Why its bad/good to click?

[Calamorn]

This is the best I could do. I do apologize that I take on the stance of explaining why clicking is bad. I don't mean to tell anyone specifically they're wrong or call anyone out, only to try to explain this the best I can for OP and anyone who may care. I'll attempt to contribute to the thread by offering rebuttals to poorly constructed reasoning. Many arguments given either way have been full of error. I will refrain from using names because I do -not- wish to be insulting. I'll be around to continue to answer questions or respond.

The Short: Keybinding overall is a performance increase. Clicking requires less work to learn.

Arguments that aren't valid:
Statement:I click and I regularly beat key-binders I play with:
Answer: Personal evidence is anecdotal, meaning, it's a small sample size. This doesn't factor in the skill level of the players you're playing against. As a feral druid I regularly out damage many players of many classes. The fact that I outdamage most mages I play against does not mean mages do less damage than feral druids. It means they're worse players than I.

Statement: I only have to move my mouse as fast as the global cooldown, as long as I click the ability by then, I'm doing the same damage.
Answer: This is a horribly false statement made by many who don't understand the mechanics of cast bars and latency. You're effectively reacting to a finished cast and waiting to see the GCD pop so you can click. What this means is the time difference between the global cooldown coming up and the next ability going off is effectively going to be the following. Your reaction time to seeing the GCD come up, plus your latency. Players who keybind and maximize damage will spam their next damage effectively eliminating reaction time to the global cooldown and only dealing with latency. Human reaction time is larger than many people wish to admit.
In addition, many abilities do not incur a global cooldown. The way to get the highest damage is "Cooldown Stacking", meaning, to layer as many of your cooldowns on top of each other as you can. During heroism you'll want to use a potion of your stat choice and as many cd's as possible. Clicking requires hitting each of these and wasting time moving from one to the other, meaning you're wasting time that could be overlapping cds.

Statement: I can use macros to stack cooldowns for me.
Answer: This is true! I commend you on your use of macros to add benefit to your game play! The major issue with this however is that the vast majority of your cooldowns do not have the same cool down time. For heroism or bloodlust, you'll want to stack as many cooldowns as you can. The issue is, that often means using some abilities that have 45second cds, 3minute cds, 5 minute cds.. all sorts of varied time, on top of each other. As a result of stacking cds being the most damage, it means I want to stack them as often as I can, while using abilities as often as I can. I may wish to save my five minute cd, knowing I'll only get to use it once a fight, and want to use it for heroism. That may not hold true with my other cds. I can use them many times and still have them to stack when needed, if I time it well. For a clicker, this means having many buttons on screen. This eats both screen estate and movement time of the mouse.

Statement: A custom UI can facilitate clicking and let you do just as well as a keybinder.
Answer: No, it won't. While I will fully admit muscle memory can help you on your clicking crusade, and you may not have to look at your icons -as much-, you still will look. The reason you'll see top players use add-ons that move the important information near the center of their screen is a simple one, it allows them to get vital information quickly without having to look away from the center of their screen. This allows them to see their character, the fight, fight mechanics, their raid. You could move the abilities you click into close to a circle around your character to try to facilitate clicking... but doing so means you've added things to spaces that could show you other things. Important procs, debuffs, ability timers. All classes have buffs and debuffs they monitor, procs, things they watch. The faster you react to these, the more damage you can do. Moving them into your peripheral vision often means it being harder to register when you need to react to them.

Statement: I'm a healer in PvE, I do the same no matter what.
Answer: Nope! I'll -more than agree- that the issue becomes much less exacerbated as a PvE healer than any other roll. As a main spec healer I can in fact sympathize with the argument that clicking and mouseover healing pose much of the same problems. You'd be absolutely right in saying that you can configure Vuh-Do, Healbot, Grid or Xperl to do a lot of nifty things. I'll answer mouse overs right after this. Before that, I will say that using any unit frame, clicking a target, then clicking an ability and then clicking a new target is beyond slow. It's horrible. You're wasting time multiple times inbetween casts.
Mouseover macros thought addons such as Clique.. or binding abilties -to your mouse- once more means you can only be pressing one thing at a time. If you want to hit things the quickest you physically can, you should be using your q,e,r,t,f,g,z,x,c keys to bind healing cooldowns and utility abilities as well as some healing abilities. When I'm on the move, I often want to use my mouse to turn, my wasd keys to move, and then, if not for other keys, I would have no way to heal. To this regard I use my F1, F2, F3, F4 keys to target the tanks or healers, and my keys to cast instant cast abilities. In this regard, you're removing options you have to pull small inches of performance you could otherwise have.

Statement: There are gladiators that click! I've seen them!
Answer: I've also seen gladiators with missing fingers, missing arms, and in once case.. one that used a pencil to push keys to break 1800.
These things are by no means optimal. I'm not going to hold my arm behind my back to accomplish the things they did. The fact of the mater is, they are a small minority. They are -not- an exception to the rule, they're simply exceptional clickers. I -shutter- when I think about what these players would be able to do if they had the ability, know how, or limbs, to do things optimally. This is not a case of clicking being better than keybinding, or even vise versa, this is a case of those players having more skill at the game than other players. As said before, given -equal skill, gear and luck- keybinding will do better.

Statement: I'm not a world top player, it doesn't matter what I do! It's the same.
Answer: Well, I do certainly care less about which you do. It's less likely to matter which you do, but you could always increase your performance. By those standards, you aren't a top raider, you dont need to use your cooldowns because it wont matter if you do more damage or not.
-It may not make or break raids, but it IS a performance increase.-

Statement: I'm very agile! I can heal through clicking.
Answer: You're healing through mouseover macros, you aren't clicking your abilities on the screen. If you were, that would require clicking someone to target them, clicking the ability, and moving on to the next person and ability. You're using, gasp, mouse bindings. They are the same thing as keybindings, except, you know, on your mouse. They offer all of the shiny things keybinding does, and none of the horrible things that clicking your abilities does. It's an extension of keybinding. You're using unit frames, your keyboard and your mouse. You arent clicking things. If you are, you're likely clicking large cooldowns, which would be better put on your mouse or your keyboard.

Statement: Mouseover macros are CLICKING ABILITIES.
Answer: Flawed. You're confusing the concept of mouse binding with clicking. You're binding abilities to something so that you don't have to physically click the heal or ability icon on your screen to cast it. That's binding. Open Clique, it's called "Clique Bindings." Open Vuh-do, it's called Vuh-do's bindings.

Statement: I can make macros for that. Target of Target macros, last target macros, and so forth.
Answer: You're once again cluttering your screen estate. I can use my mouse to click a nameplate, hit an ability without having to move my mouse, and move back. I can make macros that are target=mouseover, mouseover a target, hit the ability on my keyboard, and move on. I will have SO many less icons than someone trying to play on a similar level. The amount a clicking player needs to play on the same level as a keybinding one is large and continues to take more attention and time.

Statement: "Occam's Razor means-other things being equal, a simpler explanation is better than a more complex one-."
Answer: That, like many other things, isn't correct. In practice, the application of the principle often shifts the burden of proof in a discussion. The razor states that one should proceed to simpler theories until simplicity can be traded for greater explanatory power. In this case, the ability to manage your abilities in multiple ways, using things strung together in multiple ways by having multiple buttons would be the greater power.

Statement: "You can hit wrong buttons when you keybind, what happens when you HoP the tank?"
Answer: You can accidently click the wrong thing too. If you're taking the time to visually look at your screen to be reminded of where buttons are, you're taking the time to stop casting or look away from things like fire, mechanics, your own characters procs. With practice comes muscle memory. With time comes memorization. For all things. The fact someone can argue they never miss a button clicking simply means they're practiced in it. The same applies to keybinds, a visual reminder isn't needed. I would tell you that I don't miss my druids abilities, but that's anecdotal.
____________________________________________________________________________
Pro's and Cons!
Clicking-Using your mouse to click abilities shown on as icons on your screen.
Pros:
-It's friendly to players who play the game socially. There is no time investment required to just start playing the game.
-Little to no learning curve.

Cons:
-Makes movement while dpsing hard.
-Makes targeting while dpsing harder than otherwise.
-Time moving mouse from ability to ability is time you could be doing things.
-Screen real estate, binding means being able to hide abilities meaning less clutter on screen
-Turning with keyboard while clicking abilities is infinitely slower than the reverse
-Requires looking at abilities rather than boss fights.

Keybinds
Quite literally take the opposite of what I posted for clicking.

_____________________________________________________
Supplements: Things made to help players.

If you'd like to improve your dps, a short video by Kripparrian is always a great place to start.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgDjG_0ecTI

If you'd like to -learn- how to keybind, an out of date post by myself in the rare guides section!
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...How-To-Keybind

Note to Mods: I do apologize if this was too long, or anything of the sort. I was going to make this longer, and explain the points of why keybinding was helpful but realized this was getting far too long.

Final note to players:
Clicking is sub-optimal. That doesn't mean players who do it are bad. There is a difference in the words. You -can- be a good player and a good clicker, but you'll never be -as good as you could be- like that. That's all.

[ranku]

Excel:
1. to surpass others or be superior in some respect or area; do extremely well:
2. to surpass; be superior to; outdo

You can keyboard turn and stand in fire and still surpass my 2 year old daughter that plays on my account at times. Hell you could click and outperform my 7 year old son on his account. If you want to be superior though you'd have to surpass the world first guilds and I'd love to see one of them come into the thread and state they click and find it superior to keybinding.

look as i have said a thousand times to this thread and other discussions on this topic (in fact in that very post you quoted) clicking=/=keyboard turning and considering my clicking has gotten me first on raid charts for damage due to the whopping 0.1 seconds it takes to get to an ability and start spam clicking it, wondering when the GCD will finish, and this is not only against keybinders but those better geared than me.

my entire point is that it all is in the player's hands. really in the end it doesn't matter one bit, you can just be good at one side and that make you better than someone of another side. If you excel (definition 1 btw, do extremely well) then it doesn't matter if people think you are still wrong because the numbers say otherwise.

[OriginalVocalMix]

amazing explanation

Thanks for doing what none of us could be bothered to do <3

[Calamorn]

Thanks for doing what none of us could be bothered to do <3

It would have been longer, but my girlfriend was harassing me.

If anyone would like to see the pro's of keybinding, the thread I linked called "How To: Keybind" opens with the benefits. I thought it redundant to post it and then link to myself.

Also, you're welcome. I'm just glad -someone- read it.

[mini98]

I am doing a research paper on how clicking is less efficient than keybinding. I need a counterargument to the positives of clicking, and i also need reasons why clicking is worse than keybinding. I was hoping i could come here to get some ideas from you guys.

First - Clickers generally pick up faster reaction times than keybinders due to the needs to spend more time, however minute, clicking the button.

Secondly - I've never as a click healer (Not mouse over) who only macro's damage abilities so as to never untarget an ally or tank I need to focus upon. Also I've never been behind in hps, 9/10 I would beat people in hps. And that includes when I swapped from a holy pally/ disc priest in wrath to resto shammy in t11 in cata. Yes I still proceeded to outheal and even got commended on my healing.

Thirdly - I find being a clicker generally lets you rethink your action if something happens in the split second between noticing and clicking a button. Something which keybinds don't let you do as easily as if its a fast cast or instant it's already went off costing you a gcd.

Also - I don't keyboard turn and whenever I need to move in a fight, as I have all the important heals displayed on the 1 - 9 buttons I can hit the appropriate button and while moving. Especially since shamans can cast while moving for 10ish secs.

Also bearing in mind I was a clicker all the time I played wrath, I was also trusted as the main dispeller on the lich king fight and the essential raid leader all while keeping people alive and watching what was happening/moving myself.

Honestly keybinders make too much of a big deal about it.

[Squirl]

[...]

/thread. You wrote the paper for OP.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

Statement:I click and I regularly beat key-binders I play with:
Answer: Personal evidence is anecdotal, meaning, it's a small sample size.

There's less players who bother to keybind to claim that in the first place. Your sample size is tiny in comparison.

But, but, but gladiators use them! Sure. But in the end it really has little meaning when not many even bother to be gladiators anyway.It's not that folks aren't used to keybinds (play some FPS games where complicated keybinds can be made), it's that folks don't care about doing certain content to bother.

[...]

Statement: I'm a healer in PvE, I do the same no matter what.
Answer: Nope! I'll -more than agree- that the issue becomes much less exacerbated as a PvE healer than any other roll. As a main spec healer I can in fact sympathize with the argument that clicking and mouseover healing pose much of the same problems. You'd be absolutely right in saying that you can configure Vuh-Do, Healbot, Grid or Xperl to do a lot of nifty things. I'll answer mouse overs right after this. Before that, I will say that using any unit frame, clicking a target, then clicking an ability and then clicking a new target is beyond slow. It's horrible. You're wasting time multiple times inbetween casts.
Mouseover macros thought addons such as Clique.. or binding abilties -to your mouse- once more means you can only be pressing one thing at a time. If you want to hit things the quickest you physically can, you should be using your q,e,r,t,f,g,z,x,c keys to bind healing cooldowns and utility abilities as well as some healing abilities. When I'm on the move, I often want to use my mouse to turn, my wasd keys to move, and then, if not for other keys, I would have no way to heal. To this regard I use my F1, F2, F3, F4 keys to target the tanks or healers, and my keys to cast instant cast abilities. In this regard, you're removing options you have to pull small inches of performance you could otherwise have.

I'm jumping and doing 180s and can heal, and I click.

It takes nothing to do this, especially with instant cast+mobile heals (because the other heals you can't cast while moving anyway, keybind all you want they will not work on the run) if you have the tools for the job.

Preferences are that people like certain methods of gameplay. Some like keybinds; some like mouseovers; and others like clicking.

Each can be good at it, too.

Heck, WoW even offers even the click to move option. Why? Those used to Asian MMOs, where clicking is used to move.

[Calamorn]

*snipped*

It's not a thread about which is more fun, or which people enjoy more. Rather, this is a thread about which is better.

I'd reply to your statements, but we aren't talking apples and oranges, we're talking apples and horses.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

It's not a thread about which is more fun, or which people enjoy more. Rather, this is a thread about which is better.

Actually, he wants counterpoints to clicking.

[This name sucks]

So, Juzalol, you're going to be judge and jury in how everyone plays your way?

Your way isn't my way.

And no, you're completely wrong to assume I never used keybinds before. I just detest using multiple keys when a click is efficient.

Now you may have problems clicking fast and need keybinds, I don't.

It's detrimental because it's very easy to use the wrong keybinds...very. Like I said, DPS can afford to miss, a healer screws up, players die.

Occam's Razor rules.

Is this guy fucking serious?

In one of your later posts you also said that idea of "keybinding > clicking" is the sign of a bad player.

Are you going to call me a bad player too?

Being top 1%-0.1% in a high skill competitive game, and in the top 3-10 US guild from ulduar to DS?

You have to be a special kind of stupid to be saying that kind of shit.

Scenario 1, you're dpsing a patchwerk style boss and if you're clicking you go through your standard gcd based rotation

When it comes time to pop cds you need to use your ability, and then instantly press 2 or 3 buttons depending on your class to pop all your cds at once. (Don't say macro them together, because thats a really, really bad fucking idea for most classes on most fights) within the next second and still be ready to click your next button.

Now that was all for a patchwerk style boss, imagine on a real fight like heroic V/T where you need to be constantly moving, aware of your debuffs and boss timers for when he next casts blackout or breath attack.

There is absolutely no way that is physically possible to be pressing 5 different buttons reliably and accurately within 1 second and still be aware of all of the other important details going on within a fight.

And even then thats before when everything goes to shit and you need to do something impromptu, good luck clicking a major defensive cd if something goes majorly wrong.

Wasn't exactly uncommon for me to having to use an emergency dispersion for tanking blackout if the raid was dangerously low for some reason and couldn't soak it. I would have had about 3 seconds of warning if I was paying close attention to the raid's situation. Oh and blackout would still 1 shot you even through just dispersion, you needed to be in shadowform and bubble yourself.

[Deleted]

Clicking typically takes more time and requires more of your attention than using key-binds. In my experience, anyways.

Its really depends.For example mine sister have keybinded everything and sometimes i wonder how the hell she can do these binds.I have binded only main attack and deffensive skils or around 10 buttons.Everything its about experience with KB how good you know the buttons positions
But one is sure there is no way to play this game at decent level only with clicking

[This name sucks]

I'm sure you don't w-a-n-t to know. Because keybinds you can make some really nasty typos...and I can't risk it.

DPS can miss, they have the luxury too. Healers miss and a raid can wipe.

Yeah ok, heroic baleroc required 33k dps to beat the enrage timer and that was probably the most brutal patchwerk fight I have ever done. Managing the aids having precise minimal movement and doing the potential max dps of your spec while watching to dispersion tank the crystals if the emergency arised (it did, a lot, you needed to be on the ball for that shit, 1 second WAS the difference between a wipe and kill), tanking crystals normally, watching for brain link.

Its straight up impossible to manage all of that while staring at your bars to click your buttons. And keyboard turning on that fight, rofl.

[Tucci]

Lol I can't believe this thread is up to 29 pages. I posted reply after reply on a ton of pages way back there. I can't believe people are trying to argue against binding still. It's actually embarrassing at this point. I've posted why binding is the far superior way to play no matter WHAT you're doing so many times...my brain just hurts at this point. I've seen TONS of good replies as well. But yet...they still want to click, lol.

[Myrrar]

Lol I can't believe this thread is up to 29 pages. I posted reply after reply on a ton of pages way back there. I can't believe people are trying to argue against binding still. It's actually embarrassing at this point. I've posted why binding is the far superior way to play no matter WHAT you're doing so many times...my brain just hurts at this point. I've seen TONS of good replies as well. But yet...they still want to click, lol.

Change is scary and admitting you may not be playing at max proficiency is hard. It's like watching people who haven't even been in LFR trying to tell World top 5 raiders their strat is wrong.

There are also people who push binding on everyone, even super casual players, and tell them they're awful if they click which puts them on the defensive.

Stupidity on all sides sadly.

[Rinoa]

I was a bit too tired when I posted, it seems.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

Being top 1%-0.1% in a high skill competitive game

What's stupid is being offended over something so silly as keybinds to begin with. Don't need to be in the top 0.000000001% to realize that.

[Tucci]

Change is scary and admitting you may not be playing at max proficiency is hard.

Exactly, which is why I've seen people /gquit because we'd talk about binding and how it's the biggest dps/heal increase you could get. They would get offended, claim they're great players, which they weren't whatsoever, insult us and then leave. I try approach the subject as politely as possible to people who insist they're right because most people will just call them terrible. There's so many non insulting arguments in here and it's just like not getting through. Vanguard's keybind guide from AJ was even linked and read but still...nothing. Some people even saying clicking is superior, lol. Ugh.

---------- Post added 2012-12-05 at 01:28 AM ----------

Don't worry guys, Kevyne is just a troll. Stop feeding him.

I've honestly thought about that just because it seems impossible for someone to not understand by now.

[Rinoa]

So far all I have seen in favour of clicking is claims of being able to do things as well as keybinders in very specific scenario. Even if I agreed with that, which I do not, wouldn't that mean that because you can only match a good keybinder in a few scenarios - keybinding is simply better because it outperforms in all the others?

[This name sucks]

What's stupid is being offended over something so silly as keybinds to begin with. Don't need to be in the top 0.000000001% to realize that.

Not so much offended as incredibly frustrated that there is even .00000001% who insist on thinking something as horrible as clicking is viable. I'm an ocd perfectionist and even having some stupid minority doing something inefficiently bothers me.

And then talk about it and try to rationalize that its the same as using buttons.

And then make up the most convoluted reasons imaginable to try and support that claim.

>You might press the wrong key! (No you fucking won't)

>doing sub optimal dps is okay! (No its fucking not)

[Kevyne-Shandris]

I'm an ocd perfectionist and even having some stupid minority doing something inefficiently bothers me.

That's your problem, not mine.

I don't care either way with this subject, because I experienced both. But it's important to note if folks are going to argue the advantages of keybinds, do so accurately...don't let those biases consume critical thinking.