Mouse or Keyboard?

[Katrala]

What do you mainly use when playing - mouse to hit spells or are all spells bound to keys and you mainly use your keyboard?

Possibly an even combination of both?

Do you use your arrow keys to move or the other letter move keys?

Do you use tab key to target or mouse to target?

Is there really an advantange to retraining yourself to access spells and abilities in a different way?

[Zendarin]

What do you mainly use when playing - mouse to hit spells or are all spells bound to keys and you mainly use your keyboard?

Possibly an even combination of both?

Do you use your arrow keys to move or the other letter move keys?

Do you use tab key to target or mouse to target?

Is there really an advantange to retraining yourself to access spells and abilities in a different way?

Oh yes - there is ABSOLUTELY an advantage to retraining yourself. I helped my wife relearn how to play and then had to follow my own suggestions - I knew the right way to do it but found the old ways hard to change. I did change though and I am sure glad I did.

Use those keybinds for your spells and learn to move just using the mouse. Hold both mouse keys down to run. You only need to go to the keyboard if you have to back up or want to hit autorun.

You will find your response time will be vastly improved and once you have been doing it for a few days you will never want to go back to the old methods. You will be able to win fights that you were losing horribly b4.

[Aurum]

I dont have to go down to keyboard for autorun. Its on mouse4 as default on keybindings on my WoW. I use keybindings for almost all my spells. Have bound a few to the mouse3 and 5 button also!

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

I have keybindings for two of my bars which I regularly use for casting spells, I tend to prefer to cast spells using the keyboard, while looking/moving with the mouse. However, I also will use the keyboard to move and target with the mouse.

[det]

Press both mousebuttons to run, ok..but how do you strafe? Also with the mouse?

I use a keyboard with an extra arrow pad on the left side and 2 x 6 keys above that...but would probably change to a "mouse only" moving if I get a few good hints here.

Spells are on keys. Tab targetting

[Aerath]

Mouse to walk/turn/switch forms or stances.

Keyboard for spells. Have nearly everything bound to hotkeys and don't have the action bars showing anymore.

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

Press both mousebuttons to run, ok..but how do you strafe? Also with the mouse?

I *tend* to favor the mouse for movement (and I'll turn on autorun more often than press both mouse buttons if there is any reasonable distance involved). I shift back and forth all the time. When I strafe, I'll use the keyboard (since this isn't possible otherwise without reprogramming some buttons on the mouse).

I use a keyboard with an extra arrow pad on the left side and 2 x 6 keys above that...but would probably change to a "mouse only" moving if I get a few good hints here.

The only thing I can think of is if you have a 5-button mouse, make the 4th and 5th buttons (left/right sides of the mouse typically) be your strafe left/right. But I don't think it would really give you any benefit.

[MacBlimp]

Mouse for movement and looking both frees up several keys (and fingers) as well as allowing you to react and reposition yourself quicker once you get used to it.

On most of my characters I've usually crammed most spells and abilities that see some degree of regular use to the keys around my strafe keys (a - d, some people prefer to use q and e, but having rather long fingers it's easier for me to hit the correct buttons when moving my fingers "up" the keyboard. <yes... I'm a freak :smiley:). Also heavy use of macros allowing for binding several spells/abilities to one button (choose action depending on alt, ctrl, stances, etc.) Saves a lot of space, and rather easy once you get used to it, as well as tripling/quadrupling the number of keys available. This has been extremely helpful on my new shaman alt, with totems of all sorts everywhere, binding 3 totems to each key (use ctrl or alt to select) amde life a lot easier.

[moopy]

Keyboard for a ton of things, key abilities clustered around the movement keys in order of importance, clickhealing addons (as well as keybinds) for raid healing, with a load of button and key qualifiers. Essentially, everything is crammed in such a way that it can be reached when needed, in a hurry. Setting up any new character/spec always takes me ages while I get the hang of priorities, so I can reach all the important abilities without having to pause or think about it..

[ahhdamm]

it's hard for me to use the keyboard for spells. i went to school before computers were really standard and never learned to type right. i use the old 1 finger on each hand chicken pecking to type lol. my hands and keyboard are not as one, so i use the mouse to cast and keys to move.

[xDarkDrifterx]

Both, it depends on my mood that day. Somtimes I'm lazy and maybe eating something, drinking a beer or w/e, so I'll play one handed and just use the mouse for all. But I find using all my bindings, macros, and tab targeting to be the best and most efficient way to play. Makes jumpshotting and kiting that much easier too.

Flying I definately use the q,w,e,s etc to move and strafe.

[Herald of Doom]

I play it like a shooter. zqsd for movement (azerty keyboard) , 1-4 a e r f w x c for the most important skills, together with my mouse buttons is enough for the skills i need to use very quickly.

HoD

[Aerath]

Keyboard for a ton of things, key abilities clustered around the movement keys in order of importance, clickhealing addons (as well as keybinds) for raid healing, with a load of button and key qualifiers. Essentially, everything is crammed in such a way that it can be reached when needed, in a hurry. Setting up any new character/spec always takes me ages while I get the hang of priorities, so I can reach all the important abilities without having to pause or think about it..

One thing I found that helped me was organising those new abilities in the same way. E.g. 'buff' always is on '8' - whether it's MotW, Fort or Demon Armour.
Similarly, 'debuff' always is on '4' - whether it's Hamstring, Disarm etc etc.

[DrOsmius]

Press both mousebuttons to run, ok..but how do you strafe? Also with the mouse?


If you hold down the turn-key (A/D standard) while holding down the right mouse button...you will strafe. That frees up the Q/E for hotkeys.

I use the mouse and keys for movement, depending on situation...and mouse+keys for strafe. Main hotkeys are usually instants, those you would cast on the run (again, either using keys or mouse when doing so): keys I reliably can use are zxcvfqe~12345. Side-mouse buttons for mount and autorun.

I then have most other things as click-casts, i.e. directly clicking onto a unit frame casts a spell with that frame as the target.

And yes, it makes a big difference to be able to simultaneously move & cast at the same time. Invest the time!

[ChaosSaber]

I tend to use the keyboard for spells on buttons 1 to 7 (that I can easily reach with my left hand) while keeping my right hand on the mouse and clicking other buttons. I use Shift for a second set of buttons 1-7, for a total of 14 buttons at one hand, not counting pet controls bound to crl 1-7.

In a pinch I will cross over, either using the keyboard for something on the right or clicking something on the left.

I have my push to talk bound to the ` (top-left on US English keyboard) so I can hit it with my outermost finger while still comfortably reaching all my primary spells.

[Duke Brand]

If i'm DPSing I point & click + tab target. move with asdqwe. If i'm healing move with same keys point & click target to healer hot key with 1-5 mainly for heals on my priest.

[Shadowpup]

Move with keys, spells with keys, pots with keys - spells and pots need to be used faster than mouse clicky.
Buffs, food, skills, detects, get vertical buttons.
Mouse to target fireballs, tab to target anything closer, or macro assist!

[Elsu]

it's hard for me to use the keyboard for spells. i went to school before computers were really standard and never learned to type right. i use the old 1 finger on each hand chicken pecking to type lol. my hands and keyboard are not as one, so i use the mouse to cast and keys to move.

I went to school in the 60's. I've never learned to type although I have been building my own computers since the early 90's. I get by on the hunt and peck method for typing, but I find using the keyboard for spells for and the mouse for movement to be faster and more effective than trying to point and click for spells, and I have almost every key assigned to something.

[mender of bad soles]

I use my keyboard for nearly everything-all spells, pots, trinkets, and a good deal of targeting. my mouse is for camera angles, with a/d as strafe keys to eliminate problems.

While unlearning peck-typing can be frustrating, I did so using a free program called TypeFaster-Try it out, was really helpful.

Ronan

[Zendarin]

I went to school in the 60's. I've never learned to type although I have been building my own computers since the early 90's. I get by on the hunt and peck method for typing, but I find using the keyboard for spells for and the mouse for movement to be faster and more effective than trying to point and click for spells, and I have almost every key assigned to something.

Precisely. You don't have to know how to type to remember the block of keys you have assigned spells too. If you are still a clicker when casting spells and/or trying to use keys to move forward and turn you are seriously slowing down your reaction times. You will get spanked in PVP by anyone that knows what they are doing and have a much harder time with tough fights in PvE.

I am a former clicker - I would never think of going back now that I have retrained myself to move with the mouse and use keys for spells and abilities. It makes a WORLD of difference in what I am able to do in a fight.

[Aurum]

I use a kind of gamepad for playing. Witch alows me to move with the mouse and with a litle joystick that i control with my thumb. This makes it easy to strafe and backup while using the mousemovment: http://www.saitek.com/uk/prod/cyborgcommand.htm

It takes a litle while to set up and get used to but when you do i would say you will be at least twice as fast as only klicking with the mouse. You can make macros and alot of other cool stuff with this. It got 3 different setups witch you can switch betwean by just switching a button. You can also make alot more setups with the softwear that follows with the pad. Then you will have to tab out of the game and switch the setup for the softwear this takes like 2 sec longer then the other way. :)

[Polaba]

What do you mainly use when playing - mouse to hit spells or are all spells bound to keys and you mainly use your keyboard?

Possibly an even combination of both?

Do you use your arrow keys to move or the other letter move keys?

Do you use tab key to target or mouse to target?

Is there really an advantange to retraining yourself to access spells and abilities in a different way?

I always use hotkeys to hit spells, mouse for those that aren't hot keyed (pots, flasks etc)

I use the original WASD to move, with TAB as auto-run and "`" as toggle run/walk. (random...I know)

For your last question, I don't see any. Maybe one could argue that you won't accidentally pop your precious spells with 10+ min cooldowns, but I've never found this a problem.

Generally my hotkey/mouse combo is made with one thing in mind: not having to look down at the keyboard or squint at the screen when you get aggro and want to ice block (for example). So, in other words, efficiency.

[moopy]

One thing I found that helped me was organising those new abilities in the same way. E.g. 'buff' always is on '8' - whether it's MotW, Fort or Demon Armour.
Similarly, 'debuff' always is on '4' - whether it's Hamstring, Disarm etc etc.

Yeah, I have some themes like that, but resto shammy, enhancement shammy, hunter and tanking warrior have such different dynamics that often the cost for doing this outstrips the advantage of frobnicating the clustering for the specific role. Of course, if I haven't played that role for a bit, it takes me a couple of pulls to get up to speed.. ahem :)

[MammaMu]

I went to school in the seventies but type at good speed with full "proper" finger setting ;-)

Still, I use a combination of key/mouse movement and keybinds/clicking. Usually I have 4-6 of my most reactive skills keybound (2, 3, 4, R, T, F and/or free mouse buttons) and find that its enough on my 70 mage, 70 rogue and baby 48 warrior. I probably could shave off the odd few milliseconds in my reactiontime by pure keybinding but I just can't be ars*d - I do good enough for leisury pvp anyway, and for pve it doesn't matter imho.

I've found that the only really must-have bind for me is Kick on Mouse 4 with my rogue, hehe.

[moopy]

MM,

Doesn't matter for PvE until you want to go from "he plays OK" to "holy crapola, dude" :-)

[tralkar]

I use both, depends on whats going on at the time..