Healing Guide

[DrFGoodman 0]

Perhaps your spelling is slightly off? I'm doing the same thing in shrine and I am not getting any issues.

 

The thing about that macro is that you can consider it very redundant. If you want your spells to be set up so that it goes Mouseover, then target, then yourself, you can simply turn on Auto Self Cast in the combat tab of Interface options.

 

This will cause the exact same effect. If I mouse over something that can be healed by my spells, it will heal it, if not, it will try to heal my target, with no target it will just heal myself.

 

Of course, you happen to be using one of the few problems with my setup. Any spells that can also hit an enemy player will be hit, instead of just trying to heal the next in line player. Honestly I've never run into a problem using

 

#showtooltip Holy Shock

/cast [@mouseover] Holy Shock

 

because you never mouseover enemies when healing since that would just cause downtime.

 

Basically what I'm saying is: Try to find the error in your macro, I can't imagine why it doesn't work without there being one, and if there isn't one, consider using the simple version I listed. It should provide the same effect you want.

Well I feel kind of stupid now. I simply had a misunderstanding about how macros work. I just now realized that you actually have to drag the macro onto your bar/keybind in order for it to work. Still, Thanks for your help and I'm sorry for wasting your time with this post.

[Fouton 266]

No worries, glad you could get it working :)

 

That's a fair understanding of macros, most games have an AI changer that does that style of editing.

[Guest Neal]

Great site, great guide ...

But the link to VuhDo is broken ;-)

Try http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/vuhdo

[Guest bull]

i love your guide but you should include info about the druid being designed to over heal as part of their new mechanics in your over healing section iv'e noticed that a lot  of new druid healers spend to much effort on controlling their output to reduce over healing when they should be focused on using it to their advantage with their mushrooms 

[Guest Chii]

Reading this as MoP ends and we're getting ready for WoD is interesting. Right now passive healing is enough to keep tanks alive for the majority of encounters, triage is a non-factor due to smart heals, and overhealing (as a percentage of total raw healing) is typically greater than 50% for almost every class/encounter. However, all of the info in this guide is (in theory) going to be relevant again soon...

[Geoda 253]

I believe this guide will be altered once WOD is released. It appears that Blizzard is trying to take us back to a style of healing where players will not always be at full HP. We will also be tasked more with choosing the correct heal (Aoe, big/med/small heal etc). I'm a firm believer than the best healers shine at the start of an expansion. I'm always looking forward to the fresh start a new expansion gives the wow community.

[Guest Hawklan]

Yet another comment on clicking vs keybinding, sorry
 

 

4.2.2. Macros

Mouse-over macros allow you to simply mouse over a friendly player ("hover" over their raid frame, for instance) and heal them without having to select them first. This can only be done if you are using keybinds

 

That is not entirely true.
As Stoove already mentioned it is possible to use addons like VuhDo to achieve the same behavior (casting while hovering without the need to select a target) with mouse buttons instead of keyboard keys.

Move mouse pointer over raid frame, click, move pointer to next frame, click and so on.
One single click per cast and no selecting the target.

Exactly the same playstyle as with mouseover macros with the only difference that you press a mouse button instead of a keyboard key.

Considering this playstyle I completely disagree with the following statement:

 

 

You need to use keybinds if you want to reach your maximum potential in World of Warcraft, regardless of role but especially as a healer.

 

As you might have guessed I am a healer using this type of healing playstyle an I believe it to even be a bit more flexible and reactive than the keybinding + macro playstyle.

The reason is exactly the situations you mention further down in your comment:

 

 

If the encounter requires you to click a crystal, click a raid member to pull them out of a harmful effect, or use your mouse to lead your character from some kind of "maze" effect ...

 

If you move using the WASD keys (what I believe most people will do as the majority of games have that as their default setting) that in my opinion interferes with keybound-healing as you have to move your fingers between WASD and your healing keys and you can not do both (healing and moving) at the same time or at least not very comfortable.

When I am healing in the above described way I always have my middle three fingers resting on WAD being able to react immediately to any situation that affords movement.

In most situations I do not need my mouse to for example move out of ground effects as it is sufficient to move in a straight line left, right or forward. So I can continue my hover-click-healing in such situations without any disturbance.

 

I admit however that there are situations where movement without steering with the mouse is not sufficient.

One example might be Vizier Zor'lok in Heart of Fear casting his Attenuation skill.

But whenever you are forced to use your mouse isn't that exactly the same problem regardless of the healing playstyle you are using? If you can not hover the raidframes any more you can not heal precisely and the affects both playstyles in the same way.

 

The fallback mechanic your macro gives you (healing yourself or your target if you can not hover) does not count much in my opinion. It might help a tiny, tiny bit in some rare situations but what is the use of being able to heal yourself or your target when both of you have full health but the rest of the raid is dying.

And if you find a fraction of a second to do some healing (free your mouse) in between the running you still have to sort out your fingers between WASD  and 1,2,3 or whatever you have bound your healing spells to.

My fingers always stay where they belong to (WAD three middle fingers + SHIFT/STRG = little finger + ALT = thumb) and as soon as my mouse is free to hover the raid frames I am immediately ready for action without the need to reposition my fingers to the healing keys.

[Krazyito 521]

Mouse clicks are also key presses to a computer. So keybinds still applies here.

As for movement, to me as long as you can strafe idc how you bind it. There are plenty of people who unbind everything except A and D and use their mouse to move and A and D to strafe.

For his along I understand it's a bit different but the general rule is the same, find efficient ways to move and heal

[Vlad 411]

Yet another comment on clicking vs keybinding, sorry

 

 

That is not entirely true.

As Stoove already mentioned it is possible to use addons like VuhDo to achieve the same behavior (casting while hovering without the need to select a target) with mouse buttons instead of keyboard keys.

Move mouse pointer over raid frame, click, move pointer to next frame, click and so on.

One single click per cast and no selecting the target.

Exactly the same playstyle as with mouseover macros with the only difference that you press a mouse button instead of a keyboard key.

Considering this playstyle I completely disagree with the following statement:

 

 

As you might have guessed I am a healer using this type of healing playstyle an I believe it to even be a bit more flexible and reactive than the keybinding + macro playstyle.

The reason is exactly the situations you mention further down in your comment:

 

 

If you move using the WASD keys (what I believe most people will do as the majority of games have that as their default setting) that in my opinion interferes with keybound-healing as you have to move your fingers between WASD and your healing keys and you can not do both (healing and moving) at the same time or at least not very comfortable.

When I am healing in the above described way I always have my middle three fingers resting on WAD being able to react immediately to any situation that affords movement.

In most situations I do not need my mouse to for example move out of ground effects as it is sufficient to move in a straight line left, right or forward. So I can continue my hover-click-healing in such situations without any disturbance.

 

I admit however that there are situations where movement without steering with the mouse is not sufficient.

One example might be Vizier Zor'lok in Heart of Fear casting his Attenuation skill.

But whenever you are forced to use your mouse isn't that exactly the same problem regardless of the healing playstyle you are using? If you can not hover the raidframes any more you can not heal precisely and the affects both playstyles in the same way.

 

The fallback mechanic your macro gives you (healing yourself or your target if you can not hover) does not count much in my opinion. It might help a tiny, tiny bit in some rare situations but what is the use of being able to heal yourself or your target when both of you have full health but the rest of the raid is dying.

And if you find a fraction of a second to do some healing (free your mouse) in between the running you still have to sort out your fingers between WASD  and 1,2,3 or whatever you have bound your healing spells to.

My fingers always stay where they belong to (WAD three middle fingers + SHIFT/STRG = little finger + ALT = thumb) and as soon as my mouse is free to hover the raid frames I am immediately ready for action without the need to reposition my fingers to the healing keys.

Krazyito kinda sums it up in his post, but I'll elaborate.

 

You seem to think that the guide's suggestions are meant to recommend keybinds and mouseover macros instead of using add-ons like VuhDo to achieve the same (albeit a bit more streamlined) results with mouse clicks. That's completely not the case. The guide is suggesting that you use keybinds, and mouseover macros, instead of using no keybinds and no way to heal people without selecting them.

 

The guide, as you can probably tell, is directed at people who are about to start healing, or who want to get some ideas for how to improve their healing. Many such people (and indeed, may new WoW players who haven't been initiated, as it were) will play without keybinds, and certainly without mouseover macros. It is to those people that the guide is mostly speaking.

 

In any case, I have taken your feedback (for which I am most grateful) into account and made some edits to the guide. Let me know if you have any further comments :)

[Guest Hawklan]

I apologize if I misunderstood your intentions.

 

Too often in my over 9 years of playing a healer in wow I encountered conversations following this scheme:

 

Someone: "Healing with keyboard is the one and only true and efficient playstyle!"

Me: "Well I do heal with my mouse ..."

Big shouting at me containing words like "noob" etc.  

 

Most people do admit that healing with the mouse with the support of addons is at least as efficient as using the keyboard if not even a bit better in some cases once you explain how that works.
But it often costs a lot of explaining to make people see the reasons.

And many do not even listen as they can not imagine that there might be other ways than the keyboard.

 

So perhaps I am a bit sensitive to that subject 

 

Of course I absolutely agree with you and Krazyito:

clicking the heal spells in the action bar is less efficient and moving without the possibility to strafe is a no go in many raid situations.

 

However: was a great guide before and I am happy if my comments helped to even further improve it.

[Guest Tereasa]

Nice Guide. However, I think it ignores a key aspect of understanding the other healing classes you raid along side. I'm not saying that you need an indept understanding of all the classes, but an understanding of the type of healing that others do is important to a good healer.

 

For example. Knowing that Priests have party only aoe heals/shields. Knowing that putting your healing rain on a group of people that a priest just shielded is probably redundant and going to cause unnessessary overhealing. Understanding that your lifebloom on a tank being constantly shielded by a priest and pally, may not be the optimal choice, etc.

 

You could link this back to assignments. But honestly, assignments these days are more for situational use than common use. Most heals are smart heals and the assignments boil down to either a focus on the tank or a focus on the raid. Although also understanding the healers around you will help with the rare case you actually make a specific assignment.

 

If you know what other classes excel at, you can avoid wasting healing, mana, and time overlapping abilities, while also avoiding the problems with very specific assignments that were outlined in the article (ignoring others assignments, people dying from over extention, etc.)

[Healeze 2]

While this is an excellent sort of "Healing 101" guide for people who are trying to learn the very basics of the how and what, as a raid healer, I have to say that I have concerns about how up-to-date the information on "assignments" is. It seems to put a lot of importance on the who-is-healing-who to a fallaciously excessive degree, which frankly for the past couple of expansions at least has not been something even remotely necessary. The problem I have is that it is simply not like that at all. 

 

I'll now go through the parts relating to this that I think need revised and explain why: 

 

 

 

(From 2.1) Additionally, in organised raiding groups, healing is done based on assignments. This is to say, each healer will be given a specific task, such as to heal another player (for example, the tank) exclusively.

 

This is something that very rarely, if ever happens in raids nowadays and is thus misleading, especially in the introduction to healing. While healers may be asked to "focus a little on X at X time" this is in no way assigning that healer's entire attention to a player such as a tank. Even in situations where healers are to pay special attention to something, it is simply a small part of the role they are performing on that encounter. 

 

 

(From 5.2) No matter what encounter your raid is progressing on, and regardless of the raid size, your raid or healing leader will surely provide you with an assignment.

In short, you will be told who to heal, and when. For the most part, healing assignments will be simple, along the lines of "Healer #1 heals the tank, while healers #2 and #3 heal the raid.", although sometimes the encounter may require more specific assignments

 

The opposite of this is the vast majority of situations in raids currently - assignments such as "heal the raid" and "heal the tank" are antiquated and simply not asked of healers. To expect to be given an assignment like this in a raid to heal a specific is extremely unrealistic; your assignment in a raid is to heal everyone. No one healer is given the responsibility on tanks, or given the responsibility on the raid - it is the responsibility of the team to do so. While some healers naturally have a propensity to do more of one or the other simply due to how the class' mechanics behave this is mostly coincidental and not predetermined by players. The distribution of how the heals are placed upon the raid is largely based on a class' mechanics and indeed the player's individual playstyle. 

 

 

(From 5.2.1) The amount of damage that they take and the frequency with which they take it varies widely from fight to fight, but in every case, the tanks must always have at least one healer assigned to them.

 

Again this is wholly incorrect - it is not always necessary to have any healers assigned to the tanks. All healers play their part via certain mechanics in ensuring that the tanks stay alive together. 

 

 

 

(From 5.2.2) As a result, you must be able to communicate with your fellow healers and we advise you to set very specific healing assignments.

 

Communication is indeed important between healers, but setting very, very specific healing assignments is probably unnecessary and in fact, detrimental, as most players will be healing in several different ways on many different players, depending on the situation.

 

 

(From 5.2.2)

• Healer #1 heals the raid members (non-tanks) in Group 1 and Healer #2 heals the raid members in Group 2.
• Healer #1 starts by healing the damaged raid members, from left to right (on whatever raid-frame add-ons you are using) and Healer #2 starts healing from right to left (this is to avoid the same target within the same group being healed by multiple healers, while other targets remain unhealed).
• Healer #1 heals the players damaged by the first cast of ability X and Healer #2 heals the players subsequently damaged by ability X.

 

I hate to sound so rude here, but I am bewildered at how unrealistic this is about healing. I have never - ever - seen a healing assignment as ludicrous as the second point though I could imagine it happening in say TBC, not WoD. While in theory I can understand why that would be considered efficient, this is never going to work in a dynamic raid environment. In all situations regarding AoE damage, the healers will provide a baseline of their AoE throughput spells as appropriate, and use their single target spells if necessary to augment and supplement. For example a druid may use Wild Growth and Efflorescence as baseline and apply Rejuvenation those who might require further healing or are unable to benefit from either of the aforementioned AoE abilities. At the same time, a Shaman may have Healing Rain and Healing Stream Totem up and running to counter the AoE, and may use a combination of Riptides, Healing Waves, Healing Surges and Chain Heals to pick up the rest. In both of these healer's cases, who is in which group, who is raid or tank, and who is on what position of their group on the raid frame will be of absolutely no consequence to their duty. 

 

---

 

Furthermore the way that it is explained in 5.2.4 about respecting your assignment is on the same thread - unrealistic. Not only because the situations described rarely, if ever happen. To be constructive, I think that a better way of approaching the topics of tank and raid healing - as well as the importance of understanding the strengths, weaknesses and patterns of other healers, would be to have a few subsections written by people who play each healing spec, explaining what they will be generally doing at any standard time. Every healing spec has something they will be doing or can be doing to the tanks and to the raid and updating it with each tier or so so that other healers will know what to expect from you. You do not in reality have one person exclusively tank healing and the rest ignoring the tanks as is somewhat implied in the guide at various points. I'll give a sort of example of what I envision would be more appropriate for the tank healing:

A Restoration Druid will be applying Lifebloom and Rejuvenation (Possibly a Germination Rejuvenation also) to the active tank taking damage. This provides a substantial amount of steady healing, but will likely be supplemented with casts of Healing Touch or Regrowth to refresh the Lifebloom effect and heal them, and possibly casts of Swiftmend, all of which are direct healing spells. This is a basic and integral part of what the Restoration druid - widely thought of as a "raid" healer - will be doing. 

tl;dr - The druid is "passively" maintaining very strong HoTs on the tank with fairly regular direct heals.

 

A Restoration Shaman: will always have their Earth Shield on the active tank taking damage. This provides a bonus to shaman's healing on this target and triggers automatic heals when the tank takes damage. The shaman will also cast/apply and maintain Riptide on the tank/s. Furthermore, a shaman's healing stream totem will often heal the tank of its own accord as well as depending on positioning, their healing rain and bounces of their chain heal. In terms of direct healing, the shaman will probably often use charges of Tidal Waves to use a quick Healing Wave, or an increased-crit-chance healing surge on the tank, especially if they are low, due to the value of their mastery. 

tl;dr - The shaman actively is maintaining a personal healing buff on the tank alongside a HoT. The shaman has several smart healing sources which will passively and regularly, likely be healing the tank. In addition, the shaman has capability of throwing some very large clutch heals on a tank who dips low, and in most circumstances, will. 

 

A Mistweaver Monk: will in the current tier attempt to maintain the benefits of Extend Life on the tank taking damage. This buff will cause Chi-consuming direct healing or AoE healing to be duplicated and funnelled to the target. Considering that a huge amount of a Mistweaver's healing will come from these spells which are cast very often, this is a substantial amount of healing to be taken throughout the fight. In addition in doing so, the tanks will have uptime on the monk's Renewing Mists HoT, which not only heals them but makes them automatically a target of Uplift if they are not at full health. If there is no need to be using their AoE spell Uplift, a Mistweaver will be using their channelled filler heal called Soothing Mist. This is a strong single target heal which if necessary will be used as a filler on the tank. Even if not, their Serpent Statue will be casting a Soothing Mist of its own which will heal raid members who are not at full health and will often target tanks. 

tl;dr Mistweavers will be funnelling a copy of their AoE healing to the tank(s) through Extend Life. In addition, they will have a small HoT on the tank(s) which also makes them a valid target of the powerful Uplift spell if they are not at maximum health. 

 

And so on and so forth for each healing spec and again for raid healing. 

[Guest palaflo]

clique is a good alternative to the addons mentioned in the guide, for it is independent of the raidframe, you use.

 

greetings

 

palaflo

[khaldac 1]

I'm definitely not against binding. I know and understand that someone who binds will probably get the heal out faster than me. I'm not in denial lol. I simply wanted to point out how bad this section of the guide would seem to someone new to healing that happens to be like me, a clicker. We're not a rare breed, although most clickers I've met play DPS classes, which is a heck of a lot easier than clicking as a healer, but we do exist I might be more inclined to try binding if I had the time to practice and an easy setup to remember. At the moment I have one bind that I attempt to use on a regular bases, and even that I click most of the time because I keep forgetting it's bound >.< If there's a Keybindings 101 guide somewhere, please point me in it's direction.

 

Ok, I know this is an old post, but I just saw it :) For a keybinding 101 video, go to youtube and check out 

. (sorry if links are a no-no here) A guy named Tuskeh posted it, along with many other useful vids, and he usually explains things pretty well. I haven't seen this particular one, so your mileage may vary.

[Guest Flame]

So, after reading this over this is good information, there is probably only one part of this guide that clashes with my own experience. That is the bit about healing assignments. Now I have been raiding (and healing) on and off since Wrath, and currently co-lead a guild doing heroic raiding. We are not a mythic guild, or an amazingly uber guild, but we do well for ourselves. At our most active stage of Warlords we were a top 5 guild on the server, not that that counts for much on little old Hellscream, but point is just, we aren't bad.

That said, I have never once issued a healing assignment in our raiding, nor even designated a tank healer. Nor have I encountered any groups that have done so in our progression, except maybe a few having someone focus the tanks. It may be worth noting that we always raid small, 11-14 players generally, but the way the guide makes it sound, you'd go in as a new healer thinking you were gonna have all your healing targets assigned and grouped for you. If you are pugging, this is just NOT the case, you will be lucky to have a Healing CD rotation called out, and more than likely will have to take the initiative and whisper your fellow healers even for that.  And even if you are raiding with an organized guild...well it just hasn't been my experience. For us its always been simple, everyone heals the tanks, everyone heals the raid, prioritize targets that are low, and everything will pan out.

I have never raided Mythic, so I can't attest to that, but I have lead groups, pugged groups, and joined other guilds' raid groups, and never had the kind of healing assignment and group management described here, and I might be a bit surprised going in as a new healer with those expectations.

[Pandacho 286]

2 hours ago, Guest Flame said:

I have never raided Mythic, so I can't attest to that, but I have lead groups, pugged groups, and joined other guilds' raid groups, and never had the kind of healing assignment and group management described here, and I might be a bit surprised going in as a new healer with those expectations.

All Mythic teams have assignments (at least guilds I was and do raid in as well the Mythic guilds I'm familiar with), you can pretty much see it in their videos - most will have Angry Assignments list opened on their screen.

We are not talking about the assignments what group to heal, but definitely raid CDs and personals in the fights where specific boss abilities should be countered multiply times on a permanent basis.

In addition, the assignments would not necessarily come from a RL, most Mythic guilds have a healers channel where healing, damage patterns, CD rotations are discussed and sorted between healers and then posted in Angry Assignments.

Don't forget that there is a players rotation in raids too - a group may have 5-6 healers in roster and use 3-4 during a fight. The assignments list helps to the 'incoming' healers to get right on track just reading a couple of lines.

I would agree though that beyond Mythic there's not much to assign (though there are static raid groups doing this) or there's no possibility to assign - people in a PuG wouldn't listen, read or have the needed addons (hello, Heroic Archi PuGs).

[Valks 2,375]

Just further to what Panda has said, as soon as you hit those Mythic progression bosses, you will see constant assignments for full CD rotations. My screen used to be filled with AngryAssignments, where we had quadrants to heal on some fights, which cooldowns to pop when, which tank needed a cooldown etc.

The last time I pugged as a healer was BRF Mythic and we made everyone in the raid install AA so that we could have proper CD rotations on Gruul, Oregorger and Blast Furnace.

Gruul had quadrant healers, cooldowns for tanks, raid cooldowns for slices, CR targets, everything.

[Guest Tarulia]

Just a note on the Macros. The check for [exists] is redundant, since [dead] and [help] already imply [exists] clientside: http://wow.gamepedia.com/Macro_conditionals#exists

[Valks 2,375]

On 10/10/2016 at 10:36 AM, Guest Tarulia said:

Just a note on the Macros. The check for [exists] is redundant, since [dead] and [help] already imply [exists] clientside: http://wow.gamepedia.com/Macro_conditionals#exists

Doesn't exists allow for use on yourself when neither condition does exist?

[Guest Tarulia]

On 11.10.2016 at 3:52 PM, Blainie said:

Doesn't exists allow for use on yourself when neither condition does exist?

As far as I know that doesn't change anything. Exists only checks on the target it is currently looking at, if it doesn't find any it defaults to self (at least when auto-selfcast is activated in settings). I'm currently using the macros without the exists option and I haven't had any issues. Also the macro includes an [@player] option as a fallback anyway.

[Tarulia 0]

So, finally came around registering :D

Just tested around a little (my account was inactive)

On 11/1/2016 at 0:28 PM, Guest Tarulia said:

if it doesn't find any it defaults to self (at least when auto-selfcast is activated in settings)

Actually works, and is dependant on the Interface "Auto Self Cast" setting, it shows the cast cursor if this is unchecked (hell I haven't seen that one in ages)

On 11/1/2016 at 0:28 PM, Guest Tarulia said:

Also the macro includes an [@player] option as a fallback anyway.

Actually not true, but [] has the same effect so long as the Auto Self Cast option is turned on. If for whatever reason that option is meant to be turned off [@player] can be used instead.

On a side-note: instead of [target=mouseover] you can use the shorter [@mouseover], in case the macro is getting more options and you need that precious space.

[Valks 2,375]

We'll see if we can update the macros with all the new lingo! :p

[Enso 0]

Nowhere in the guide does it mention THREAT. or if you prefer REFERRED THREAT.

For Raid Progression, probably not an issue for a healer and if it is an issue, you probably have bigger issues. But threat is part of the game and as a healer, you can't learn too much about how the game works. If you are a healing leader, as I used to be, you are assisting the Raid Leader and should know enough to comment intelligently on threat.

I have about 25 high end healers (so I am not very good at any healing spec). I have started rolling a new MW and up to 45 right now, I am seeing something in leveling that is strange. It looks like a change to Referred Threat from HOTs for the last mob versus tank body pulls on the next mob......when no-ond DPSs a mob and they make a beeline for the healer.......either run for the tank, run for the exit or man up with big heals :)

I think a section on referred threat, for healers, would be a useful addition in the guide.

I started this discussion on the forum. But so far have not found a usefully knowledgeable person responding :

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20754856418#1

[Valks 2,375]

Will see if we can get a section added about threat - your topic on the forums was an interesting read as well!

[Guest Kristeen]

Hi there! Thank you for the guide and it's progression through the different patches. I just wanted to suggest an update on the link for ElvUI: https://www.tukui.org/download.php?ui=elvui.

Thanks bunches!