[Maèl]

Meeks, when I'm centered on Grid of course I see what is going on elsewhere. But it adds to my reaction time.

Especially in fights where I have to keep the whole raid bubbled I need to concentrate on Grid in order to see when I have to reapply my Shields. The alternative would be not shielding or having some kind of addon shouting at me that somebodies weakened soul has expired. This is important in fights like Hodir, tantrums and other plannable raid damage. There is no alternative to being Grid centric in these occasions. Even tho I have Grid set up so it shouts WS and PW:S status at me.
The trick is to know when to play Grid whack-a-mole and when not. Which boils down to knowing the fights.

[Goomba]

Source: Maèl The trick is to know when to play Grid whack-a-mole and when not. Which boils down to knowing the fights.

this is the single most important thing to know about any addon or technique....how and when to use it....for one's personal play style....and when to change one's personal play style to achieve different goals...

[Jwhite]

Healbot can easily be set up to show anything and EVERYTHING that Grid does. Debuffs, buffs, range, aggro, hots, timers. ANYTHING. Healbot is just hard to setup, which means people who already stink at healing probably dont have it setup correctly to begin with. People who say healbot makes you bad base that on two things: 1. They have seen bad healers use it. 2. They downloaded it themselves (and yes, they all did) and couldnt configure it so they hate it now too.

[Doc309]

hmmm

this conversation seems a bit heated...

i haven't tried healbot for the last year, but i've used grid and found it quite useful. especially when its center bottom on the screen rather than off to a side. See LeveeUI but i've been messing around with a beautiful UI and keybinds/macros. Tuk's in both though i've added smartbuffandsmart debuff.
smart buff, set it up, get a text/sound notification ... press a keybind does each of your buffs... keep pressing 'til notifications stop.
smart debuff, minimal set up, small unit frames that change color when party member has something bad you can get rid of ... and shows L/M/R, mouse over frame click L/M/R mouse button "something bad" goes away. too damn useful!!!

addons macros and UI's are tools ... your UI can be a good tool ui guide but you are the craftsman.

i'll finish with two quotes.

"never bring a knife to a gunfight"
as an army medic, id love to have a HUD in RL showing me who really needed help.
my old guild had a no raids on patch day rule... i guess that would be
"never bring a broken gun to a knife fight"

and a japanese proverb.
"when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

since the OP asked the question... he's looking to be a better craftsman.
try the tools... see which ones work for you.

Doc

[Bashal]

Source: Doc309 this conversation seems a bit heated...

I think it's due to more than a bit of "omg you heal like THAT?"

By that I mean, different approaches to the same solution, with different advantages. One was preferable to one person, and they have trouble fathoming why someone else prefers their solution, and in fact, doesn't much like the other options.

[Ollin]

Source: Aliena I've never used Clique or Healbot and I'm not very fond of mouseover macros either. I heal with Grid and I usually pre-select a player before I cast a spell so it works for me. 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.

I play a disc priest in raids an I've been using Vuhdo lately.

I used to just have a dedicated healing bar + grid but i found it a bit easier to bind some of my utility spells to mouseclicks for raid support. Now I use my left hand (belkin 52te) to heal the MT, and my mouse to support the raid (shield spam, dispel, renew, and abolish disease).

IMO healbot can, at best, make a bad healer adequate. Good healers will be good no matter what tools you give them. The main difference is that a good healer, given good tools, will be able to leverage a lot more out of his class.

[Gretchin]

I have never used Healbot myself but from my experience through others in my raid it is an addon that messes up a lot and if the healer who uses it disconnects they "can't heal" or something. This is why I use Grid, because it's stable, plus I'm too lazy to switch to something unfamilliar.

I would suggest that you use what you feel works for you and your style of play. If you consider a change I think Healbot, Grid, Grid + Clique or VuhDo would work very well.

[minrog]

When Healbot fails or breaks somehow, it seems like the healers who use it become helpless. I've died enough times when they can't select me, or use the pet frame bar due to the addon, that I don't trust it in a raid environment. Xperl is another addon I've learned to mistrust for similar reasons. I don't use those addons, maybe their features would make them great if they had better quality control. Can't recall a time where the raid wiped because Grid "won't let me target you".

[Maèl]

Source: minrog When Healbot fails or breaks somehow, it seems like the healers who use it become helpless. I've died enough times when they can't select me, or use the pet frame bar due to the addon, that I don't trust it in a raid environment. Xperl is another addon I've learned to mistrust for similar reasons. I don't use those addons, maybe their features would make them great if they had better quality control. Can't recall a time where the raid wiped because Grid "won't let me target you".

This.
I've been healing since 2005 and I can't count the number of essential addons that broke on me. Back then CT_Raidassist was needed because Blizz was very slow to add proper raid unit frames.
I had addons that were so broken that even a mouseover over a unit gave me an error popup. But only on on bossfight so I didn't even know it was broken until it was too late.

Anybody remember old school decursive? The version that didn't require you to pick a target? You only had to smash your decursive button. Splendid. Job done. Blizz was rather annoyed with that so they got rid of auto targetting in addons. I remember there was quite a bit of panic in my raid. "Oh how shall we get past this boss or that boss! We're doooomed!". Funnily the healers adapted quite fast but mages on decursing duty suffered a hard blow.

If you can't heal without what blizz has provided then you can be in serious trouble when either the addon becomes discontinued or Blizz gets annoyed with the mechanic. Time and again they spoke up on not liking this type of addon and that. Very often they let actions follow.

I really doubt that Healbot/Clique will be discontinued since it has a rather large user base and there is always someone willing to fork it. Also I don't think that binding stuff to mouse combination is against Blizz's policy. But dependence on outside means never is good.

[Therelin]

i LOVED healbot when i used it but i wanted something more cause it just simpley too up TOO much of my screen i went to grid + Clique used it for a while and then found Vuhdo and i havent went back to anything since i got this mod i LOVE it reminds me of Clique & grid all in one

to be honest i have only used addons to heal since i havent been playing for long and most of the healers in my guild use healbot/vuhdo because i have recommended it and there are a few 'old schoolers' out there that dont use them.

[Coro]

I finally tried healbot out and it wasn't for me. I recommended it to a couple druids who make use out of it, but I think I've been healing to long how I've been doing it to change, and in my opinion I'm already doing what healbot did. Select someone, click the spell, move on. I just use my keyboard instead of my mouse.

Thanks all for the responses, advice, and semi-debates about it. I think, like most of you pointed out, it really depends on the player and their own playstyle.

[orcstar]

Source: Coro I finally tried healbot out and it wasn't for me. I recommended it to a couple druids who make use out of it, but I think I've been healing to long how I've been doing it to change, and in my opinion I'm already doing what healbot did. Select someone, click the spell, move on. I just use my keyboard instead of my mouse. Thanks all for the responses, advice, and semi-debates about it. I think, like most of you pointed out, it really depends on the player and their own playstyle.

That's NOT the way I'm used to heal with healbot. With healbot I clicked a name with any of my mousebuttons with or without some shift, ctrl or alt modifiers and the spell would go off on the person I clicked on.

[robbon]

im quite impressed with the number of tanks here that have healers as chars as well.

My primary char is tank. My primary role is tank. My offspec is arms dps...i play occasionally as arms but mainly tank.

For fun and to help others i play my prst and heal.

As such i use healbot. I dont have the raid experience or the necessity to be a primary raid healer for the guild as such i dont have many key binds or use fancy macros for healing.

Healbot suffices and enables me to enjoy the game rather than struggle or have to set up my binds everytime i switch to him.

I recommend every tank try healing and vice versa.

[Bashal]

Since it kept being mentioned, I tried VuhDo (usually use Healbot).

Just my opinion, but I think VuhDo > Healbot. VuhDo is awesome.

[Doc309]

my prot warrior was my first toon. long before i found this site ... i got my second a hunter to 60, and then 70 first. warrior got to 70, then a frost mage ...
there was MUCH GUILD DRAMA... right before wrath came out, so i ended up soloing to 80 - hunter, tank, frost farmer
having taken 7 months away from game ... army moved me to germany ... my kit isn't really up to the GS standards the PuGs seem to require these days.. so maybe i'll do a heroic on an 80, now and then ... my new guild is very helpful, but time differences make raiding with them impossible. so i end up on alt runs/pugs...
But now my favorite toon to play is a disc/shadow priest ...BY FAR... and i'm still lvling him. got him from 50-72, in about two weeks. he's my first dual spec toon. shadow for when soloing, and disc to group with a friends mage.... a mage with a pocket healer can complete some grind quests in record time ... LOL
i've healed some instances ... find it challenging, ... and exciting?
another part of the game for me, from early on has always been UIs and addons. getting the perfect look, with the perfect functionality ... SWEET.
i spend my time not lvling my priest working to get the beauty of TUKUI (can be found on wowinterface.com ) functional as i like it. which is hard since TUK is very minimal and sets most "options" through LUA editing...
I've just figured out (kinda) how to get Vuhdo to work with his UI... the key was in changing the action bars ...

BUT THE POINT IS---
everyone should should try tanking healing and dps...

sub point ---
everyone wanting to be a craftsman should know his tools
(try vuhdo?)

Doc

[Blue]

I am a Warr tank who now also has a Priest of the Shadow/Holy...I lvled him up, precisely because I wanted to know how "the other half" lived. It has changed my appreciation of both classes...especially, the healer. I don't ever let a fight go by, without thanking my healer for the "awesome" save, or, asking him/her if I'm going too fast, for them, etc.

Conversely, since I'm just starting to use my Holy spec, I'm going through a lot of what this thread has been discussing. I'm trying to use Healbot, but end up using frames, and keyboard bindings, while in the fight. So far, healbot works for me, when I'm using it for pre-fight buffs, and debuffs (just discovered colored bars, for this).

I must say, I'm really having a hard time with situational awareness...haven't been told to "get out of the fire", in a long time, but this happened to me in Koralon-25, the other day...(this was way over my head, but a guildie asked, and sounded desparate, so...)

I also find that I forget to heal myself--now, that's embarrassing!!

[delphian23]

I guess I'm considered newer* to WoW start playing post BC. I have 2 toons(druid/pally) that have healing specs and have used healbot from day one with both. I am 100% dependant on it, its only happened twice but for whatever reason it was closed out or crashed midfight and i was useless, take into account the insane number of things i have healed and its kind of like ok whatever I could have just as easliy had a critical wow error and crashed out.

Would it have been nice in those 2 instances to have been able to fall back on some other style sure but in the end the % is so low its easy to live with.

Im used to it love it live by it and recommend it to anyone who asks, you sound like your system is working perfect for you. It takes time to get really good with anything and once you get used to one thing even longer to get used to something new. So in short if what your doing works stick with it if your looking for some help try several different options and stick with the one you like most .

I LOVE HEALBOT

[Skyborn]

I don't use healbot or any other healing mod and I don't feel at a disadvantage. I really really enjoy healing as is, and honestly I'm really good at it. I've never felt handicapped in any way, or slow at all. When I tell people I don't use any healing mods they usually *boggle*

I think the reason is I use different smaller mods to achieve the same ends as most healing mods.

Healing mods serve to:
1. Give you all the information you need, as clear as possible, so that you can make the best spell choice decision. Without information you can't even react, let alone anticipate.
2. Make the act of casting heals efficient and easy, so that once you've made your choice about which heal to cast, you can get it off without delay.

As long as your setup allows you to do those two things, I think more power to you.

Personally, I use x-perl for raid frames, event alert for notifications (like oh hey, you have a free flash heal) and mouse+keybindings to actually get my heals off.

X-Perl lets me see how much health a raid member's lacking, which debuffs are present, if weakened soul is up, if renew is about to expire etc etc. It grays out when people are out of range. It highlights who has aggro in a red frame. It pretty much gives me every bit of info I need to make informed decisions and anticipate problems and preheal them.

Event alert tells me when Surge of Light procs, if Serendipity is up etc etc. That's all I need to handle my reactive abilities.

And while I know I technically have to do an extra-button press instead of just a shift+click or alt+click... my healing method of clicking on the raid frame and then pressing my keybinding works well for me. I have every single healing skill keybound, and I can pretty much instantly click on a target and have a heal off or inc. And after the pull starts, when I'm casting my spell or waiting on my GCD I already have my next heal target selected and I'm spamming my next healing skill. I don't know if thats clear but basically there's no delay between casts with my method. Every GCD is locked in and used and I feel very comfortable in high-pressure situations.

Works fine for me, and it's super stable. Of course, if I'm missing out on a HUGE feature of healbot that I'm not getting w/ my current set-up, I'd love to hear it.

[Akeber]

It's funny that healbot is still viewed as a crutch. Most of this comes from "old timers" that remember when healbot first came on the scene. Back in the day, it used to automatically select a lower rank heal (when downranking was used to save mana) bassed on the amount of health missing from the target of that heal. Even today, the "bot" in the name implies to some that it is making decisions for you.

Healbot is simply a set of customizable raid frames with a build in hover+click cast module, the same as grid+click, and vuhdo. Using stock raid frames and hover macros bound to keystrokes is essentially the same thing.

Selecting a target and clicking a spell (or hitting the keybind for that spell) will always be a slower process than any of the above.

[Skyborn]

Source: Akeber Selecting a target and clicking a spell (or hitting the keybind for that spell) will always be a slower process than any of the above.

My biggest concern with switching to a mouse-centered healing mod that requires you to use different variations of left/right/shift/alt/ctrl clicks is that when I'm raiding I almost always have my right mouse button down. This lets me not only pan my view so I'm constantly aware of my surroundings, but it helps me do super quick turns / move accurately and on a dime which is very useful for dealing with boss mechanics.

How do click healers deal with situations that require you to be very mobile / aware and heal at the same time? Fights like Fac Champs / Anub / Valks ... shoot pretty much all of them? Do you just keyboard turn and keep the heals coming via the mouse?