You Can Play Wow on a Gamepad

Community General Discussion
1

I ran across this information on the internet:

"New Dragonflight Interface;
WoW controller support has existed since Shadowlands. However, Dragonflight made an even greater step forward by introducing a new editable HUD. The regular HUD consists of two stacks of small square icons. You’ll be able to fit anything in there, and it’s perfect for keyboards. It is, however, unreadable to controller users.

The new system lets you customize the HUD however you want. Gamepad users arrange the ability icons in two sections. The icons on the left are usually reserved for d-pad keys, and the main mass is on the right. This is a lot more comfortable if you play WoW with a controller.

The innovation got a lot of praise, though, and it does serves its purpose. It conveys info on your abilities in an easily-read and logical manner. It actually seems like a stepping stone toward porting the game to consoles. After all, this interface seems perfect for playing on the couch."

My question to you is: Which of your class’s spells and abilities would you need to put on a game-pad to successfully play your class? Usually gamepads have 12 buttons. Would that be enough? Could you get by with 12 abilities?

2

I couldn’t. I use way more than 12 buttons.

3

It might mean I’d have to bind stuff like DnD to an @player macro. Would prevent pro plays like stopping the souls in Yazma nearly dead in their tracks.

4

I’d like to try doing some WQs with my XBox controller, but there’s no way I could fit my whole kit on there.

5

As much i love gamepass…

  1. UI changes and Controller support don’t mean Gamepass, let alone console port.
  2. Gamepass is also on PC. It’s actually more well known for PC then Xbox since Xbox is kind of irrelevant.
6

Why? Keyboard and mouse is objectively better.

1 Like
7

Ohh I forgot this was a thing. I might do it. Just lean heavily into passives, I don’t really do any content that requires optimal play or talents.

Oh also is there still that shoulder cam thing? I forget what it’s called

8

You do know you can actually do more then 12 buttons on say an x box or ps controller.

I will use xbox one as an exaple .
Directional pad :heavy_plus_sign: =4 abilities (1 for each direction )
Thumb sticks : 2 of them with push down feature to work as buttons = 2 abilitie
Letter buttons : XYBA = 4 more abilities .
That comes to a total of 10 .

Ok now you have 4 buttons on the fron .Left top , Left bottom , right top and right bottom .
Now to 3 of those you add a modifier like Shift ,Control and Alt.
Now you add those modifiers to the 10 buttons on top and you have now made it 40 possible keybinds to the controller.

PS controler is similar except instead of letter buttons therir’s has symbols.

9

Huh neat.

10

Plenty of us have been playing WoW on SteamDecks for like ~1.5 years. Install the Console Port addon and enjoy. You get far more than 12 binds. Macros can take care of many issues.

I wouldn’t do Mythic Plus or Mythic raiding this way though, to be fair. But it’s a good way to do easier stuff while laying on the couch!

11

Neat. After counting I have 50 so that is close at least

12

I feel like this would be better for me, honestly. I’ve never felt comfortable PC gaming, console is my thing. I also get overwhelmed easily, so I tend to stick to just a few spells I can reach easily within WASD.

I wonder how this would change my experience, hmm

13

Are those 50 abilities you have to use ?

Because I have a 25 button controller and 3 bars of 12 filed up (not counting 4th because that is out of combat stuff like hearth food and drink)
12 buttons are abilities , 5 are cool down abilities , 2 are aspects Cheetah and turtle, 1 for pet mend/revive , 1 for random quest item, 1 for lock rocks the last 3 are Tab (tar) , P2T (Discord ) and a thumb stick for Fwd /Back Straife L/R plush push down for space.

Also have 2 buttons o my mouse for mount and special action buttons. Everything else is stuff rarely used so can be mouse clicked .

So the thing is do you actually need or use all 50 or is it you have access to 50 abilities.

14

At some point, I have used all my binds. Would some of them be very rare? Yes.

15

This is my view, I personally never understand the mindset of folks that believe game pads for pc games is progress or improvement however you call it. I’m the opposite I think for PC games the keyboard and mouse combo is vastly superior (especially for an mmo).

But I suppose those folks likely have console roots , where I play pc way more than my consoles.

16

oh here we go again.

Most of the people are going to tell you that you can literally only use a Controller to walk around Stormwind and any activity where you have to actually push a button is absolutely 100% undoable. or whatever.

I will say my piece and move on, because I’m not interested in going back and forth with M/KB folk anymore. I’ve been back in WoW for like 6-7 months or whatever, and I have never used M/KB to play. I don’t even have M/KB hotbars set up on any of my characters. When I am finally done leveling alts and settle on a class for Endgame content, I will be doing so with my Controller. I’ve participated in a couple of raids on a few different characters, but I have not done like super high Mythic+ 50 keys or anything like that. So take my limited advice for what it is.

Here is the real, from my perspective -

First, If someone tells you “there aren’t enough buttons” they are flat out wrong on that, specifically. full stop.

WoW has built-in controller support but it does not have a controller-friendly UI. Using your triggers you can have upwards of 40-something inputs that are conducive to being used in Combat(I can’t think of a class that uses THAT many unique inputs in a single fight). But your Hotbars won’t make sense, because it is the same M/KB UI.

You will need the Consoleport addon. It builds on the built-in Controller support by providing a Controller-friendly UI, making it easier to map your skills, and adding the ability to create rings to go beyond the 40+ inputs that you have by default. You’ll typically use the rings for non-combat abilities, like long buffs and such. I have 2-3 rings depending on class, one for non-Combat Class Skills, one for Mounts, and one that differs per class (on my Warlock, my 3rd ring is all my Permanent Minions, for example). Be aware that using the rings stops you from moving until you select the skill you want to use, so you absolutely do not want to put combat skills on those.

Playing on Controller and not using Consoleport is basically shooting yourself in the foot. You absolutely need it for the best gameplay experience.

You’ll want to turn on Action-Targeting in your Combat settings also. Tab-Targeting is possible, but not ideal. I only tab target(using one of my Shoulder Buttons) when I absolutely have to target a specific mob, otherwise, I use the Action-Targeting, where your skills target what your crosshair is over. Consoleport offers several styles of targetting support in addition to the built-in Action Targeting and you should use most of them to varying degrees… You will absolutely want to keep a tab-target keybind also, so that you can be precise with Interrupts when necessary. Mine is LB.

One thing you will want to avoid with a controller is Healing, imo. Consoleport adds some options for group-heal-targetting, but I would not trust it in a Raid setting because Unlike FFXIV 1)You can’t just use the DPad to scroll through your Party to heal, and 2)You are responsible for healing raid-wide, rather than solely your Party, AFAIK.

So if you are a healer main, I would not recommend Controller.

stick to DPS and Tanking, or stick to M/KB.

Lastly, don’t hold your breath for a Xbox port. very, very, very slim chance of that ever happening. That would require Blizzard to completely overhaul its default UI to accommodate Controllers, and completely overhaul its combat and so many other things to accommodate for Consoles not having access to addons, and we all know exactly how much Blizzard relies on addon makers to fill in the functionality gaps in WoW.

It’s just not going to happen.

(I could see something like Plunderstorm getting a standalone Xbox release though, if they thought it would be profitable…)