Mouseover healing help please

Gianfabio

Legend
Been a lurker for a while and have finally reached the point where I have a question. I'm looking for some assistance in figuring out mouseover healing.

I've never needed mouseover macros before as I used to play a shaman at end game (and you always have plenty of time while casting to pick your next target). But playing a holy paladin now, I've found it's not as efficient to click on someone and then heal when most of the heals are instant.

Now the things I'm looking to know are:

1) How do I set up these macros in a way that I can still heal myself? I understant the basics from looking elsewhere, but I'm stuck on being able to heal myself. In the past I've always used ALT to self cast. Is there a way to include this in my macro or make a separate spell for this? Or how do other people select themselves?

2) Without selecting your target, how do you know how big of a heal they need? It is not easy to remember the health of the countless rogues, huntes, and admittedly paladins in this bracket, especially as people afk out frequently. I hate selecting someone that looks like they're on the verge of death and finding out that a Holy Shock will bring them to full. Or is there some way to show the numbers on the grid?

Thanks in advance!
 
1. dont know much about healing macros but this should heal the mouseover if friendly and heal target or self if not.
#showtooltip Healing Wave
/cast [target=mouseover, help, nodead][help] Healing Wave

2. most unit frame addons will give you the option to show deficit health instead. [Felix -374] meaning they have 374 health less than full. they can also show prediction heals that shows how much health they'll have at the end of the cast, and will also extend past the health bar to show over-healing.
 
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You can turn on display exact health for standard or addon (like Grid/healbot/vuh'do)raid UI. That makes it very easy to judge which spell to cast. You can set up macros so they will

1. Heal your mouseover if you have one.
2. If you're not moused over a friendly unit, heal your target.
3. Heal yourself if you have no mouseover or target.

You can also mouseover your own unit frame of course.

I just copied out some of the macros I use on hpal:

#showtooltip
/use [@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Judgement
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,exists] Holy Shock;Holy Shock
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

#showtooltip
/use [@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Crusader Strike
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,exists] Word of Glory;Word of Glory
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,exists] Holy Light;Holy Light
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,exists] Flash of Light;Flash of Light
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

#showtooltip
/use [@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Exorcism;Exorcism
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,exists] Lay on Hands;Lay on Hands
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,exists] Hand of Protection;Hand of Protection
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

#showtooltip
/use [@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Hammer of Justice
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

#showtooltip
/use [target=player] Anti-Venom
/targetlasttarget
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()


EDIT: Not wearing haste set today. ^^

EDIT2: I haven't gotten around taking out the /script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); I won't need that in my macros anymore since I got xan error devourer. TY for great tip, Shft. :)
 
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As a holy paladin myself, I find that tar mouse over macros to be really efficient. Try it out and see how it works for you. As for healing yourself;

/tar [yourcharactername]
/cast Flash of Light

This is just a small example. As a holy paladin you get a talent called Protector of the Innocent - Spell - World of Warcraft which heals for a decent amount at this level. The only time you should be casting heals on yourself is when you are being focused, since mana isn't something that's infinite at this level, you need to conserve as much as you can and the talent linked above helps you tremendously.

If you don't want to use the alt button then try macros like the one above, see what suits you best. I believe you can configure other buttons to make it easy on yourself to target other party members or yourself, most healers at this level do mouse over target when they heal, but remember to try and see what's b est for you.

You also asked how big of a heal you think some people need, well that can be answered quite simply. If one of your teammates is under heavy fire, FoL is your best option, as a healer, your mana will "fluctuate" depending on what's happening around you. If you feel you can go with a slow heal then go with a slow one. Remember HS and WoG are your friend. To answer your last question, somewhere in the interface section, go to raid/party frames and there's an option there which allows you to see the exact health(numbers) of your teammates.

Hoped this helped a little
 
Oh and I forgot to say I only use macros like the above if I toggle bartender bars with ctrl etc. If you don't use bartender you could combine stuff with

/cast [nomod]
/cast [mod:alt]
/cast [mod:shift]
/cast [mod:ctrl]
 
No one uses healbot? (not actually a bot)

Show's a list of all your allies on a pallet, your right/left/middle (allows modifiers) mouse click their life bars to instantly start healing, to interrupt a spell just move, and your left hand is completely free to worry about movement, you don't even have to visually see your allies, the addon shows you who's in range, you can pay attention to your movement/surroundings and heal with your subconscious.

That's what I use on my priest anyway and it works perfectly..
HealBot Continued - Unit Frames - World of Warcraft Addons - Curse
 
It's basically the same thing I'm reading from everyone else, except that you don't have to make a bunch of macros, it's just a click-to-heal addon, simple as can be haha. Now I'm starting to see why I never get heals in BG's. People over complicate it.
 
If I had a decent mouse I'd likely be click-casting all day, be it with Grid&Clique, Healbot or Vuh'do. Saying your way is the only way seems a bit arrogant to me. People adapt in different ways. I've tried all three addons and both Grid&Clique and Vuh'do make for powerful set ups. And there are great players that do wonders with mouseover macros and not a single addon. I'm sure you wouldn't have a reason to complain meeting them in BGs. All a matter of preference.
 
healbot is good. I hate that you have to click instead of key pressing though. I would suggest mouseover macros instead. Clicking makes you slow in terms of max mobility and healing at the same time. You want to be able to move fluidly while casting quick heals. Also suggest to fit heals as a focus
macro

/clearfocus
/focus [target=mouseover,nodead,help]
/cast [target=focus] Flash of Light

keeps target while u focus for healing. Clearfocus part makes changing target a breeze. Experiment with your setup.

You want a setup that makes moving, healing, dpsing easy and that also does it fluidly so you can focus on the battle.
 
Yde said:
If I had a decent mouse I'd likely be click-casting all day, be it with Grid&Clique, Healbot or Vuh'do. Saying your way is the only way seems a bit arrogant to me. People adapt in different ways. I've tried all three addons and both Grid&Clique and Vuh'do make for powerful set ups. And there are great players that do wonders with mouseover macros and not a single addon. I'm sure you wouldn't have a reason to complain meeting them in BGs. All a matter of preference.
Click to expand...

I never said my way is the only way.. I inferred that it's a safe bet and that it's my opinion that people over complicate healing. :S
 
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That's good, then I must have misunderstood.


The thing about clickcasting is that I've never used a mouse which is faster than keybinds. I hate clicking things. If I bought a gaming mouse I would give clickcasting another try.
 
Gianfabio said:
1) How do I set up these macros in a way that I can still heal myself? I understant the basics from looking elsewhere, but I'm stuck on being able to heal myself. In the past I've always used ALT to self cast. Is there a way to include this in my macro or make a separate spell for this? Or how do other people select themselves?

2) Without selecting your target, how do you know how big of a heal they need? It is not easy to remember the health of the countless rogues, huntes, and admittedly paladins in this bracket, especially as people afk out frequently. I hate selecting someone that looks like they're on the verge of death and finding out that a Holy Shock will bring them to full. Or is there some way to show the numbers on the grid?
Click to expand...

To answer your first question, I combine all healing target options in one macro, like so:

/use [@focus,mod:rshift,mod:alt][@player,mod:rshift,nomod:alt][@mouseover,exists,help][exists,help]cleanse spirit

From the top, this macro checks to see if I'm holding down the correct modifier keys to either get my focus target, or myself. Failing that, the macro then checks to see if I have a valid mouseover target. Finally, if none of those conditions qualify, the macro checks to see if I have a valid target.

For the first two cases, replace the modifiers I used with the ones you like to use i.e. for the @player section, you don't want "mod:rshift,nomod:alt" but rather simply "mod:alt" since you use the alt key to self-cast. For the last two cases, I use the "exists" and "help" conditionals to keep the macro from getting jammed looking for a target. However, I purposely leave "exists" and "help" off of my focus target, to prevent the macro from continuing in case I chose the wrong spell. You may want to change that.

One of the neat things about using focus targets and mouseover healing is that it doesn't let enemies see to whom you send your heals while you cast.

Finally, order of brackets matters. I prefer to have the macro check for a mouseover target before checking for a clicked/selected target, in case I need to reroute a heal to another target. However, that does make me vulnerable to a mis-heal if I accidentally mouse over a teammate just as I heal my target. I would never need to worry about that if I reversed them so they read "...[exists,help][@mouseover,exists,help]cleanse spirit" but then my mouseovers wouldn't work at all while I had a teammate selected.

I actually use that "cleanse spirit" macro as part of a much larger macro that includes a couple of other spells.

Your second question is a problem I've always hated about WoW's interface -- it normalizes everyone's health to the same bar length regardless of how much health a player has. If anyone knows an addon or option that turns that off, I'd love to hear about it.
 
Miacon said:
Perhaps you can't personally make click healing work, but when done right (using something like Grid + Clique) it's extremely powerful, and will not hamper any facet of playstyle whatsoever. It's arguably the fastest and most efficient method out there imo, and one can't underestimate the importance of being fast and efficient as a healer.
Click to expand...

Yes whatever solution works. I have used healbot before but stopped for some limitations such as unable to configure it to use macros for example click and instead of a cast maybe a macro. Also it confined me to only be able to heal only in a party. If I wanted to heal I would need to have a separate macro to cast heals outside parties. I could enable the show separate bar for target and tank but that was it, I had to target to heal. I also had some ideas for keybinds and macros which healbot could not do so I got rid of it and went @mouseover. It all depends on what setup works for the individual. The macro API is huge and the ui can be molded to cater to the individual to tap maximum potential.

Macro API - Wowpedia - Your wiki guide to the World of Warcraft
MACRO cast - Wowpedia - Your wiki guide to the World of Warcraft

I highly recommend the OP to take a look at those links. You can fit the ui to work for you.

Start by saying "I think a healing setup should work like this" and then see if you can make macros work for you.
 
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This macro has never let me down, and is not dependant on having any mouseover or friendly target. IMO, it's the only macro you need for almost all friendly-related spells

#showtooltip Holy Light
/cast [mod,target=player][target=mouseover,help,nodead][help,nodead][nogroup,target=player][target=targettarget,help,nodead]Holy Light
END

Replace the spell name as needed.
 
Thank you all for your insights! A lot of useful things to consider. And special thanks to Bwappo as this was precisely the kind of macro I was needing but couldn't find.
 
I personally don't think Grid and all those addons are necessary. Go to interface and turn your party frames to always appear as raid frames, unlock them and move them to where its comfortable for you, and set up your mouseovers. Works pretty much the same way as grid does.
 
For self-healing, I don't bother with modifiers. Here is an example macro:

/cast [@mouseover,exists,help] Renew; [@player] Renew

This casts Renew on my mouseover if it exists and it is friendly. Otherwise it casts Renew on me. The only danger is that you're cursor just happens to be on someone accidentally when you're trying to heal yourself, but that basically never happens in my experience. Also, in battlegrounds you can heal yourself by mousing over your own raid frame.


Various other thoughts on mouseover healing:


One of the advantages of a raid-frames add-on is that you can set the level of transparency of the frames for out-of-range teammates. The default WoW settings dims the out-of-range frames a little, but I like them to almost disappear. I use X-Perl.

Also, imo a gaming mouse makes a big difference for mouseover healing. All of my healing spells are mouseover macros bound to mouse buttons. I never target any teammates. I target enemies (usually tab targetting) and my dps spells are all on the keyboard. I like having things nicely organized: right hand for heals, left hand for dps.

I also have Psycic Scream and EMFH bound to mouse buttons.

I use a Logitech G400 gaming mouse (costs about 40 bucks).

One more thing to keep in mind is that mouseover healing makes it a little harder to use mouse-to-move sometimes. You'll probably want to use one keyboard button for either forward or autorun for when your mouse is busy.
 
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