Pulse Haptics: Feel Azeroth

A WoW gamepad controller vibration addon

Pulse Haptics is a gamepad controller vibration addon for World of Warcraft (WoW), adding customizable haptic feedback to in-game events. Feel combat impacts, spellcasting, footsteps, mount movement, flight, weather, gathering, loot, and UI interactions through your gamepad.

Pulse Haptics brings tactile feedback to WoW through its native gamepad support. Customize 190 haptic cues, choose from 35 vibration modes, and start with 12 built-in profiles for dungeon roles, raiding, PvP, questing, and immersive exploration. Select which events trigger feedback, adjust vibration strength and timing, and tailor the experience to your playstyle.

Pulse Haptics includes controller presets for Xbox, PlayStation DualSense and DualShock 4, Steam Deck and Steam Controller, Nintendo Switch Pro, and 8BitDo Ultimate controllers. Actual motor behavior can vary by controller and connection method.

Use haptics to enhance immersion or configure selected tactile alerts to make certain combat events and boss mechanics more noticeable alongside the game's visual and audio cues.

Features

190 customizable haptic cues

Configure feedback across 16 categories, including:

• Combat and defense: Weapon swings, critical hits, parries, blocks, incoming damage, combo points, and execute alerts.
• Spellcasting and channels: Cast build-up, channel feedback, instant casts, interrupts, and cast-failure alerts.
• Movement and footsteps: Six surface and gait styles, plus left/right motor separation on supported dual-motor controllers.
• Mounts and flight: Galloping, takeoff, landing, taxi flights, and dragonriding speed turbulence.
• Environment and weather: Rain, blizzards, storms, breath loss, and swimming.
• Professions and gathering: Mining, skinning, herbalism, fishing, and crafting interactions.
• Loot and inventory: Loot feedback and item-related pulses.
• Controller UI and menus: Radial-menu ticks, panel transitions, popup dialogs, and soft-targeting reticle locks.
• Tactile alerts: Selected stuns, interrupt windows, boss telegraphs, and threat changes.

Enable or disable individual cues or entire categories without clearing your individual cue settings.

12 built-in profiles

Choose a profile as a starting point for different activities, then customize it to your preferences:

• Default: A balanced mix of combat, movement, environment, and alerts.
• Dungeon – Tank: Threat and aggro alerts, mitigation, crowd control, and boss cast telegraphs.
• Dungeon – Healer: Low-health alerts, heal confirmations, dispels, and interrupt warnings.
• Dungeon – Melee: Strike cadence, combo points, execute warnings, and kick windows.
• Dungeon – Caster: Channel feedback, cast completion, lockout alerts, and proc notifications.
• Dungeon – Hunter: Auto-shot timing, melee weaving, and feign-death threat alerts.
• Immersion – Melee: Footsteps, terrain landings, parry/block impacts, weather, and loot.
• Immersion – Caster: Spell textures, elemental channeling, weather, and magical interactions.
• Immersion – Ranged: Ranged-shot cadence, weapon swings, inventory handling, and exploration.
• PvP – Tactical Radar: Focused feedback for crowd control, enemy casts, defensives, and critical danger.
• Raiding: Boss telegraphs, phase changes, tank swaps, defensive cooldowns, and raid coordination.
• Questing: Footsteps, mount movement, weather, dialogue, level-ups, inventory, and combat.

Controller and gamepad support

Pulse Haptics includes tuned presets for:

• PlayStation 5 DualSense and DualShock 4
• Xbox Wireless and Elite controllers
• Steam Deck and Steam Controller
• Nintendo Switch Pro
• 8BitDo Ultimate

Four hardware schemas are available: Standard, High Motor Only, Low Motor Only, and Inverted. Motor behavior varies by controller and connection method.

35 vibration modes

Choose from short, punchy transients, physical impacts, rhythmic pulses, continuous textures, and dynamic ramps. Examples include SNAP, MICRO_TAP, THUD, DOUBLE_PULSE, HEARTBEAT, RUMBLE, HUM, WAVE, and CRESCENDO.

Customize the strength and timing of feedback to suit your controller and preferences.

Movement and mount gaits

Movement feedback is designed to feel distinct rather than like one continuous buzz:

• Separate footstep taps use a crisp decay envelope.
• Supported dual-motor controllers can alternate left/right footstep emphasis.
• Mount gallops use paired footfall rhythms.

Live haptic oscilloscope

Use /pulse scope to open the live waveform and telemetry display. Monitor motor power, RMS energy, saturation, and the active haptic layers driving vibration.

Customization and controls

• Enable or disable all 190 cues in one action.
• Turn entire categories on or off without clearing your individual cue settings.
• Use collapsible settings sections and Simple View to keep configuration manageable.
• Reduce overlapping vibration from rapid multi-event interactions.
• Test vibration modes in-game and switch profiles as needed.

Accessibility and immersion

Controller vibration adds another channel of feedback alongside sound and visuals. Use Pulse Haptics to add tactile detail to exploration and combat, or configure selected alerts to make important events more noticeable without relying only on on-screen indicators.

Haptic feedback is supplementary and does not replace the game's visual or audio cues.

Quick start

1. Enable gamepad vibration in WoW

Make sure WoW's gamepad and vibration settings are enabled. If needed, run these commands in-game:

/console GamePadEnable 1
/console GamePadVibration 1

2. Install the addon

Extract the PulseHaptics folder into your World of Warcraft Interface/AddOns/ directory.

3. Open the settings

Use /pulse or /pulsehaptics in-game to open the main settings window.

Slash commands

Project status

Pulse Haptics is a free, open-source hobby project for the World of Warcraft community. It is currently in Public Beta (v0.3.2-beta). The core engine is implemented, while individual cues continue to be tuned against WoW's evolving controller APIs.

Feedback, bug reports, testing, and contributions are welcome.

Developer diagnostic tools, including PulseDebug, PulseChecklist, and PulseProfileReview, are available in the GitHub repository.

Credits and attributions

• Author: codingdoctorbot
• AI-assisted development: Claude Code (Anthropic) and Google Antigravity (Google DeepMind)
• Tremor: Precursor project that provided initial inspiration, core structural ideas, and the foundational accessibility cue set.
• Libraries: LibStub, CallbackHandler-1.0, and LibDataBroker-1.1.

Disclaimer

Pulse Haptics is a community-made World of Warcraft addon and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Blizzard Entertainment. World of Warcraft and Blizzard Entertainment are trademarks of Blizzard Entertainment.

Feel Azeroth.