Healbot Hate

[Firecrest]

I don't use Healbot. I barely have an understanding of what it is. I checked it out on Curse and as far as I could tell, it's just a healing mod that takes the place of Grid and a couple others.

However, I was reading a guild's application page today and it said "Anyone found running Healbot or similar addons will be removed from the guild without warning." I also have run into a few posts along the lines of "Healbot healers are bad healers" on these and other forums.

So my question is, what's wrong with it? What is it about it that would warrant a gboot or make you a terrible healer?

[Razorlor]

Healbot is the exact same as what you can do with grid plus macros, it just has the macros built in.

Anybody that says it makes you a bad healer is an idiot.

[Djinni]

Addons like HealBot or Grid + Clique
Only make a good healer 'better', all it does is allow you to use mouse clicks with binds, rather than target then hit a keybind, combining 2 actions into 1.

The days where the addon made decisions for you (similar to HealBot's SmartCast) is long gone. As such things dont work in combat.

The hate comes from people who don't understand the difference, and have no comprehension of what the addon(s) actually do. So healer or not, your better of not joining such guilds anyway.

[Bananengurke]

all it is is the simpler version of grid+clique, with no setting up to do.
they must be really retarded if they don't let you heal with healbot
I healed all my leveling phase plus heroics with healbot, 10 mans and on I started to use grid, just because I like the look better and you can customize it better, bu it doesn't really make a difference in how good you heal

[Harmacy]

I'd love to get a link to the guild you mentioned, maybe look some of them up on the armory and see the mistakes they make in gear/spec.

If you think that using healbot or an equivalent addon makes a healer BAD, you have poor reasoning skills and likely are a bad player. I used to heal without any addon besides a UI addon, and without mouseover macros - a few months ago I switched to Healbot and, while for a week or two I felt it was impeding my healing, it quickly won me over - I noticed my HPS going up drastically and, more importantly, it was much easier to switch targets and to use my OH SHIT buttons like Pain Suppression (yes my main is a disc priest).

[JSeilaS]

Because target>cast or cast>select target are so much better than click+cast.

[Dareios]

Healbot is exactly the same as Grid + clique although less customisable. Anyone who says that Healbot is for people who can't heal without is a retard.

I played without healbot for a while and I found it seriously lacking because mouse-overs or target + cast just isn't as practical as healbot or grid.

[holii]

not enough key binds on healbot is probably an limitation.

still need to make some mouseover macros and key binds to complement that

and you still need to press shift/or control + click after you move your mouse for non main spells. i don't like that. personal preference.

healbot for starters mainly in my opinion

[Djinni]

not enough key binds on healbot is probably an limitation.

still need to make some mouseover macros and key binds to complement that

and you still need to press shift/or control + click after you move your mouse for non main spells. i don't like that. personal preference

This has been addressed in the 3.3 version of Healbot. There are far more available keybind options, (It supports the new SteelSeries WoW Mouse...) although granted, you still can't make your own as you can with Clique.

[Raëlle]

Hm, you'd be suprised how much people make drama over healing addons, wether it's Healbot or Grid. Once a officer caused so much drama because his healers were using either one of those addons he actually left guild. I don't mind healing without it, but if we wipe well...don't blame us.
Regarding this topic, I'm one of those healers that use Healbot. I customized it for hours making it work on all bosses, showing special debuffs, added some mouseover macro's ontop of it. Aswell as it's regurlar keybindings function. I can see Freya's Iron Roots, I can see Penetrating Cold, I can see people that are marked with Skull, Cross. Granted Grid has more functions then Healbot has, but I got used to Healbot when I started out on my character. I did however try to learn to use Grid, but I found my reflexes downed dramastically because I had to play whole different style then what I'm used off.

I tried to learn Grid everyday for weeks, I saw no improvement. I'm not saying Healbot is by far better then Grid, I do know what is better, but unfortunate on my part I cannot back down on Healbot. I don't do or see anything less then what other people do/see on their Grid. In my honest opinion I think the person that wrote that on the guild forum is a 'non healer' officer that hates Healbot for no apparent reason, but to think like what most 'anti clickers' think.

If I read that, how hardcore the guild may be, I'd ignore it totally. No point joining a guild with such drama statement.

[Azyoulike]

So my question is, what's wrong with it? What is it about it that would warrant a gboot or make you a terrible healer?

Does sound like prejudice really. Out of the box I found healbot to be horrible, so I never bothered to use it, but I've run with some good people who do. I think it may be one of those cases where healbot doesn't make bad healers, but bad healers disproportionately use healbot because the name entices them

[blahism]

The big problem i had with healbot is it falls apart in high demand, it simply doesn't allow you to click fast enough if you're using your mouse to cast spells. In healbot i honestl have a hard time getting over 6.5k hps in hardmode twin valkyr but on grid+clique i can easily to 10-11k hps using the same mouse and same keyboard. I think there is a bit much overhead on healbot that it strains your computer more than grid+clique.

After the initial getting used to grid, i could never go back.

[Raëlle]

The big problem i had with healbot is it falls apart in high demand, it simply doesn't allow you to click fast enough if you're using your mouse to cast spells. In healbot i honestl have a hard time getting over 6.5k hps in hardmode twin valkyr but on grid+clique i can easily to 10-11k hps using the same mouse and same keyboard. I think there is a bit much overhead on healbot that it strains your computer more than grid+clique.

After the initial getting used to grid, i could never go back.

I'm not having that problem at all with Healbot.

http://www.pwnies.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=1268
This is probably the guild that was meant.

[kungfumonkey]

@ Firecrest, how old is the post your on about if its recent then it makes no sense as others have said however if its not been updated recently then it may have some justification.

I understand ages ago healbot used to actually choose the most appropriate heal to cast on people and as such some thought it was just lazy healing and to some extents an infringement of the games Terms and conditions as you could say the add on was playing the game for you.

Nowadays it does not do that and hasnt for a long time. What your most likely to find now is grid+clique players bashing healbot users saying that grid + clique is far better and yet not being able to give a decent reason why.. I think they just dont want to admit they invested hours setting up 2 seperate addons (usually more than that) to get to something that healbot already does out of the box ;P

[Lysah]

The big problem i had with healbot is it falls apart in high demand, it simply doesn't allow you to click fast enough if you're using your mouse to cast spells. In healbot i honestl have a hard time getting over 6.5k hps in hardmode twin valkyr but on grid+clique i can easily to 10-11k hps using the same mouse and same keyboard. I think there is a bit much overhead on healbot that it strains your computer more than grid+clique.

After the initial getting used to grid, i could never go back.

10k-11k hps?

Can you come solo heal my 25 man raids, bro?

Edit:
Jokes, man. Jokes.

[blahism]

Nowadays it does not do that and hasnt for a long time. What your most likely to find now is grid+clique players bashing healbot users saying that grid + clique is far better and yet not being able to give a decent reason why.. I think they just dont want to admit they invested hours setting up 2 seperate addons (usually more than that) to get to something that healbot already does out of the box ;P

Grid+Clique is modular - easy to extend. Running anub hardmode? YOu can plugin a mod to show a txt coundown of everyones health sitting at 1.5k (where it should be), can also show health deficits, health gains, incoming heals from other places, raid buffs, boss debuffs, so on so forth. Also grid is great for everyone even non healers. As a tank you can run grid+clique to watch your raids health using less resources than even WoW's default (and terrible) raid frames. You can also keybind intervene or other actions to click on people and save the day pretty quickly. The interface also works great for everyone. Healbot is sort of stuck on healers and while you can have it open for DPS or Tanking it just takes up too much screen estate to be usefull.

Grid+Clique isn't just for healing, its a great tool for all classes and if you take the 10-15 minutes to learn it you will be amazed at what you can do. From simple stuff to having good actions, bad actions configured so if your Boomkin you can just shift+click someone in your grid who you see is low on mana and innervate them and be done with it - no typing /tar mylowonmanafriend or if you have a brez you can map the same. Doable in healbot to a degree, but not as well.

I could go on and on, but really, give grid+clique a try and then come back and say "why is it better" - with mods/addons/easy customization its a no brainer if you ask me. Being able to see icons, txt markers, box markers, color markers, color variations and customize the doodoo out of your UI or easily handle going from 10 mans to 40 man WG situations without freaking out or slowing down is why grid rocks.

[Fenixdown]

What is generally wrong with Healbot is several things.

1. It's designed entirely for mouse play. Most people use a standard 2-button or 2-button+wheel mouse. This gives a maximum of 6 options at your disposal (if I recall you can also bind button combinations to cast different spells, but it's been a long time since I personally tried HB). However, that being said, most people that download it don't bother to read the destructions first and have no clue at all how to set it up beyond left and right mouse button options, giving them only two spells on HB. Which might work...if you're a paladin.

2. People that generally download HB have never healed. So, already, they are starting on a foot of having little experience. Most people use Healbot as a "crutch", as it were. Since these people also generally fall under category 1 (no knowledge of using the mod), they then fall into bad habits of becoming overly and entirely dependant on it to do their work for them, so to speak.

3. If they only have two spells bound, odds are these people are so stuck to the HB crutch that they only cast those two spells. Again...if you're a paladin, maybe that would work. But I'd like to see a priest or resto druid only use two spells and actually do well.

4. Lastly, tank healers. They become so dependent on HB to do the work for them, so to speak, that they bug the raid leader to "please set up the MTs so they will show up on Hleabot". If I had a gold for every time I've heard a healer say that, my alt DK would have epic flying with money to spare by now.

Now, I will say this is not all healers that use HB. Just the typical ones. There are a few exceptions that I know that use HB and actually know how to use it. But that number is very, very few.

That is generally why most guilds shun Healbot. Your stereotypical healer that uses it uses it as no more than a crutch to do the work for them. These same people would use the old vanilla "healing macro", also. And they would be bad healers then, as well.

For anyone that doesn't know what that reference is, it's a macro that cast the rank and spell you needed to cast on any one person or group of people in the group or raid with the use of only one button. It was made into a bannable offense and it was one of the reasons why in early BC good healers became suddenly scarce.

[Harmacy]

2. People that generally download HB have never healed.

And you know this, how?

[kungfumonkey]

Fenix and Blahism are perfect examples of what I said earlier..

Fenix makes some massive and in my experience very wrong generalisations about heal bot users. You will tend to find Grid+Clique users have an air of elitism about them.. just my own personal Generalisation thrown in there for good measure.

Blahism obviously has not used heal bot himself or at least not recently. If he had then he would know that pretty much everything he says grid can do that makes it amazing you con actually configure in heal bot as well. For example I off spec tank and use my heal bot for seeing who pulls aggro and quickly taunting off them as well as hand pf protections, freedoms all sorts.. these things are not the exclusive domain of Grid!!!

Me personally i think both are the same in that, its an add on and as long as you knwo what your doing both can give you what you need. I know Excellent healers who use both types as well as shit ones that use both.

The stigma i think comes with healbot being easier to pick up and in some peoples minds that means its not as good as the one you need to spend a month tweaking to every single encounter that ever exists.

and for the record I did give Grid+clique a try and after spending a week with it i went back to heal bot, in fact the only one I have ever consdiered leaving healbot for is Vuhdo.. which is also very good.

[Raëlle]

What is generally wrong with Healbot is several things.

1. It's designed entirely for mouse play. Most people use a standard 2-button or 2-button+wheel mouse. This gives a maximum of 6 options at your disposal (if I recall you can also bind button combinations to cast different spells, but it's been a long time since I personally tried HB). However, that being said, most people that download it don't bother to read the destructions first and have no clue at all how to set it up beyond left and right mouse button options, giving them only two spells on HB. Which might work...if you're a paladin.

2. People that generally download HB have never healed. So, already, they are starting on a foot of having little experience. Most people use Healbot as a "crutch", as it were. Since these people also generally fall under category 1 (no knowledge of using the mod), they then fall into bad habits of becoming overly and entirely dependant on it to do their work for them, so to speak.

3. If they only have two spells bound, odds are these people are so stuck to the HB crutch that they only cast those two spells. Again...if you're a paladin, maybe that would work. But I'd like to see a priest or resto druid only use two spells and actually do well.

4. Lastly, tank healers. They become so dependent on HB to do the work for them, so to speak, that they bug the raid leader to "please set up the MTs so they will show up on Hleabot". If I had a gold for every time I've heard a healer say that, my alt DK would have epic flying with money to spare by now.

Now, I will say this is not all healers that use HB. Just the typical ones. There are a few exceptions that I know that use HB and actually know how to use it. But that number is very, very few.

That is generally why most guilds shun Healbot. Your stereotypical healer that uses it uses it as no more than a crutch to do the work for them. These same people would use the old vanilla "healing macro", also. And they would be bad healers then, as well.

For anyone that doesn't know what that reference is, it's a macro that cast the rank and spell you needed to cast on any one person or group of people in the group or raid with the use of only one button. It was made into a bannable offense and it was one of the reasons why in early BC good healers became suddenly scarce.

I half agree with this...I know Grid is better, but if you set up Healbot, it will be as good. At this moment I got all my usefull spells customized with Healbot. Flash of Light, Holy Shock, Holy Light, Hand of Protection, Hand of Salvation, Hand of Freedom, Divine Intervention, Redemption, Sacred Shield, Beacon of Light, Cleanse you name it all. Healbot is by far a addon for only two spells, I don't know where you go this from. I even got few macro mouseovers and keybindings functioned on Healbot. I see every debuff that appears on any boss, It shows every skull/cross/moon/square/triangle/circle. I don't see why changing to Grid will help me if I made Healbot as functional as can be. Most people dislike Healbot because they mess up the addon, their reflexes are slow due to it and if not set up well they don't see debuffs and other things.

But those few people that can use Healbot to it's fullest limit shouldn't be flamed at. And I know I have been once, but I don't see me healing differently then other Holy Paladins using Grid...It makes me so sad so much...I don't wanna change a stupid addon just to please others. I already tried that 'Oh, you'll heal much better' Sure, weeks of training, no improvement. I'm sorry but not gonna bother with it.