'Clicker' for 15 years and counting...is keybinding really that much better?

[Thelxi]

I'd like to pour some more gasoline on this dumpster fire and bring up cognitive resources. It's not just flat speed that you gain with keybindings; by moving your mouse and attention from button to button you also spend cognitive resources that could otherwise have been spent on other things, for example keeping an eye on your buffs/debuffs/CDs/mechanics.

[Phaine]

they used to smack kids at school on their left hand when those kids tried to write with said left hand, because the norm was that you should use your right hand. meanwhile many studies already described how left handers usually do better.

they also used to say playing computergames dumbed you down, meanwhile we already know that in most cases it actually makes you smarter.

I agree that keybinding is faster in a competitive mindset but only when the person is conditioned for it.

you do either way and you're happy, thats what it comes down to imho.

[Shalaator]

The most difficult part for you will be learning when to use your MOUSE KEY (mouse3/4) to initiate AUTORUN and steer yourself with your mouse, so your left hand is free to hit all your keybinds being free from the WSAD portion.


Other than that, you'll be fine and loving it.

[Teddyfish]

Many high end Raids and Mythic+ key runs as well arena matches(pets/totems) you may need target a certain mob as quickly as possible while also still casting what ever spell.

Clicking specific targets amongsr the choas can be a nightmare on its own sometimes. I can't for the life of me see how you could possibly find clicking that target and then going back to click what ever else ability all in under 1s, easier than using key binds.

There's also the situation of abilities off the gcd, usually defensive and lifesaving abilities. You can't click two things at once, you can press two key binds at once. (Five fingers vs one mouse pointer, 10 fingers arguably with mouse keys).

Can you do decently without keybinds? Certainly.
Can you do better with keybinds? Definitely.

[shoc]

I was a clicker during my Heroic ICC days, it was not until LK Shadow Trap that I needed to change my behavior to keybinding.

Clicking is fine up to a certain point. But there's def a bottleneck in performance

[ssjgohan4life]

Exactly the same can be said about both types of people. You can missclick on keyboard with bad keybinds (like 6,7,8,9,0). You can't click in between if you have no space between buttons.

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Im pretty sure high end raiders can do both ways. They usually bind as its more convenient.

High end raiders combine keybinds and clicking, but never purely clicking, having to occasionally look for and click a action button for something you hardly ever use is fine but doing it for every single ability while having to watch for mechanics is just not doable end game.

[Linri]

I'll be honest. I too clicked a lot of Vanilla 15 years ago. Only really being able to manage certain keybindings. And clicking for some others.

@OP
I may suggest investing in a gaming MMO Mouse since you are used to using your mouse. It would not be too much different, it would mainly use your already mouse driven gameplay, but allow you to keybind to your mouse. You can also keybind things like shift on your keyboard + easy to reach keys, as well as your scroll wheel. Hope that helps

[Detritivores]

You are bad and should feel bad. I assume you are also the kind of person who needs someone else to pull off your bandaids.

Sarcasm aside, keybinding is and always will be better. There are infinity guides out there and I apologize but I cannot seem to find the one i like. The gist of it is:
1. Bind movement to esdf (s and f are strafe)
2. Bind rotational abilities to the keys your hand rests on (wqazxrtspacebar)
3. Use numbers 1-5 only for CDs and shit.
4. Enjoy being better than 99% of the player base at anything

It feels shitty for about a week, but afterwards it will only be awkward to momentarily shift back to asdf to tell strangers and guildies why you're better than them at the game.

Edit: My sarcastic end comment is not true, in case that wasn't clear. If your movement keys are esdf, your hand is in a natural resting position to type words.

[Soilx3]

Personally I use a hybrid of binds and clicking. This is how I've raided the highest difficulty whenever I've been playing, and always parsing well (90th percentile+). First as a DPS pally from WOTLK to Cata, then as a prot warrior in Legion. This is also why I'm not great in PvP, that's where keybinds really become useful.

I tend to just have a few key rotational abilities in binds and click my cooldowns.

[Detritivores]

Except for 1% of the player base playing at high-level the minimal increase movement in movement efficiency is going to be offset by increased error rate.

You will get a lot of people making sarcastic remarks and trying to come across as uber-knowledgeable-and that's really all it is about. Superiority complex.

If keybinding were actually superior in some practical way then you would get people giving numbers illustrating how this improves performance as you do with every other aspect of wow theory: the fact this never happens suggests that using binds has either zero or negative effect.

Try to push your M+ key as high as you can this week with only clicking. Then try to push it as high as you can with keybinds.

There aren't good numbers for this because no one is running these numbers. Anyone who has played both styles knows which is better and the margin isn't close. Your argument is very silly in that keybinding is so superior that no one would waste their time giving numbers to show that. It's plainly evident to anyone who spent an hour learning their rotation via keybinds. What in the world do you mean by "movement efficiency offset by increased error rate?" The point of keybinds is to execute everything efficiently. Movement doesn't change. Unless you were keyboard turning in which case I have nothing else to say.

[blankfaced]

Keybind if you wan't to be an arrogant twat, otherwise just do what ever the hell is more comfortable for you.

[Detritivores]

Personally I use a hybrid of binds and clicking. This is how I've raided the highest difficulty whenever I've been playing, and always parsing well (90th percentile+). First as a DPS pally from WOTLK to Cata, then as a prot warrior in Legion. This is also why I'm not great in PvP, that's where keybinds really become useful.

I tend to just have a few key rotational abilities in binds and click my cooldowns.

This is a hybrid bandaid style that most people get by with. Ironically, BFA broke this to some extent. Everything being on the goddam gcd makes this less optimal. (It was easy to click an off-gcd CD in the past, but it's not easy to spam click it now that they're all on the global. You lose time and dps. You're much better off with a keybind now for anything that used to be off-gcd.

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Keybind if you wan't to be an arrogant twat, otherwise just do what ever the hell is more comfortable for you.

When I do leisure activities like play WoW or play music, I try to do them to them to the best of my ability. I don't pick up a guitar and just say FUCK THESE ARROGANT TWATS ILL PLAY ANY NOTE, I try to learn how to play actual music. Same with WoW. If there's a way to play it better, I would like to do that. I'm not sure what the disconnect is there. Do some people not care about doing a thing well? Like you seriously think keybinders are arrogant twats for trying to do a thing good instead of bad? Just invest in finger paints and call it a day I guess.

[schwank05]

The confession is in the subject. I have (for the most part), just clicked my way through the game since Vanilla, using various mods and such of course. No matter how often someone tries to convert me, I just can't shake my clicking play style. That said, it has never caused me to under-perform in healing or dps. Ever. In fact, I usually perform better than people who swear by keybinds. So is it REALLY that much better, easier and efficient?

It could be that I'm working twice as hard as everyone else for the same result, I don't know. Every time I've tried to bind, I can't adapt. It just doesn't work. I either need professional help or validation that clicking is actually 'ok' as long as I'm not screwing other people over or limiting my own play experience. Thoughts? Advice? Anything?

So Until Classic I have only ever gamed on a Laptop and so I used to use the Trackpad to move around, I played Resto Druid and never was able to get into the whole Clique addon or any of that just had Grid and clicked on a player and cast a spell. I was one of the top Resto Druids back in the day on my Server. Then I started playing The Secret World and tried a Mouse for movement, Took me a month and I converted to how I currently play using a Mouse for all movement and keybinds on my spells It was life changing I had no idea what the hell I was missing until I actually did it. for Keybinds I use 1-7 and Q-Y I have pretty large hands so this is about he max of comfortable muscle memory without having to lift my hands off the Keyboard to hit a bind. I have other bars and have for certain classes used A-H as well. But generally only the 1-7 and q-y which works out very good. My suggestion is to just force yourself to stick with it for a bit then you will be happy with it I'm sure.

On a Side note I hate the gaming mice with 15 tiny ass buttons that I fat finger when pressing the best mouse to ever exist IMO is the Razer Death Adder 2013 I have wore 1 out and have one on my work laptop and home PC. There are 5 buttons including the scroll wheel. I bind Strafe L/R to the 2 buttons on the side and auto run by pushing the scroll wheel in hold both mouse buttons to move. Works great the mouse is designed for large hands and I love how it feels.

[Simca]

Depends a lot on class and spec.

For somebody like Beast Mastery Hunter, who can do their entire rotation while jumping around and spinning in circles - yes, it's a massive deal. You can't do your rotation and move efficiently (beyond the 8 cardinal directions) while using left-mouse clicks to activate action bar spells.

For somebody like... Elemental Shaman, whose rotation is largely stationary with few instants, the difference is relatively small. You'd still have a better reaction time if you used keybindings, but it wouldn't change a lot.

[Soilx3]

This is a hybrid bandaid style that most people get by with. Ironically, BFA broke this to some extent. Everything being on the goddam gcd makes this less optimal. (It was easy to click an off-gcd CD in the past, but it's not easy to spam click it now that they're all on the global. You lose time and dps. You';e much better off with a keybind now for anything that used to be off-gcd.

I don't disagree, keybinds would be better. How much better, hard to say. Changing your playstyle after so long is not that easy though, and the process of trying to get used to it isn't very enjoyable.

I got by quite well at the start of BFA. I'll use Shield Block as an example, a key ability on the GCD that I used to click. I'd be doing my rotation using binds, I'm seeing I'll need to refresh SB soon and I'll have my mouse ready on the ability when the GCD pops and instantly click it. It's hard to explain and definitely sounds clunky written out, but I(or others) never had any complaints or problems. Again, would it be better with everything bound? Yes. Is the slight increase in effectivity necessarily worth it? I don't think so. Now, if I kept getting outperformed or holding the group down, feeling like I can't keep up? I'd probably start learning binds. But it has never happened so far.

[Tumile]

The confession is in the subject. I have (for the most part), just clicked my way through the game since Vanilla, using various mods and such of course. No matter how often someone tries to convert me, I just can't shake my clicking play style. That said, it has never caused me to under-perform in healing or dps. Ever. In fact, I usually perform better than people who swear by keybinds. So is it REALLY that much better, easier and efficient?

It could be that I'm working twice as hard as everyone else for the same result, I don't know. Every time I've tried to bind, I can't adapt. It just doesn't work. I either need professional help or validation that clicking is actually 'ok' as long as I'm not screwing other people over or limiting my own play experience. Thoughts? Advice? Anything?

No bullshit answer:
You're suffering from Dunning Kruger if you think you're actually performing well while clicking, it simply isn't possible, and you may just be too "bad" to even realize how you are performing yourself.

all depends on perspective I guess, if you're raiding Normal difficulty it doesn't really matter, if you actually want to perform to the best of your classes abilities, then i refer to the previous paragraph.

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Also, for healing specifically, my frames are set up so that I just use the Clique add-on and hover-target-click anyway. How would it be better to assign a button than to just left/right/shift+/etc. click for spells? When I think about it, how would I do both that AND use the mouse for moving at the same time? I couldn't.

because as a healer only 60% of your job is actually healing. as a healer you need to DPS, as a healer you need to do the shit jobs on fights whenever able, you arent a healer, you are a support. your job is to make the rest of the raid as comfortable as possible, that means CC'ing, Dps'ing and doing mechanics just as much as it means healing.

[Steelcryo]

I combine the two. I used my most common abilities on the easy to hit hotkeys (1-5) then click any extras or cooldowns I need when I need them, which isn't very often so taking the extra half second to click doesn't make a difference. It's very rare I need to be moving/controlling the mouse the exact second I need to activate one of those buttons.

The biggest benefit you'll find is movement, it's much easier to get position without losing dps (assuming you play dps) if you use keybinds for abilities and mouse to turn/move.

[Detritivores]

I don't disagree, keybinds would be better. How much better, hard to say. Changing your playstyle after so long is not that easy though, and the process of trying to get used to it isn't very enjoyable.

I got by quite well at the start of BFA. I'll use Shield Block as an example, a key ability on the GCD that I used to click. I'd be doing my rotation using binds, I'm seeing I'll need to refresh SB soon and I'll have my mouse ready on the ability when the GCD pops and instantly click it. It's hard to explain and definitely sounds clunky written out, but I(or others) never had any complaints or problems. Again, would it be better with everything bound? Yes. Is the slight increase in effectivity necessarily worth it? I don't think so. Now, if I kept getting outperformed or holding the group down, feeling like I can't keep up? I'd probably start learning binds. But it has never happened so far.

SB is off GCD, one of the few abilities that remains so.

Yes, the increase is performance is slight. Although, and there's no way to say this without sounding like a dick but I'll go ahead, if you believed SB was on the GCD this entire expansion, I'm sure there's plenty of higher yield ways to improve your performance than keybinding.

A better example might be shield wall, a long, off-gcd cool down. I used to click it but I don't anymore. The difference is minor for sure, but what clickers always underestimate is the mental bandwidth you spend clicking. I need SW, my mouse thumb can hit it without my eyes leaving my character's feet. If I have to click on it, that's a lapse in attention elsewhere, which could lead to me standing in something or otherwise failing a mechanic I'm not supposed to fail. You have finite attention to the plethora of things going on in a raid, and keybinding everything eliminates one of those things. And especially, for a tank spec, if you mess up a mechanic, the raid is generally toast. Your only job except for living is to not be the cause of wipes. And keybinding helps that. In pure numbers it will matter very little. But in wipes and execution and preventable deaths, it matters very much.

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I combine the two. I used my most common abilities on the easy to hit hotkeys (1-5) then click any extras or cooldowns I need when I need them, which isn't very often so taking the extra half second to click doesn't make a difference. It's very rare I need to be moving/controlling the mouse the exact second I need to activate one of those buttons.

The biggest benefit you'll find is movement, it's much easier to get position without losing dps (assuming you play dps) if you use keybinds for abilities and mouse to turn/move.

This misconception frustrates me. As I said above, the main benefit is in survival. I do not understand how keybinding changes movement. Also 1-5 are trash keybinds. Those should be the abilities you might cheat-click. Rotational stuff should be keys your hand rests on (qazwrtspacebar) - applicable if you bind movement to esdf which you should.

[Soilx3]

SB is off GCD, one of the few abilities that remains so.

Yes, the increase is performance is slight. Although, and there's no way to say this without sounding like a dick but I'll go ahead, if you believed SB was off the GCD this entire expansion, I'm sure there's plenty of higher yield ways to improve your performance than keybinding.

A better example might be shield wall, a long, off-gcd cool down. I used to click it but I don't anymore. The difference is minor for sure, but what clickers always underestimate is the mental bandwidth you spend clicking. I need SW, my mouse thumb can hit it without my eyes leaving my character's feet. If I have to click on it, that's a lapse in attention elsewhere, which could lead to me standing in something or otherwise failing a mechanic I'm not supposed to fail. You have finite attention to the plethora of things going on in a raid, and keybinding everything eliminates one of those things. In pure numbers it will matter very little. But in wipes and execution and preventable deaths, it matters very much.

Pardon, been about a year since I played. How did I think SB was off the GCD? Anyway... same thing, just blank out the GCD stuff.

Right, I agree, if you are dying because of focusing too much on the clicking, there's a problem. For me though and surely many others, it feels like second nature. It helps that you would usually plan out in advance when you need to be hitting that Shield Wall/any other big CD. If you are playing something with a lot of reactionary cooldowns (let's say a paladin), then keybinds will surely massive improve your play.

One of my proudest moments was killing Kruul in the Mage Tower challenge shortly after it was released(2nd time the tower was up I believe), and I did it playing like this. That's really the highest praise I can give myself

[Detritivores]

Pardon, been about a year since I played. How did I think SB was off the GCD? Anyway... same thing, just blank out the GCD stuff.

Right, I agree, if you are dying because of focusing too much on the clicking, there's a problem. For me though and surely many others, it feels like second nature. It helps that you would usually plan out in advance when you need to be hitting that Shield Wall/any other big CD. If you are playing something with a lot of reactionary cooldowns (let's say a paladin), then keybinds will surely massive improve your play.

One of my proudest moments was killing Kruul in the Mage Tower challenge shortly after it was released(2nd time the tower was up I believe), and I did it playing like this. That's really the highest praise I can give myself

They made Ignore Pain be on the GCD for the first patch and it was massively cancerous and hated and they eventually reverted it... is probably what you were thinking of. Block has (mercifully) been off gcd the whole time.

Yeah, I don't think we really disagree. I played the way you're describing for most of my WoW days, and I'm not certain that it ever caused a wipe or a problem. I just think it theoretically could have and so the day I bound everything I felt better. But I agree with you that once you're in the rhythm of a fight and you know where you're using it, it's a pretty negligible amount of attention.

Edit: Especially pre-active mitigation tanking was 100% clickable.