Controller vs KB/Mouse

I am sure this one won't be controversial at all.

Throughout my life I have enjoyed consoles AND pc's both, controllers for some games and mouse/kb for others. I do not consider myself team console or PC or anything like that.

After 16 years of WoW, one thing that drew me to try this game was that I could play a AAA MMORPG with a controller, and on console if I chose. I really enjoy it, and after having started FFXIV with keyboard and mouse for about 6 months, my preferred way to play now is PC with a PS5 controller.

I feel like a lot of jobs play well with controller and some not so much. I really with I could figure out how to make healing with controller easier, because you can just never scroll through targets as quickly with a controller as you can just clicking on your target with a mouse pointer. Sage feels great on controller though, as does tanking and and most DPS jobs that I have tried.

I have been told I am rare breed because I play on PC but still use controller. Whats your preference and why?

What jobs do you think work well on controller and which dont?

Everything can be done with ether setup. I'm a console + controller player since I grew up on controller. Tried KBM but could never get something going with it without having to do extreme amounts of rebinding(lefty problems).

Some things are easier on PC and others on controller. I'll never deny the efficacy of mouse over healing and other useful macros KBM users have an easy time using. I've always found targeting allies easier on controller since it's just up and down on D-pad.

I can't play on controller. I don't have the dexterity for it. I also tend to not be a great healer on kbm due to targeting issues.

i play only on ps4, i started playing on ps3, always on controller, keyboard just for typing, i fell more confortable with controller, with the keyboard there are too many buttons to remember and pressing

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Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

I have been told I am rare breed because I play on PC but still use controller.

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i must be the rarest of breeds because i dont play any PC game without a controller, even games without official controller support i use xpadder so i can still play it with a controller

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Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

I really with I could figure out how to make healing with controller easier, because you can just never scroll through targets as quickly with a controller as you can just clicking on your target with a mouse pointer.

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which are you having trouble with? targeting teammates or enemies? for enemies just hit L1 or R1 its the same as tab targetting on keyboard, as for teammates you can use the D-pad to scroll up and down and so long as you dont wait until someone is at 1% health to heal them you'll be fine, it takes a bit of practice but eventually it'll all be 2nd nature

Most of my PC friends that I play with in my FC play PC and controller. This game is great for controller play.

I'm very much the kind of person that, whatever control scheme I start a game with is the only one I can use going forward. So I'm a K&M person for ffxiv. (And a joycon person for Hades, a ps4 dualshock person for CoD, and so on.)

But a big reason I prefer keyboard and mouse for this game and MMOs in general is that I hate HUD bloat, and cross hotbars just feel so untidy and they stress me out lol.

Between all my keybinds and shortcuts and my MMO mouse (which was a literal game changer for me), I just can't imagine trying to relearn everything on controller.

One of the guys I play with somewhat regularly is controller evangelist who will take any opportunity to tell folks that they should play on controller, and how he has 128 or however many buttons at his fingertips, and how it's so much more ergonomic, how he has superior movement precision, and so on. I find him kind of annoying tbh, and because of that, whatever desire to even attempt using controller I may have had has since disappeared.

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Originally Posted by ryouma17

i must be the rarest of breeds because i dont play any PC game without a controller, even games without official controller support i use xpadder so i can still play it with a controller




which are you having trouble with? targeting teammates or enemies? for enemies just hit L1 or R1 its the same as tab targeting on keyboard, as for teammates you can use the D-pad to scroll up and down and so long as you don't wait until someone is at 1% health to heal them you'll be fine, it takes a bit of practice but eventually it'll all be 2nd nature

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Targeting enemies is no problem, I've got a good system for that. Its when healing, I can only scroll through my group members so fast, and never as fast as clicking them with a mouse. And using rescue on someone with a controller seems impossible for me because by the time I finally get them targeted, they either survived the thing im trying to rescue them from...or they didn't :P

anything melee is good on controller.

if you play healer with controller youre a masochistic

I used to play games on console+controller. But as I slowly got more interested in MMORPGs on PCs, I slowly integrate my way to be more comfortable with keyboard (gaming controller for PC was incredibly rare back then at where I lived). Partly because as an outgoing introvert, I like to chat. At some point I tried to use controller but I never liked the idea of putting down my controller just to type on keyboard. The last time I touched controller was about 11 years ago. Pretty sure if I try to play any game with controller, I wouldn't have those dexterity I used to possess.

It always baffles me how people play this game on controller however, but to each their own I guess.

I play on console, but also can play (up to HW) on PC, and when I did log in on PC I would still use a controller because that's what I'm used to, and since they introduced the saving of settings/hotbars/whatnot and being able to load that onto another system, it made it easier since then to be able to do these things.

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Originally Posted by Lihtleita

anything melee is good on controller.

if you play healer with controller youre a masochistic

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I leveled scholar and WHM to 90 with controller only and AST to 80. AST with controller is an exercise in misery, to be sure. I find sage the easiest and even fun. Ive pulled some things off that surprised myself with sage and controller. But I still know I could do a lot better with m/kb but I love controller play lol

I have difficulty to grasp how it could be controversial (or even if it's the case how it would matter) since it's a personal preference and i doubt someone is gonna come out of your screen and make you play how they feel like you should do :D

That being said, i always played with a mouse and keyboard and just won't bother learning to use a controller.

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Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

I am sure this one won't be controversial at all.

Throughout my life I have enjoyed consoles AND pc's both, controllers for some games and mouse/kb for others. I do not consider myself team console or PC or anything like that.

After 16 years of WoW, one thing that drew me to try this game was that I could play a AAA MMORPG with a controller, and on console if I chose. I really enjoy it, and after having started FFXIV with keyboard and mouse for about 6 months, my preferred way to play now is PC with a PS5 controller.

I feel like a lot of jobs play well with controller and some not so much. I really with I could figure out how to make healing with controller easier, because you can just never scroll through targets as quickly with a controller as you can just clicking on your target with a mouse pointer. Sage feels great on controller though, as does tanking and and most DPS jobs that I have tried.

I have been told I am rare breed because I play on PC but still use controller. Whats your preference and why?

What jobs do you think work well on controller and which dont?

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You should try wow with the consoleport addon. it still has some quirks to it, some things that are easier to do with mouse (usually just UI navigation stuff), but the game is playable wth a controller. i raided and got cutting edge in almost every tier of Legion and BFA. the tiers i didnt, i just wasnt playing.

I feel like consoleport offers better controller support for wow than ffxiv does natively.

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Originally Posted by Syln

I have difficulty to grasp how it could be controversial (or even if it's the case how it would matter) since it's a personal preference and i doubt someone is gonna come out of your screen and make you play how they feel like you should do :D

That being said, i always played with a mouse and keyboard and just won't bother learning to use a controller.

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It shouldn't be controversial but people get very tribal sometimes about their preferred methods of playing games, ie. PC vs console, xbox vs PS, Intel vs AMD etc.

Im surprised and impress by this thread so far lol

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Originally Posted by lAurasl

You should try wow with the consoleport addon. it still has some quirks to it, some things that are easier to do with mouse (usually just UI navigation stuff), but the game is playable wth a controller. i raided and got cutting edge in almost every tier of Legion and BFA. the tiers i didnt, i just wasnt playing.

I feel like consoleport offers better controller support for wow than ffxiv does natively.

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I saw Bellular going on about consoleport and if I ever play WoW again I will try it for sure, but I don't see myself every doing that again for a whole list of off topic reasons lol.

I started off on keyboard. When Zurvan came out, I was trying EXTREMELY hard to clear the EXTREME. Now I dunno about you, but I want my skills to go off as soon as possible. So this meant I would start mashing the corresponding key just as my GCD was about to end. Since Zurvan was a hard fight, I was stuck there for hours. Eventually my keyboard hand started to hurt. I needed a break.

Upset, I bought a controller the next day, and decided to try playing with it. It took me a few hours to set up my new hotbar and get the hang of it. The only real difficult thing is learning how to target objects and enemies. That's probably what took me the longest. Ever since then though, I have been able to play as long as I want, without my hands or fingers hurting.

So far I've played multiple jobs, and they have all worked well with controller. The only big issue I see is with jobs that have to use ground-targeting skills. That is annoying to do on controller, but there are ways to work around it.

One thing I will say is that healing on controller is A LOT better than healing on keyboard, simply because you can just scroll up and down the party list to target who you want. There's no need to worry about clicking or using the F keys.

I play on pc and also use controller.

Controllers easy. A well setup party list can be scrolled very quickly for example.

I have mine set as tank dps healer. And what that means is the most Important people within 1 or 2 taps of the dpad. Down for tanks up for healers. Makes it that much faster.

Then with all the settings and options such as expanded hotbars and wxhb you can play just as quickly on controller as you can with kbm.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

I play on pc and also use controller.

Controllers easy. A well setup party list can be scrolled very quickly for example.

I have mine set as tank dps healer. And what that means is the most Important people within 1 or 2 taps of the dpad. Down for tanks up for healers. Makes it that much faster.

Then with all the settings and options such as expanded hotbars and wxhb you can play just as quickly on controller as you can with kbm.

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The bit about the "important" people being within a couple clicks is brilliant and I need to learn to sort it that way. The wxhb I understand of course.

I also struggle with targeting sometimes if there are "non-combat targets" in the area. I usuall left or right on DPad to cycle through enemies. If there is a treasure chest or a door in the area sometimes I cycle through targeting those and really dont need to see those usually when im in combat and can cost precious seconds.

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Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

The bit about the "important" people being within a couple clicks is brilliant and I need to learn to sort it that way. The wxhb I understand of course.

I also struggle with targeting sometimes if there are "non-combat targets" in the area. I usuall left or right on DPad to cycle through enemies. If there is a treasure chest or a door in the area sometimes I cycle through targeting those and really dont need to see those usually when im in combat and can cost precious seconds.

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filters help here.
for example i have L1 + X as literally enemies only.
L1 + square. is npc + objects only.
L1+ triangle is everything
and L1+ circle is friendlies only.

the square one is usefull in certain older dungeons where you need to activate something surrounded by adds. or pick up a key or something.
the X one is good because it still allows up and down to cycle party memebrs while left and right will only target monsters.

if you havent set them up check it out.

I don’t think it’s a controversial subject at all and your not a rare breed for playing controller on pc, I think it’s like 50/50 (anecdotal evidence from statics over the years)

An optimized controller setup might take some time to figure out, but once you do it feels amazing.

I dunno how it would work in WoW, I haven’t played since early wrath but as a healer you had to have every rank of every heal on your bars for mana management so that would be impossible on controller xD

I play most PC games with a mouse/keyboard, even games that I have previously played on a console. But whether I'm playing FF XIV on my PC or on my PS5, I always use a controller to play and keyboard to type.

I use an N52 Nostromo and a Elecom Huge trackball. I'd replace the Nostromo with an Azeron if I could justify spending $150+ for the small upgrade it would give me. That's basically my setup for all PC games unless I'm using an emulator.

I think most jobs work great on controller, my main 2 jobs are NIN and RDM and I don't have problems playing either on there. DRG+MCH feel a little awkward to me on controller but that's just because I can't find a layout I'm happy with on either job. Overall I never really feel like I'm at a disadvantage by preferring to use controller, though there's the occasional rare mechanic that can be finicky due to analogs being less precise vs WASD. (elusive/spineshatter jump in DSR, the teleporting portals in E7S, slides in E12S)

For XIV and any MMO, PC with keyboard and mouse. I learned long ago in EQ to target party members with function keys and it's second nature and since I'm a WHM main, it's very important to be able to target quickly.

I enjoy consoles for other types of games but MMOs, Diablo, and Borderlands feel odd to me on anything but PC.

Razer game pad + Corsair mmo mouse, I don't use the keyboard unless its to type a message to someone.

Never owned a console, or used a controller beyond demoing one for a few seconds in a store.
My first home computer was an Imsai 8080 (still have it.)

I’m primarily a keyboard and mouse player of my games, and I played 14 like that from ARR’s launch. But then I had an issue where I had to stay on a couch for most of the day for several weeks and I couldn’t get to my PC. Wound up playing EW on my PS4 and I hope the cross hot bar system earned whoever came up with it a promotion cus it really is amazingly robust. Especially once I created the macros I wanted for my ui and learned that you can essentially create nested menus using unshared, base class hotbars. I set up some targeting macros to let me easily select party members 1-8 with just two button presses instead of cycling thru a list, for instance.

Keyboard + controller is now my go to mode, except for jumping puzzles which I still find much easier with a mouse and wasd movement.

On this game controller is not great on pc if you play Jobs due SE implementation of controller on pc is not well made. I strongly advice mouse keyboard. I try both my wired controller dies a few times, meanwhile my mouse keyboard is none.

PC with controller. I also sometimes use my mouse in some fights(alliance raids the most). I feel like I have better movement with controller, although sometimes hitting certain crossbar buttons while moving is difficult(feels like you're trying to drive while doing anything else at the same time).

Targeting is also sometimes annoying, although not as much as people suggest. Usually if I have trouble targeting something with controller then there's enough of a crowd of people/npcs that I'd have trouble clicking it with my mouse too.

I still yet to use a controller mod to use controllers for WoW. Honestly I'm just too dang used to controllers like a looong time ago I was kb/mouse. Only times I use kb/mouse us when games do not support it.

KBM because I started and grew up there.
I hear good things about 14's controller set up though.
PS: Is there delay input for controller on PC, and if there is, how bad is it?

i will only ever use m+kb. that's how i started but at this point i can't imagine not having access to all the various menu hotkeys. the biggest thing tho would probably be camera control/sensitivity. i need the muscle memory of just a quick flick to adjust my camera rather than pushing on a stick for .25 seconds and then having to push it in the opposite direction so i can readjust because i went too far

i use both my self computer controller and kb and mouse both are gaming level.

I think being a controller-friendly MMO when ARR launched was a huge plus for me. I started the game on PS3 before transitioning to PC and controller. I have good muscle memory with controllers and the skills I put on my hotbars, it's like fighting games in a way. You remember a move set and just execute it like it's music. Even healing is natural, and yes pet jobs like Scholar on controller is something of an acquired skill too.

KB/M is okay, just not my preference even though I play other MMOs with KB/M lol.

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Originally Posted by hagare

KBM because I started and grew up there.
I hear good things about 14's controller set up though.
PS: Is there delay input for controller on PC, and if there is, how bad is it?

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No delay, I've been controller on PC forever but always connected via USB. You could use a bluetooth as it's totally fine too.

I haven't noticed any input delay with a DualSense with a wired connection.

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Originally Posted by technole

I think being a controller-friendly MMO when ARR launched was a huge plus for me. I started the game on PS3 before transitioning to PC and controller. I have good muscle memory with controllers and the skills I put on my hotbars, it's like fighting games in a way. You remember a move set and just execute it like it's music. Even healing is natural, and yes pet jobs like Scholar on controller is something of an acquired skill too.

KB/M is okay, just not my preference even though I play other MMOs with KB/M lol.



No delay, I've been controller on PC forever but always connected via USB. You could use a bluetooth as it's totally fine too.

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good to know

I started on PS3 so I learned the game on controller, and even on PC I'm sticking to it.

No problems healing really. I just scroll down and that has always worked fine for me.