It sounds rather dorky, but I’m a vanilla WoW veteran. Between official servers and unofficial servers, I’ve played vanilla WoW for several thousand hours. During that time, I’ve been a tank, I’ve been a healer, and I’ve played as damage.
Vanilla is a game with plenty of grinds, which translates into plenty of time spent using your keyboard and mouse. And whether you’re playing in 8-hour long marathons or not, there are good reasons to have the right equipment for an MMO!
That’s not to say you can’t be a successful player without a great mouse, keyboard, or display. You can do exceptionally well with the world’s cheapest keyboard and mouse. Likewise, you can do pretty well without using any add-ons. But why handicap yourself?
Classic Warcraft Gaming Mice
Some people like MMORPG style mice that have a million buttons on the side, like the UtechSmart Venus Gaming Mouse. However — Vanilla doesn’t have nearly as much ability bloat as later generations of Warcraft. Consequently, unless you’re someone who uses a ridiculous amount of macros, you probably won’t end up needing an MMO mouse for Vanilla.
That being the case, you’re better served by something simple. From a technical standpoint, basically any gaming mouse will be needlessly powerful for vanilla Warcraft. There will be far more DPI than any vanilla player will ever need.
So instead of being distracted by performance metrics, focus on things like mouse size, grip, the number of buttons, and so forth. If you’re going to be using your mouse for hours on end, it doesn’t hurt to enjoy having contact with it.
I actually use two mice. One is a standard gaming mouse (the Logitech G Pro Wireless), which is used mostly for playing FPS titles. I went wireless because I didn’t want two mice cables on my desk. Interestingly, wireless mice used to have really miserable performance in gaming, but it’s gotten infinitely better over the past couple of years.
The second mouse is a vertical mouse. That’s because vertical mice are ergonomically far superior, and my wrists aren’t 18-years old anymore. Holding your wrist in a bad posture isn’t such a big deal when you’re playing for 2-hours. But when you’re playing for six or more, it can wear on your joints.
Sadly, the vertical mouse market is a little pathetic. Not many people use vertical mice, so there’s not much competition. But there are some decent ones that are worth trying. Personally, I use the J-Tech Digital Wireless. It’s not fancy, and it took some getting used to. But it’s more than enough for a game like Classic Warcraft.
Classic Warcraft Gaming Keyboards
Again, it’s important to impress that you could technically play WoW with a crappy keyboard, have fun, and do well. But mechanical boards do have real advantages. Different people favor different types of switches, but fortunately, most gaming keyboards are available in a number of different types.
Personally I like Cherry Brown, but that’s because outside of Warcraft, I do a lot of typing. If you only cared about gaming, you could happily use Red switches. And if you wanted your keyboard to annoy your roommate with how loud it is, you could use Blues.
Since I type words for a living, I spend a great deal of time with my keyboard. Personally, I prefer the DAS Model S. These boards have a clean, minimalist, professional look that I just love. They’ve also got media controls that don’t require you to memorize a bunch of keyboard commands – great for lazy people.
However, if I was to buy another board today, I’d probably go with the Ducky One. It’s another minimalistic board — except it was made with higher quality PBT key-caps.
Virtually every “gaming keyboard” gives you cheap ABS keycaps. Since they’re made from ABS, they polish and shine after about one year of steady use. From then on, they’ll feel slick and greasy to the touch. Your fingers may also wear-away lettering or color from the keys.
PBT keycaps have far more survivability than ABS. They’re basically made specifically to be used for extended periods of time and not wear-down. They also do a good job of keeping a slightly gritty texture, as opposed to feeling greasy and smooth. Keystrokes also sound slightly different when they bottom-out, though that kind of difference is something not many people care about.
Something that people will care about? Cost. Since PBT is tricky to manufacture, PBT keycaps can easily add $30 or more to the price of a board. Which is why you don’t see them on many boards, including the Model S.
Classic Warcraft Monitors
Again, you don’t need a special monitor to enjoy an older game like WoW. Since WoW is a bit older, it means you can probably expect your PC to get some great framerates. But unless you’ve got a monitor with a higher refresh rate, like a 144Hz monitor, then your screen is only going to let you see 60 frames, period.
The smoothness of 144Hz clearly isn’t essential to playing. While I was raiding in 2005, I often ended up with as few as 13-frames per second. Bosses still died. But it was a bit of a miserable experience.
Another thing to keep in mind is that 144Hz has become extremely cheap over the past couple of years. Back in 2015, a high refresh rate monitor could easily run you $300 or so. These days, panels like the Acer XFA240 pretty much prove can get 144Hz at essentially no added cost. But personally, I’ll be playing with the Philips 499P9H. Giant screens are typically better than two monitors for gaming. No bezel is best bezel.
Again — you don’t need any of these kinds of things to excel in Warcraft. Most of my time as a gamer has been spent playing with cheap junk, and it never stopped me from doing quite well. The sad part about good equipment is that once you have it, you start to take it for granted. But even so, it’s generally worth having.
Duncan Gumaer
Anna Moore
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