CAMERA CONTROL

CAMERA CONTROL INTRO

There's a pretty good chance that one of the quickest fixes to increasing your rating is directly in front of you. We're not joking, it's your camera.

No not the one your FBI agent uses to watch you get farmed, it's your camera in game. Look we've seen hundreds of hours of user submitted footage and one thing is obvious, your camera control is one massive reason you might be losing.

Not to worry though because today we have some easy fixes that are guaranteed to increase your awareness and make you a better player. We will be showing you what interface settings you need to adjust right now and how you can avoid many of the mistakes we see with low rated players.

MOVEMENT & MOUSE CONTROL

There's one thing we need to cover first. In order to have proper camera control, you have to have good movement.

If you aren't able to move your character properly, you won't be able to control your camera. The foundation of efficient movement in Arena is strafing, which looks like this.

By default, your movement keys will be set to W, A, S, D, and your A and D keys will turn your character either left or right.

This doesn't give you much control when moving, and more importantly, it makes it harder to use abilities, since it requires you to use two fingers, one to move forward and one to turn, in order to move your character.

Instead of using A and D to turn, we highly suggest setting them to strafe and removing the turn character keybinds entirely. Alternatively, you could set strafing to Q and E, so that all of your important movement keys are in the same row.

Strafing allows you to move directly left or right, and when you hold down right click with your mouse, you can precisely control your character's movement, especially when navigating around pillars, which you will have to do quite often in PvP.

And unlike keyboard turning, strafing will free up one finger on your keyboard hand, since you will be using a combination of a single strafe key with your mouse in order to move. Using strafe and your mouse to move is really important, since it gives your left hand access to multiple highly efficient keybinds.

Any of the keys we've highlighted here are really close to your movement binds, which makes them really good for highly reactive spells like interrupts and cooldowns. There is not a single pro player in WoW that keyboard turns.

Every pro player in the game uses some combination of strafing combined with holding down mouse buttons in order to precisely move their character. And as we will see in just a moment, having your right hand become part of your character's movement will allow you to have better vision over the arena.

CAMERA CONTROL

Once you are comfortable using strafe keybinds and your mouse to move, it's time to think about camera control. The first step involves changing one interface setting.

By default, your camera follow style will be set to always adjust. This will make your camera change back to its default location once you let go from the left click on your mouse.

This setting makes it hard to properly track enemy targets in arena. If you want to focus on something behind your character while attacking something in front of you, the constant readjustment of your camera can really throw off your movement.

Instead, make sure to change this setting to never adjust. This will give you more control over your camera and will allow you to monitor important things that aren't in your front facing field of vision.

The next step is making sure you have the right camera angle. This part is slightly subjective, but there are some rules you should follow.

First, avoid using a low angle camera view, since it drastically cuts down on the information you can see on your screen. At lower angles you may be able to track enemy positioning in front of you, but anything behind your character will be infinitely harder to track.

On the other extreme. Some players use really high angles, and while this may allow you to have a balance of vision in front or behind your character, it doesn't really give you complete vision of the z axis, and it sometimes limits your view of the enemy players out of LOS.

Instead, we recommend using a camera angle around 45 degrees from horizontal. This will give you a balance of vision in front of and behind your character, while allowing you to see the z axis more clearly on specific maps.

This angle is also the most natural, since you are probably used to it from other games. The next setting you should adjust is maximum control.

This setting is set to maximum camera distance. Unfortunately, like all good things in WoW, this setting was removed for no particular reason.

You can use a console script to modify this setting, but an easier and more reliable way to adjust it is with the addon called advanced interface options. By default, the setting will have a limit of 1.9, but you can adjust it even further if needed.

We highly suggest opening up the max camera distance to its full range, since it can be useful in RBGs. In arenas however, you don't need to play fully zoomed out, but avoid playing super zoomed in.

Just like having a low camera angle, a shallow camera zoom limits what you can actually see in arena. Some players are able to play zoomed in without many problems, but we suggest playing with a deeper camera distance.

So now you know proper camera settings, it's time to go over some huge mistakes we see with both DPS and healers in our user submitted clips.

DPS CAMERA MISTAKES

For both melee and ranged DPS, one of the biggest mistakes we see is failing to keep your camera angled towards the action. As a general rule, you should try and keep all enemy nameplates in frame at all times.

Here we have a shadow priest that is being trained down by the enemy team. If we pause for a moment, we can see a few things.

For one, their camera distance is quite balanced, but they are playing with a high camera angle. The paladin is in view, but the boomkin and priest positioning is a complete unknown.

This makes it impossible to know if the enemy team is pushing into your healer for CC. And more importantly, it makes it difficult to know if you can actually land important casts.

Now let's see how our rank 1 mage positions their camera. With this camera angle, our mage is able to see every player in the arena.

He's able to monitor both melee DPS while also having clear vision on the enemy priest in case we find a moment to polymorph.

And notice how despite being under pressure, our mage keeps this field of view and arena, making sure not to outrange or line of sight his healer in the background while also monitoring every enemy player.

As a ranged DPS with spam bullets, As a ranged DPS with spam bullets, you should try and keep vision over all enemy players since it will help you set up control over the enemy team. Sometimes you might be required to monitor the enemy healer when they are in an awkward position.

Sometimes you might be required to monitor the enemy healer when they are in an awkward position. Here for instance, the enemy priest has run up the ramp and is now camping on the ledge, making it really difficult to keep them in frame.

In these moments, it can be difficult to monitor everyone, so instead, you should prioritize looking at the healer only when you plan to use CC.

Like our mage does here by quickly shifting his camera towards the priest in order to land a kill. like our mage does here by quickly shifting his camera towards the priest in order to land a kill. It's not just ranged DPS that need to keep track of enemy positioning, it's melee too.

Here, our low rated warrior is training down a mage, and although their camera distance and camera angle are fine, notice where their view is positioned. Although they can keep track of the mage's positioning from here, they have no way of knowing where the warlock and priest are.

While this might not be an immediate issue, it could be a disaster if the warlock decides to pop major cooldowns, in which case the warrior might not know where the attacks are coming from. Now let's see how a rank 1 warrior can deal with a mage.

A rank 1 warrior can deal with a mage. From this position, he's able to have a clear field of vision over every player in the arena.

He can check to see if the enemy boomkin is pushing for CC on his healer, while also being able to check whether or not his priest will be able to land a fear on the enemy shaman. Sometimes by monitoring enemy healer positioning, you can open up kill windows by yourself.

Here for instance, our rogue is trying to keep the enemy priest in frame while killing the hunter. And by memorizing the priest's positioning, our rogue is able to land a shadowstep kick, eventually converting it into a longer CC chain on the priest while killing the hunter.

Regardless of whether you play ranged or melee, you should aim to angle your camera so that all enemy nameplates are visible. This way you can know when your CC cast can actually land, while also being able to react defensively to enemy attacks.

And speaking of being defensive, you should periodically keep track of your healer's position as you move across the map. It might be difficult to keep all enemy nameplates and your healer's party icon in frame at the same time, but periodic glances to your healer will help you keep track of your healer's position.

As a DPS, one time you should prioritize checking your healer's positioning is when you are attempting to run behind a pillar. Low rated DPS will often run out of LOS, completely lining themselves from their healers and making them susceptible to quick swaps.

Instead of going completely behind a pillar, check first to see where your healer is positioned, and then try and keep yourself in their line if you don't have major defensive cooldowns. And finally, be sure to monitor enemy nameplates when you are kiting around a pillar.

Nameplates are visible through LOS. And you should always face your camera towards enemy nameplates in order to quickly change your kiting pattern if your opponents change their direction.

HEALER CAMERA MISTAKES

DPS aren't the only players who can fall victim to camera mistakes, so healers, be sure to pay attention. Just like DPS, your goal as a healer should be to try and keep every player in arena in frame as often as possible.

By tracking party positioning with party icons, you can have a better idea of how and when you need to reposition. The same goes for enemy positioning, which can easily be tracked with nameplates.

Your camera position should give you information on where enemy players are currently located, so that you can avoid incoming swaps or CC chains. Here for instance, our healer is currently aiming his camera in a way to check the positioning of the enemy mage.

This will allow him to avoid polymorph casts with line of sight, and to know if they are vulnerable to ranged interrupts. While it is important to monitor all enemy positions, some take priority.

For the most part, mages are at the top due to having both a spammable ranged CC and interrupt, and for that reason warlocks are important to track too. Priests are high priority, but mostly when psychic scream is off cooldown since it has a tight range requirement.

The same is true for paladins with hammer of justice. Any time their stun is up, be sure to monitor their positioning since they will often charge in and use it on healers.

One mistake we sometimes see among low rated players is not even using enemy nameplates. Here, our low rated healer is currently stuck in CC, but notice where they have their camera position.

From here, they can't even see where the enemy players are located. And even though they will wind up trinketing the ring of frost, they don't even see the enemy mage casting a follow up polymorph.

And to make matters even worse, they aren't playing with enemy nameplates enabled. Which makes it almost impossible to track enemy mage casts.

It's almost impossible to keep track of enemy positioning to avoid further CC or damage. If we compare this to a rank 1 healers camera, it makes it much clearer why pro healers are much better at avoiding CC.

Here for instance, our healer is keeping both of his partners in view using party icons. While also tracking the enemy team using nameplates.

This will allow him to adjust his positioning if the enemy team starts pushing in. Like the enemy shadow priest will do here.

And because our healer was monitoring the priest's movement, he was able to kite the opposite direction to avoid fear. And that wraps up our guide for camera control in PvP.

With these quick fixes, we guarantee you will have better awareness and increased ratings in Arena.