Addon Spotlight: Addons for clickers

Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. This week, please don't berate the clickers too badly in the comments.

Addon Spotlight strives to educate and empower, bringing you tips and tools to enrich your World of Warcraft experience. Playstyles are as varied as the addons that support them, and as a comprehensive writer, I try to cover everyone's specific setups. One playstyle that is a bit of a foreign concept to me is mouse clicking. Clickers are often derided and ridiculed for their point-and-click interaction with the user interface. Sometimes, you will be watching that YouTube video of a heroic kill, and the cursor is flying around the screen a lot more than you are used to. You've found the elusive clicker.

Now, I'm not a clicker. Like I said before, I never really understood the clicker lifestyle. I've known two clickers in my life, and they couldn't be more different in playstyle; one was fast and furious with ability activation, and the other was the worst hunter I have even known. Addon Spotlight is a neutral, happy and fair ground. I'll give my opinions, sure, but helping people is the true goal. So, clickers, this spotlight is for you. We are here to help you during your point-and-click adventure. Never say I didn't do anything for you!

Tongue-in-cheek clicker comments aside, some people truly need to use a mouse when playing World of Warcraft. In particular, I know at least two people who do not have total motion control over some of their fingers because of injuries sustained while fighting in Iraq and injured in a workshop, respectively. These people have limited motion in their right hands -- enough to use a mouse and click, but not enough to have the range of motion to press multiple buttons with all of their fingers. Let's see if we can help these players out.

Where hydrogen is built into Healium

One of the hardest roles to fulfill as a clicker is healing. Compact setups and Grid/Healbot/whatever can alleviate some of the stress, but the fact remains that two clicks have to do the job of one click and a button press, or potentially just one click. Let's make healing for you clickers a little bit easier. Enter Healium, a healing addon that might not have been created with clickers in mind, but certainly does the job.

Essentially, Healium is a combination unit frames, action bar and healing addon that adds your heal spells next to each party or raid member's unit frame. Clicking on a heal will cast that heal on that specific person. Simple, single clicks for healers who insist on using the mouse. It couldn't be easier.

The bars are all customizable and sizable, which will be a huge boon for larger raids where things could get a bit cluttered. Healium also has the ability to track debuffs and HoTs, adding more functionality to this solid setup. One of Healium's selling points is that people who do have to click for whatever reason can forego the macro and modifier (Ctrl, Alt) button combos that make up so many other healing interfaces.

For your viewing pleasure, here is a video demonstrating Healium:



Healium does its job well, reducing the distance between target and heal. Check it out if it sounds like a solution to that type of distance problem for you.

Download Healium at [Curse].

More like Clique-r, am i rite?

Clique is one of those addons that has become ubiquitous in the WoW community -- it is light, massively helpful and customizable, turning your clicks into complex button presses. For clickers, Clique can make a world of difference with reaction times for healing, taunting and other abilities.

I've talked about Clique before but only in the healing space. Clique is so much more than just a healing addon complement. Clique is a complex button binder that allows you assign abilities, buttons and macros to your mouse clicks. More abilities can be bound using modifier keys like Alt and Ctrl with your clicks.

One of the most amazing aspects of Clique is that you can set sets of clicks based on the type of creature or player character you are clicking on. Harmful actions can be specified when clicking on a boss or mob, and beneficial actions can use the same click when over a friendly target or player. This works wonderfully for me as a warrior tank, for instance, where a Clique setup can use Charge or Taunt on an enemy, but the same click can Intervene on my specified mouseover target. For DPS or healers, the sky is the limit with abilities that you can cast on other players to improve their damage, while performing harmful actions or cooldowns on enemies under the click.

Clique is one of those addons I wish Blizzard would develop into their own stock user interface, much like how a simple Power Auras setup is coming in Cataclysm (more on that soon). The functionality of Clique blows my mind, and I know it can be done now in the default UI with some finagling and tricks, but a simple interface pane would be wonderful.

Download Clique at [Curse] or [WoWInterface].

Speedy Actions

One of the biggest counterpoints to the clicker playstyle is that reaction times for clickers are lower than that of button pressers, since the time a clicker takes to get to the ability and then use that ability is lengthened by the pointer travel. One way to make actions happen faster in WoW is an addon like Speedy Actions from Shadowed. By default, WoW activates an ability that you click on after you release your mouse click. Speedy Actions changes this behavior by activating an ability, button or skill when the mouse is pressed down, rather than on release. You'll be surprised how much this makes a difference when clicking on abilities.

Speedy Actions can hopefully give you a better responsiveness and quicker actions when using the mouse. The addon is simple and works, two trademarks of Shadowed's excellent addons. Use the commands /sa, /speedyactions or /speedyaction to see Speedy Actions configuration.

Download Speedy Actions at [Curse] or [WoWInterface].

Twitter suggestion: G13 and G15 keyboard

Do you like inane banter, making fun of Mike Sacco, terrible stick figure drawings and pictures of my cats? You should follow me on Twitter at @gomatgo. I talk about Addon Spotlight and WoW there, too! Twitter follower @skisulli reminded me of an awesome clicker resource -- the Logitech G13 Advanced Gameboard or the G15 keyboard. I am a G15 user myself and cannot recommend it more, if not just for the little screen that tells me when I get whispers in WoW, even when I am alt-tabbed out of the game. Rock on, Logitech.

The new G13s and G15s have some awesome macroable buttons called the G-buttons that can input button combinations, e.g. Alt 1, Ctrl 1, etc. What this means is that you can create mouseover macros or button combination macros for these one-button solutions and still retain a mouseover atmosphere, but have a smaller amount of buttons to remember that can do complex actions. In fact, I think you guys deserve a proper mouseover macro tutorial, but we'll save that for the near future. For now, know that the G-buttons are awesome for macroing complex button combinations to, and they work like a charm.

Buy a G13 or G15 keyboard at Best Buy, Newegg or your local electronics store.

So, there you have it, clickers. Hopefully these addons can improve your game, help you with reaction times and give you the help you need if you're just one of those people who doesn't want to deal with complicated button combinations. See you all next week!

Addons are what we do on Addon Spotlight. If you're new to mods, Addons 101 will walk you through the basics; see what other players are doing at Reader UI of the Week. If there's a mod you think Addon Spotlight should take a look at, email mat@wow.com.