The Naga - A Week in Review

[zanthor]

So last week I took the plunge and ordered a Naga. For those of you living under a rock this is a 17 button mouse from Razr and it's really a pretty solid device. I won't give you any pictures, I won't go into details about how well designed the mouse is, rather I'll give you the real world recount of my life as a healer starved for hotkeys and how the Naga solved the problem...

Not a multiboxing review:
This review isn't from the multiboxing standpoint, its from a raid healers standpoint. The fact is though that anything I do to improve my raiding generally improves my boxing, it's all about being able to use all abilities at any time, easily and quickly with 100% reliablity.

Before the naga...
I utilized a Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard (18 G Keys), a Logitech G5 Gaming Mouse (5 mouse buttons, Scrollwheel), and an X-Keys USB Desktop. I have all these items highly customized through InnerSpace and ISBoxer, not all the keys on any of them are used, but the ones that are in easy reach of my hands are.

As mentioned, I'm a raid healer, so my Mouse config was as follows:

Left Click - Chain Heal
Right Click - Riptide
Shift Left Click - Lesser Healing Wave
Shift Right Click - Healing Wave
Ctrl Left Click - Cleanse
Ctrl Right Click - Earth Shield
Mouse 5 (Browser back) - Ventrilo PTT
Mouse 6 (Browser forward) - Auto Run
Middle Click - DXE Arrow @ Mouseover
Wheel Up - Purge
Wheel Back - Windshock
Shift Wheel Up - Frog
Shift Wheel Back - Mana Tide + Stoneclaw Totem

As you can see here, 13 commands running from the mouse or a modifier + mouse. I utilize my mouse also for moving, turning, and the keyboard QWEASD as backup movement for when I have to heal on the move... Hotkeys 1-6 and F1-F5 are commonly utilized and 7-= and F6-F12 are "rare use" abilities.

Naga Day Zero
I got home and hooked up the Naga with time to spare before raid, I mapped a few of the more commonly used abilities to the keys on the side of the naga, I had it using the Numberpad so I had to unbind my raid markers... no biggie, I never use those in combat.

Mouse 4 and 5 are in a much different position on the Naga which wasn't condusive to using them for PTT. I moved my PTT to one of the numberpad keys, this was fine unless I had a text box open then it would fill 4444444444444444444444444444444 as I talked.... Sorta 44444444444444444444444annoying if you get my drift. I'm able to fix this for now utilizing ISBoxer to remap the key to F24 which WoW doesn't recognize... But I lose the Numpad 4... But I digress.

12 buttons, 4 rows...

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
0 + -
(11/12 are numpad + - or keyboard - =)

I setup 8 as my PTT, 7 and 9 as strafe left and right, 11 was my backpedal key... 4 5 and 6 were Healing Wave, Lesser Healing Wave and Earth Shield... I played with my thumb on 8 and would reach forward to 4 5 6 as needed... 1 2 3 weren't used at all.

After 3 hours of raiding I realized that on all the boring content where I could think I was using the Naga, it felt comfortable and I could reach all the buttons quite well. The problem was that I wasn't u sing it when it mattered most - in the zomg panic moments I was still using the old configuration! (I double bound the abilities to allow this.) This means that I'd never actually USE the Naga to it's fullest.

Naga Day One
Drawing on my experience with Naga Day Zero I decided if I was going to use this thing, I needed to go all in. I disabled my old mouse and keybindings.

I also sat down and carefully planed it out... I had discovered that having my thumb rest on # 4 was more comfortable and natural... so I made that my Push to Talk...

1 was frog, 2 was purge, 3 was wind shock
4 was PTT, 5 was LHW, 6 was HW
7 was Earth Shield, 8 was cleanse, 9 was Stoneclaw Totem/Mana Tide Totem
12 was AutoRun

I took this on a test run of TOC 5 man, heroic... wiped the party 3 times before we barely made it through the boss... but hey thats why I Pugged... So next I pug an Onyxia 10, I'm 10% below the priest on heals... this isn't acceptable... luckily we wiped (not due to healing) 3 times, and by the 4th attempt I was back 10% over the priest and feeling a little froggy.

I ran a Naxx 25 that night, it wasn't pretty but I got the job done. Again I found myself floundering in fights that were more intense... not as baddly though.

Naga Day Five
So day 5 comes around, it's time to raid again, real content not easy mode stuff. I make some more changes to my configuration, and have disovered that Mouse 4 and 5 are not as hard to reach as I originally thought, my finger learned their place and I used them for Healing Wave and Lesser Healign Wave... this freed up two buttons on the 12 key pad, so I moved some stuff around there...

As it sits now I'm utilizing 8 of the 12 keys on the side of the mouse without any thought, I'm utilizing 5 out of the 5 buttons on the mouse (left/right/middle/forward/back) and have my scroll wheel free for "other" duties like changing my camera angle... and I'm no longer stretching to get ctrl/shift/alt held at the same time I'm reaching for 5 or 6 or F5...

I'm not totally there yet, I see a few more minor changes coming down the road, but the thumb is getting pretty good at tapping out the right keys and finding it's way back to PTT...

Naga has me sold, it's worth the $80 I paid for it, and it's improved me as a gamer. I'm confident that as the new Lavishsoft app comes out I'll love it even more (regaining use of my numberpad for utility actions for example).

[zanthor]

The "theft" of my numberpad has me totally turned off to this product.

If Logitech can give me 9 buttons that are fully programmable with thier software, why can't Razer? They claim to be cutting edge tech, yet Logitech is running circles around them with much older tech.

Cool concept, but a hack at best in my opinion.

Thanks for the writeup Zanthor. Answered some of my questions about the product.

The only thing I do with Logitechs software is immediately disable it after having it load an empty profile. What I think is crap is that all these hardware companies can't produce a hotkey device that just shows up as extra buttons like joysticks do... and that game companies dont support them if they do.

What i'm looking forward to is the new app from Lavishsoft (IS2 based product) will allow identifying the input device, so if you have two keyboards plugged in you can make 1 broadcast to all your clients and 1 only the focused client (just like hardware now)... or specifically I'll use it to NOT broadcast the numberpad off the Naga and instead broadcast the keys I want it to... Now if those keys could be Joy1-12 that would be totally sexy because I'm tired as hell of trying to remember which ctrl/alt/shift combo's of what buttons aren't used!

[Mukade]

There's a problem with binding the numpad keys.

Modifiers.

You use a modifier with a numpad key (especially shift), and it acts just like another key elsewhere on the keyboard. Not as a seperate modified numpad key, but like the cursor keys, or the ins/del/home/end/pgup/pgdn set, meaning you have to unbind those to use the numpad modified.

The worst thing is some of the keys act like they're modified with the numlock on, and some with it off, so you get wierd combinations you have to work around.

I only bind the unmodified numpad, and use the function keys for extra bindings specific to boxing, because they have the full set of modifiers available on each key. I also use ] [ ; ' , . for my extra mouse buttons, because they work with the full set of modifiers too (and by that I mean any combo. of shift, ctrl and alt. I have just one button on my lock that can summon any pet, or use 2 land or 1 flying mounts).

[Fizzler]

It looks like the Drivers were released for key assignments.

http://www.razersupport.com/index.ph...emid=395&nav=0

[heyaz]

Is it easy to press the individual buttons on the mouse with your thumb? I keep looking at the thing in best buy and I can just imagine myself pressing 2 or 3 at the same time, or pressing the wrong one as they look so small.

[Meeo]

I had one, and still have one, but i switched over to a Mamba. Now that i hear i can individually assign the keys now using the new 2.0 drivers i am thinking about giving t another go.

[remanz]

I am using it for 1 week + now. I used it for healing. I would compare the learning curve to an arcade fighting stick vs game pad on console. Background is, I was using gamepad to play fighting games street fighter 4 on console. and then I switched to arcade stick. At first, I was so NOT used to it. and I wanted to go back. After 1 month of practice, 2-3 hrs of playing everyday, I am able to get the hang of it. All my combos will come out.

This naga mouse is the same thing for me. I am still learning. But getting a little better for me to press those buttons now. I used them to heal group. 1,2,3,4,5 for healing party 1,2,3,4,5.

6-10 is a little hard to press. Really all it takes is practice. Once you have a feeling of where the buttons are. You will be ok. I practice using this thing everyday. and I am getting there.

A good practice is to use it to type in authenticator codes. Do it fast and accruately. then the tedius logon process just becomes more interesting~

[Moorea]

I have it and I don't use the buttons anymore - though they should be useful - I just don't and fallback to keys on the keyboard

Also the tactile feel isn't good - the plastic on the side is slippery - I like my previous logitech g5 texture much better

Turning off the lights with the app helps a bit making the mouse less warm under your palm

[Gares]

I have since Xmas but haven't installed it yet. Think I'm going to tonight and see where I get

[zanthor]

2.0 drivers let you assign whatever keys you want to the buttons, very sweet. The macro control of it sucks, so setting up ctrl-alt-such is tedius, but I'm going to be binding mine to lesser used keys from the right side of my keyboard.