How and When I got gud - My mistakes and gainz

[@whiterice7553]

*wife is having a kid* Preach: How did I get so good I'm awesome

[@xzygy]

Great video, Preach. We forget that we used to be where people around us are now, and that learning to play right takes time and hard work. So many people think that they're bad players, when it really comes down to seemingly small things. This video is also evidence that filming your gameplay and watching it later can be very instructive.

[@AnnihilatorCZ]

2:34 "I was never a noob." /recalls Preacher's story about his dwarf warrior Stratholme tanking experience ...wait WAT?

[@InvadersDie]

What about the part where he admits to being a clicker and being slow at mechanics a few seconds after that statement?

[@someduder5044]

@@InvadersDie You must have misunderstood something - he said he is absolutely goddamn amazing at this game, so obv. you are WRONGGGGGGGK. Nah, this guy has a bit of an ego, but he can tell a fun story, so whatever. Being a bit full of yourself is the least of the sins, compared to the other narcissistic KZbin scum

[@jamesross4135]

I'm so happy when I started playing wow I didn't know clicking was a thing

[@GuvernorDave]

First thing I did after spawning in dun morogh was rebind keyboard turning into strafing. Having played fps games before it just blew my mind that anyone would accept keyboard turning as a movement control scheme and play like that for years. Here we are 13 years later and you still see keyboard-turning clickers running around everywhere.

[@123RAZZER123]

12 years*

[@boots911]

me too. i'm sad to say this, but minecraft pvp (yeah it's a thing) actually taught me to use keyboard bindings near my wasd key back in 2012 before I started playing wow and was 12 years old.

[@moldy_gecko]

While I never rebound the strafing keys, (just used up/left or hold right click mouse and move (which the rebound actually helps with being able left click), I never understood keyboard turners and how that was a thing.

[@schniiger9508]

@@123RAZZER123 15 years* time flies so fast :(

[@Plusimurfriend]

best way to learn keybinds is to pvp. you will instantly understand how much slower you are without keybinds.

[@eolar959]

5 years later, I’m here to reaffirm what you said mate. It really amplifies how good you can get if only you’d press buttons faster

[@RainyMVs]

i was a hybrid keybound clicker, i'd be pressing buttons and clicking spells at the same time xD

[@Atromnis]

Holy cow, Preach! You hit the nail on the head! I was a clicker during Vanilla, BC, and Wrath. I really got into the game in Wrath and was MT on my Prot Paladin for our guild. I didn't really have to worry about clicking much because back then we had the 969 rotation going, so I set my rotation up to a macro and was able to react that way. When Cata hit and the way we played got completely changed around, I was sucking balls. Especially in the new dungeons. I just couldn't react fast enough to what was going on, and I was always standing in the bad. One of my friends introduced me to keybinding, and I hated it at first, because I couldn't reach 4-9 keys. But he let me in on a secret. He told me that I could rebind the keys to whatever worked for me. So now I have my keys bound to easily reachable keys,. It was still tough, but I spent hours at the training dummies getting the abilities down on muscle memory. After the first week of me doing it, I was staying alive much longer and was able to react much quicker than I had and my healers noticed a huge improvement in my survivability. Ever since then, keybinds have been second nature, and I'm so thankful I was introduced to the concept. I HIGHLY recommend people look into it. I thought I was a badass clicker until I was forcibly shown otherwise.

[@VeggehGaming]

Seeing how quickly you got better and up the raid ladder fills me with some partial regret for my time in BC. I started in early BC and clicked about my first hour before questioning the numbers on my actionbar on my spells and testing appropriate buttons so I was lucky enough to play the entire game already past that hurdle. I joined my raiding guild just before hitting 70 and once I had earned my spot as the tank I stayed with them through it all and turning down offers from the best guilds on my server because I wanted to spend my time with those I'd already forged friendships with rather than risking making new ones. While some of those guys were amazing and I still make occasional contact with them now 7 years after eventually leaving them (in 3.1), I do sometimes wonder how far I could have gotten had I jumped ship and how much better as a player could I have become had I left before I did... This video shows that I really could've done something great had I applied myself. Good eye-opener. But definitely only partial regret. Some friendships are irreplaceable.

[@ButterBoyism]

Watching stuff like this makes me so happy that my friend that recruited me in vanilla set up keybindings for me the first day I started to play

[@ElMoggie]

+Wolfie That's what I did with my brother wasn't going to let him go through the same stuff as I was learning keybinds :)

[@ButterBoyism]

Adrian Surita It's honestly the best thing you can do for someone, that and mouseover for healers.

[@plahdo9291]

I agree, my friend just started playing so I worked with him to come up with keybinds that were comfortable for him to use. Avoids the clicker to keybinder agony.

[@TimothyWitt]

Keep those Story Time videos coming! Love it.

[@Imagineriagames]

...and after I started watching your videos I started to become a way better player......Thank you preach!! Keep it up!!

[@kristofer12]

Oh the nostalgia. I have never clicked that much, as in solely clicked, but used to use two hand on the keyboard...Yes TWO hands... One that focused on turning around the character and the other to use abilities. This was only in a PvP environment however, in PvE I had some well used abilities bound but then others that were unreachable, 8,9,0,- for example. I had to click those. I was never aware of binding everything back then. Thanks for the video Preach. Many cuddles to you!

[@mattyone78]

Now you make me feel shit, just when I had a moment the other day when I felt I had improved a heap. Brought back down to earth with a thud, and the realisation I still have a lot of improving to do. Need to bind 2 whole action bars now :( got some binds and use a naga, time to go from above average to actually maybe good. Cheers for your vids man, they continually help me improve.

[@Yaeshi]

when i am thinking back ... i never was a clicker :D :D :D i was nub but not a clicker :D

[@scrubdouglas717]

+Blackari Same... had no idea what I was doing but wasn't a clicker, haha. Probably because my older brother played and told me how. Hahaha, I just remember that I didn't click, but I walked with the arrow keys, lololol

[@basuo8378]

+Blackari same aye i only used the buttons i thought it was too much work clicking everything

[@ghostlierExpert]

I never clicked either but I used default key binds even 8,9,0 and the rails button like I've got no ideas how I clicked that

[@raizenpk]

+Blackari Yeah, same. Started off using the default keybinds, and clicking only cooldowns and stuff. Then I realized I can't pop them fast enough and a friend told me I can actually change keybinds (wow !!) and so that's where it all began. I can't imagine playing as a clicker, I'd have half the dps probably.

[@mattyone78]

+Blackari I clicked for the first few days, then accidently hit a number key, and hello, what do we have here?

[@Nightstalker314]

I have to say that I allready knew you before I knew you and before I even got to see your YT Vids: 1. My warrior "mentor" back in TBC showed my your gorefiend tanking video as an example for building/managing aggro. 2. Watched "The way of the warrior" back in TBC, was maybe the first WoW commentary video ever!! 3. Somehow stumbled over your channel/vids in late cataclysm, stuck to the channel ever since.

[@Kmk157]

20:15 vesp the rogue, name rings a bell. Was he the guy who ninjad the bong?

[@Soggy-Poggy]

+Mihajlo Milenkovic yes that's him :P

[@harioschtroliki]

+Mihajlo Milenkovic That's the guy :), Greek rogue

[@harioschtroliki]

+Mihajlo Milenkovic That's the guy :), Greek rogue

[@VoidshrineGaming]

+Uros Popovic Context please?

[@harioschtroliki]

Void Shrine Well there is this guy from Preach's video top 5 scumbag things in wow and that dude vesp switched servers and in the middle of the night hit the gong (Opening of ahn qiraj) and didn't even say it on the forums and just went back to his old server with title and mount

[@jamba810]

Razer Naga changed my life. Ended my clicking addiction for life.

[@Harrow_the_Ninth]

I'm still not entirely clear on how babby was formed, but at least now I know how to git gud at WoW.

[@alenrae1370]

Preach, I did the same thing. I was a clicker and didn't even know there was anything different. I started watching your videos and I knew I wanted to bind. It was crazy hard, but now I don't even have to look at my keys or spells.

[@biffabacon8860]

I can honestly say that I am horrible at this game

[@Dark3nedDragon]

+Biffa Bacon Personally I know I am bad as well, but pwning Alliance noobs in bgs, or the ones that try to gank me while I camp out a rare, I realize, I am bad, but they are worse. :D That saying, no matter how good you are, someone is better. Well no matter how bad we are, plenty make us look like Gods.

[@ABSOLUTE_EPIC]

Well, not if you're number 1, no one is better than you.

[@bigmandarr]

lol, this brought back some early vanilla memories for me, i was on the keybind wagon a lot sooner though. Just meeting that 1 guy that knew his shit changed my entire outlook on the game and how to play it.

[@grip7777]

Well I have about 31 keybinds and feel like it's never enough, never clicked though but the more Shift, alt and stuff like that I add on it adds to difficulty of using all of my spells properly since more complexity and depth is added. 2 things I would like to add that has helped me over the years while not clicking are: 1: Mouseover macros; some abilities (Hand of Sacrifice for example for me as a ret paladin) are much more efficient on a mouseover because it let's you do it a lot quicker without really having to switch targets. More dps and your tanks will feel a lot safer when calling for abilities. 2: If you have a lot of alts, try to have the likeness of the same abilities bound on similar keys. Like for instance, a lot of dps have that one hard hitting ability that dishes out all the damage you built up through resource management (Templairs Verdict, Chaos Bolt etc) and I have those on the same buttons over all my characters. The same with movement cooldowns, put them on similar buttons.

[@R3ar3ntry]

some spells istill click, and i use a mouse with 17 buttons on it, but in the end i still click some stuff like bloodlust, and toys an mounts

[@thejollysloth5743]

+R3ar3ntry If you have a mouse with 17 buttons, plus use ctrl and shift as modifiers you have a total of 51 buttons. You shouldn't need to click any spells. Of course you wouldn't want to bind toys and shit :D

[@Acq49]

I assume it's razer naga or something similar?

[@thejollysloth5743]

teknorath Huh? what is "gamon"?

[@thejollysloth5743]

teknorath XD Weird

[@hawkhobo8130]

+Paul Haragan I think he is talking about the toy that turns you into Gamon.

[@controlaltdelete959]

I like this video. Most people will not critique themselves to this extent. The switch is difficult. I'm sure this gives many people hope though. I was not able to make the switch until I got the strafe buttons off of the keyboard. People don't need a naga though, but having at least 3 quality, easy to use buttons on the side of the mouse for movement made a world of difference to me. Also, I'm sure your guild was better than average. Average guilds generally cannot clear current-tier normal mode raid content, except on the highest population servers. If fact, it is not uncommon on some servers to have zero guilds that fully clear the current-tier heroic raid content before the next tier. BTW, Congratulation on the new boy!

[@MelkromisteinWeeb]

I only keybind the rotation and cooldown abilities. (Except heroism/bloodlust/timewarp)I would never keybind other abilities (except charge and heroic leap), because I would forget on which key I have bound them, because they are rarely used.

[@conorenglishby9397]

+Melkrom ist ein Weeb Are you a goldfish?

[@MelkromisteinWeeb]

no

[@KonanTheKup]

+Melkrom ist ein Weeb then you can probably remember what you bound more than 6 buttons to

[@PlastKladd]

+Melkrom ist ein Weeb Try setting up a pattern in your binds then. Like one modifier is used for the long cooldowns, a few specific set of binds or just another modifier to the abilities with minor cooldowns that are still part of your rotation, and so on.

[@MelkromisteinWeeb]

PlastKladd i'll try it out

[@Nacrolize]

proud to say, never was a clicker ^^ soon as i picked wow up, i saw buttons on spells and pressed on keyboard, but i love clickers they are so yummy to eat in a bg :) get behind them, and they start shitting bricks trying to turn to you ^_^ great vid btw preacer keep up the good work

[@dretsucairne2070]

I got to 2400 in arenas in mop as a clicker

[@joshyman221]

+Izaak Boone By clicking carry on blazing boost!!!!!

[@dretsucairne2070]

+goodsire nah I did most the work

[@boots911]

"most" so you did get carried.

[@bplesnt1727]

lmao I used to click but I did it so fast that people thought I had macros, I also learned how to flick my mouse and turn

[@Klyptic]

A huge tip for anyone struggling to get keybinds down is to group all the same certain types of abilities in one category. For example, all your healing abilities on numbers, so flash of light 1, word of glory 2, etc. All my cds are on Shift something. But keybinds are all down to what you prefer, and what your most comfortable with pressing. I tip that helped me is i moved my movement keys from WASD over to ESDF, I felt like it gave me access to more keys to press and it helped a lot.

[@jasoncoetzee979]

I also started as a clicker and at the time I too thought I was the bee's knees but as soon as i started dungeon grinding I realised that other people were so much better than me. I reached a point where I would literally watch the perspective of tanks and DPS during fights to see their key binds and maybe add it to my own. I went from clicking all my spells to killing heroic Garrosh, Myhtic Mar'gok and Mythic Blackhand. Its crazy how when we look back and criticise the way we used to be we can appreciate the change that has come about. Still blows my mind.

[@ramza675]

For awhile I was a clicker back in the day since restro/enchance shaman was limited to only a few spells. What really inspired me to get good was getting outperformed in pvp by the mobility of keybinded people. Its annoying setting it up at first but its all worth it.

[@Spartucus101]

Haha Love it preach. I was clicker until BC too. Right up until I was forced to become the guild main raid tank in a progression guild.....On a Paladin....Judgement-Alt macro, consecration Atl-Ctr-macro, aura swapping macro, Taunt macro. Modern day paladin tanks don't know just how good they have it. You should do a video on Pally tanking in BC. It was just silly, the gear the macros, the Shield breaks CC so CC after shit. Still most fun I ever had

[@jasonhamm7174]

In the first clip, the troll priest, does anyone know how to make the healthbar color change according to health percentage? For instance, being green when at full health, yellow at half, and red, sub 10 percent.

[@zorndayknn2414]

best Vid so far i did learn how to keybind/play through pvp while TBC it was most fun to mee at that Time

[@ryanscanlon2151]

I have been a clicker since vanilla. And im not some guy who left for a while and came back, or a guy who plays on and off. I've been a clicker for the better part of the last 10 years playing this game I'm at the stage where I have a couple of things keybond, my taunts are always on 1 interrupts on 2 engagement on 3 placeable AOE circles on 4. I click my absolutely everything else. And it's just like you said when your a clicker you pick up on the environmental things, and start learning to predict things. I have on several occasions on my hunter in Arathi basin and Eye of the Storm I've disengaged myself back onto a cliff that i was knocked off of by a shaman or druid because i saw it coming and oriented myself accordingly. But I have noticed I die a lot because I'm a split second too slow to using my save my ass abilities. On my paladin I literally die at the same instance i hit my bubble or LOH. Thanks for making this video you have opened my eyes, im gonna try to break my clicker habbit.

[@sacraaurum7960]

+Ryan Scanlon Take it a little slow at the beginning, but like Preach says, eventually you'll have to force yourself. I'm still getting used to some of the keyboard binding stuff, but I've gotten fully used to my mmo mouse. c: And good luck!

[@rhyno3780]

+Ryan Scanlon I never did really learn with my keyboard. I bought a MMO mouse and used that. I like it a lot more as everything is bound to just my right thumb. Kind of a cheating way but it works and I got a lot better after learning it. ALSO, I recommend everyone try PVP. It makes you so much better at raiding. You HAVE to move and fight and that is nearly impossible as a clicker.

[@sacraaurum7960]

Rhyno I also suggest this. I have an MMO mouse and a gaming keyboard myself. And while I've got some spells bound to the keyboard, I'm more proficient with the mouse. I should just add in some modifiers, like shift and alt, and bind more spells to the mouse. But... until then. lol Also, good idea with the pvp.

[@TriptychGaming]

+Ryan Scanlon We believe in you! #NeverGiveUp #BreakTheHabbit.

[@irtehpwn09]

+Ryan Scanlon Also don't just use the standard keybindings, 1234567890-= , use the key binds that are easiest for you to press whilst still maintaining access to your movement keys at the same time, so for example i use qerfc2v345xzgt , this way i don't have to stretch my hand over to 7890-= as they are not convenient key binds at all.

[@shinpocalypse]

Reminds me of when I started this game during Wrath. It was my first real PC game so I was learning as I went, but back then using WASD was ridiculous to me and I refused to use them. So for the two years I played before quitting in Cata, I moved exclusively with the arrow keys. To make it worse, any spell that wasn't on the 0-9 num pad was clicked. And to top it off, my main was a sub rogue. I don't know how I made it. It all seems like a distant memory. Well, after I quit I moved on to different games where clicking just wasn't an option, I learned my shit and when I got back into WoW four years later things looked a lot brighter. Even with what I was back then, starting the game again was easy. Everything came to me naturally so my knowledge combined with my keyboard skillz made the game so much better.

[@gzkyg34]

I was never a true noob in WoW.Since i was watching videos for 1 year i made my hunter and jut started to kite.Thanks Brang

[@jbrunson88]

My template for my keybinds has been: keybinding 1-4 (1 being taunt for tanking specs), sometimes 5 and 6 and 7, with 4 being my "filler" ability in most cases because it is simply the most comfortable to spam from the default WASD movement keys. I also have keybinds for Shift to modify Q and E and F keys and the space bar. I have a bit click/keybind hybrid style because I had a habit of blowing cooldowns early by pressing X instead of Y. I do, when I can, macro shift into 4 sometimes for an AoE modifier (ie 4 is Crusader Strike, Shift4 is Hammer of the Righteous), but for the most part that's it asside from adding visual aids for cooldowns/ability uptime.

[@tranquilkitten]

I started the game with my partner that played back in Wotlk and so I never got to experience any klicking. He'd simply have none of that. I also never started backpeddling or jumping frequently because he was aware that that opens up room for mistakes in raiding and so I never made a habit of that, too. The thing is, even though I can now work with keybinds and that's a non-issue for me, raid awareness is still a pretty big deal and I find myself dying way too often. Some of it may come down to my UI, but I think most of it is actually scanning the area I need to scan (my characters feet, incoming abilities, etc) more frequently. I'm so focused on my healing UI that I tend to get caught in some ability that until this point, I was totally unaware of. It's freaking frustrating sometimes, but I guess I'll get better with practice...

[@stevedocherty1816]

Much truth in this vid - and see, these revelations didn't make the world explode or cause Preach to shrivel in to a ball. Best advice I always offer for the switch from clicker to bound is to re-level your character but with binds. You just need that time with each skill on it's own to get the muscle memory down. By the time you ever get in to a raid situation, you have everything you need. regardless, the message here is spot on - just admit your short-comings. record your play if you can and be honest with it, or better yet, give it to someone you trust to evaluate it. You'll be glad you did.

[@TheOzumat]

Great stuff. This is inspiring even to people like me, who are trying to get better at another game.

[@Tr1pleZero]

I never understood clicking... I used keybinds since day 1 in vanilla and never changed.

[@Harpazo_to_Yeshua]

I'm betting (?) you played other PC games with similar set up for keybindings then. I believe many new-to-PC game players were the ones who clicked a lot. The first PC game I played was Call of Duty (the original); I'm left handed, so I'd move with the direction arrows and click to shoot. That's all I knew, so when I came to WoW (2005ish), I clicked and keyboard turned. It's what my muscle memory was so used to. The time I decided to use the keyboard for strafing and mouse for turning was when a warrior attacked me while fighting a mob in outlands, I was keyboard turning so bad (slow) and he was dancing around me like a damn butterfly. lol! I was so annoyed, I made it my goal to never keyboard turn again and so happy that was the last of it. So much quicker to react in PvP now. :)

[@lexer1231]

I am a reletevly new sub been with you for a year-ish time. About clicking... whell i can't play a game sereously for over 2 maybe 3 months witch means i need to spend time on youtube to see guides and rotations for every MMO I have ever played. Have been useing keyboard since i was 7 years old now 22 and have been playing mostly MMORPG and Action games so i don't realy have much trouble with getting used to keybinds. Back in Cata I used your dps guides and gear guides to do dungeons and stuff, in the beginning about 2 weeks, it was a nightmare to keep a stable rotation going but soon you get used to it, and before you know it, was top dps in raid on one of the decent guilds. So for ppl having trouble with binding just start slowly than build up your muscle memory and you will do ass good ass Preach or even Better. PS.. Don't realy expect ppl to read this :)

[@MellonVegan]

I think I switched from clicking to keybinding when I switched from marksman hunter to fury warrior in classic WoW. Or a bit before that. Standing there with your auto shot, being a bit slow to use spells but only having a few to cast anyway and never moving, it wasn't so bad, I think. Though I wasn't a good hunter by any means. But being melee as a clicker? Couldn't imagine ever doing that. So thankful for my best pal at the time for introducing me to keybinds!

[@heavyrex6314]

For those with many alts, lots of classes have similar spells that make keybinding easy (eg. 'Q' is my keybind usually, but not always, reserved for execute-style abilities such as kill shot and shadowburn). It usually takes time to work out a system on a new character but is pretty much always worth the effort.

[@brettpierce5225]

To anyone struggling still, get a Razer Naga, it'll change your life

[@jangofresh1019]

Having one adds more options for having keybinds that are on your keyboard too. All the spells!

[@boots911]

use to have one, it broke and I had to learn keyboard bindings.. I now prefer keyboard bindings and would only ever get a naga for "not important" things like mounts and certain macros.

[@viperdemonz-jenkins]

have to agree

[@Dopearrow]

Razer naga? What year is this? How about getting something decent?

[@boots911]

lol I use a 10 dollar mouse from walgreens and play on the same level as everyone else around me.

[@rogermckay4710]

'You're having your baby...what a lovely way of saying how much you love you.' ;)

[@Klerik131]

I'm with you Preach, my first 60 was a priest because my groups would always be sitting around waiting for a healer.

[@RemiHill]

I learned to not click in early vanilla as a rogue when I was dueling random people... it was SO much easier to make snap decisions at your fingertips then trying to click. Especially when you're using your mouse buttons to run and rotate quickly :)

[@blakey7525]

when i saw the thistle tea on your bar as a rogue i instantly got really happy

[@pingyownz]

I used to be a clicker a while back and what helped me was rolling a new char because you get 1 or a few spells at a time and you can get used to each individual spell at a time, I've never used a mouse with macro keys and I have every spell on every toon bound, it's not practical but it's what cured me

[@boots911]

same thing happened to me, I understand a class so much better if I level it rather than just pounding my face on my keyboard until level 100 and then realize I have no idea how to play that class lol.

[@EgaoKage]

I clicked all the way from Vanilla to WotLK, not really knowing that there was any other way to play. Despite this horrific noobery, I was an MT during this time period; regarded by most guilds as one of the better tanks on our server! Gradually throughout Wrath, I became aware of binds, and their superiority over clicking. Like an illiterate person who's learned ways of hiding and circumventing their lack of reading skill, I had many tricks to get around the main weaknesses of clicking. To the extent that no one even knew that I was not using binds.. But I knew.. As I was relied on to MT 3-4 nights a week, I really could not risk making any big changes to the way I played my Warrior. What if I bungled something and people found out I had been a clicker all this time!? So; what to do..? Level a 2nd Warrior from 1 to 80, on the opposite faction, re-learning the class from a key binder / macro writers perspective. If I fumbled it, no one would know it was me.. I was that ashamed of my clicking. It worked. I still maintain the 2nd Warrior and keep both topped off in PvP and progress each as best I can. And there it is: the experimental Dwarf that saved the venerable Tauren...

[@UserNamechannel]

I can really relate to what you said about forcing yourself to use keybinds. If you just stick your feet in the water you'll never swim. "JUST DO IT!" - Shia Labeouf

[@RaziyatheRavager]

I love keybinds! As you say, they make a huge difference. I like to put spammable abilities or really important non-cooldown abilities on 1-4 or 1-5, and shift + 1-4 or 1-5, and I tend to group similar abilities together. For instance, on a Vanilla hunter, my Concussive Shot and Wing Clip were on 4 and shift + 4 respectively. AoE traps on 5 and s5, single-target traps on F and sF, auto shot on 3 and melee abilities on s3... helps to prevent things from being muddled up. On my mage in WoD, I had three sets of gear and macros which would change depending on my primary action bar, one of which was for Fire and the other for Frost. I'd have arcane MS and fire or frost OS, and because my guild wanted me to change mid-raid in HFC for optimal mythic progression, those macros and whatnot cut the time I required to go back to the city, redo my talents, glyphs, bars, etc and get back to HFC ASAP to a mere minute and thirty seconds. Side note, macros are awesome too. :) From adding an automatic targeting script to spells to determining which class the enemy target is, and using a different ability according to that value. Great story, Preach. See you around!

[@kubo16ful]

Q S E R T (plus shifted version) are nice binds

[@RaziyatheRavager]

Yeah! I use all those too. They're perfect for the left hand to reach quickly.

[@sirjame5591]

i was a clicker i also did not know i could put extra bars up on the screen to put moves on had to click the toggle page button the access the extra tab for moves

[@pupfish1966]

I only started in Cata and I found Mike's channel pretty quickly. I could never master moving with wasd and pressing abilities on 1-= and forget adding shift or CTRL. Now I have a naga and a keypad. I use w+s to move q+e to strafe and the arrow pad allows me to bind CTRL, shift and alt with my thumb. That gives me 18 keys plus 6 using wheel up/down. Plenty for almost all classes.

[@rurdywyne]

Preach, for what its worth, holy shock back then really did leave a LOT to be desired and I totally understand why you thought it sucked. It only had a 20 yard range (might have been 30, I forget), so it was not versatile at the same range as other spells. It cost a lot of mana and like you mentioned it didn't heal a lot. Even the fight you detail, malcheazar, there is no chance to use it since you stay 40 yards for shadow nova. I forget when but it took a long time for them to increase the healing yard range for holy shock and keep the damage part at 20 yards. There are also tons of fights to my knowledge in TBC where you just sit in the ranged pack as a healer and do your thing, so you weren't wrong either that 95% of the time you were free to spam. You can recognize it's not that amazing, but still use it from time to time. I would use it all the time on trash packs and also on bosses we farmed just to get in that little extra bit of healing to full.

[@MakoSDV]

I always had things keybound but I started as a keyboard turner in Wrath. At the end of Wrath when hunters switched to focus, I decided since I was relearning everything anyway, I'd learn to mouse turn. I totally redid all of my keybinds. Q, E, and R are my main rotation abilities now instead of the typical 123... WASD are still for movement but AD are strafe. I moved all my binds to within one or two keys of WASD and used shift for some things as well. I embraced macros at the same time and got a multi-button mouse to bind additional things. I'll click long CD abilities or things that are very rarely used, but that's all.

[@bramsteurrijs9328]

What helped me with learning to key bind is that i lvled a new char and didn't allow myself to click, this way when i got to end game i knew every spell key bind by heart, and also knew what it did and when to use it. :)

[@DkDerek]

I was a hunter in TBC when I started. My steady shot macro was bound to numlock. I had my right hand on the mouse, and my left hand spamming numlock. Couldn't use it while moving so i'd move my hand from WASD back to numlock when i planted. I got halfway through sunwell.

[@rhyno3780]

My story sound eerily similar to yours, except I was never a top raider (never do mythic) and I started in ICC. But it took me a long time to finally realize I need to learn keybinds. I cheated though and just got a Razer Naga and learned with that.

[@Gewsfrahba]

I started in Wrath of the Lich King and I clicked until about patch 4.2. I also played healers a ton because they were how I could be really useful to other people and my friends while still being pretty mediocre. I remember getting my 1550 arena achievement with my mage friend in 2s and I felt really great. But then I got bored of healing and I wanted to play melee dps, but their spells were mostly instant and required a lot of movement so I thought they were boring because I couldn't play them well, most specifically a warrior. But when I learned to keybind, at first it was my rotation and then I forced myself into more keybinds as I needed them, and then I wound up maining a warrior for the entire next expansion which was completely out of character for me if you knew me from previous expansions. I can relate to almost everything in this video and it is great! I have tried to convert some clickers to keybind but they insist that they are doing just fine maybe this can be the ammunition I need!

[@markmiller656]

I used to be a clicker and a keyboard turner, and the way that I taught myself to keybind and turn using my mouse was by making a new character, unbinding the turn keys, and then leveling the character. The fact I had to use my mouse to turn at that point made clicking on my spells and moving at the same time impossible, so that simple act of unbinding my turn keys made me learn how to keybind properly, and now I'm a far better player - I'd say anybody who wants to play melee or tank seriously, should try doing this if they're having issues.

[@hiimcaspiant6750]

I remember clicking and using arrow keys very early on but then learning about keybinds and quickly learning how to use them.

[@Sigmundfruit]

Holy Shock was the talent that transitioned into the endpoint talent.

[@blackllistd5752]

I started wow in vanilla when I was 12 years old. My older brother played (warlock and paladin) and he let me play on his account when he wasn't playing. Ofcourse it took me forever to level up that way but I did it. Anyways he didn't really teach me how to play the game, everytime I asked him a question he would only tell me to figure it out, however he did show me to hit the numbers on the keyboard to use my skills so I ended up being a keybinder from the very start without realizing it. I am glad about that. Oh man I remember thottbot being the holy grail of leveling up. Because dungeon spamming wasn't the main way of leveling. I remember looking through the who window for players in my level range and whispering them what spec they were and if they wanted to do a dungeon. Would take forever, let alone getting to the dungeon once the group was together. If you had a shit tank or healer. pshhh better man up and deal with it because finding another one then having to run out to summon was a mess. Dying in dungeons was the worst, trying to run back and getting caught by pats..... lolol night elf shadowmeld in the corner until they past you.

[@krim7]

I am not a clicker but Key bindings do over whelm me sometimes. Right now, I have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Q, W, E, R, T, A, S, D, F, G bound. I rest my hands on QWER, so those are for my primary spells. 3, 4, 5, A and F are for spells that are important but need to be clicked more intermittently. Because I play on about 4 different computers, I tend not to use mouse keybinds because every computer has a different mouse (some with and some without extra buttons). Right now, I am considering moving Jump off of the Space Bar and move it some where else. The thump is a powerful ally and I feel it is really wasted using it for a jump since jump is used so irregularly. I was thinking of maybe making it my "ALT" button, that way I could more easily swap between sets of keys but I think I would really need to train with that before I could pull it off effectively.

[@belisarian6429]

Indeed raising from a clicker is hard but necessary, I have also found that one of best ways to get used to new keybinds and to be more flexible is pvp, it is great way to force myself to automatize basic stuff, so I can concentrate on adapting to situation.

[@DankBeard19]

I went and got some razer products and that helped me extremely. Everything is right there so it's just so much easier to move around and hit what you need, however my single target dps as a fury war is kind of low I have a feeling it has to do with my stats though. But cool downs potions I just know where it's at and I hit it. Musing you interface shaped out in the buttons you're using helped me s lot too

[@deathcole]

Great video. I switched from clicker to keybinder leveling my main as an alt on a different server. A bit sever I know but i found it impossible to force myself to stop clicking so that worked for me.

[@ProjectX593]

I used to be a clicker back in TBC. My brother saw me clicking stuff on my warrior in a battleground, laughed at me for it, and I immediately keybound the SHIT out of everything and never went back. Somehow it ended up working well, and I now use the same keybinds in all the random MMOs I randomly try for a month and inevitably leave :D

[@cepson]

At one point during Burning Crusade, I tried to devise a holy dps priest, just to see if it could be done. I was inspired by a purple cloak that gave bonus damage for holy spells (maybe from Karazhan?). Either I couldn't figure it out or it couldn't be done at the time. Also, no one would take me seriously and so I couldn't get into groups or raids unless I acted as a healer. I still think I could have made it work if I had enough time and dungeons to play around with it. To be honest, though, I really enjoyed healing. My main was a rogue, and it sucked because you always had to worry about your standing on the dps charts. But all people wanted from healers was healing, and as long as you could keep the tank up and keep yourself alive, people were satisfied.

[@prossauceminusone]

To train myself to keybind I actually did something similar. I was constantly clicking my form switches on the blizzard UI so I was naturally slow to shift because of it. I ended up getting so frustrated with my slow response times that I got an addon to remove my form shift buttons from my screen. It helped a LOT and very quickly I got used to shifting using my keyboard.

[@artemis2314]

Do you have a lot of footage from Vanilla\TBC\WotLK? If you could upload them it would be interesting to watch what raiding was like when that content was relevant.

[@WrappedinStitches]

[@jennygw1883]

I couldn't play without my keys set up. I can't remember using my mouse much at all. I did stick the mouse pointer over targets for quick selects when tabbing was too slow.

[@kristopherfernalld7665]

I remember my full-clicker days (Mid WotLK - Mid MoP). I the middle of Mists of Panadaria, about 5.1 to 5.2, I was advised by my real-life friend and in-game friend to bind my keys. I binded 1 through =, meaning the basic rotation. Even today, I have only 1 through = keybound, and I survive by being able to time my One Shot Macro and any healing abilities that are needed. I think by Legion, I will have every spell keybound, and it might be easier on my Demon Hunter since it will be a brand new experience and I can bind all of the keys without moving around the current setup (since there is none).

[@gunrage]

First time I started actually raiding was in Naxx(Wotlk) as a balance druid. I remember casting insect swarm on a dummy and seeing that it did say 10000 dmg for the entire duration. I'd consider it useless and a waste of tallent point/global cooldown because my wraths were critting for 12k. Who would have thought you dont always crit and you can multidot

[@bkweddle7599]

If the spells weren't on your bar, how did you keybind them? I use addons like bartender and elvui to bind my spells but the icons have to be on the bars to be used (and the default ui keybinding for betas and ptr). Did you use keybinding macros for everything?

[@zeozelos]

For me what made it easy to learn keybinding was 3 things.1 buying a razor naga for all the side buttons. 2 setting up my 3 bars 1 to = (R for interrupt instead of shift+=).3 and most important making an alt and leveling and scarcely doing dungeons and no looms so it would be slow and give me the time needed and more.

[@justinisenberg1841]

Nice name! Scythe was the name of my main when I first played vanilla. An undead Warlock.

[@freakwifme]

Cheers Preach... Every time I decide to give up on this game you put out gems like this. Still cannot decide what class to level :( Got so many alts, mostly human, I must've wasted hundreds of hours leveling alts to 50 and still don't have a main :(

[@Kekuems]

I was such a massive scrub that i didn't know that you could click the spells on the action bar, only that you could move them, and setting up action bars and keybindings was something that everybody had to do at some point when they had more than twelve spells in their spellbook I think i played an entire expansion and a half before i ever heard someone utter the word 'clicker'. Mind was absolutely blown.

[@sinklar7946]

Would you consider creating a keybind guide for each raid role? I find it difficult to figure out which ability should go where and what it key it should correspond to.......

[@NineTailedGamer]

+Anthony Iacobucci It's all about what you find comfortable. Do some experimenting. What I found worked for me though is 1 2 3 4 Q E F G and shift/ctrl modifiers. Most people add Z X and C but I found them too awkward to use. I've swapped to a Naga now, though, and if you're having trouble (and you wanna start keybinding, of course!) I'd certainly recommend getting one.

[@Konde1]

+Luna R and T are also good buttons, I have charge on t and execute on r

[@sinklar7946]

TheTrolledOne My usual setup is 1-5, r, f t, g, and x for basic abilities. However, I seem to struggle most with keybinding my cooldowns.

[@Konde1]

Anthony Iacobucci That is pretty close to mine, I use cooldowns on shift+1 and shift+2 and maybe one on my mouse

[@sinklar7946]

TheTrolledOne I see, I'll try those out, thanks ^_^

[@BinaryHe1ix]

I have 1-6, CTRL 1-6, ALT 1-6, and Shift 1-6 bound and most of them are filled. CTRL 1-6 are interrupts/CCs, ALT 1-6 are defensives, and Shift is for my cooldowns and lesser used damage. 1-6 are my go-to bars. I used to only use the original bar, 1-= on the board, before realizing I can't reach past 6. At this point not only do I bind to number keys, I also have lesser used stuff like my mount, mage food, potions, flasks, buff food, and runes bound to Shift-letters. I could never go back to clicking and I'm glad I managed to break it early on.

[@pupfish1966]

+BinaryHelix How do you press ctrl6 or alt6 seems like a crazy stretch

[@BinaryHe1ix]

Usually I only use them when I'm strafing around. I have a pretty long reach. And I usually don't have to use them anyway, they're some of those odd spells I don't use most of the time but want on hand.

[@bloodvalvelol]

Such a god damn hot beautiful butterfly Troll Priest!

[@Dark3nedDragon]

Some spells that are critical I don't keybind, if they have a cd...I keybind my trinkets/mainspells/most burst spells, I use macros to keybind important spells together...but a spell like zen meditation I click, because I feel like it is easy to click, and not as important.

[@dabutts889]

I learned to keybind during Cata, it was my first tier actually raiding and I couldn't do alysrazor while clicking. That fight turned me into so much of a better raider.

[@Direwoof]

I actually just started playing wow 2 months ago. And it's seems REALLY hard to start as a tank these days. I did a raid today and had no idea what the hell I was doing. There is just so much going on you can't just simply tank the boss like that old video clip :(.

[@MookSam]

I was just wondering whether its very bad if i have most of my main spells keybound but none of my cds except for the short ones are keybound?

[@gorrumKnight]

I only ever clicked a few things up on my bars that I didn't have keybound (bubble and a couple others). I didn't get my Razer Naga until around Cata, but man did it make a world of difference in my play.

[@frejak7982]

I'm glad that I didn't start a clicker. In fact I was the ONLY one in pre-school who could use only ONE hand on the arrow keys. That was awesome xD

[@Mochachocakon]

The thing that really got me to change how I played was PvP. In PvP, things were a lot faster, if you didn't hit a certain bind within a certain stretch of time, you were fucking dead, especially as a mage. I remember watching PvP videos and looking at people's bartender bars and seeing all the keybinds and went "Holy fuck, look at that!" and wrote down every single bind and copied it over, moving things around and categorizing things to what is comfy. In one day, I went from pretty shit to pretty damn great since in PvP, you have to hit about 80% of your spells anyway and think of your defensives. I think my crowning moment with my TBC guild at the time and getting my double Pyroblast (Presence of Mind) reflected and Ice Blocking before I one shotted myself.

[@johnfish3672]

I've never been a clicker, but that 3 keybinds thing is so true. I did that for about 4 years.

[@Korica]

I was in a really weird position, being an Arms Warrior and PVPer in Vanilla. I was not a clicker for my regular abilities, I used keybinds for almost everything - BUT - I clicked to change stances. And I didn't take Tactical Mastery. It seemed like I was the only person who did this. No idea how, in retrospect.

[@Insideoutmonkeyful]

Does anyone know what happened to the stream?

[@stevetaylor4232]

ok so besides running away from gar with bomb debuff and runing back to position after rag nock bback what fights in vanilla did u even have to move for. i didnt raid that much but i did tank most of mc and bwl and got into aq 20 we never had to move from anything that i can really remember.....

[@BattleTheory]

I'm just starting to move away from clicking and have my main spells bound. However I don't have a gaming mouse with the 12 button crazy-ness, so I have maybe one button for interrupts lol. Without the quality of life gear, I've found it hard to completely move away from hybrid key bound clicker.

[@davidwaite9116]

Out of curiosity, where did the clicking habit come from? Not judging or anything, but I never understood why you would click, since the default bar is already key bound. From there it just felt natural (to me) to extend that out as you get more spells than you can fit in those first 5-6 slots. (Also, not picking you out or anything, this was just one of the more recent comments so I figured more chance you'd respond :-D )

[@JaketheSnakeh64]

I never understood either.

[@BattleTheory]

David Waite Just how i started, clicking on spell icons rather than clicking, I also started as a kid so i couldnt stretch to get to the other 1-10

[@dougellis3232]

TL;DR - Anecdote about how I don't have any fancy hardware either, you can still get plenty of keybindings, and you don't necessarily have to do it cold turkey style like preach did :) Hey, I know this is a week late, but if you're still looking to improve, and maybe you know all of this already, you can still get a lot of keybinds without any fancy hardware! Back in WotLK when I started playing a healer, and PVPing as a healer, i didn't use keybinds yet, but i had also realized how much of a hindrance clicking was because you couldn't move with the mouse at the same time. My solution was to use a second action bar. so i had my DPS spells on action bar 2, which you could get to with 'Shift + 2' and then go back to to the first bar with 'Shift +1'. In hindsight, this was really bad, but at the time it freed up my hands because i was clicking less, and it got me used to pressing other buttons outside of the 1-5 or 6. Until recently i never had any fancy hardware, and even now i only have a mouse with 2 extra buttons. getting around this, i started to use the keybindings Z and X, from there i slowly added more, if you're only comfortable hitting 1-5, that's perfectly fine! but if you can get used to pressing shift, ctrl, or alt, at the same time, that opens up a ton of options, you now have 1-5, Shift 1-5, etc etc. Sorry for huge wall of text, if you don't read it i won't feel bad :P I guess what i was trying to get across, Don't feel bad about taking it slow, Preach here in his video said how he did it by pretty much going the equivalent of cold turkey and being done with it. I've gotten there much slower, and there's no "right" keybindings for everyone. Try to add keybinds that you think can work for you, play with them for a few days, if they work cool, if they don't, try something else! For example, i have shift 1-5 and alt 1-5, but i didn't feel comfortable hitting alt 4-5, so i dropped them. i didn't feel comfortable with ctrl 1-5, so i don't use them, but i did use Z and X from when i was slowly learning, so i added ctrl z-x-c. Anyways, GL to you! sorry for wall of text! Boredom I guess...

[@sophiejones7727]

I play with a 13inch keyboard and a totally regular mouse. I've been a keybinder since I started the game and I've never had a problem playing a non-pet class. Okay, end of MoP I was getting a little nervous about how many abilities I had, but then the ability prune happened and I was fine. Get familiar with your keyboard. Spend some time, doing something other than WoW on it: just to get to know where the keys are. Part of the reason I still use this old thing, even though it's really too small, is that it's so familiar too me. I rarely make mistakes even when I'm panicking because I know where every key is exactly.

[@ryanmckayw]

Damn dude. I was an 2h wielding Enhance shaman in T4, clicking all the same. Crazy to look back

[@SamoIsKing]

I was a clicker up until MoP when I started to get into raiding and realised how much better I could be if I use Keybinds. I really does help reaction time and overall deeps.

[@OnlyRoke]

except for the hourlong buffs and random gimmicks I got a keybind for everything and I try to have a similar layout for every class. Like every interrupt is e.g. on R, every main filler ability is on E etc. and it really is just muscle memory. The only thing that bogs me down is unexpected situations where some stupid thing happens and I'm either close to death or the boss is suddenly going crazy. Then I start to hammer the buttons like a madman and I tend to mess up rotations.

[@freakwifme]

I bind those skills to F1 through F12.

[@Greymerk]

I don't think I was ever a full on clicker because of habit from playing diablo 2 and such. But I had a totally weird setup on my warlock where I had bound all of my curses to ActionBar2 and I would swap over (Shift-2) every time I needed to use a curse. It was crazy. To this day I'm constantly unconsciously spamming Shift-1 to make sure I'm on the right action bar.