Learning to heal with a druid + addons that can help!

Alakuu — Thu, 06/25/2009 - 14:26

HEY!

I'm a current applicant! Duriden. And I'm setting up a druid healer as an alt. Man I feel in over my head. Sure I'm decent at healing one target. But even with Grid and Clique. But I don't believe I'm setting things up right. And have had a real headache with Clique. The whole I bound something to my right mouse button and me not being able to select people was quite a pain!

So any suggestions. Presetups or just what I should have done! Right now I have Rejuv as Right click Nourish as left click and my others bound around my keyboard (they're setup as just macros and bartender using the mouse over macro; I can't figure out how to bind keys to clique.)

Also any help / suggestions as to what my rotation should be is more then welcome!

UI/Macros

Clique + macros.

Prime8 — Sat, 10/17/2009 - 16:11

I've seen a lot of healers talk about clique. I don't use it, and I don't recommend it. However, I've also heard from people who use it that they don't know how to use it in conjunction with macros. So, here's how you set up clique for use with a macro:

Open your spell book > Select the clique configuration tab > Custom > Run Custom Macro

Put your macro text into the "Macro Text" box, select the Icon, set the click binding, and name your macro.

Castsequence FTW.

Prime8 — Sat, 10/17/2009 - 15:40

This post is to give some basic castsequence advice. I use castsequence macros on most of my toons, it can be very useful for combining a spell with a CD (that you want to use every CD), and spells that you're going to spam. For example, here is a macro I use for healing as a resto druid (the ranks are unnecessary, I just didn't feel like typing the spell names out every time so I shift+clicked them in from my spell book):

#showtooltip
/use 13
/use 14
/castsequence [target=mouseover, exists] [] reset=6 Wild Growth, Rejuvenation(Rank 15), Rejuvenation(Rank 15), Rejuvenation(Rank 15), Rejuvenation(Rank 15), Rejuvenation(Rank 15)

This macro will cast Wild Growth every time its off CD, and spam Rejuv the rest of the time. Depending on your haste rating, you may have more or less Rejuvs than I do. Its simple to test how many you can cast before WG comes off CD though. The empy [] after the mouseover portion of the macro causes you to cast those spells to act in the normal manner if you have no mouseover target (will cast spells on friendly targets if they exist, if not will cast on yourself).

Here is another example. This is my lazy tanking macro (thanks to Ataraxia for the tip on !maul).

#showtooltip
/cast !Maul
/castsequence reset=combat/5 Mangle (Bear)(Rank 5),Lacerate(Rank 3),Lacerate(Rank 3),Lacerate(Rank 3),Lacerate(Rank 3)

You can add a Faerie Fire (feral) into the castsequence, but you'll need to play with the reset times a bit, depending on if you've got points in imp mangle for your tank spec. Imp mangle will also effect how many lacerates you can fit in between mangles. Maul is on its one line because its doesn't trigger the GCD since its damage added to the next attack.

There is one thing you have

Ghli — Sun, 10/18/2009 - 11:48

There is one thing you have to learn, and there is no such thing as a "healing" rotation for healers. There are somewhat of a rotation for warrior and druid tanks, and there is a hard rotation for paladin tanks to max out threat. There is a general rotation for DPS to max out their DPS, but there is no such thing for healing. How you heal depends on what kind of damage is being done. You don't heal the same way on trash as on a boss fight. The same goes as if you were tank healing or raid healing.

Could you just spam Rejuv and WG all day long? Sure, thats one way to top meters in healing (which you shouldn't even bother looking at the first place), but that is completely useless if you're assigned to tank healing. Don't start with "Oh, I'm a druid, how the hell do I tank heal? I usually heal the raid." All 4 healing classes can heal both the raid and tanks, but there's no "rotation" to doing that.

And prime, why did you necro a 4 month old thread?....

Regarding why I resurrected

Prime8 — Sun, 10/18/2009 - 13:46

Regarding why I resurrected an old thread, the macros are relevant. I probably would have put these macros into their own thread, but as I said before, I'm not a member of any groups, and therefore can't make new topics.

As far as actually using the macro, to each his own. You could make the same argument for healers macroing their trinkets, or abilities like Tidal Force (shaman). Do you want to have more reliable throughput, and use those abilities every CD, or want to save them for situational use? As far as hitting WG on the wrong target, I hear when its off CD, so I know that the next cast will be WG, and can cast it on the appropriate person, rather than a lone caster. That macro obviously isn't intended for tank healing, and I didn't claim it was. Its intention is to combine an ability that you're going to want to use every CD, with a spammable ability. Now you can argue that healing is reacting to incoming damage, but druids aren't reactive healers. They're proactive healers. If you're healing raid, you roll hots on targets you expect to take damage. If you're healing a tank, you keep a full load of hots on, and suppliment with nourish to react to spike damage.

I can see Rupta's point about the situation where WG is off CD, and you need a fast rejuv+swiftmend on the tank. In most situations (even healing raid), you're going to keep at least rejuv on the tank, if not a LB or regrowth as well. My intention isn't to boil healing down to button mashing. My intention was to post a couple of useful macros so that people could see the structure, giving them new tools to work with. If you don't test new methods, how will you ever improve?

Contribue: block entry/book

Ghli — Sun, 10/18/2009 - 20:55

Contribue: block entry/book page, either works and you can make your own entry about your macros

I'd like to make a small

Disrupter — Sun, 10/18/2009 - 02:39

I'd like to make a small suggestion for you sir. Don't use the macro that he suggested. Pretty much it. Healing isn't about doing the optimum HPS on every fight. There are fights you're going to want to decrease your raw hps, by doing things like lifeblooming the tank... not popping wild growth on off cd... or losing hps because your macro causes you to wild growth that one lonely caster or to wild growth the tank you needed to rejuv so you could swiftmend(and thus, he died, gj!).

You're taking the thinking part of healing, and that's the whole point of healing. You need to think on your feet and react to damage accordingly with the proper heal. It's not like dpsing as a ret paladin spamming 1 macro on your g15 and doing the optimum dps. It's about effective healing and keeping your raid alive. Don't macro that, don't use it, you're dumbing it down too much lol. I will not light though, assuming constant raid damage that macro will give you the optimum (assuming you target the right person for the wild growth) hps and sometimes that IS the scenario you're looking for, but not every fight is that way so no macro! K? K!

druid form macros.

Prime8 — Sat, 10/17/2009 - 15:22

Posting this here since I haven't been to the site in a while, and am not a able to make new topics. This is macro advice, you may or may not find the paticular macro useful, but if you look at the structure, you can probably find other uses for it.

Each druid form has an associated number that can be used in macros. The numbers are:

Night Elf Form: 0

Bear/Dire Bear Form: 1

Aquatic Form: 2

Cat Form: 3

Travel: 4

Moonkin/Tree: 5

Flight Form/Swift FF: 6 (or 5 if no moonkin/tree form is available).

What does this mean? It means you can create macros that will cast certain spells depending on which form you are currently in. The example I am going to use will cast Faerie Fire (and show the appropriate tool tip) if in NE form, travel form, Moonkin/Tree form, or flight form. If in bear form, it will cast growl. It also will cast either of these spells on either your mouseover target if it is hostile, or your current target otherwise. Here is the macro:

#showtooltip
/cast [form:1, target=mouseover,harm,nodead] Growl; [form:1 target=target] Growl; [form:0/5/4/6, target=mouseover,harm,nodead] Faerie Fire; [form:0/5/4/6, target=target] Faerie Fire

The reason I made this macro is I was out of macro slots, but wanted to make a mouseover macro for casting faerie fire as a tree (if for example I'm in a 10 man and am the only druid). Using this macro structure though, you can easily make macros to maim in cat form, bash in bear form, and root in moonkin form.

You can try shift-clicking a

Ghli — Thu, 06/25/2009 - 15:19

You can try shift-clicking a spell instead of clicking. Open the clique configuration, then just shift-whatever mouse button you want. You can then leave left click to normally select a person, and right click to open the menu for that person. You might in addition to unselect the other frame that are avaliable "targets" for clique to work on. They're under frames, and uncheck anything you don't want clique to be working on.

Clique + grid takes a while to configure, but when all the dust settles, you will see how much better clique + grid is much better than healbot.

Sounds useful!

Alakuu — Thu, 06/25/2009 - 16:44

Yah I'll try the shift click thing. I'm liking Grid for healing a lot more than Healbot. The problem I'm having is keeping track of HoTs and all. I got a little bit of a setup going but I just wish I could have a "time left on each hot" thing going. Or figure out how to have it show me by color the time left on the HoT that has the least amount of time left.

I don't have a druid as a

Ghli — Thu, 06/25/2009 - 19:09

I don't have a druid as a healer, but with my paladin, there is a section under status/My Hots where all of your hots are avaliable to be configured .You can have a green dot as a "fresh" HoT, yellow as a HoT with 4 seconds left , and red as a HoT that is about to fall off in 2 seconds. The timings for the HoT status and what color you wanted for the status is completely configurable. You may also want to install GridIndicatorCornerPlus to add 3 more indicators to every corner of grid for a total of 16 indicators, and/or GridManaBars to see everyone's mana/rage bar to inervate them.

I would skip Clique all

Prime8 — Fri, 06/26/2009 - 00:53

I would skip Clique all together and get used to keybindings. Use mouseover macros. I have 3 hybrid classes, all with healing specs. I can't stand mouseover macros on my shaman or pally (for the actual healing anyway), but would hate to do it any other way on my druid.

#showtooltip spell name

/cast [target=mouseover, exists] [target=target] Spell name

I agree with Prime - Mouse

Ardea — Fri, 06/26/2009 - 05:34

I agree with Prime - Mouse over macros with Grid is awesome... as a Druid use them!

I will post some Grid addons for Druids to track our HoT timers...

I tried out a new system for

cromi — Fri, 06/26/2009 - 00:52

I tried out a new system for my healing which I feel works good. I use mouse over macros. And then I target the tank which is my sole responsibility. I keep an hot up on the tank at all time, I always try to keep regrowth up on all tanks anyways. When the tank takes damage, I always have my swiftmend which is not a mouse over macro, able to heal the tank and then in times of great need. I take my mouse from grid, and I heal tank.

Depending on your gear. you can use whatever indicators you want or healing style. I have natures swiftness, and healing touch macro'd together, I can also use on tank in any time.

Ahhh beat ya to it.

Prime8 — Fri, 06/26/2009 - 00:54

Ahhh beat ya to it.

Mouse over macros.

Alakuu — Fri, 06/26/2009 - 06:09

Yah I managed to Main heal much of 10man Naxx. And did it fine. The second thing I setup after I had Grid up was the mouse over macros and sure its not the same as healing with my pally in Kara. But without them a druid would be such a pain.

I can't seem to get my other HoTs to change with color maybe I don't have the correct Grid additional addon or I just can't find the setting but as main healing I just setup a different set of Buffs / debuffs based on target and just kept the tank targeted.

I do think I'm a little improperly geared. Or trees are not as effective at mana as I remember.

Two major stats you are

Ardea — Fri, 06/26/2009 - 07:45

Two major stats you are looking for is SP and Spirit.

I see you have an SP/mp5 gem... mp5 is OK but a 19sp gem would be better for you.... unless you are having problems with mana then use a spirit gem (which gives you sp in tree form).

Depending on how close you are to getting a good chest, you might want to consider picking up [Moonshroud Robe]... the [Moonshroud Gloves] is better for you as well.

yep. Remember that as a

cromi — Fri, 06/26/2009 - 09:45

yep. Remember that as a druid. You never have as many options starting out as say a pally. Talking with newer resto druids the one mistake they make is that they do not have cloth gear when they get th good.ce but opt for leather gear that is not as good. If you need a tailor hit me up in game, I need to get my tailoring up a bit more. But I can make almost everything in game besides the wisp cloak, Blizz hates me and the first time I did the ocu. It didn't count.

Your best spells in game are natures swiftness, swiftmend, and in dire situations tranq. They are instant spells. And they make you more effective as a healer. Don't be afraid to use them when the situation calls for it.