World of Warcraft: Forever is WoW’s new “Classic plus” mode that comes jam-packed with a ton of new content and quality-of-life updates for the Classic WoW enjoyer. Chief among these QOL updates is —in a first for the franchise— native controller support. It’s kind of a huge deal that WoW is doing this, but how does it work, and is it better than mouse and keyboard?
Now, if you’re a WoW OG, you’re probably looking down at your well-worn gaming mouse and keyboard, spells all carefully bound and macros painstakingly programmed so that you can deploy the most complex of rotations at a moment’s notice during a difficult raid, and you may be thinking to yourself, “How in the hell are they going to squeeze all of that onto a controller?” The answer: pages.
WoW: Forever’s button pages setup is elegant in its simplicity, and if you’ve played other controller MMOs like Final Fantasy 14, it should feel pretty familiar. Basically, the face buttons and directional pad will be mappable to whatever actions you need, like casting a spell or performing a melee attack, and when you run out of face buttons, you can easily swap to a new page of actions by holding down either the left or right trigger.
So that’s three pages of actions already, but if you hold down both triggers, you’ll get a fourth. And if that’s not enough action access, multiply that by three because there are three action page profiles to swap between as well. So that’s eight face buttons times four pages times three action bar profiles… 96 actions in total? Look I didn’t get into this for the math, okay? But it’s a lot.
Targeting is pretty simple as well. Pressing the left shoulder button will allow you to cycle through allies to target for healing spells and the like, and the right shoulder button will allow you to cycle through enemies. Holding down these buttons will allow you to use the control stick to direct your focus to groups of enemies or allies, making sure you’re able to quickly and easily target the right mobs in the middle of a chaotic raid.
So which should you choose, Mouse and Keyboard or Controller?
Like with all things, it depends: Support for controller in WoW Forever is surprisingly robust and intuitive, plus it finally enables WoW couch gaming (and maybe even console support somewhere down the line as well). Pretty cool if you ask me! While WoW controller support is still in early days, if you’re in the WoW Forever beta, you might as well try it out and see if you like it. And if you’re trying out controller, the Stealth™ Flip is an obvious pick. Not only does it have a built-in touchscreen for easier PC navigation, it also two mappable back buttons and four onboard profiles. I don’t even want to attempt the math for the amount of customizable actions that gives you access to.
Still, one thing you can’t do with a controller is type, so if you’re a role player or trash talker who values being able to chat with the same keys you slay your enemies with, you may elect to stay with your mouse and keyboard. Mouse and keyboard are tried and true, after all, and there’s no harm in sticking to your guns. But what if you’ve been using your guns for several years and they’re kind of old, outdated, and don’t even have a touch screen? The launch of WoW Forever would be a great time to try the Command Series KB7 Keyboard, which features a 4.3” Command Touch Display, giving you one-touch access to anything from macros to your guild’s Discord to your go-to raid playlist.
And complete the combo with the Command Series MC7 Mouse, offering a 2.25” Command Touch Display and 11 programmable buttons to give you even more command over your game and your setup.
