Dominating Gaming Mouse – The New Razer Naga
Posted on November 6th, 2009 by Lawbringer under Addons, Alliance, Death Knights, Druid, Efficiency Tips, Exploits, Faster Leveling, General Tips, Grinding, Healing, Heroics, Horde, Instances, Leveling, Mage, News, PVE, PVP, Paladin, Power Leveling, Powerleveling, Priest, Products, Raiding, Rogue, Shaman, Tank, Tanking, Tips, Tricks, Twinking, World of Warcraft, WotLK, hunterProducts We Love – Razer Naga, The Ultimate WoW Gaming Mouse
We’re a big fan of nifty peripherals here at DYS, just in case you hadn’t noticed, but every now and then even we get blown away. Every month or two we test a new product in the market to see if it offers something more for our readers. In order to get a review at this site, the thing really has to add something to the wow experience for the novice and pro alike. Not making our cut doesn’t mean it’s a bad product, just that it doesn’t meet our Dominating and demanding flavor.
But every now and again we come across something that actually changes the way we play. The Sennheiser headphones are great, but won’t really make you a terrific player. The G13 game pad will – I still use both of them every single time I play. But the Razer Naga blows away everything we’ve ever reviewed by such a huge margin that it’s a little hard to know where to start saying just how good it really is.
First things first, then. It’s a standard size mouse (even though the button field looks pretty intimidating in the pic above) with 12 extra keys on the thumb side (for righties anyway). That is the big difference between the Naga and every other mouse on the planet. It has the standard left, right, scroll, scroll click, four and five buttons as most gaming mice – but adds twelve more keys for your thumb. One look and we KNEW we had to give it a spin.
How Does It Feel?
In just ten seconds it was apparent it was the most comfortable mouse ever. It’s like holding hands with your sweetheart. The texture is just smooth enough to be soft, just matte enough to be completely slip free. Not only do your index and middle finger glide into the perfect rest position, but there is a little shelf for your ring finger and a cup for your pinky that actually make it more relaxing to have your hand on your mouse than anywhere else. You hate to let go of the thing to type. So in the tactile area the Naga gets a 10+ out of 10.
Cursor Response
The drivers are super easy to install both on Mac and PC. The interface is clean and offers a degree of movement control that is nothing short of outstanding. It supports Dpi ranges from 100 to 5600 – which is a range from nearly dead turtle to fighter jet speed. You can also adjust the acceleration factor and frequency response over broad ranges. But the really slick part is that you can set it to control the X and Y axis Dpi independently. That is a real WoW factor. If you use a wide screen setup it is so nice to have the cursor move faster from left to right than up and down. Cursor response and setup = 10 of 10
Movement and Function
Most mice have a few little slip pads on the bottom and a big bright lazer or whatever. This beauty has a slip ring around the entire perimeter of the bottom, which makes it glide like butter. It even has an extra slip ring that completely surrounds the invisible lazer orifice. One thing is for certain, if your mousing surface isn’t completely clean, you’ll know it in about half a second. (we also prefer the Lazer exact mat for all our mice, but it’s especially nice with the Naga). I prefer a free-wheeling mouse, but since very few have that option I can’t deduct too much for the incremental scroll. The four and five buttons are right up at the very front and absolutely WILL give your a hand cramp if you try to use them very often, but we’ll get to why this makes almost no difference later. And, finally the button clicks are easy enough to make without much force, but firm enough to avoid lots of accidental clicks – pretty much perfect. Movement and function = 9 of 10
Extra Juice
Now we get to the good stuff. Those 12 extra buttons are so good it’s not even fair to rate this thing against other mice. It turns all those other mice into meece. There’s everything else – and then there’s the Naga. I pitched my G3 in a drawer for good and didn’t have a qualm in the world about doing so – and I loved that mouse. Even apart from the extended functionality, the Naga is just a much better overall mouse, but those extra keys are WAY past incredible. And then I played with them.
I fully intended to try to use as little hyperbole as possible, but that’s completely impossible in this situation. Compared to every other mouse I’ve ever used – and I go through mice like a tomcat, the Naga would have no peer, leaving even the G3 completely in the dust. But those extra buttons make it so different that it becomes completely unfair to all the other mice in the world. If the G3 (a really good mouse) rated a 45 out of 50, the Naga (even without the buttons) would have raised the bar to 60, and that’s no kidding. Those 12 new buttons put the bar at 100, and we’ll put the Naga right there 95 out of 100, which means there really isn’t any way to compare apples to apples. everything else just got pwned.
That extra button pad automatically binds to either the: 1 through = keys on your keyboard or the number pad keys, whichever you prefer. I already had bar one and two in Bartender assigned to those suckers as it is, so with the flip of a switch I can use my one mouse to toggle 24 keys – it’s so slick you have to use it to believe it. And then comes Vuhdo – yikes.
Plug this thing into Vuhdo and you are one little macro command away from complete and total healing Domination. And, in reality, it could almost make the choice between Healbot, Grid/Clique and Vuhdo closer to meaningless than ever before. We’ll discuss that macro in the next article since it’s so slick and useful for so many other situations, but just know that you probably would never use it nearly as much without the Naga.
You’re Wasting Time Here!
All there is left to say is get one. Get one right this minute. Do not pass go, do not argue, just get it and Dominate. Ask for it for Thanksgiving, your birthday, Christmas and New Years. Beg, borrow, cheat, lie, steal or work like a fiend until you can get one. Get up from your chair right now and go to the store – yes, it’s THAT good. Once you plug this dude in, you’ll find 50 new ways it can improve your WoW life in about 5 minutes. I am seriously excited about this thing, as if you couldn’t tell, but it really is the single best gaming peripheral I have ever seen.
If you can’t stand it, and we’ve done our job, you can click on the pic at the top of this article (or below) to go directly to Amazon and get one for yourself. You don’t have to use our link, of course, but honestly, once you use the Naga you’ll never know how you played with anything else. Go get one, and bring your Domination to a whole new level of pwn.
Order The Razer Naga Now 
I have been rolling with the Naga for a few weeks now and I wish my impression was as positive as yours. The side buttons are a great idea but I can’t even begin to imagine the thumb contortion/strain if you bind them to any abilities you use frequently. Needless to say, I really gave it a honest trial but after several days of fumbling and missing the little keys (I even attempted to use their “training” pads to help navigate by feel) it just wasn’t working for me.
I am at the point where I need to switch over to the Number Pad option and bind the keys to less critical functions. There is a good chance I might use the top three for interrupt skills (such as Blind and Kick on my Rogue) and perhaps even play around with some stance dance macros for my Warrior but putting anything other than trivial skills on the keys below them is not going to happen for me.
This thing is a bit expensive for a mouse, I have to admit.
Well, Lagmonkey, your impression is not as positive as theirs as this is a ‘cash for comment’ scenario where DYS is getting paid to spruik this mouse. Simple as that. Buy at your own risk.
The buttons do take a bit of practice, so I started just as you are describing, with using just 4, 5 and 6 for a few hours for the most part with cleanse on number 2. (chain heal, riptide and totem drops on 4,5,6 while using Vuhdo and a mouseover macro). It will take some time to easily muscle memory all of them, but what it does do is give me four or five extra skills that ARE easier to use than even the regular fourth and fifth mouse buttons. What WILL give you a hand cramp is trying to use the fourth and fifth regular buttons on this mouse, they are way far forward and I only use them to refresh water shield and an alternate totem drop (such as faction champs). I think it helps a TON if you are used to using Healbot or Vuhdo to heal with lots of mouse clicks on your right hand. My thumb was already used to toggling spells with buttons, it’s just a matter of getting a feel for the new ones.
With all that being said, it cant be any harder than learning multiple keystroke combinations on the keyboard. The difference is that if you started the game with the Naga, you would have had plenty of hours to adapt to the new style and feel of the buttons. Since I test out so many things, I’ve gotten a little used to doing this. Moving from the Fang on my right hand back to a mouse took me a couple of weeks, and the G13 also took some time to get really good at.
The real point is that at least this mouse gives you the OPTION of doing more on your mouse hand. You may very well find that you only use two or three of the buttons for combat moves, but it’s three more than you had before. Besides, the real thing for me, beyond the expansive capability of the Naga, is simply the comfort and control it offers. Even if the side buttons didn’t exist, I would still not use anything else.
How much did they pay you to write this?
If they didn’t, you might want to mention that at the start of the article. You sound like Shamwow Vince
We don’t receive direct compensation for reviews. We throw things out there that we like, and like we have been for some time. If you think it will help you then get one, if you don’t then that’s fine too. I love it , and some others will – some won’t and that’s just the way things work.
Actually that’s not really the case. you can choose to buy it if you like, but even if you use our link, it’s a very small compensation for us. We throw products out from time to time that improve our play and that might help others. But we probably won’t even make enough to pay for a time card, just so you know. And, btw, you buy everything in the world at your own risk, so your comment isn’t as negative as you think. If you don’t like it, return it. Your purchase ot not will have virtually zero effect on us as a whole. Something either has value to you or not. The Naga has a value to us primarily as a tool for play and not so much as a vehicle for profit. If profit was the primary motive we would do it a very different way.
What I’m after is a decent gaming trackball. After using Trackballs because of a shortage of desk space, I couldn’t go back to a mouse, but I would like some extra buttons. There’s two type of trackball too. On where you use your thumb and on where you use your forefinger.
*one
haha send me yer old mouse please hehe… i had to buy a cheap lazer mouse haha regretting it now i miss my g5.
Its always fun reading your blog. Thanks for posting this!
Yes i noticed it was buggy also, the pages here load very slowly. I guess it happens from time to time with servers
I LOVE this mouse. I’m so glad I was subscribed to your articles otherwise I would have never heard of this thing. It’s uber pwnage in PVP, so much that it’s hardly even fair (especially on twinks). I went for at least 6 hours straight on my mage with the 1 and 2 keys binded to Arcane Blast and Arcane Missles with basically no thumb strain at all! I LOVE this mouse SOO MUCH and I love you too for making this thing known to me!