Healing with Controller Vs. Mouse/Keyboard

[Garnatian]

I'm not WHM 50 but I'm playing on the PS3, I never had trouble to target either PT member or Mob w/o any lost of time. It's quite easy to target what you want with the filter and the engaged/disengaged.

It's no trouble, it just takes about 2/3x longer than with a Mouse. When healing with a mouse, your cursor will pretty much be over the party frames which means it takes milliseconds to target, while with a PS3 controller you have to cycle through targets until you reach the one you want.

[Jarlax]

Uh, controllers can switch between two sets of 16 slots (32 slots total) with a press of a bumper (or cycle through all 8 sets for 128 slots.) So yeah, they can.

Not saying that the controller set up is not the best I have seen ever for a game like this, but I am not "switching" or "cycling" anything, everything is instantly available. Not to mention the buttons are fully programmable for any keyboard function or combination of keyboard functions mapped to a single key. I handle targeting with my thumb stick just like your D pad, or I can click, or I can use a mapped F-key or I can use mouseover macros.

Any game you ever play you never change the games key mapping, you just create a new profile for the orbweaver and naga making the keys you usually use the games key for it. It really is an amazing combo, everyone I have got to try it has always came back to me telling me how amazing it is.

Playing with a controller especially this game, SE did an exceptional job and it works wonderfully, but the Razer Orbweaver and Naga is 100x more versatile.

[Linkan]

Am I the only person who press both mouse buttons to run and do target with F1-F8 keys?

[Krisstina]

Nothing can beat <mo> in efficiency...

[Kinseykinz]

I'm about to ask a potentially dumb question, so forgive me.

For those of you finding it harder to target with M+KB, do you know that you can just select people from the party list with your mouse?

Trying to select a moving target without Tab or F-keys is harder yes, but the party list is stationary (you can even change the party-list order to always have the tanks on top if you want).

[Azakiah]

Mouse/keys obv. Superior

[Nonlinear314]

IMO if you are going to use a mouse then you should do all turning with a mouse (because it is way faster) and unbind A/D (turn left and turn right) to skills you use a lot. This will both improve your turning/reacting ability and free up two of the most used keys on the keyboard for spells. All turn left and turn right keys do is take up valuable keyboard keys (A/D) for redundancy. Move forward is that way too but is more useful and intuitive so I keep it bound.

To avoid things like aoe you can hold right mouse to orientate/point yourself with the camera then press left mouse while still holding right to move in that direction while still having your left hand free to press 1-5/a/d/etc. (i.e. running and casting at the same time) Or just turn with right mouse and press W, it is really easy. I keep my pinky on shift and bind things to Shift+1-5 and Shift+q-t and Shift+A-G. I'll probably put off GCD abilities on shift+1-5 so I can weave them with 1-5. My left hand rarely if ever has to leave the standard typing position.

I currently use a gamepad for the most part but I will probably switch to KB/mouse at 50 and use mouseovers. I also plan on binding the next and previous soft targeting keys to my side mouse buttons so I can keep the tank hard targeted and attack with <tt>/<t>, mouseover to heal and select DPS with prev/next soft targeting so I don't lose the tank target. My healer is only 30 but currently with soft targeting I can heal and DPS the entire dungeon with only the tank hard targeted.

[Nonlinear314]

I tried a Nostromo thing, then I tried a Naga thing, then I came to the conclusion that they are all gimmicks and don't do anything to make you a better player, I actually think they make people worse, e.g. they condition people to use the num pad with their right hand instead of a mouse. All the pro SC players in Korea use $15 keyboards with a few keys popped out.

Nowadays I use a standard 101-keyboard and a 5-button mouse w/ wheel. I pop out the left windows key on the keyboard and have been ever since I first played FFXI with a mouse/kb (before switching to PS pad) and unbind turn left and turn right (I consider them bad habits that breed lazy). This served me well in wow and GW2 and will serve me well when the time comes in FFXIV. I have not encountered a situation in any game that requires or benefits from anything else, just wasting money on hardware gimmicks for questionably marginal efficiency gains. And the best part is that if something gets worn or breaks I can replace it quick easy and cheap and don't have to change anything about my play style.

[Nonlinear314]

Am I the only person who press both mouse buttons to run and do target with F1-F8 keys?

If I turn and run I use right mouse to turn then press left to run in the direction I am pointing. I also use mouseovers to heal. I am still leveling my healer but in other games (raids) I would put the raid/party frames to the bottom center so I could turn and move with mouse (which caused cursor to disappear) while still being able quickly mouseover and heal when I was done turning. I would do most of my moving and instant cast heal stuff with slight mouse turn + strafe to keep the cursor from disappearing.

I'm about to ask a potentially dumb question, so forgive me.

For those of you finding it harder to target with M+KB, do you know that you can just select people from the party list with your mouse?

Trying to select a moving target without Tab or F-keys is harder yes, but the party list is stationary (you can even change the party-list order to always have the tanks on top if you want).

if is even easier to use a /ac "Cure" <mo> macro because you don't even have to click them, just mouse over. Drag the raid/party frames to the bottom middle and put the ability bar somewhere else and it makes it even easier because you don't have to move the mouse far. Ability bar is really only good for CD timers since nobody should be click casting anyway.

~o~
Keyboard users can also give themselves 2-3x as many convenient keys to bind by setting secondary bindings to function key (i.e. ctrl, alt and shift) +1-0, +Q-T, +A-G, etc. and even more if they unbind turn left and turn right. Unbinding left and right and setting A/D and shift+A/D to abilities gives you four easily accessed spells without costing you anything.

e.g. set your normal 1-5 bar, then set bind 9 and 0 to A and D and the abilities for another bar to shift+1, shift+2, ..., shift+5, shift+q, shift+q, shift+a, shift+d, etc. bar 3 to ctrl+1, ctrl+2, etc.

That way you have 2-3x as many abilities literally at your fingertips based on your pinky.

[Rollan]

I played Controller for over a month. Just recently switched to kb/mouse.

The problem I have with a controller is the fact that I can't heal things on the outside of a party, and it makes healing things like Odin, Behemoth a nightmare. Not to mention on Scholar throwing down Sacred Soil is a whole lot faster with a mouse.

Keyboard is absolutely amazing though! I have 2 mouse side buttons, and those I use for mouseover (<mo>) heals.
Alt+sidebutton has my Swiftcast, and my Benediction <mo> for quick and fast BUTT CLENCH heals.


Another thing that made my controller easy is using /crosshotbar change macros. I'd have Cleric stance and /crosshotbar change 2 to switch to my nuking Crossbar, and when I'm done nuking, I hit my Cleric stance macro that takes it off, and switches me back to healing Crossbar. Very handy.