Arena Hardware

Problem:
So in season 7 we had a modest amount of success (for complete noobs that is). As we climbed up the ratings I began to notice that I spent way too much time looking at my action bars and not enough time looking at the action itself. In other words I use my mouse to click on the action bars instead of hot keying and use these hot keys without taking my eyes of the action.As a direct result the more skilled players would dance around me and by the time I looked up to see what was happening I spent too much time idling because you can not hit a person that is behind you. Chasing someone and attacking at the same time also becomes a problem in this scenario.

Solution:

After reading several articles on-line I realized that the hardware I was using was working against me. I was using your standard 2 mouse + scrolling wheel mouse. By most arena player standards this is not a good choice. Which if you think about it makes sense. Most players navigate with their left hand and attack using their right hand. So wouldn't it make much more sense adding more buttons in your mouse to attack with? So after doing my research I went out and bought the Razer Naga mouse pictured to the right. This mouse runs for about USD $70.00 and featured 12 buttons on the left side of the mouse to be accessed with your thumb plus two more buttons next to the left click button plus your traditional 2 buttons and scroll wheel. Problem solved right? Not quite... As it turns out there is a big learning curve before you can get used to using all 19 buttons in this mouse. The 12 buttons for use with your thumbs (to me) do not feel very ergonomically accessible. I can access the first 2 rows but the last two seem very difficult. I am sure its a matter of practice. I will post more on this as I get used to the buttons. However one immediate benefit from this is writing custom macros and the ability to bind them to any button. I wrote a HoW spamming macro that I binded to my scroll wheel. Once my opponent is at 30-40% I hit this button and remain attacking him knowing that once he dips below 20% the macro will immediately finish him off with a Hammer of Wrath the second its available.

Setting up your User Interface to take advantage of this mouse also takes some time. As soon as I feel like I have mastered this mouse or come up with a solution worth sharing I will let you know. I do encourage you to leave me some comments on this mouse or any other that you use and your experiences with them.

Once I get used to this mouse I will look into using a gaming pad such as the Nostromo by Belkin or any other that may improve my success in the arenas.