Steelseries Shift Cataclysm Keyset Review
Steelseries Overview
“The SteelSeries Shift World of Warcraft®: Cataclysm™ Edition Keyset presents gamers with predefined game mods and an intuitive layout of the most common commands, actions and emotes. The Keyset helps groups run more smoothly through its ability to mark targets for added group and raid functionality. The SteelSeries Shift Keyset provides new functionality that reflects changes that have come over the game since the last expansion. Its labeled and color coded keys, together with the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm artwork and functionality, will immerse players into the world of Azeroth and help to accelerate game mastery.”Features
(*Requires SteelSeries Shift.)• One-touch macros for raiding and PvP gameplay
• The ability to mark targets for added group and raid functionality
• Extended raid functionality to better manage raid groups as well as easily find a raid group to join
• New functions to reflect World of Warcraft: Cataclysm: “Exit Vehicle”, “Raid Browser” and “Set Focus”
• Intuitively grouped chat commands; enlarged keys for most commonly used chat commands for easier access
• All commands are labeled and color coded on all keys
• SteelSeries Engine software allows full customization of each key
• Compatible with all versions of World of Warcraft
Steelseries Shift Cataclysm Keyset
If you’re not familiar with the keysets for the Steelseries Shift
Keyboard, many different keysets for different games can be bought
separately and attached onto the Shift Keyboard. The keyset is foldable
and once opened lays on top of the keyboard and secures in place.
To see the review of the actual Steelseries Shift Keyboard...
The graphics on the Cataclysm Keyset features the main latest boss,
which is the large dark red dragon, that isn’t currently out yet and
will be arriving soon next year in another expansion pack. The Cataclysm
keyset is very similar to the standard shift MMO gaming keyset, of
which you can see below, the differences are obviously in the graphics
on the products, and on the keyset extension (right hand side), instead
of having hotkeys labelled A1, A2, A3 and so on, the WOW keyset is
purposely built for the game specifically and has key commands that run
along the top of the keyboard.
Note: The Steelseries Shift keyboard takes up 2 x USB2.0 ports.
Steelseries Shift Comparison
Performance and Usage
As mentioned the keyset has many hotkeys all over the extension
section, but It would be better if instead of all the hotkeys that are
for chat and functionality buttons, such as yield and inspect, they
could be replaced with hotkeys that’s primal function is for the class
related rotation in-game. As it was that, the current hotkeys are just
possible for people that are lazy, but aren’t necessarily going to make
the gamer play better. Changing these keys to DPS (damage per second)
rotation hotkeys would improve the users fast acting performance in game
and make gameplay more fluid, making the gamer more difficult to defeat
and evidently a more improved player. The extensions keys also features
the arrow keys for left hand users, but most gamers would have had to
play with right hand arrow keys already as WOW has been going for quite
some time now, so not many user would switch over to right hand
movement, also as they would have to buy a left hand mouse then.
Basically all the hotkeys seem to be almost all for voice chat,
instead of for actual gameplay. The keyset does have action keys along
the top row of number keys, which you can assign what you want, but they
are alternative keys on the keyboard and require you to hold shift
first. Which for actions or attacks in game you would want just one
hotkey to makes things quick, otherwise you might as well just carry on
playing how you was without the keyset as it would be just as fast.
Conclusion
Ultimately the keyset is definitely a nice addition to any massive
world of Warcraft fan, but the hotkeys could cater for a more
experienced player. The extension on the keyset needs to filled with one
hit wonder action hotkeys, and the chat keys could be switched with the
alternative shift keys along the top row; so really all the highlighted
area mentions could all be made better if the actions keys were switch
with mostly all the hotkeys on the extension board, on the right hand
side. As you saw from the images, the Original Shift keyboard had this
setup.
The keyset can be bought with the shift keyboard at the lowest price
of £65, or it can be bought separately as an add on to your current
Steelseries Shift Keyboard for just £25.
source:www.hardwarelook.com
