a combination of keyboard bindings, mouse bindings, and clicks.
I use 1-6, shift-1-6, and alt 1-4 for all my main attacks and totems. I have a mouse macro for using ghost wolves since I incorporated a mouseover macro for their attacking targets. It feels more natural to have the button on the mouse. I also macro my trinket, self heal, and hex on the mouse so I can use it while moving/attacking and don't have to worry about running out of fingers.
I have several reactionary (oh S*!t) spells on v, z, and f so they're quick to access but don't take up room on the 1-6 row.
I click some. Several support totems, potions, misc. items, and long-cooldown spells aren't used often enough to take up space on the keyboard, so I just click them.
The main thing I like about my setup is that I can play pretty effectively with just my left hand. It's helpful for when I'm eating during a raid :)
I use mostly 1-5 and shift+^ or shift+v so that gives me 10 places for heals and debuffs based on certain fights. The rest are for party buffs. I mouse click on the person who needs a heal or a dispel/cure. But that's my priest.
My DK I have found I have not gone beyond 1-7, though 1 is Path of Frost or what ever item I need to use.
the ~ key is my vent.
I'm a clicker! But I do have some custom key bindings...actually just one. Like you said at the end, I use ~ for stealth. So my basic routine for killing a mob is:
1. ~ (To stealth)
2. TAB (To select target)
3. Ambush (To kick the crap out of it)
Ujabah
Im a drood....got 1-6 for heals norm bar, 1-6 for main abilitys on cat and bear bar, also have E,Q,V,T,C,F,G bound for cat abilitys, shit cat is E, shift bear is Ctrl+E and shift trav is Ctrl+Alt+E, Shift 1 is action bar button 7, Shift 2 is action button 8, and shit 3 is action button 9.
Mouse 3 =pvp trinket, mouse 4 = tigers fury, mouse 5 = pop trinket2 jc trinket for example.
Anyway :D thats my feral drood done XD I can do all my abilitys moves spells 2 perfection without an error, and without clicking with mouse once :D feral FTW tell me they are easy 2 play well XDXD
I also heard someone that uses the number keyes to move. And I don't mean the number pad, I mean the numbers above the letters. Yikes
Ujabah
hellooo im a prot pally tank i have no action bar addons and under actionsbars in the interface menu, i have all the options checked off
i put all my combat spells on page one, all my buffs on page 2, and all my non combat spells and frequently used items (trinkets, etc.) on the clickable keys.
nice post!
Can I REALLY be in the (apparent) minority that use my mouse for toon control & the main keyboard # keys (above the alpha-keys) for action bar spells...?
Granted, I have all my prof's (even fishing) hot-keyed... my mounts are 'hot-keyed' to mouse-button 5 - shift MB5, to fly - (as is auto-run; MB4) & I have HS & Shadowmeld (n/elf main) set to hot-key, too...
... Oh, and ALL that extra action bars ar out, that can be... can't be cycling through action bars trying to remember which one has food on it, etc...!
Oddest thing I guess I've got is H is my mount button for all my characters. Flying mount is binded to ` except for my warrior who uses ` as his ranged weapon to pull mobs. Besides that I've got all the # keys for my skills, Shift+# for more skills but I've kept all my healing skills (except for warrior obviously) binded to Ctrl+#, even on my priest and resto shaman. It seems like it'd be difficult and just plain dumb but since I play so many different characters and alts, Ctrl has and always will be my healing spells. Don't ask me why it's just a preference. Oh and for some reason on all my Belfs, Shift+1 is always Arcane Torrent for some reason. I like it there.
I use n52te for my skills and movements before that i only used few skills. After i started using it there has been significant increase in skills i been using so it has improved my gaming as well.
I play with a xbox 360 controller it works great on the those boring days of just dailies and stuff :)
my shammy is resto and i have all heal spells on my 1-0 bar but all the rest of my buffs, shields etc. are on the action bar above whereas i have a macro to have all totems in one translucent box in the middle so its easy to do