Controller and gamepad in WoW: Forever: setup, buttons and action bars

You can play almost all of WoW: Forever on a controller, without addons or third-party remapping tools. All you need is an XInput-compatible pad, such as an Xbox or PlayStation controller, and one switch in the options. Blizzard calls the support a functional beta: it runs well, but not every window has been adapted yet.

Turning gamepad mode on

1. Press Esc to open the game menu.
2. Pick Options and go to Gameplay.
3. Open Gamepad and enable it.

Keyboard and mouse stay active, so you can switch at any time. If your controller has a light bar, it glows red when you play Horde and blue for the Alliance. The gamepad settings come in six sections: Camera, HUD Modifier, Frame Focus Style, Action Bars, Targeting and Raid Targeting Options. Further screen layout changes happen in the interface's Edit Mode.

Forever does not ship a ready-made profile. Blizzard explicitly encourages you to shape the layout around your class.

Default layout

The table uses Xbox names, with PlayStation buttons in brackets.

You can put spells on X and Y too if you would rather move their default jobs elsewhere.

Action bars: three sets of four bars

With no trigger held you use the default bar. Hold LT, RT or both and you jump to one of the other three bars, and back again when you let go. That makes four bars per set.

There are three of these sets. Swap between them by holding LB and RB and pressing left or right on the D-pad. That adds up to 84 slots. One way to split them: set 1 for combat, set 2 for mount, food, camp and professions, set 3 for group abilities and items. Put the abilities you use all the time on the default bar, since it needs no trigger held. Rare things like your hearthstone or mount fit well on the bar you reach with both triggers.

Classes with forms or pets get their own flyouts: Druids for forms, Hunters and Warlocks for pets, Paladins for auras and Warriors for stances. The pet bar no longer replaces the bottom gamepad bar. The class database shows which abilities your class has in Forever, and you plan talents in the talent calculator.

Targeting

LB targets friendly units, RB hostile ones. That includes enemies behind you, as long as they are visible on screen. You can target dead party members for resurrections, critters are easier to hit, and cycling through friendly targets no longer lands on enemy players.

Area spells and items with a target location take two presses: press the button, choose the spot, press again. The Pet Move command works on the controller as well.

The targeting settings let you turn on fixed party targeting and swap which side handles friendly and hostile targets, among other things. Raids have their own section.

Radial menu and shortcuts

The main radial menu gathers the windows that would otherwise sit on their own keys. Holding LB and RB also gives you:

On a flight path you can press Back to get off early. You land at the next flight point.

Known issues

Blizzard listed two gamepad problems as known on November 5:

• Deleting more than one rare or epic item can throw an error. Delete such items one at a time.
• Joining a voice channel wrongly shows the keyboard instructions for push-to-talk.

New fixes show up in our patch notes. If something more basic goes wrong, such as the game not starting, the troubleshooting guide helps. The other first-launch settings are covered in the guide to installation and settings.