WoW Forever: Blizzard explains how gamepad play works

Blizzard has published a full guide to playing WoW Forever on a gamepad, one day before launch. Any XInput-compatible controller works, with button icons for both Xbox and PlayStation pads. To switch over from keyboard and mouse, press Escape and go to Options, Gameplay and then Gamepad, where you can also change the camera, targeting and action bar settings.

The layout is built around stacked action bars. The screen shows 4 bars at a time, and holding the left trigger, the right trigger or both swaps between them until you let go. Pressing both bumpers with left or right on the directional pad moves between 3 sets of 4 bars, which adds up to 84 slots. Blizzard's mage example puts Polymorph on up, Fireball on left trigger and up, and Frostbolt on right trigger and up, but it stresses that these bindings are not fixed.

On an Xbox pad, the left stick moves and the right stick turns the camera, the left bumper targets friends and the right bumper targets enemies. X interacts, A jumps, B goes back and Y inspects. Both bumpers together open shortcuts: with B for the backpack, with up for the quest tracker, with down for chat and with Y for managing buffs. A radial main menu offers the same functions. Controllers with a light turn it red for Horde characters and blue for Alliance.

Blizzard still calls this a functional beta. Not every screen has button prompts yet, work on bags and menus continues, and a keyboard is still needed for jobs such as typing in chat, although the long-term aim is to do without it. The guide follows the final launch notes, which listed the last gamepad fixes.