Arena Healing

[rathok]

So, I'm a great mage in the arenas. I also have a shaman though... and I am not a great healer...

Couple questions for all the successful healers out there:

how do you target? Do you click the name plates, use a UI or click on the person that you actually want to heal. Same question for dpsing and doing offensive things, do you tab target or just click on the person?

For shaman: how important is it to be shocking casts if you aren't actually going for a kill?

[Somedudeknownaschris]

Most top healers that I've seen speaking about how they target just click their frames, some use funky keybinds on their mouse, only a few use F1-5. Personally I also click frames but I wouldn't just use standard party frames as they are too far away. For offensive targeting it's kind of a mix between tab targetting when you're confident it will select the right target, and clicking on Gladius (or similar). As far as shaman shocks go I'll leave that question to a Shaman.

[rathok]

Most top healers that I've seen speaking about how they target just click their frames, some use funky keybinds on their mouse, only a few use F1-5. Personally I also click frames but I wouldn't just use standard party frames as they are too far away. For offensive targeting it's kind of a mix between tab targetting when you're confident it will select the right target, and clicking on Gladius (or similar). As far as shaman shocks go I'll leave that question to a Shaman.

Can you use grid in the arena? What do you use for party frames?

[bubbleblast]

I usually do this;

2v2: Macro heals/cleanse/helpful spells so that they effect both you and your mate. On my pala I have this for example: FoH(me): 4, FoH(mate): shift-4, HoF(me): F, HoF(mate): shift-F, etc. (Note this takes up a lot of binding space, but seeing as you were a great mage I assume you have loads to begin with.

3v3: Almost the same, I have macros on my normal keys to heal myself and macros on the shift-keys to heal my target, using mouse-wheel up/down to target them (like pressing F2/F3 I guess, but I prefer the mouse-wheel).

5v5/BGs: Mouse-over macros with Grid, note that I don't use that add-on so I can "click-heal" targets by just clicking on them, instead I just hover over and mash away on my keyboard. I just don't like having to adjust my heals over to my mouse, feels weird.

Some basic healer tips: Focus on learning to keep your partner and yourself up (also try to help your partner with the purging, it's important) when you start to understand how much healing output you have, then you can start learning about positioning so you can avoid damage but at the same time be in range and line of sight with your partner. When you got that under control just go crazy offensive! (aka pushing lava bursts and shit, nobody likes to play mana-wars)

[Hips]

So, I'm a great mage in the arenas. I also have a shaman though... and I am not a great healer...

Couple questions for all the successful healers out there:

how do you target? Do you click the name plates, use a UI or click on the person that you actually want to heal. Same question for dpsing and doing offensive things, do you tab target or just click on the person?

For shaman: how important is it to be shocking casts if you aren't actually going for a kill?

I use mouseover macros to heal. This way I can keep up to 2 enemies targeted, usually my CC target and my shock target.

A typical mouseover macro of mine looks like this:

#showtooltip Riptide
/cast [target=mouseover,exists,nodead][target=player] Riptide

that macro will use Riptide on my mouseover, and if I don't have a mouseover it will be used on myself. That way when I want to heal myself I just hold down my right mouse button so my mouse is hidden (No mouseover that way) and the heal goes on me. If I want to heal someone else, I hover my mouse over their raid frame on Grid and use my binding. This gives me a lot of mobility and allows me to watch the fight more than my raid frames.

As a shaman you always want to shock/ground high damage spells, even if you're not going for a kill. If you're going for a kill make sure to shock heals. Against Destruction Warlock/Elemental Shamans, etc (High damage casters) You'll always want to shock their biggest casted nuke (Chaos Bolt/Lava Burst, and so on.) You'll also want to shock CC as often as possible and use grounding to stop casts when your Wind Shear is on CD.

Only shocking when going for a kill is silly. You want to be able to control the other team as much as possible. Stopping incoming heals with Shock into a Hex, into another CC into another Shock (Depending on your partner) will easily land a kill.

To DPS I either just have my gladius targets bound to my F1-F5 keys. I target using one of those bindings and then assist DPS.

[Hips]

I usually do this;

2v2: Macro heals/cleanse/helpful spells so that they effect both you and your mate. On my pala I have this for example: FoH(me): 4, FoH(mate): shift-4, HoF(me): F, HoF(mate): shift-F, etc. (Note this takes up a lot of binding space, but seeing as you were a great mage I assume you have loads to begin with.

3v3: Almost the same, I have macros on my normal keys to heal myself and macros on the shift-keys to heal my target, using mouse-wheel up/down to target them (like pressing F2/F3 I guess, but I prefer the mouse-wheel).

5v5/BGs: Mouse-over macros with Grid, note that I don't use that add-on so I can "click-heal" targets by just clicking on them, instead I just hover over and mash away on my keyboard. I just don't like having to adjust my heals over to my mouse, feels weird.

Some basic healer tips: Focus on learning to keep your partner and yourself up (also try to help your partner with the purging, it's important) when you start to understand how much healing output you have, then you can start learning about positioning so you can avoid damage but at the same time be in range and line of sight with your partner. When you got that under control just go crazy offensive! (aka pushing lava bursts and shit, nobody likes to play mana-wars)

Sounds like you're the kind of person that complains about running out of keybindings :P. I don't know how people can use 3 seperate macros for one spell when you can use 1 macro for the same spell to do the same thing as 3 macros.

Use:

#showtooltip Flash of Light
/cast [target=mouseover,exists,nodead][target=player] Flash of Light

and it will do the same thing as a macro where you designate a name you just have to mouseover their raid frame. Mouseovers save a lot of bindings if you learn how to use them (and to be honest, mouseovers make healing trivial.)

Every time I want to heal myself I just hold down my right mouse and cast the heal and it goes on me. When I want to heal a partner I mouseover their frame and bam, they get healed. No need for 3 bindings for each of my healing spells. I also use it for buffs as well. I have Water Breathing on a Mouseover so I can reapply it on the go without having to individually target each person (really nice for dispell protection.)

On my Paladin I have all my Hands and Blessings on Mouseovers for the same reason. I have Sacred Shield, Cleanse and Purify on Mouseovers. It's just a really easy way to heal and it saves a fuck ton of bindings.

[rathok]

Thanks for the posts.

As a shaman you always want to shock/ground high damage spells, even if you're not going for a kill. If you're going for a kill make sure to shock heals. Against Destruction Warlock/Elemental Shamans, etc (High damage casters) You'll always want to shock their biggest casted nuke (Chaos Bolt/Lava Burst, and so on.) You'll also want to shock CC as often as possible and use grounding to stop casts when your Wind Shear is on CD.

I was referring to heals specifically, i definitely shock dps spells. Should i be wasting mana on shocking say a flash of light when in 2 seconds he's going to cast it anyways and it doesn't do anything but delay the inevitable. Again, were not always going for a kill... if hex is on CD then is it worth it.

I've got BG healing down pretty well as grid with range makes it pretty easy to just spam heals on everyone. I'm not a great healer but i know how to heal! I did make it up to ~1700 with a ret pally.

Most top healers that I've seen speaking about how they target just click their frames, some use funky keybinds on their mouse, only a few use F1-5. Personally I also click frames but I wouldn't just use standard party frames as they are too far away. For offensive targeting it's kind of a mix between tab targetting when you're confident it will select the right target, and clicking on Gladius (or similar).

Yeah, i've got all my F1-6 bound to shit... having a mouse button would be a nice backup for my partner though.

[Hips]

Thanks for the posts.
I was referring to heals specifically, i definitely shock dps spells. Should i be wasting mana on shocking say a flash of light when in 2 seconds he's going to cast it anyways and it doesn't do anything but delay the inevitable. Again, were not always going for a kill... if hex is on CD then is it worth it.

I've got BG healing down pretty well as grid with range makes it pretty easy to just spam heals on everyone. I'm not a great healer but i know how to heal! I did make it up to ~1700 with a ret pally.
Yeah, i've got all my F1-6 bound to shit... having a mouse button would be a nice backup for my partner though.

Always Shock heals. Especially against Paladins. The more your stop their healing the harder it is for them to recover. Every time you shock the paladin he'll fall more and more behind on healing and eventually make it impossible for him to recover, especially if you get a hex in, another shock, a CC/interrupt/silence from your partner, and then another shock. It will be impossible for them to make a recovery.

[TheMediator]

For 2s everything is bound, 3s and 5s I use f1-5 or click their frames depending on what I'm doing. But yeah shocking heals when you're not burning someone is just a waste of your own mana since they're going to cast the damn spell eventually anyways.

[Somedudeknownaschris]

Can you use grid in the arena? What do you use for party frames?

Late reply ftw, I wouldn't recommend using grid, especially considering like, well for example, debuffs, you'll see trash debuffs and stuff flying around all over your grid and wont ever be 100% sure who's been sheeped/hexed/whatever.
Personally I use ag_unitframes. With the 3d portrait turned on, makes it extremely easy to see stuff like sheeps hexes and whatever. Any partyframes addon should do you really though.

[Jerazznor]

The keys to playing a r shaman effectively are managing totems and mana effectively. Knowing how much and when you need to heal (and therefore what kind of heal you need to use) is incredibly important.

Also, dropping Mana Tide totem during bloodlust is an incredibly useful tactic. 99% of the time they are too busy trying to minimize damage during BL to notice mana tide.

[Shrapnelz]

Either set up mouse overs or use a mod to assist.

Clicking the target you want to heal and the spell you want to use is 2 clicks per cast.

You could be the best damn healer in the world. Give a semi good healer a 1 click per cast option (grid, healbot, mouse overs) and they'll get heals off faster.

I personally use healbot. Ive got almost 12 spells binded just to my mouse, everything from flash,sac,beacon,shield blah blah you get the idea. 1 click vs 2 clicks = win.

A mod /w key binds works awsome.

[HeLpIaMaTrEe]

i am shaman and i heal for 2v2 and 3v3.
Whats more i have 0 macros, binds or addons.
Everyone knows shamans are weak in 2v2, but we win most 3v3...

clickers ftw?

[Cerb]

Most top healers that I've seen speaking about how they target just click their frames, some use funky keybinds on their mouse, only a few use F1-5. Personally I also click frames but I wouldn't just use standard party frames as they are too far away. For offensive targeting it's kind of a mix between tab targetting when you're confident it will select the right target, and clicking on Gladius (or similar). As far as shaman shocks go I'll leave that question to a Shaman.

I'm doing the same as this guy, and I"m a disc priest.

[Somedudeknownaschris]

Either set up mouse overs or use a mod to assist.

Clicking the target you want to heal and the spell you want to use is 2 clicks per cast.

You could be the best damn healer in the world. Give a semi good healer a 1 click per cast option (grid, healbot, mouse overs) and they'll get heals off faster.

I personally use healbot. Ive got almost 12 spells binded just to my mouse, everything from flash,sac,beacon,shield blah blah you get the idea. 1 click vs 2 clicks = win.

A mod /w key binds works awsome.

There's a reason you never ever see decently rated healers use healbot. If you're having to click your healbot all the time you're seriously sacrificing your movement, unless you still have keyboard turn keybound (which in itself is messing your movement)? Quickly clicking on a portrait, returning the mouse back to movement function, and keep using your keybinds to heal allows you to do both at the same time. Also, 2 clicks? One for clicking the portrait and one for *shudder* clicking an ability? That's seriously not how it's done mate, if you're 2k plus healing like this then props to you and keep doing so, otherwise I'd recommend switch over.

[Accuser.]

I'm addicted to using Clique with the X-Perl UI. I promise you that, whatever your skill level, you will get better by using more keybinds no matter how bad it sucks at first.

I originally used very few, but now have shift-Lclick, shift-Rclick, alt-Lclick, alt-Rclick, Mbutton3, Mbutton4, shift-Mbutton4 (healing keybinds), E, shift-E, R, shift-R, Q, shift-Q, Z, shift-Z, X, shift-X, F, shift-F and the 1-5 keys and STILL have spells that arent bound. And I play a healing paladin...

[Somedudeknownaschris]

I'm addicted to using Clique with the X-Perl UI. I promise you that, whatever your skill level, you will get better by using more keybinds no matter how bad it sucks at first.

I originally used very few, but now have shift-Lclick, shift-Rclick, alt-Lclick, alt-Rclick, Mbutton3, Mbutton4, shift-Mbutton4 (healing keybinds), E, shift-E, R, shift-R, Q, shift-Q, Z, shift-Z, X, shift-X, F, shift-F and the 1-5 keys and STILL have spells that arent bound. And I play a healing paladin...

Thought I'd join in with a full list of all my keybinds as a priest :> q, e, r, t y, g, \, z, x, c, v, h, j (yup, j is rez), 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 6 shift-1 shift-2 shift-3 shift-4 shift-q, shift-r, shift-t, shift-d, shift-f, shift-g, shift-\, shift-v, shift-q, ctrl-shift-q ctrl-z, shift-e ctrl-x, ctrl-c, ctrl-f, ctrl-r, ctrl-v, ctrl-shift-v, ctrl-s, ctrl-shift-s, Mbutton3, Mbutton4, Shift-Mbutton3, shift-Mbutton4 aaaaaand F5.
Paladin is sehr hardz ja?

I went from lol-healbot-using-spazwagon, to all those keybinds one day and never changed back (still use grid/clique for raids). Best piece of advise I can give if you're gonna start with keybinds - firstly look up a good [class] pvp video and look where his keybinds are (so you get the important things bound to close things, num-lock is flash heal k?) and just modify it as you see fit. Secondly, disable friggin healbot (or similar) because what I found whilst learning is that once I knew my keybinds, if I got under pressure I would panic and keep using healbot which I had just moved to a corner. Disable the frigging thing and suffer for a few days, you'll love yourself for it in the long term.

[Psychoholicx]

Im playing 2v2 as a holy paladin and i never ever change targets in combat.

I focus the healer (or caster when doubledps) and target the second enemy.

Im using shift as a modifier to heal me or 'party1'. I also use it for offensive skills, either 'target' or 'focus'

[Ragels]

I personally use grid, highly customized, and place it close to gladius.

[furium]

I use default unit frames and just click who i want to heal.