This just came to my mind (again) and never actually thought of posting about it and i think nobody else has posted this in our forums.

I just watched some old videos about molten core bosses (which im thinking of soloing) and found myself more interested in the players doings than in the actual boss fight.

Some of the players seen in the videos are using mouse to click abilities and that doesnt fit into my brain at all. Ok, TBC beast mastery hunter can do it, he only has like 1 button to push but i was amased how slow the pushing of different buttons is when youre using mouse. You lose the global cooldown on every pause youre taking while selecting next ability and in these vids i saw im sure the players were lower than the tank in dps by far (this one hunter on ragnaroc video was horrible, abilities scattered around the screen and massive pauses between every shot, almost made me cry). Even more shocking, if possible, was the moving of the chars, using arrow keys ftw, you blindly run whereever others go and have no clue whats happening around you. This is ok i suppose if you have learned the fights by heart and the encounters follow a strict pattern and you are sure you cant alter it in any way.

Im not using mouse to anything else than moving and looking around, got a crappy computer with 1 fps in 25man and still i dont lose aggro or have low dps, even with crappy gear. Im sure most of our guildies arent using mouse for clicking abilities but you who are, next time when you dps or tank (healers are using healbot etc so they are bound to use mouse) just take into consideration that you ARE losing casting time and view of surrounding and most important, _concentration_ while looking at the buttons.

Sometimes i just go alt-Z just to better see the surroundings and still tank/dps with full force.

Without having to concentrate on watching the buttons you actually can follow the raid leaders and tactics. Last couple of raids have been in my opinion almost disasters because people arent paying attention. For some this could be the reason or atleast part of it. Maybe swapping to keyboard casting and mouse movement/look would better our concentration. Maybe not but dps would go up for sure.

Atleast for my chars (druid, lock, hunter, pally, shammy) good tanking or dpsing, the key is RAPID SPAM to avoid any pauses after global cooldown. And yes, i have had some keyboards broken from it and my asdw buttons dont have the letters visible no more and 2345 are fading. But cos of that, sometimes i get the job done.

If youre on top of dps charts or can keep aggro, just ignore my shit but if youre not up there, i suggest trying a different playstyle. Every class has potential to do massive dps and survive almost anywhere without aggroing or dying etc.

Other thing is using camera angles but that gonna need another post, maybe a drunken one.

Okay i might be wrong and nobody is using mouse to cast or is mastering it awesomely but its still one of my smartest posts i think.


Ok, havent slept for 2 days now and dont even remember that the topic was about so i'll just go watch some porn or play a bit more... or both.


Wanka

/w crendoc for free gold

There is no way, in any situation, that I can even fit into my pea size brain, any reason or logic behind using mouse to click on action bars for abilities. I mean use my mouse to click on the "Cooking" skill button, maybe my autobar for mounting. But theres no way you can come close to your performance, on anything, as having abilitise hotkey'd and using those keys.

But still people do use mouse. Even in our guild theres loads of differences in dps with equal gear and im positive its because of that. For example this one unnamed finn (wanker) hunter has gone thru the roof with his dps after i nagged to him about using mouse. Theres more mouse users for sure.

I use the buttons for most casting (unless I'm in a complete panic, when hand eye coordination shuts down), and I use the mouse for looking around. What I have never been able to get the hang of is using the mouse to move the character - it just feels like I don't have enough control. Don't think this loses me much dps, save on very mobile fights, and then aside from arc barrage which I can cast quite happily while using my keyboard to move, I can't cast anyway whilst I'm moving. Maybe I should practice mouse moving more, but always afraid I won't stop in time and will run into the boss or something.

Im afraid i have to admit to some bad habits on this front. When i played my hunter, I would play with both hands on the keyboard as a rule and occasionally switch my right hand to mouse to look around if needed (/cringe). My shammy (healing) i play with mouse for healbot, left hand for adsw and if i need to do other things (like purge boneshields) this is mousecast. When i am ele i have a nifty macro set up on my mouse (not a wow macro) which basically means that when i hit one mousebutton it sends the keyboard commands 9,=,2 which is lava burst, chain lightning, lightning bolt in that order and so it casts whichever of my spells is not on cd. LB>CL>LB for dps. And when i need to refresh flameshock that can either be on kb or on mouse, whichever i feel like.

My DK i sometimes mousecast and sometimes keyboard cast. But because of the runes system, you cant just spam abilities the whole time as you are often waiting for runes to come off of cd, so spamming buttons asap is less of an issue.

One thing I would note is that the way that mousecasting works has been changed since i first played WoW altho i am not sure when. It used to be that if u clicked and the previous cast was still going then this click wouldnt cast at all. Now there seems to be some sort of auto-queue going on where for the next (maybe) 0.5 seconds if the ongoing cast finishes the one you clicked will start straight away. Therefore so long as you click your next cast near the end of the current one it seems to be perfectly queued. Not sure if i have made this clear. But it seems to work for me the way I do it on my shammy at least (the mouse is REALLY helpful for ele), my DK i need to work on a little, i am thinking of macroing a mouseover taunt to a mousebutton.

I dont mean using mouse is crap if you have like 5-button mouse, thats completely different. But if entire fighting is around moving mouse around the screen and using keyboard entirely for moving it will take concentration off the surroundings.

I have a friend who does this and refuses to change and its really agony to watch it going down. He cant follow moving adds at all, he stops moving to see what button to press next and in heroics even hes like lower than the healer in dps. Maybe a extreme example but you get my meaning.

I guess we dont have many problems with this, maybe its just a pug problem.

hi,

this was a really hot point in my last UI change. I was thinking in going to use the keyboard as is best for fast reaction. My problem was i have too much hot-key and too less free-key. Switching my right hand from mouse to keyboard is really bad for me It gives me the feeling i loosing much time. I read about this and found out best pvp player never move hand from mouse as is vital to turn fast and hot-key all they can to the free buttons in the left hand (alt, ctr gives all u may need). I try this but i got issues because of cd... tankadins have a 969 rotation with a minimum of 5 abilities 4 in cd and 1 up. Things get messy when we can use our demon/undead abilities.

But i Found a solution which for a mele I think is quite good (probably not for pvp). I install bartender and place 6-7 bar (can't really remember how much) just under my toon so i can see whats going on, mob/boss and abilities cd in one blink. Most used abilities on top so you can turn around with mouse fast and click again. The panic buttons hot-key to mouse for fast reaction. What i also do is group abilities aoe, mele, range... I think i am doing quite well this way and i will chanche to keyboard if i can manage to play without mouse at all.

But what i think most of ppl got problems with is, check agro, debufs, not seeing where they are. At least that are my only problems, I got debuf and agro under control now but i still got problems seeing what is going on in some fights (e.g. when tanking too much adds in OS makes dificult to see the voids zones -even if now are blue- or sometimes when u are under a big boss, maybe with the back on the wall, and u need to relocate). On my Fury warrior sometimes i cannot see what i am hitting, i see lots of mobs in front of me but don't know which one is selected.

Basically i am the opinion that having the right addons well configured makes a bigger dif than mouse or keyboard

just my 2cents

Ugh... Mousecasting *shudders*

The mouse is for changing the camera angle, getting better directional control whilst flying, and possibly clicking a low-use unimportant ability that doesn't deserve a key bound for it.

When I was playing, most of the time my hands weren't even anywhere near the mouse. Using the keyboard, or a Gamepad with buttons bound to the keyboard, is a lot faster and much healthier.

agree with chris tho using mouse also for few my abilities which binded mouse3,5. I use mouse moving only if I need to turn aroun 180' asap example if I'm tankin anub'rekhan. but can't understand why moving with mouse is any better. have to go buy that wow mouse really. going to improve more playin to get hotkeys for my right hand and get rid off some of my shift combinatios

Some people use click to walk function, which I just can't understand. I play with my left hand on wasd, right hand on mouse(hovering over healbot), and should i ever need to use keys 7 to =, I bring my hand down, as theyre emergency buttons.

To move I use the keyboard(usually a strafe or strafe and turn at same time, BUT with right mouse button to fine tune my angle), but as a healer facing direction isnt all too important as I can heal behind myself, so moving is only really necesary when i would otherwise be damaged/killed etc...

In between heals I tend to pan my camera about 90-180 degrees(depending on time) just to check for anyone who has overagrod, causing problems, or a pat or something.

The only spells I mouse cast, are Hymn of Hope and Divine Hymn, which I have on a strategic action bar, because there long CDs and extreme sittuationality(if that is a word), make them to be almost never used.