Ok. My current 2’s partner (I am 1200 ish this season) has encouraged me to bind my spells to my keyboard and press my spells with my left-hand using my right-hand to operate my mouse to move around. This is grossly uncomfortable and backwards to me. It just doesn’t seem natural. Not that it matters, but I am right-handed and not ambidextrous, but I do know how to play guitar (My left hand has to do more than my right). Since I switched to binds and mouse-moving I die often and my output is really very poor the last few days.
For context, my wife has played since vanilla, played a mage up until MoP, suffers dyslexia, and thinks she, a caster, should charge on into the middle of the fight and tank several mobs at once. It really is backwards for her! No pun intended of course. She would do well with melee. She moves with her mouse and binds her spells to her keyboard. And she is most lovely.
Do I?
Just deal with it and learn it, like riding a bike or playing an instrument, and let it be uncomfortable unlearning 10+ years of play? Eventually I get it and enjoy it more when I’m not dying all the time?
Choose a different class more favorable to moving with my keyboard and clicking my spells? (I learned to play late cata. I heard in vanilla this was not a viable way to play due to UI, etc.) This would be much more fun and comfortable. I do well with a monk and a ret paladin this way. Raid-healed as a Resto Druid during MoP this way.
Go play a different game altogether that is more favorable to my natural playstyle? Or simply stop PVP? I do really well on a WW monk in solo content. By “well” I mean, rarely die, rarely over-pull, useful off-heals. Other classes I either die a lot, have to eat all the time, run away all the time, or really slow gameplay. But I really enjoy PVP. It’s a lot of fun.
Go home and re-think my life entirely, considering I have played this game on-and-off for about 10 years or so, I love it, and probably have sank 3-4 years of actual IRL time in playing and perfecting my profs, naming scheme, classes I like to play, guild achievements, etc. etc. I could totally get a WoW tattoo. I build Ally/Horde corn-hole tables years ago during the beginning of Legion.
usually use keys for moving but sometimes use dual click/hold when those fingers are busy pressing dmg buttons. it becomes a second nature after a while.
i find that a quick 90 and straffing to the side is faster than backpedaling so S is a bonus keybind for me.
*tanks should probably keep their backpedal tho
I haven’t tried it since I’ve been comfortable with turning and angle snapping my character with my mouse for 13 or 14 years at this point, but apparently you can adjust the keyboard turn speed which makes keyboard turning much less bad, if still not as good, as mouse turning. Just do /console turnspeed 2000.
But most keyboard turners aren’t going to know that.
I dunno if I could ever adjust to alpha cluster binds, too used to the default movement keys and pane shortcuts. Would rather find a mouse with more buttons than do alpha binds without modifiers.
One thing I do is remap the eternally useless Caps Lock to Control which allows for some decent modifier shortcuts since it makes Control a lot more easy to reach with my left pinky though.
Logitech G600 mmo mouse changed my life. I can’t play most games without it anymore. It just makes it so much fun and easy. I use WASD for moving, mouse for turning, have abilities bound to the keys around WASD, on the side of my mouse, as well as the extra keys on the top. You can also set it up to use shift macros if that’s your jam. I highly recommend a good mmo mouse if you’ve never used one.
I have been using the same one since I bought it around 2015/16. It’s held up remarkably well. I will get a new one eventually but it has lived a good long life for a piece of hardware I use everyday.
I’ve found that most mice hold up pretty well with the exception of two things:
The primary (left/right) buttons
Its cord (if corded)
It would be nice if mice were designed to have the switches underlying their buttons to be easily switched without soldering, as many mechanical keyboards are these days. The cord issue would be fixed by making cords detachable. With those fixes in place I don’t see any reason why one couldn’t use a mouse for 10-20 years, swapping out button switches as they wear out.
My g600 has a wrapped cord (I don’t like wireless for gaming) that has held up perfectly. When the mouse finally gives up the ghost it will be because a button has gone bad. I am not aware of any mechanical button mmo mice, but that could be a worthwhile investment if there’s one out there.
This is 100% my recommendation. Another very solid option is to get a mouse with a bunch of input buttons by your thumb(Razer Naga X, for example). Keyboard turning and spell clicking causes a significant lag in reaction time, especially in PvP. At the end of the day, though, it’s your sub, so you do you. Do what is most fun for you, I just truly think once you get more comfortable with binds and mouse movement your gameplay will elevate massively.
