So I made an extremely sexy Draenei Priest and want to heal with her. I plan on healing both pvp and pve, and will admit I’m quite the noob when it comes to healing as I haven’t done it since Legion, and that was with a pally.
Anyways, what do ya’ll recommend for a noob healer as far as addons go?
I, personally, have been using Healbot for ages. I find it simple to set up compared to Vuhdu and I can’t make my own macros worth my life. lol
I can have it tell me when someone needs cleansed, so I don’t need a separate addon and I like the way I have it set up off the side of my screen with all the little health boxes to click on and all of the buffs displayed on each person’s box.
omnicd and the incoming spells weakaura are helpful
i moved away from healing addons like healbot and vuhdo since the default party frames with some weakauras and the baked-in mouseover + click casting features do the trick
otherwise id recommend finding weakaura packages based on your spec. Rdruid for example may want an adaptive swarm weakaura. I usually make my own weakauras for cooldowns
you’ll also want a boss mods addon if you dont have it already. i prefer bigwigs
oh i like bigdebuffs too. it makes dispellable debuffs large with an icon
Healbot is very simple to set up, but it’s nowhere near as versatile as Vuhdo. Vuhdo has a learning curve…but once you get past that learning curve and know how to configure it, it’s VERY versatile, and you can set up different profiles for different classes/specs and also only have to do it once.
That said, you do have to size and set up all your bars for all raid sizes, then you have to set up the buffs and debuffs you want it to notify you of, how you want it to notify you (color change usually). But you can make profiles for different classes and specs and then export them to others, and load them anytime.
It was a hurdle, but once I made the switch and learned how to use it I wondered how I ever used Healbot. Vuhdo isn’t difficult to configure, it’s just…not very intuitive if you don’t already know how to use it.
I’m an old man who doesn’t like to change so I still use Grid for my unit frames and Clique instead of mouse-over macros. The current stock raid frames are fine though, I’m just so used to how Grid displays the info.
Before wondering about addons, it is important to identify your gameplay goals.
Having an addon isn’t going to magically make you a AoTC, KSH or Rival level. They are not a replacement for understanding the base game and the basics of how a class + spec worm.
I don’t use any “healing” addons and I have 2 healers that are near 3k M+ score, 3 healers with AoTC and I’ve played healing to 2k pvp rating. I never found a scenario where a healing specific addon would be needed.
I don’t mind using the default raid frames with mouseover macros (and you don’t need macros either anymore there is an option).
Healbot is usually seen as the easiest to set up.
All of them typically end up having the same end goal. Which is basically just a way of having mouse over macros and unit frames. So as far as that function, they are basically the same. The less easy to set up, typically relates to having more customizations.
I tend to go back and forth between grid and standard ElvUI unit frames. While using Clique. I could probably drop Clique and use the native mouseover support, but I have been using it so long its just easier to keep it.
the default party raid-style frames are actually quite good. i used to use a skin that made them look very nice, dont have it since i uninstall/reinstalled.
i used healbot early but it wasnt showing the information i wanted to see clearly enough and i couldnt be bothered to mess with it.
golden rule with any ui (which i dont actually follow) is that simple is better. show only as much info as you need, in the most concise way possible. you’ll want your party frames either toward the middle vertically and offset to keep most of the middle horizontal axis clear, or you can orient it horizontally in the center, offset vertically (if that makes any sense). You dont want to have it too far off to the edge or else your eyes and cursor will be darting back and forth too much, but you also dont want it to obscure anything happening around you
That’s something I was thinking on as well. Setting up my party frames to where i dont have my eyes bouncing around so much.
Elvui does a good job at showing you what’s going on with your raid/or bg so i use that in combination with an add-on for macros called clique. I felt healbot and others like vudu made my game run a lot worse.
yeah, i explained it in kind of a convoluted way but if you watch a decent healer’s stream you can see the common setups. some also have info about their ui and addons/weakauras they use if you see something you like. Roiben was a good resource for my rdruid back in S1.
i forgot to mention plater but i recommend that for anyone, especially if you’re getting into m+.
Im an oldie and I’m sticking to Healium until the end.
I suggest vertically to the side of your would be target. You want as little distance between your unfriendly target and your party frames as possible.
I don’t suggest many add-ons. I use clique because I bind dispel to right click. You can’t do that without that addon. You need to click “show only dispellable debuffs” in the game settings. Priest does not have a snare removal that can be used on allies, or a bleed removal, so there’s a few weakaura you won’t need. You need omnicd to track party defensives, though I really only use it to flame people for dying and not using a defensive. You need targeted spells weakaura pack. You need to find the one that shows all spells in the game on party frames. You need big wigs.
For context, I’m healer main at 3.2k+, and 3 other healer classes with similar. So basically almost all classes.