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

[Orby]

well on a plus side you must be a pro clicker

[Shiny212]

The game could be played with a console controller at this point, but yeah, obviously you'll do everything faster with keybinds, alot faster.

Also;

[Pendragon]

In fact, I usually perform better than people who swear by keybinds.

(X) Doubt. Post-pruning has made life easier for clickers, so I'm not surprised that clickers are performing better. That said, you'll never, ever, ever be as efficient or as fast as keybinders.

But if it is, then why am I doing just fine when everyone else in my group is binding?

You'll always do just fine in this post-pruning world. If you're performing better than keybinders in your group then your group/guild sucks.

[Atharaxie]

6 pages of quiproquo and false label. What the OP described page 2 is not mouseclicking but mouseover healing with spell bound to mouse buttons.
Mouse clicking is dragging your mouse to the action bar and clicking on every spell then on target/area. It's slow and tedious and (arguably) bad.
Mouse over healing is the casting spells on your target frame (basic, Grid2, Vuhdo) without selecting them. It's quite efficient and (mostly) the norm in healing.
With the second method, you can either bind spells to keyboard or mouse buttons (or both if you have a lot of them).

Here, case solved.

[Nnyco]

But if i use mouse to turn how i click rend?

[Holdodlig]

I've been mouseclicking until MoP came out. I didn't had any trouble back then since the boss fights and the pvp were much slower. And I was playing then a frost DK so I didn't had any aoe targeting ability. But when I switched to warrior I couldn't play with the leap and the banner so I started to bind them. Then I faced Hexos, so I binded all my offensive abilities. But then WoD came.

[DotEleven]

Thanks for responding non-harshly (like many of the others here). It sounds like I actually AM keybinding the way most healers do based on your feedback. Even though it's mostly mouse buttons with shift/alt/etc. That would explain why I'm doing so well as a healer I guess. But for dps, that's where it seems like I differ from most people. But, even with that, I guess I can just get a multi button mouse and get away with exactly what I'm doing and still keep WASD. I think THAT is what throws me from keybinding more than anything, just not being able to acclimate to movement other than what I currently do.

I watched some videos and I can see how mashing 'x' key and 'y' key or whatever instead of timed clicking would be more beneficial. With the clicking, I'm watching GCDs and clicking abilities when those are up rather than just button-mashing with macros. Question: If you're moving with your mouse, how are you going backwards? It seems very non-intuitive to do anything but move forward with the mouse.

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But you're still a clicker, technically, right? I mean if you're using a multi-button mouse with enough buttons for every spell, you can't also be using that for movement, right? I think I could do just fine with an optimal mouse configuration like that, it's the NOT using WASD to move or at least strafe that would boggle my mind.

We still move with WASD so I'm kinda confused by your question. It takes a bit of getting used to and some people keybind around the WASD keys as well, but it's not too difficult to press say S and 1 to go backwards while pressing a keybind. I think you're getting confused here as people who use keybinds use the mouse for camera control/targetting not movement.

[PenguinChan]

Clicking is inefficient and should be avoided, however it's totally fine if you're clicking things that aren't often used and can't be assed to properly keybind it. Thaaaaat said, depending on your specialization, if you're doing raids or not, and if you're playing PVP super seriously does keybinding more things or just playing with keybinds in general actually benefit you that greatly.

Keybinds > Clicking - but if you're not even raiding or taking PVP that seriously, just try and do Keybinding basics + clicking, or stick with clicking. Doesn't really matter if you're doing just fine.

[psyquest]

There is no question whatsoever that clicking is a waste of time.

1: instead of focusing about what you are fighting and surroundings , you are looking where to click
2: the reaction time to click or move is way faster using keybinds.

Why are we even discussing this at this point?

[Sliske]

Even playing at peak performance, you're still playing as if you had 400-500+ ping. Now ask yourself if you're playing at peak performance? Thats just moving your mouse to click your spells. Add the above into the fact that you aren't even half as mobile as a non-clicker and you can see why clicking is really, really bad.

[Inukashi]

Hi, it doesn't matter in PVE where you only target for heals and the incoming damage is more predictable.
You have at least a gcd anyway after a heal and for doing the next thing you can hover your mouse and click to queue the next spell.

But for PvP I really suggest to target via key. You need to swap faster and more often and I often need my mouse to move in PvP.
Can't turn the screen and switch target at the same time.

[Phookah]

Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

[Swnem]

Good is the enemy of great. Doing okay when you have hamstrung yourself is a silly thing to just settle for. It isn't like it is complicated to sort out mouse moving and keybindings. The apathy of these if you are doing okay statements is depressing.

Oh yeah, that reminds me i use mouse keybinds as well. Still, your argument is not ok. Not i, nor you get to tell some stranger how he should enjoy the game. That is up to them and not our business. We can advise, that is all.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Objectively it's better by being a more efficient way to play.

[PelinalWhitestrake]

I think you confused retail with classic there. Or maybe you just enjoy playing a class with only 20% of it's toolkit lol

I know it's fun to ignore reality and meme all over forums, but each class realistically has 20-30 buttons to press, albeit not all of those buttons are direct 'rotation' buttons, but if you are only pushing your core rotation and nothing else, you might want to try actually playing the game for a change.

This game isn't a fucking Flight simulator or Mechwarrior, if you press more than the skills that you use in common PvE content, you're doing only to show up.

if this game had, THIS

i wouldn't complain about it, but it isnt

[PelinalWhitestrake]

Then go play the game that does have that? Doesn't change the fact of your earlier hyperbole being mostly lies. Most, if not all, classes have upwards of 20+ keybinds minimum. Not all of those are 'core rotation' abilities, but cooldowns, utility, defensives are all part of 'skills that you use in common in PvE content'

Nevermind the fact that the 'controls' in your pic there are including incredibly generic things, such as ''move left/move right'' "change hud" and ''damage report'' give me a damn break lmao. With your own logic WoW now has like 100 keybinds!

I could post the Keychart for Falcon BMS and DCS, but that woill take 50 pages
also thanks for proving the point that WoW players know shit about keybindings, and they lie for themselves about "more keys, im pro" when it isn't

oh the buyers remorse...

[Daedius]

I used to play FPS games with the arrow keys, and the 6 keys above, till about 2006. The transition to AWSD was like discovering God.

Why I stuck with the arrow keys for so long was just due to stubbornness thinking I was doing just fine...

[DechCJC]

Clickers can't do 360 flips.

Also PvP. That will too be quite the pickle.

[TwoMana]

Hamlet wrote a nice article 5 years ago about raid awareness - it seems his site is down, but you can still find it here.

If you're looking to improve your performance, read it and after you've completely understood and internalized it, start thinking about clicking vs. keybinding.

(Hamlet is a member of Elitist Jerks, ex-raider and theorycrafter. He is currently employed at Blizzard and works in the WoW team as a dev).

[vsb]

Play as you wish. I used to keybind everything, now I'm using a mixed approach by keybinding most used abilities (rotation) and clicking cooldowns, potions, etc, for example.

That said, I believe that by using keybinds you'll play more efficiently. But whether you need that or not is questionable.