Throughout my healing career, I have used many methods to help me heal more effectively. When I began the game I used the dreaded WoW UI and just clicked on a target and then casted the heal by pressing the number key I had it associated with.
When I became a little more WoW savvy, I would then use my F keys to choose the target and then hit the number button for the heal. This made my healing way faster than before, but was only useful for 5 mans. I never played with my mouse, only using it to loot. This method worked for a long while with me, what was until I wanted to raid.
Obviously you do not have 40 F keys available to use and I did not even like using all 10 F keys for 10 Mans. I had to find a new method. I did my research and found out all about WoW addons. I was enchanted! I loved the idea of changing my screen to fit my needs.
I started by using the WoW raid frames to change my healing. I would pull them out onto my screen, click on the names and then heal. This worked, depending on fight I would have some lag with clicking but I was getting really fast at this.
Then about 2 years ago I found Grid, and even since then we have been having a sultry love affair. I love this raid UI, which I also use during 5 mans as well. This let me keep my raid frames small and still be able to click on them and then hit my heal number. I would still use my F keys to heal the party I was in (usually the tank group because of old Tree of Life Buff). I was just as fast as when I used WoW frames, but my screen was much less cluttered. Plus Grid would show my who had aggro, health, mana, and any debuffs the party had. It was like everything all in one!
Today I use Grid with mouseover Macros to make my healing even more effective but that is a different discussion.
Another useful addon to heal heal is SmartDeBuff. Debuffing can be a major part of healing, especially in certain fights. This addon has all party/raid members grouped by class (or by group number) and when they get any debuff that you can remove, it will mark the box with a “L” or “R.” This means you must left or right click on the persons box. This will remove the debuff from the target without making you choose them and lose your target! This makes debuffing insanely easy.
SmartBuff is another big helper. Most healing classes have a few buffs to give out and how annoying is it for people to ask for buffs all the time? Very! With this addon, all it takes is a middle mouse wheel roll and you will buff everyone who needs it! Takes the guesswork out of buffing.
These are just a few addons that I feel help me heal. But of course I run with many more!
Pitbull – I love this addon. It makes your player interface very customizable. I can change my health and mana bars, my character portrait, and target information. You can also do party windows ad raid windows here too.
Bartender4 – This addon makes your bars look neat and clean! Completely customizable. Don’t like squared buttons? Have circle ones! Want to hide some bars so that they only appear when you put your mouse over it? You can do it too! I actually love this feature, it makes my bars less cluttered.
Sexy Map – This lets you move your mini map and make it look however you want it. Pretty neat!
Recount – Tells you what you healed during a fight and raid. Also reports DPS, Damage taken, total damage done and many other things! Will compile reports till reset.
Prat – Colors your chat frames by Guild, Party, Raid, ect. Also colors names of players by class. A fun addon!
BTex – Lets you create a background for your screen. You can download or create your own!
Monkey Clock – Customizable clock that you can move.
Monkey Quest – Clean quest log you can move and keep track of quests with. Color codes by level difficulty.
Buffalo3 – Move your buffs and debuffs to maximize room.
Fubar Addons (the addons will NOT pop up during combat, you can turn that feature on and off):
- FriendFu – Lists all your friends. Can see them without opening the menu!
- GuildFu – Easy way to see guild members. Same as FriendFu but for guildies!
- HeyFu – Tells you when you have a whisper. Great if you missed it!
- XPFu – Gives you a summary of days played, level, xp amount and xp needed. Great for leveling.
- DurabilityFu – Lets you know what your armor is at. Also tells you how must it will cost to repair for all rep levels.
- CurrencyFu – How much money you have. The menu that pops up when you hover over it will tell you how much you have throughout all your characters and how much you spent and lost.
- BagFu – How much free bag space you have.
I also run WIM which is a WoW instant message screen. It helps me keep track of everyone I am talking to on there own condensed screen.
After raid tonight, I will be posting a raid picture and highlighting Grid, SmartBuff, and SmartDebuff in their full effect! Stay Tuned.
14 responses to “Useful Healing Addons”
Jasyla
March 15th, 2010 at 14:16
That’s a neat setup. I can’t believe how many mods you managed to fit into such a small portion of your screen. BTex looks nice, I hadn’t heard of it before, and your background is very druid-y.
I’m not a big fan of smart debuff though. You could have poisons/curses show up on Grid (along with making mouseover macros for abolish/decurse) and save yourself some screen room.
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sarindre
March 15th, 2010 at 14:28
Thank you much! I do actually have them on a mouseover macro set up that I use as well with grid. It just varies on my mood and the fight as to which one I decide to use.
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sarindre
March 15th, 2010 at 20:45
Honestly, it was really just a joke and in my haste I forgot the “j/k.” I use this blog mostly for teaching guildies how to play a druid and that is sorta a little joke we have in guild. It was in no means to offend, however I forgot that most people are not psychic and cannot read tone over text! =P
I truth, I know a ton of people who use Healbot and are awesome. Some are not. I know a ton of people who use grid and again some are great and some are not. I know a few who use original WoW UI and are AMAZING! It is all personal preference. I say go with what makes you a good healer and productive. But make sure you do not need an addon and can heal without if something crashes in your UI (which I know a few have experienced).
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Sarsy
March 15th, 2010 at 21:55
nice post fully agree with failbot, however yet your post is another healing addon assessment misses the best ‘in between’ healing addon – Vuhdo
This healing addon is an ‘all-in-one’ addon with easier configuration options then grid that you would be surprised to find alot of healers switching over to from both grid and healbot. Not having to worry about the module updates… yay!
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sarindre
March 15th, 2010 at 22:00
Thanks!
I will definitely take a look at Vuhdo. I am always up for trying new addons. Thanks for the tip!!
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vg
March 15th, 2010 at 23:54
I use Vuhdo + I luv it.
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-dN5
March 16th, 2010 at 02:28
looks nice, but i need times to familiarize it…
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Corney
March 16th, 2010 at 09:58
I’ve healed before, I consider myself an old skool healer (played a cleric in EQ1 and 2), and my druid is dual speced cat/tree, but I get such flac for my healing abilities in WoW, seems like no matter how much I do it, it’s never good enough. I’ve tried everything save Grid, so I guess that’s next, but you say I should just get good with the default UI? Maybe I’ll try that for a while, but again it’s REALLY hard to find a group that’s willing to let you practice on them (casual, no guild). I’ve had the best luck by queuing for normal dungeons, you tend to get people leveling and as long as you can keep up you’re good.
Thank god I can switch to cat and just have fun occasionally, but even that has it’s issues. Honestly I can’t wait for a better mmo to come along. (kind of)
Nice write up, gonna mess around with healing tonight. Maybe i’ll do Wintergrasp, those fights are so chaotic it’s a good practice arena.
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sarindre
March 16th, 2010 at 10:08
I think that being able to heal effectively is what any healer should want. Like I said addons just make healing easier but you can always go back and even heal with the default UI. I learned on default, which is why I praise the ability to heal without addons (plus it sucks to have a UI crash during a fight! =D ) However, I feel that people need to find their flow with healing and what really works best for them. A few people here have suggested Vuhdo, which I am going to check out as well. Try grid with mouseover macros as well. I will post later about how to create one of these macros and use it with grid. Good luck with healing! Remember: practice makes perfect!
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Corney
March 16th, 2010 at 10:45
It’s finding the time to practice is all… (as he alt-tabs to his spreadsheet before his boss can catch him browsing the web) haha.
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Branwyn
March 16th, 2010 at 11:45
Nice post, might check some of this stuff out when I get my new computer. Except Healbot. I’m far too enamored of Vuhdo to switch now. 😀
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ladyloyolaa
April 5th, 2011 at 16:53
Hey guys, just came across this forum and wanted to introduce myself. Does anyone here play XBox? I’ve been playing internet games all day and wanted to see if anyone wanted to meet up online to play some Halo, I got to remove myself from my PC and I want to enjoy some Playstation online or Xbox live lol. Anyone else here play free online games? Send me a PM i’ll be online for a while, peace.
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ams
April 5th, 2012 at 16:30
hiii btw can u plz hell me i want a healing add on that’s very is and clear and not messy???? what should i use???
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ams
April 5th, 2012 at 16:32
sorry for my spelling mistakes i meant : hiii btw can u plz help me i want a healing add on that’s very easy and clear and not messy???? what should i use???
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2 Trackbacks / Pingbacks
World Of Warcraft » Archive March 15th, 2010 at 18:12
[…] frames, key bindings, and combat text & notifications.Through the Eyes of a Tree points out useful healing addons.One More Alt helps us get started with Grid.Filed under: Add-Ons, The Daily QuestThe Daily Quest: […]
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Back into the Groove | Through the Eyes of a Tree March 16th, 2015 at 18:18
[…] Over the next week or so, I am going to do a few posts about addons, healing as a WoD druid, and show off my UI a bit since it has changed since this post and this post. […]
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