Razer Nostromo or Naga?

[Snowreap]

here's why I use the G13:

1. thumbstick. this frees all 4 fingers of my left hand for abilities. there was a time when I used WASD for movement, and the need to use 1 or 2 fingers for movement left me with restrictions on what abilities I could use when. for example, my archer in Warhammer Online could only use certain abilities while circle-strafing clockwise around a target (those reachable with my index finger). and if I strafed counter-clockwise, I could only use abilities reachable with my ring finger (using the mouse to click buttons that I couldn't reach the keybinds for was problematic while circle-strafing).

2. programmability. I don't mean assigning simple macros, I mean full programmability. all of my G13 buttons have a full-blown Lua script behind them, and what any particular button does can be modified depending on which other keys are down, or which ones aren't down, or how long it has been since any arbitrary button was pressed or released. for example, in RIFT most of my action buttons are set up to repeat a minimum of 3 times when pressed, 0.25s apart no matter how quickly I release them. but if I hold any of them down more than 0.75s they continue to repeat until I let go. most keyboard macro utilities can't achieve this level of programmability.

3. number of keys. the G13 has 22 G-keys, plus 2 thumbstick buttons. and since I can define any of them as modifiers (or even combinations) the number of 'effective' keys is pretty much limited only by my tolerance for complicated keyboard layouts. in RIFT I use 14 buttons for 'direct' action button mappings, which when combined with the 1 button I have bound to "Ctrl", gives me 28 direct actions (all with the triple-tap then repeat behavior described above). 3 of the buttons are configured to cycle groups of F-keys (for example, if I hold down G16 it will repeat F1 every 0.25s for 1.5s total, then it will repeat F2 every 0.25s for 1.5s total, then it will repeat F3 every 0.25s for 1.5s total, then it will repeat F4 every 0.25s until I release. if I release G16 early the cycle is stopped immediately, whereever it happens to be. G17 and G18 are similar, but for F5-F8 and F9-F12. the 1.5s value is the RIFT GCD for most classes, but if I press G19 it changes the 1.5s 'advance' timer to 0.75s (since rogues have a shorter GCD)). those same 4 keys also do double-duty as target selection keys (set focus, target focus, target previous target, target target-of-target) if I press them while G22 (Ctrl) is held down. 5 of the buttons have simple direct keybindings (tab (next target), V (Ventrilo PTT), M (map), B (bags) and C (character sheet)). all told, I have easy access to something like 57 actions total, and that is using only a single modifier key (G22). and the G13 has 2 more 'modes' (M2 and M3) and mode-select keys (M1/M2/M3) that I don't even use most of the time.

4. LCD display. yeah, that's nice too. I use mine for FRAPS and Ventrilo so I don't have to use the screen overlays (which aren't compatible with all games).

-ken