Before I was the type of WoW player I am now… I was only a PVP player.
So, I’ve always kept my walk backwards key (S) unbound and instead placed high priority spells on my S key.
Now that I am a pve player, I notice a lot of pve players on their streams indeed use S for walk backwards.
Is there any strategic benefit to this? I feel like it’s a useless movement function, it’s slow where as I can just turn around quickly and run in the direction I wanted to walk backwards in and it’s far more efficient.
The problem is that the game teaches people the wrong way to do everything from day one, most of us that eventually break out of these bad habits did so because we started playing in content that requires it.
It’s sometimes fine to edge out of a void zone or whatever that you’re already near the edge of.
Watching someone backpedal for 3 seconds straight is bad no matter the context though. At that point they 100% should have done the whole turn around / sideways run thing instead.
As for justifications for simply not unbinding it to use as a rotational key:
I, and many others, use MMO mice. I don’t need the random extra keys surrounding WASD because all of my keybinds are on my mouse.
Kiting is when you run away from a mob, either letting dots tick or turning around for an occasional ranged attack and keep moving, thus kiting the enemy.
What your referring to is just avoiding mechanics lmfao. Bizarre comparison.
I admit I do this sometimes. There are certain trash pulls where they drop something on the ground and I want to move the dps from it, but know there are more enemies not far from where we are. I’ll go slowly to not pull more than we can handle or if my cds are not ready or something.
I guess an example would be the flowers that spawn mushrooms on the ground in dark heart thicket.
For kiting, you strafe. For repositioning, you move backwards. Tanks specifically have to be careful about turning and running because turning their back to the mobs can result in unmitigated death.
Yeah I was thinking like.. maybe for my VDH it could make sense, just to move slowly for better positioning for the dps’rs or something. but I think it’s better to just keep my current habbit. it was pretty challenging to form in the first place.
That is good habit you’ve given yourself. When I move backwards I notice myself doing it. So I’ve tried to break out of it when I feel very confident I won’t mess up lol but maybe there are special times it’s okay.
If you turn around you aren’t facing your target and can’t attack it while you’re moving. Personally I turn my camera to the side and then strafe sideways so I’m going the “backwards” direction but at full speed and can still attack/cast at my target.
But if its something where I’m in no rush, like my hunter moving out of entange in a key, I’ll just walk backwards because who cares.
Also, imagine doing the 2nd boss in Atal’dazar and seeing the tank turn around to take two steps and turn back for 2 seconds then turn around and take 2 steps again and turn back around to the boss, over and over for the whole fight lol
