Patch 5.4 patch notes
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The latest patch 5.4 newsRaid Rx: Is addon-less healing possible?
by Matt Low 
Jun 18th 2010 at 6:00PM
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related.
I see a fair number of emails and messages about this topic. Is it possible to heal without using any addons of any sort? Naturally, the default user interface (or UI) includes a limited number of features where this is possible. Is it recommended in dungeons or raid instances? No, not quite. I've seen opinions from some players where they practically insist that healing without addons should be the way to go. Anyone who does use addons is relying on a crutch. I don't think that's quite fair to say. It's not like these addons are scripts or anything that can "think" and heal for you.
When it comes to addons for healing, the biggest factor for us is all about information. With the right information, we can make the right choices which will keep raids and parties alive.
Essential components of a healing UI
Raid frames: I don't quite know where to start on the default healing UI so I figured I'd go with the frames first since they're the most important part. The raid frames need to be dragged out and positioned accordingly from the raid window. At a glance, it becomes difficult to see which players are affected by what buffs and debuffs. If we can zero in on a player to see who has a Mortal Strike effect or something, then we can focus increased efforts on keeping that player alive. Healers also come with different preferences. Some players like their frames larger and others like it condensed. The lack of customization kills it and drives us to search for other solutions. It would be really nice if we could see some actual numbers on the raid frames itself (either percentages or absolute health). Grid, Vuhdo, and other raid frames all do the same things. In the end, it's preference. But they all enhance and present key information.Buffs and debuffs: We don't need to know every raid buff that is applied. They made great strides when it came to compacting various raid buffs into something smaller. As it stands, it looks like we can only see one or the other. On the one hand, I need to know when to dispel something off of a friendly player. On the other hand, I also need to be able to find out when things like my shields or healing over time spells are going to expire. Not only that, in order to see how long is left before my beneficial spells expire, I need to move the mouse over it in my frames. It just isn't really practical for us to mouse over each buff to see what is going to wear off first or stuff like that.
Timers: The introduction of clearer boss emotes by Blizzard has made anticipating phase changes and special boss skills easier. Yet things like timers are an incredible asset when it comes to anticipating when the next super attack is going to land. Sure we can peel our eyes off of the raid for a few seconds while we watch for the bosses hands to glow or for his head to move. In the end, that will fry the mental bandwidth of healers. It would be nice if there was a component where we knew when the abilities of a boss would fire. I don't mean random abilities where the boss just pulls an attack out of no where. I mean abilities that can actually be measured on a timer. It would be nice to know how long before that air phase or how long before they enrage.
I remember over a year and a half ago when my guild was working on Sartharion with his 3 drakes up. I had a hell of a time trying to predict his powered up Fire Breath on the tank who was on Sartharion. Over time, I noticed that his head seemed to "snap" up when he was about to breathe. That was the signal to use a defensive cooldown on the tank. I wish we had a death knight tank back then as it would have made that encounter considerably easier. But having to watch for that head movement, keeping the raid alive, and dodging assorted abilities was pretty darn taxing.
In any case, having timers and advanced warnings of when really important stuff is about to happen would be a big benefit.
Currently, in order to successfully heal challenging encounters without healing addons, you need to be well versed in encounter mechanics, your own skills and everyone else around you within your raid. A bit of blind luck doesn't hurt either. The last time I healed without addons resulted in me coming back after a mid fight disconnect. I was healing the raid as they were taking down Freya. I logged back in without any visible frames. At least my keybinds were still working. I ended up toggling nameplates right away (and believe me when I say that you have never truly healed until you have healed constantly moving raiders while resorting to nothing but name plates for targeting). It didn't occur to me to drag out raid frames, but I was just simply too busy healing to even consider doing that.
It isn't really a crutch to heal with addons. What it all boils down to information presentation. If we can view everything we need, then yeah, I can see healing addons as being completely unnecessary.
I think one day I'll actually give it a try in Icecrown Citadel or some other instance and see how hindered I get. Do addons really make the player? As a healer, what else would you consider extremely important in your addon list? What can you not heal without?
Want some more advice for working with the healers in your guild? Raid Rx has you covered with all there is to know! Need raid or guild healing advice? Email me at matticus@wow.com or follow me on Twitter and you could see a future post addressing your question. Looking for less healer-centric raiding advice? Take a look at our raiding column, Ready Check. Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Add-Ons, Raid Rx (Raid Healing)
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 7)
Al in SoCal Jun 18th 2010 7:19PM
Here here! Grid is really good - can't speak for other healing addons.
I couldn't imagine the game w/o grid either - I think that just goes to show what a great addon it is. I even use it on my non-healing toons - just to see the goings-on. =)
Rich Jun 18th 2010 6:36PM
Addons are useful since blizz won't let us resize frames out of the box. I would never use healbot, personally, since I feel it cheapens the game.
Mirantha Jun 18th 2010 6:38PM
I admit that my main is not a healer, and I have not been running any raids or dungeons lately, instead growing a couple of alts before Cataclysm. That said, I just use XPerl and mouse-over macros when I do heal. I have the party and raid groups set up in a grid-like fashion with debuffs turned on as well as hots and such. I find it works well for me, and I think that is the whole point. Each player needs to find what works best for them, and just because they do/do not use a specific add-on for assistance does not mean they are better or worse than the next person. All it means is that we as humans are individuals and will find an individualised solution to handle any given situation that works best for that one person.
Merlinmast Jun 18th 2010 6:39PM
The attitude of 'vanilla' healers kinda irks me, not to say add on healers are much better.
People need to think of it like walking to work. Many people could walk to work just fine. It might even make them more healthy overall. But it doesn't (necessarily) make you a better employee than someone who drives. And yea (insert your creator here) didn't design humans to drive so we should be able to walk just fine.
So why do people drive? Quality of life. Many people just like to walk, but others just want to do their job and will use any tools at their disposal to get it done.
Which person is 'wrong'?
Tori Jun 18th 2010 6:59PM
Excellent analogy. :)
KittyPrawn Jun 18th 2010 7:02PM
Hey... don't bash all of us "vanilla" healers. A lot of us don't want to go back to that raid environment.
I've healed as a druid from MC through ICC. I remember in 40 man raids, just to save myself from clutter, actually splitting my raid frames onto two sides of my screen and actually CHOOSING what groups were more important to keep alive.
Give me Grid any day where I don't have to choose to ignore half the raid just so I could see what is on the screen.
yoshimitsu Jun 18th 2010 6:52PM
2 seconds. Thats what healbot gets me. Two seconds is the difference between wipe and victory. when new patches come out I switch to mouseover macros, but healbot is easier to use and easier for me to move out of the fire.
Portals Jun 18th 2010 7:02PM
I have recently taken it upon myself to de-addon the interface on most of my toons. Interesting note is you probably forgot how much actual screen space you have. I still heal with healbot because I like it. I tend to stick to 5mans due to my altoholism. Hopefully I'll learn enough about macro creation to be 90% addon free. (Auctioneer / MarketWatcher are here to stay)
Kelevandros Jun 18th 2010 7:02PM
A paladin and discipline priest,both Kingslayers, meet up in North Bank.
Pa: Hey, you've successfully healed through LK!
Pr: Yeah.
Pa: I healed it WITHOUT addons. You?
Pr: With.
Pa: HA! I'm a better healer than you.
Pr: Uhhmmm ... ok ... you're a "better" healer. So?
They separate ways. The paladin feeling smug about his self-appointed superiority. The priest wonders if Blizzard will ever separate the title into "Kingslayer, with AddOns" and "Kingslayer, without AddOns".
Both move next to meeting LK in heroic mode.
uncaringbear Jun 18th 2010 8:47PM
If I were the priest, I'd be asking the paladin how many times they wiped before they finally took down the LK. I'd also be wondering how his healing team mates felt about his performance.
Iano Jun 19th 2010 5:43AM
And then, in Heroic Lich King, the Paladin listens as the main tank calls out Defiles, Valkyrs, raid phases, and all that same information is blasted into his UI through Raid Warnings automatically, with a nice little Blizz-provided honking noise, courtesy of DBM.
And suddenly, the Paladin craps himself for shame, hoping to get a chance to apologize to the priest later- because the priest was just making it so nobody had to yell the info to him in Vent. XD
Tongue in cheek, of course, but still, instructive. :D
Kelevandros Jun 18th 2010 7:05PM
And, yes, I play a discipline priest on the Horde side (South Bank? There is a bank below us?). I am biased against holy paladins. So?
ShammyGuy Jun 18th 2010 7:10PM
The topic is flawed. It really should read Main heal. I Play enhance 90% of the time, and switch over to heals for 1 or 2 bosses , and occasionally for a Random or 2 every few days. I don't even know what the "right" healing addon's would be. I can raid heal/off heal just fine, and I can even tell when to cleanse a poison or disease without anything special. That said, I don't Main heal, and I can't see doing that *easily* without a little customization/addon's. I also have no problem with it. If it makes the game more fun, who cares, it's not "cheating" it's just information, the player still has to do something with said information. The game isn't supposed to be work, it can be hard, but it should be fun, and not be hard because the UI is flawed, or just plain hard to see, it should be hard because, well, you have to do the right thing at the right time, not miss doing the right thing at the right time because the indicator is 6x6 pixels.
So can you, sure, should you? your preference.
Bodewell Jun 18th 2010 7:16PM
I use Vuhdo and Xperl for healing. Ya know why?
Because it makes the game more fun for me...
Yangli Jun 18th 2010 7:23PM
My boyfriend plays his disc priest completely without addons. We're in a quite successful 10 man (working on LK HC). He always claims he doesn't need addons, those are for people who can't play themselves and such. But I know that he a) relies very much on the raid warnings given out by our bossmods and on people telling in TS how soon defile will be cast and so on and b) has every now and then problems seing debuffs on people in time. He is a quite decent healer, but though he won't accept this to be true, his potential is limited by denying the use of addons of any kind.
I myself love Grid for healing. Grid and the focus frame are the only unit frames I use. I have all heals and other cast-on-player spells in macros that cast them on my mouseover target, or, if that doesn't exist, on my target, and as last choice on my focus. That's really all I need for healing. Power Auras is nice to have, too, but Grid alone is capable of showing me all I need to know on very small space.
Oreet Jun 18th 2010 9:08PM
I spent WoW from initial launch up til about 6-8 months ago healing on my holy priest without using any AddOn. I was of the mindset that people using AddOns like HealBot were cheating/EZ-Moding the game.
But when our guild started pushing our way through Ulduar, a guildmate Disc Priest suggested that I at least give Healbot a try.
And using HealBot has made my job so much more enjoyable. I'm able to react much faster with all of the click-to-cast spells set in HealBot. I now get to actually look around the room and enjoy the sights in the raid.
So coming from someone who's done both sides of the Addon vs. default UI fence, I can say wholeheartedly that I would much rather heal with Addons than without it.
Saise Jun 18th 2010 7:34PM
I only use xperl, which is a huge crutch, and mouseover macros. Macros arent addons. Xperl only for curable debuffs and range finder
fusebox Jun 18th 2010 7:37PM
I drive a stick shift car. All you people that drive automatics are less of a driver than I am.
I stir my margaritas with a spoon. All you people that use a blender are less of a bartender than I am.
I get up to change the channel on the TV. All you people that use remotes are less...uh....of a TV channel changer than me?
Rhamona Q Jun 18th 2010 10:41PM
I hope you don't have cable... getting from CBS to HBO must be a nightmare...
Elastoplast Jun 18th 2010 8:36PM
I levelled my dr00d from 1 to 80 as resto (before dual specs were a twinkle in Blizz's eye) - my main char was created on EU launch day.
I have regularly raided 40-mans, I have farmed 5-mans, I have taken large WoW holidays.
I went from "select party member, cast heal", to some add-on I can't even remember, to xperl and macros, to grid+clique, then included decursive, then dropped the lot and started using Vuhdo (which is, BTW, awesome).
I used Bigwigs, then DBM, had an affair with BossEncounters2 and am currently settled on DXE.
I do all of this because I always want to make myself more useful, as a healer, for my raid party. I am not a purist, I am a pragmatist.
I am regularly told my healing is excellent, though I'm always aware it could improve.
I fully respect any healer who claims to heal LK perfectly well without any healing add-ons.
I would be sceptical of any healer who claims to do all this without voice prompts over Vent/TC from guildies who DO have the add-ons.
I will ALWAYS believe that, no matter how good a healer is, no matter how situationally aware they are, no matter how fast their reactions are - a healer without add-ons will make themselves an even better healer if they install and learn the correct add-ons.
So why not install them, if not for some misguided sense of holier-than-thou purism?