So I’m trying to learn how to play a healer and it’s been difficult for me to get down. I’ve tried Healbot/Healium/Vuhdo and just started messing with mouse over macros. I’ve had some success on my Druid with mouse over macros but other than that I am just awful with it… When I play a DPS class I feel like I can just run any sort of UI but when I wanna heal and focus on that I feel like I need this complex UI setup…
Looking at all my options to possibly make this better for me but right now I just feel so slow at it but I feel like I’m dragging people behind by having me in the group. For those who heal or focus just only on healing… How do you do it?
For healing 5+ people i just have mouseover macros for everything and i have raid frames enlarged and near the centre of my screen. Generally i don’t unselect the target i’m dpsing and just mouseover heals to keep the dpsing fluid
I’m lazy and also have focus macros for every heal spell, so if i’m healing mainly a tank i’ll just put them on focus and then hit shift+whatever keybind for the heal
I have the same setup with ctrl+keybind modifier for quickly healing a second target that isnt my focus
I don’t use any healing addons and just have macros for everything
So to recap, 1-12 are heal spell mouseover macros (mouseover priority, if no mouseover then heal selected target, if no selected target then heal self)
Shift 1-12 are focus heal macros
Ctrl 1-12 are focus heal macros for secondary target
Use default Blizzard raid frames and select to use them in party as well. Then use mouseover macros until they make mouseover default in coming patches.
I haven’t tried addons that help with healing, but for me the easiest, and the most comfortable way is to write mouseover macros for every ability that can be used on your allies.
Also a huge role plays the positioning of your rotation and cooldowns. For example, you could place all big cooldowns together on a certain action bar and keybind them close, that’d be your “emergency panel”
Also if healing ability is applied on the certain area, like Druid’s Efflorescence- create a mouseover for it too, it’s minus one unnecessary click.
Let me know, I can drop all my Druid or Paladin macros for you to try out
I’m probably considered in the minority, but i just use the grid addon for raid frames, and i click the frames and heal what i need to.
no other special ui setup other than slightly changed raid frames.
the frames really just simplify info as well for me. rather than having the spell icons to tell me what hots are active, its just colored dots.
most of “good” healing really just comes from knowing fights and high damage points. You’re basically just planning out what spells to use in response to when you know damage will happen.
Use raid frames. Don’t need complex UI, but as you get better you might want mods to improve your reaction and tracking and such, but that can wait.
Get a feel for clicking on raid frames, but learn to not tunnel on it too hard. The rest of healing will be understanding how your kit works, no different than how dps works. It’ll just take time and practice.
Started with Healbot back in Wrath when I first started healing.
Tried Clique
Tried Grid and mouseover macros + keybinds
They are all inferior, in my opinion, to Vuhdo.
In a thread like this you are going to get every answer under the sun because everyone has a preference, you just have to find something you like and stick with it. You’ll eventually get better at it. Look at top ranked players in Arena, M+ or M raiding and you’ll find every type of healing setup being used, there is no one right way just whatever works for you.
That’s what I do too. Plus a few weakauras for better tracking. I guess my contribution to the thread would be mentioning keybindings (lol) and weakauras.
I like mouseover macros. I feel like they’re closer to how you use spells in WoW - pressing buttons. Vudho and such addons use mouse clicks with modifiers, which is counter intuitive in my opinion.
So I would recommend setting up mouseover macros for the most important healing spells on whatever buttons you’re used to pressing while doing DPS rotation and try some easy content with them.
Have you played a hybrid DPS spec? Did you have healing spell bound? I recommend leaving it at the same button in your healing spec for more familiarity. In fact, I recommend making a mouseover macro for that spell even for DPS spec and try off healing a bit with it. It should help getting used to the feeling.
I used vuhdu and I have the mouse with buttons on the side of it. I can easily bind my heals to buttons to my mouse (in the Vuhdo settings) and when I hover over the Vuhdo plates I just click to heal that way. So that way my normal set up for damage is outside of the Vuhdo plates and then when I need to heal I just move my mouse over to it and heal.
I use mouseover macros for healing. It lets me seamlessly weave healing and DPS since I can keep the mobs targeted the entire time and I never have to click anything.
I’ve tried a lot of mods over the years and they just feel really clunky by comparison.
Edit: I use raid-style party frames. They’re compact and succinct.
I have quite a bit going on in my ui because I prefer it that way but really all you need is a good mouse over macro and to use the raid style frames and out them in a better spot near the middle of your screen.
I’m on my phone atm on the porcelain throne so I can’t link my actual macro but I’m sure you will be able to google one easy enough or I can later if you need it.
i use vuhdo and just use my standard 3 mouse button. right click, left click, center button, wheel up and wheel down. simply hover over the frame and click and thats it. i do have other stuff macro’d to other buttons like 1-0 or like alt+right click.
really isn’t that hard tbh. the hardest part is positioning your frames so it’s not so far away as well as learning to weave in dps and healing at the same time. i have base UI as well only thing i use is vuhdo frames and thats it. just takes practice and toying around with. not worth bothering having extra bs on your screen that isn’t important like i used to track other peoples earth shield and all that but it doesn’t even matter unless were running double shamans in a raid group or something.
I use Vuhdo for all my characters. In fact, I use the same UI layout for all of them. It makes it so I don’t have to think where things are. All you have to do is remember they key combinations with it and you’re able to heal and DPS during downtime. I don’t know if this is allowed or not, but here’s how my setup looks in raid.
Edit: Skip to the 1 hour and 30 minute mark for the healy bit.
Vuhdo, Omni cd and mouseovers…set up is frustrating the first time around ( was for me at least) but once you get that out of the way it’s easy life. I never target players to heal. Not swapping back and forth to dps saves a lot of time. I’m slow, I need every extra second
