First Impression

IMPULSE is, at its core, a keybinding addon. The most basic features allow players to use a pre-designed list of keybinds and macros for their particular class, spec, and role. As you can imagine there are a lot of different combinations here, and IMPULSE promises a setup that is intuitive for each.

I can’t say how well it works for every single class and spec in the game, but I tried it on a few and I will admit it feels intuitive. I didn’t have to think very much about it, and I was able to adjust to the keybinds pretty quickly. The most involved thing I did was a heroic with some guildmates, but I think with a bit of practice I could easily learn the keybinds well enough to increase my performance in raids.

Interface

This is one of the first addons I’ve seen where you actually have some say over how the interface works out. When you first set up IMPULSE you choose what hand placement you want. For example, you can use the Basic setup which is WASD, or you can use the FPS setup which is ESDF. From there most of the means by which the player interfaces with the product depends on his or her personal interface.

IMPULSE auto-detects your spec and then fills out your bars with action buttons and macros bound to certain keys depending on your setup. And don’t worry, for those of you who wouldn’t touch the default Blizzard UI with a 10 foot pole, it works with Bartender and other popular bar addons.

Because of this I’m giving a pretty high rating for interface design. What doesn’t integrate the Blizzard (or Bartender or Dominos…) UI is sleek and accomplishes its purpose.

Rating: 4.5/5

Features

You’re probably wondering what’s so great about an addon that accomplishes something you can do on your own. And you may have a point. You can set up keybinds on your own, and if you take the time you can customize them so they’re easy-to-use, intuitive, and made just for your needs.

But really, who has that kind of time and room for trial and error? IMPULSE does it for you, and throws in some great macros to boot. With just the macros alone you could find your gameplay significantly improved, but the keybind design obviously has a lot of thought and research behind it.

The best feature for me though is that if you don’t like any aspect of the setup, you can change it. You can remove and rebind abilities. You can choose the macros you do and don’t want. And if you decide to start over, just one click and you’re back to the default. This addon definitely delivers on features.

Rating: 5/5

Customer Support

I’m gonna be brief with this one, because really… it’s Manaview. The customer support hasn’t changed, though I will mention that they did move from the open forum model to a community where you can ask questions, report bugs, and bring your ideas to the table. I actually like this model a lot better, to be honest. It’s straight to the point, a lot more organized, and you can easily see how quickly the moderators and Manaview staff are responding to their community. Which, as always, is within 24 hours. Usually much, much less.

Rating: 5/5

Value

This is pretty subjective, because $40 may be cheap for me but it may be expensive for you. However, you can easily compare it to similar products that players use to gain an edge with accessing their abilities faster. I’m talking of course about gaming keyboards and mice, which usually cost upwards of $100. And frankly, even those won’t give you the same value as this does because they can’t pick and choose the best possible setup for you. IMPULSE wins on value hands down.

Rating: 5/5

Overall

This is a solid product that’s useful to pretty much every WoW player. Even if you’re still leveling your first character you can train yourself into good habits while the rest of us are stuck breaking bad ones. If you’re a clicker, this makes the transition far less painful. And even if you’re a keybinder, you could probably use some fine-tuning. All in all, IMPULSE is another great product that gets the job done.

Rating: 4.5/5

Technorati Tags: addon, hotkeys, keybindings, macros, warcraft hotkeys, wow hotkeys

W/Up Arrow = move character forward
S/Down Arrow = move character backward
A/Left Arrow = move character left
D/Right Arrow = move character right
Q = Strafe left
E = Strafe right
Space/ Number Pad = Jump
X = toggle sit/stand
Number lock/ mouse button 4= toggle autorun
Insert = pitch character up
Delete = pitch character down

Action Bar Functions

?# ? (0-9, -, +): Activate an action in the action bar
CTRL-F# (1-10): Select shapeshift/stance state

Targeting Functions

Tab: Lets you cycle through different enemies in the area.
Shift –tab: This is how you can cycle backwards through the enemies in the area.
Ctrl-tab: This will let you cycle through friendly players.
Ctrl-shift-tab: Cycle backward through the players.
F1: target yourself
F2-5: Target party members
Shift-F1: target your pet
Shift-F (2-5): target party member’s pet
G: target last hostile
T: Attack target
Shift – T: Have pet attack target

Chat Functions

Enter: open chat box
R:  reply to a whisper
Shift-c: toggle combat log
Interface Panel Functions

C: Character pane
B/F12: Open backpack
F8-F11: open bags
P: Spellbook
I: abilities
Shift-I: pet book
N: Talents
Shift-P: pet pane
U: Reputation
K: Skills
L: Quest log
Esc: Game menu
M: World map
O: social pane

Miscellaneous Functions

Number pad +: zoom in mini-map
Number pad -: zoom out mini-map
Ctrl –M: toggle music
Ctrl-S: toggle sound
Ctrl-+: master volume up
Ctrl–: master volume down
Alt-Z: toggle user interface

Camera Functions

End: move forward through camera positions
Home: move backward through camera positions
Mouse wheel up: zoom camera in
Mouse wheel down: zoom camera out

When you start playing the game, you will see that there are bars located at the bottom that allow you to place your spells inside for quick release. You need to customize these so that they work best for you. You can switch through the bars with shift+bar number. Then you press the number of the spell you want to cast. For example, shift+2 and 2 may be Corruption and you might want to switch back to bar one for another spell so you can quickly press shift+1 and 5. As you create these, it will take some time to really get the feel for it and become comfortable with the controls but once you have, you can create combos that allow you to cast off the greatest and most effective spells really quickly. People will be wondering how you ever got those spells off so fast.

For example, if you are fighting a spellcaster, you can cast spells to drain their mana which makes them unable to attack back and then you quickly run in for the kill. They will be dead before they know what happened. You can also set up macros in the game. You can find macros by pressing the ESC key while in the game and then selecting Macros. It will show you how to customize your own. This is a great way to cast spells, set totems and more. Also, you do not have to put just spells in your macros, you can put other commands as well.

Technorati Tags: functions, hotkeys, world of warcraft, wow, wow functions, wow hotkeys, Wow Interface