Mouse TurningFollow

Most people will just say yes out of hand, but to be frank, I think it depends on what you're doing. If you're talking solo PVE, then chances are you can get away with keyboard turning and really not notice much if any difference.

That said, I used to be a very avid keyboard mover. I don't use my mouse much at all in Office apps, etc., and when I first started playing WoW it was no different. I moved with my arrows and bound my abilities to other keys. How did I strafe? I didn't.

Then one day I decided to just learn use the mouse, since everyone said it was so much better. Two hours later, I was completely comfortable with it, and will never go back. I move entirely with my mouse, and only use keys for abilities/spells/whatnot. So much easier, so much faster, so much better. I even got a shiny new Logitech MX518 for my birthday. I'm a zoom machine now. :)

Moral of the story: it's really not a big hardship to become a mouse turner. You should at least try it.

Yes, mouse-turning is necessary to be a good druid, or a good anything in wow. That said, I don't mouse turn. (I've tried many times and just can't get the hang of it.) I'm an ok druid. I still do fairly well in BGs and world PvP. I'll never get away with this in Arena, but I don't want to Arena. It's not as critical for tanking since with feral charge you really just need to strafe or back up to intercept the mob that just went for your healer, rather than immediately pivot. So learn it if you can, if you can't, well, it's not the end of the world.

Getting hang of it, do you guys/girls bind spells and such to mouse also? or am i the only one?

No offense, but I say "Poppycock!"

Now "good" is obviously subjective, and if by that you mean 2000+ rated arena, or main-tanking BT, then maybe this becomes true. I can't and won't say because I'm not there, but I honestly can not imagine how that'd be the case. I turn and cast all my common attacks/spells with my keyboard, use my mouse mostly for camera angle and targeting, and I have 100% confidence that I am a good druid. Hell, I'll say a very good druid without even feeling cocky. I'll draw the line just before great so you know I'm not a total egomaniac. : )

Anyway, I firmly believe you can be a good druid turning and playing however works for you. As long as you have a good system for A) getting where you need to be, B) quickly targeting mobs and friends as needed, and C) executing the attacks and spells, you can be a good druid or anything in WoW.




Edited, Jun 26th 2008 7:30pm by JeeBar

Wow, I didn't even know Poppycock was a food! Thanks to our resident culinary cookiemeistress for pointing that out! Sounds yummy indeed.

By the way, just so y'all don't think I'm close-minded or mouse-challenged, I went in and played around with "mouse turning" for a bit to see if I'd have some epiphany about it's benefits. Found it to be different, not difficult, not clumsy, etc., but not game-changing by any means. Certainly not to the degree where you can say that it's impossible to be a "good" druid without it.

It's not like I am stuck there facing away from my opponents saying "gosh I wish I could turn around!" or "gosh I wish I could get behind them to shred!" My fingers are right there on the keys, and when I push them, I move or turn as required.

But there's enough passion around this issue that I must not be understanding what y'all are talking about. I admittedly am not strong in arena but believe it's a combination of my feral spec and what's between my ears (only know one this class, haven't pvp'd much, old man mental reflexes, etc.) and not which my fingers are controlling my movement by which method (keyboard or mouse). But I'll play along and buy into the fact that turning with your mouse makes you a better arena player.

As far as PvE, I am very comfortable moving and turning with my arrow keys -- I crank out solid dps when that's my job and tank like a **** when that's my job. I never find myself saying "damn I wish I could turn faster" and I get lots of compliments on both my dps and tanking from toons that I trust, so like I said before I am 100% confident that I'm a "good" druid.

So I will try mouse movement/turning through an hour's worth of PvE and PvP combat and see if I can see the light.
BUT...that said...I still think the statement "mouse-turning is necessary to be a good druid" is just not true.

All these replies, and still none of you slackers has posted the Dark Legacy comic yet? Oh, fine, I'll do it. But I'm supposed to be working you know! I can't do everything around here!

I know that whenever I fight a mouse-turner, I do far worse. They can run around me and out of my melee attacks, then in for their specials if they've got a slow weapon (warriors and pallies), stay behind me if they're a rogue, kite me if they're a kiting class...the list goes on. It makes a huge difference in PvP.

In PvE the main advantage appears to be you turn around much faster. As I said, not a huge deal for druids since we have feral charge to get us to stray mobs. I've got no doubt it improves your game; I just can't do it (too old I suppose) and I think you can be fine without it. Just don't expect to be 1337.

I would also like to point out that turning speed varies not only from Keyboard to Mouse, but from one mouse to the other. I use a thumb track ball style mouse and although everyone scoffs at me when they see it, they are by far the fastest mouse's around. I especially notice this when playing Urban Terror or something of the like.....

Put it this way.
Keyboard - Static turning speed with no variation depending on how hard you push the button
Default Mouse - Although you can change the intensity of the scrolling you still have to move your whole arm to make rotations.
Track Ball - I have mine set up so that with one thumb movement my cursor can go from one side of the screen to the other (even on my two monitors I run tandem with "Ultramon." I never have to lift my arm and with some speedy thumb spinning the track ball will over spin and give me even faster reaction times. I can do a 180 instantly in game (WOW) with one of these "extra" thumb flicks and track balls are by far (in my opinion, with a few really retarded competitions. I usually game in a room with three other computers and I am the only tracky) the fastest out there. Takes a while to get used to definitely, and if I mention it I usually get flamed, but this forum is all about opinions I guess so here was mine.

Track balls until I die!

Edited, Jun 27th 2008 12:19pm by Duedain

If you're willing to scrimp and save and daily until you're sick of dailies for your epic flying skill, you should be willing to spend a few hours getting used to mouse turning. Mouse turning is easily as big an upgrade for your character as epic flying. Unless you're a PvE healbot or strictly a solo player, then it doesn't matter at all.

I see the utility of mouse turning, but I have a very hard time of adjusting everything I do away from my mouse. Mostly because I'm a become a big fan of 'mouseover' macros.

When I tank, I have my attacks on mouseover macros so I can mangle/lacerate on the fly without tabbing.

When I heal (using Healbot), my spells cast based on which mouse button I hit/where the mouse cursor is.

To me, all this means is that I heal in BG's and I don't do Arena. I'm OK with that since I don't really have time/desire for Arena and I prefer healing in BG's anyway (probably because whenever I switched to bear form in AV, my mouseover's soon ensured a large piece of roadkill).

I have tried mouse turning, but my two biggest issues are

- backing up. Granted this is just a matter of figuring out how my uber-tech mouse works, but I haven't done it yet. So it's CHARGE!!!! or nothing for me.

- Actually turning. When I do turn, I very rarely have any idea which direction I'm facing when I stop (unless it's straight up towards the sky). For me, the time it takes to get my bearings back from a mouse turn takes longer than the slow 'shuffle' 'shuffle' 'shuffle' of a keyboard turn.

Love Dark Legacy - NPC ALLIANCE FTW!!! LONG LIVE CHANCELLOR HORACE!!!

I made it to almost 70 on my first toon (a rogue)as a keyboard turner / mouse clicker. Until then I had done very little PVP. At 67 or so I started to PVP a bunch, and got my *** handed to me all the time. Fortunately I found a post on the rogue forums (for some reason I am having trouble linking it - go to rogue forums, Updated Rogue Guide by Nooblestick - he has a link to the post by EonSprinter). It was the best thing I could have ever done for my rogue (a necessity for PVP and even allows more fluid movement in PVE).

I am implementing the same system of movement on my druid I am leveling. Not as relevant for healing but for melee dps/tanking and casting it still works very well. If you are a clicker especially, binding your actions in this fashion will improve your awareness of the game immensely. I still move and strafe with QEWS keys and jump with space bar, but turning with the mouse and having most of my actions bound to the mouse is the only way I will ever play.