[Meeks]

Source: Edgar I only use Grid for 25mans, for 10 mans default Blizzard UI does the job. I too click my next target while casting on my previous target.

This would drive me nuts. First off you lose your targeting on the boss/tank making you miss crucial information, reaction time is slower...what if you click a player and then before you are ready for your next cast someone take a ton of damage...then you have to switch targets and lose cast time.

With grid/clique you do not make your decision until the instant it is needed.

[DwarvenTankard]

Source: Aliena Honestly, as long as you're comfortable with what you're doing and your performance isn't lacking, do your own thing. If your performance isn't up to par or you feel you could improve your playing style it's a whole another story.

This is what it boils down to. Well said.

[Lhasa]

Regardless of whether you use a healing addon or not, you should use mouseover macros IMO. Click targeting + healing is too slow.

I'd say "in general", a healing addon will improve a typical healer's performance. It's a godsend for me.

Don't forget that many healing addons don't just help you heal faster due to simplified click healing. The other benefits:

Easier view of buffs/debuffs
For example my healing addon shows me how many stacks of Earthshield is left on a target. It colors bars of ppl who are debuffed so I can easily tell who to cleanse without having to search for a tiny debuff icon among dozens of other icons. I can customize it to show *only* the buffs/debuffs I want to see.

See who is about to be healed
Most healing addons communicate with each other. So you'll see who is about to be healed (this applies to spells with cast times, of course). That way I can go ahead and cast a heal on someone who isn't currently being targeted by another healer.

(Edit: somehow missed Subpar's post so I basically repeated what he said. )

[klor]

Source: Meeks This would drive me nuts. First off you lose your targeting on the boss/tank making you miss crucial information, reaction time is slower...what if you click a player and then before you are ready for your next cast someone take a ton of damage...then you have to switch targets and lose cast time. With grid/clique you do not make your decision until the instant it is needed.

This doesnt make any sense to me.. How does mouse over macros differ from the way clique/healbot works? They are basically the same concept except mouseover macros offer you more buttons at your disposal and clique is basically muscle memory of ctrl/alt/shift + left/right mouse clicking. How do you "lose cast time" by switching targets you have to heal any differently than you would using clique/healbot? The end result is the same..

I personally use mouse over macros and sRaidFrames. I hated the way Grid had .5 second to 1 second latency on it especially as you added more mods to it like GridManabar or GridRaidStatusDebuff etc etc. The only thing I miss from Grid is being able to move everything at once instead of individually having to move each group.

[Maèl]

Well Priests also have damage spells and you'd be surprised how often we have to use them. My raid for instance wouldn't get into XT hardmode without me also spamming Holy Fire, Smite ond the two dots.

Spells I have to actively use as a priest(read in the order of my keybinds):

Renew(even if it has become unfashionable)
Powerword: Shield
Flash Heal
Penance/Circle of Healing
Hymn of Hope
Greater Healing
Prayer of Mending
Levitate(I actually got good at sending a levitate to airborne targets)
Dispel Magic
Dispel Disease
Mass Disspell
Fear Ward
Inner Focus
Prayer of Healing
Pain Suppression/Guradian Angel
Divine Hymn
Holy Fire
Inner Fire
Shadow Word: Pain
Mind Sear(used that on once or twice; Holy Nova is better)
Holy Nova
Devouring Plague
Shadow Word: Death(quite important to bounce a ProM that has landed on you)
Smite
Mind Blast(trying to get shadow school locked instead of holy)
Binding Heal
Shackle Undead
Psychic Scream
Fade

Shadow Fiend
Wand

I only click the buffs, Mind Soothe, Mind Vision and Resurrect.

That's 16 bound keys. With the exception of shackle, abolish disease and mind sear that's what I use in any given boss fight. Levitate is paired to my rocket boots so even that gets used even tho it is not needed.

That's a little bit beyond Healbot since nearly all my macros(I'm using the whole macro space of my priest and over half of the general macro space) are very close to the 255 character limit.

Dunno, if it works for you, try it. Healbot certainly does not make a healer. I even find the name revolting TBH.

EDIT:
I did this because in vanilla I did preselecting. But too often I found that I couldn't switch targets fast enough. Especially when decursing. After an evening in MC, BWL, Naxx, Ahn'Quirai, Zul'Gurub my right hand did feel sore from all that clicking. So when the first macro system overhaul came I went berzerk.
Coming to think of it I guess nobody could use my interface since I don't even display the Bartender bars for the spells I'm using. It took me literally years of priesting to master that and I'm afraid of each new spell that's been added in addons. But that's what I measure every priest against. You could say I'm a little bit elitist against other priest players to be brutally honest. It was the only class I played for a couple of years.

[Meeks]

Edgar said he selected a person then healed them. That is not mouse over macros.

And if you had a mouse with only 2 button then yes clique would be nearly impossible to use. My mouse has 7 buttons. Right/Left/scroll up/scroll down/click scroll/2 thumb buttons making it the most intuitive system for me.

Sure if you spend the time to set up all the mouse over macros and use whatever raid frames you like you will end up with the same basic set-up...i say clique/grid because that is what I use but when I use that terminology I mean for it to extend to healbot/custom macros.

This is not what I was addressing though. I was addressing people that use default frames with no mouse over work which is in my opinion an incredibly inefficient way to heal.

[Meeks]

Mael...a large amount of the skills you listed are not raid targeted spells and have nothing to do with this discussion. I have plenty of spells also that I have hot keyed outside of clique.

[Bashal]

Source: Maèl That's 16 bound keys...That's a little bit beyond Healbot since nearly all my macros(I'm using the whole macro space of my priest and over half of the general macro space) are very close to the 255 character limit.

You're listing more than healing spells and cleanses, though, which is really all one uses healbot for. You can use clique for offensive spells too (dont know how often that feature is used though), by configuring mouse clicks for when you click on an enemy's unit frame.

Offensive spells/macros are on my action bar, and I do use them myself if the fight calls for it, as I'm sure many others do. All my healing and cleasing is done via healbot, though.

Source: Maèl Healbot certainly does not make a healer.

I don't think anyone posting here is trying to say it makes one. A bad healer, with or without mods, is a bad healer. A skilled healer, with or without mods, is a skilled healer.

Source: Maèl I even find the name revolting TBH.

I don't see how a name can be used to evaluate the usefulness of something.

[Meeks]

Source: Bashal I don't think anyone posting here is trying to say it makes one. A bad healer, with or without mods, is a bad healer. A skilled healer, with or without mods, is a skilled healer.

skilled healer with mods > skilled healer without

Mouseover mods/macros couple with good raid frames are a tool, an incredibly powerful tool. It takes a good healer to put them to good use but they grant you the potential to preform at a higher level.

[Maèl]

Source: Meeks Mael...a large amount of the skills you listed are not raid targeted spells and have nothing to do with this discussion. I have plenty of spells also that I have hot keyed outside of clique.

Meeks, they are. I keep my DoTs and HF rolling whenever I can spare the CD/Mana. I've had too many 1% wipes not to be totally anal about that. I try to help out with damage in Anub phase 3 for instance because here 2 additional ticking dots really can tip the balance.
...and of course there's alwas boredom.

With the amount of mana that comes in with replenishment, clever timing of shadow fiend/pots/trinkets/hymn of hope and whatnot I have phases where I find myself sitting on a huge mana pool. I'd rather blow excess rage^Wmana than do nothing.

[Bashal]

Source: Meeks skilled healer with mods > skilled healer without

That was what was in the OP's post, people saying stuff like it makes a bad healer better and a skilled one more skilled. Some other posters said something similar, but what they were getting at is that they felt it reduced their reaction times. That's not skill, that's just cutting out the "middleman" of an additional click. Which you can also do, of course, with mouseover macros.

If you take the sum of what was said, that's what people are saying.

[Meeks]

Source: Maèl Meeks, they are. I keep my DoTs and HF rolling whenever I can spare the CD/Mana. I've had too many 1% wipes not to be totally anal about that. I try to help out with damage in Anub phase 3 for instance because here 2 additional ticking dots really can tip the balance. ...and of course there's alwas boredom. With the amount of mana that comes in with replenishment, clever timing of shadow fiend/pots/trinkets/hymn of hope and whatnot I have phases where I find myself sitting on a huge mana pool. I'd rather blow excess rage^Wmana than do nothing.

You are not understanding what I am saying. Cooldowns/aoes/untargeted spells one would simply hot key rather than but into clique. You are trying to make clique do things it does not do. Holy nova/hymns/inner focus/fade are not targeted and kind of silly to waste a mouse over binding on since you can just use the hot key whenever you want.

Also one of the advantages of clique is that the boss is always targeted. All of your damage spells can be fired with normal hot keys without changing any targeting.

[Maèl]

I also have always the boss targeted. I need to see the casting bar move to be really alert. I also need to see who he is targeting. For instance Ony phase two in order to pre shield. The fun thing is that with mouseover healing I don't have to search for my target in Grid or something. Hover the mouse over target of target and go.

In case of Penance you'll need a macro if you want to keep the boss targeted. It doubles as a damage spell.


But you are right, I don't see what Clique is for. Apparantly I can achieve the same thing with macros. Thiout straining the tendons of my index and middle finger. Which by now are seriously broken.

Edit: This is becoming sidetracked.
Let's agree that there are many ways to set up your healing interface. It's only important that you do.

[Bashal]

Source: Maèl Edit: This is becoming sidetracked. Let's agree that there are many ways to set up your healing interface. It's only important that you do.

Seconded.

[Goomba]

lol....yeah

for healbot, which is the only system I've worked extensively, I use programmed macros on my G13 keyboard and a 5 button mouse....and yeah, I can get all my spells in front of me using this combo....but it took me a while, and I didn't start using the g13 until a month ago, after leveling with healbot as a holy spec.....so yeah, some macros for dmg spells and such are awesome, and I couldn't just use a 2-3 button mouse for healbot....that being said, I do think its worth checking out some addons if you're building from the ground up....people keep pointing out that "that addon just does ____ and I can write a macro for that..." which is always true....personally, my computer can handle the addons without lag, and I'd rather play the game than write code, no matter how simple, so I use other people's work....a lot of the folks that have all of their macros and mouseovers have built quite a collection of them over time....again, if you don't have the collection, and you enjoy writing them, write on! if you wanna try something that is decently intuitive with some adjustments, try healbot or clique....very different ways of functioning....I'm a fan of all the color coding, etc I can do in healbot, and all the buffs/debuffs I can see so I know what to cleanse or buff or heal where and when....one of the big changes I've noticed since Molten Core days is that I can actually keep track of the whole 25 man raid because it feels so small compared to the 40 mans we used to run....so when I'm using healbot, just having color coded class bars and mana bars is enough for me to know what to cast where, and because it shows raid icons, etc, I can stay engaged with the situational awareness stuff that can be so troubling.....

[Reichsadler]

Source: Pyrea In my experience healbot was slower to register incoming damage than grid. this is the reason why I use grid+clique on my healer char. I dont particularly hate healbot, I just prefer grid

Healbot allows you to adjust the refresh rate. You probably had it set to the default, you can set it so it will update the bars more or less frequently.

Source: DwarvenTankard The problem I have with it is it lowers the level of awareness of healers. If you find yourself staring at bars healing instead of moving out of fire or maintaining your proper distance from players and mobs then healbot is affecting your awareness in a negative manner...

I hear people say this all the time and I cannot even begin to guess where the thought process comes from on this. Unless you are only healing one target and just spamming heals constantly all healers are looking at bars (or something that prepresents health) regardless if they are the bars on healbot, grid, the default unit frames or whatnot, so I do not see how this argument can fly.

If a person is just paying attention to the bars and not what is going on around him it is no fault of a particular mod or method, it is more of the person having a situational awareness issue.

I use healbot because I prefer performing the action (heal, shield, cleanse etc.) with a single click (or modifier + click) than to have to select the target then perform a keypress. I also like being able to have a mob targets so I can pay attention to their actions and time a heal to go off just after a big hit comes in such as Onyxia's Flame Breath. I also use the click to target and keypress to heal when I have to, like when I used to heal students on the Instructor Razuvious fight.

I have been planning on looking into Clique and Grid (I currently use grid as well) but have not gotten around to setting it up yet.

Another thing I like about the single click to heal method that healbot and other mods offer is that you cannot make the mistake of having the wrong target selected and thinking you are healing another. I have died a few times tanking with healers telling me they where spamming heals on me and not knowing why my health was not going up and they realized they had not had me targeted.

Overall I think Healbot is a good mod, though I always test my cleanse/cleanse spirit because sometimes it gets unbound for some unexplained reason.

Mods are just tools, use whatever works best for you.

[orcstar]

I can feel where some people are coming from.
It's the reactionary vs predictionary healer.
Addons don't make a healer but they can modify behaviour. If you're select-target healing, every time you heal you lose a bit of time compared to the healbot healer. To be able to compete with the healbot healer you need to know better what to do next.
In this example, the non healbot healer learns (out of need) to predict better where next damage will be.
In short, addons like clique or healbot or even mouseover casting increase reaction time and you don't lose your target. On the other hand, at some points it can make it too easy so much that you don't learn or learn later valuable skills a non-mod/macro learns earlier out of need.

And I also know where the hate comes from. Out of the box, healbot does a decent job. So a new healer, start his nax and begins healing. You see a bar go down, you click it. That way works pretty ok and you can get pretty far. But at some point the "I see a bar go down" training doesn't work anymore and the person relying on his limited number of spells and little awareness training hits the brick wall.

In the end use the right tool for the right job. I was healer in tbc, shaman and found an addon like healbot invaluable in the situations with heavy raid damage. On the other hand: you wouldnt see me using it a lot for maintank healing. (and even though consensus was that shamans couldn't MT heal, I amazed my guilds paladins with my performance just doing that)

[sangredios]

Source: DwarvenTankard The problem I have with it is it lowers the level of awareness of healers. If you find yourself staring at bars healing instead of moving out of fire or maintaining your proper distance from players and mobs then healbot is affecting your awareness in a negative manner and you might want to think about switching to an addon that not only lets you monitor the health of your raid members but also the fights progress, raid member's debuffs, and what is happening to yourself.

Awareness is not a healer only problem, i've seen dps died to the same things as often if not more then healers. I really can't see how this can be blamed on healbot, i'm sure they are not using it.

Healers are only human, keeping an eye on 24 other players making sure non of them die while keeping yourself out of harms way is not as easy as it sounds. Sometimes you will be focusing on something and not see that you are in range of something that will kill you, other times you will make a bad dissision that will kill you, like healing the tank and not moving fast enough... it's all human.

[Maèl]

Source: sangredios Awareness is not a healer only problem, i've seen dps died to the same things as often if not more then healers. I really can't see how this can be blamed on healbot, i'm sure they are not using it. Healers are only human, keeping an eye on 24 other players making sure non of them die while keeping yourself out of harms way is not as easy as it sounds. Sometimes you will be focusing on something and not see that you are in range of something that will kill you, other times you will make a bad dissision that will kill you, like healing the tank and not moving fast enough... it's all human.

qft

I used to joke that I could say what boss we were on just by looking at Grid. BWL and Nax changed that big time. Then you had to actually move and pay attention. That's where I learned anticipating damage.

Healer interfaces generally are total information overload and staring at Grid just gives you tunnel vision. Back in BC I started dabbling in PVP and there I picked up the habit by healing directly who was standing in front of me. Not Grid but the good oldfashioned 3D viewport.

Then I sat down and made a list of stuff I had to know while in combat. Then I went ahead and set up my interface accordingly.

I need cooldown timers, so I downloaded an addon for just that. I scaled it to very small and placed it right next to my toon.

When holy I need to know my very short buffs. Same goes on my warrior tank. So I got SBF, set the filters, scaled it to very small and placed it beneath my toon.

I need to know when I gain a debuff. So I set up Parrot to show me gaining/losing of debuffs. Healing and damage done dont interest me, so i got rid of it.

I need to have the raids status at a glance so I picked up Grid. I set up grid so it only shows debuffs I can decurse. I set up to display aggro. I set it up to display encounter specific dangerous debuffs. I set it up to show shield and weakened soul and that's it. This way I have a very small grid window.

I placed it directly over my toon.

I need to see me, my targets, my targets target and the same for my focus target. So I went ahead and got ag_unitframes and placed that close to the bottom of my screen.

My action bars for clicky stuff like rezzing and such have been banished to the lower right hand of my screen.

In fight I can see everything that's going on directly around my toon. I get visual alerts directly over Grid when I'm standing in the fire.

Since I have keybound almost everything I set my action bars to invisible.

If I need to know more I switch out of my tunnel vision and can see what is going on in the raid. Movement patterns, placement and such. Think Jaraxxus and Valkyrs. If I do that then I'm not closely watching Grid but I am rather healing directly in the screen. Via mouseover. Especially in a Valkyr fight I can see when a fellow healer is going to be hit by balls and place a shield directly on him.

The gist is:
Don't overload your screen with redundant information. Only show whatever you need. You can either be Grid focussed(tunnel vision) or raid aware. Tho the latter will prevent you knowing what's going on on the other side of the boss. You can't have both. What you do depends on the fight or even on the phase of the fight.
It took me ages to achieve that and I simply can't play any other class but priest now. I'm learning warrior tank but it will take ages until I'm a decent tank. Never had to strafe

[Meeks]

Yes you can have both. You are used grid completely wrong if you think if makes you tunnel vision and not fight aware.

Fight awareness is actually a strength of clique/grid for those that use it right. I ALWAYS have boss targeted. Grid also shows me all the pertinent raid debuffs. Whenever boss does something I see the cast bar and react well before deadly boss mods starts yelling at me.

Global cooldown affords a lot of time to pay attention to things around you.

Sometimes things go wrong on the other side of the boss, if you are not ready to immediately adjust and plug a hole you are holding the raid back. A healer HAS to know what is happening to the raid or they will never be an upper tier healer. learning how to know the raid health/debuff situation while being aware of the encounter is the entire challenge of being a healer. Giving up on it and focusing on one side, might as well become a warlock and incinerate your way to success.