The Egotistical Priest
An irreverent and opinionated discussion of the many classes
in the World of Warcraft gaming universe.
Addons and Healing
by Vonya
I get asked what addons I use for healing probably more often than any other question.
People are almost universally disappointed with my answer, but the recent post about not relying on addons to heal over at World of Matticus spurred me to go ahead and write a post on my addons.
My Opinionated Addon Philosophy
First off, let’s get one thing straight with regards to my opinion of addons.
Addons make our job easier. They provide us with tools to facilitate our game play and in some cases to correct an oversight or lack in the Blizzard default UI.
It is my very strong opinion that if you are incapable of playing this game without addons, then you are allowing those addons to play the game for you.
How you spend your money is your business, but I think it’s very sad indeed to reduce this glorious, multi-faceted, complex, and brilliant game to a single button press. To each his own.
As you might guess by that opinion, I am very stingy with the addons that I use to heal.
There are, in fact, only two of them, along with a pair of macros.
Addons
1) VisualHeal
VisualHeal adds a little bar (much like a casting bar) that tells me only one thing if I am the only healer who has it installed, but tells me far more if other healers also have it installed.
If I’m rocking the addon solo, it shows me how much overheal I can probably expect from the heal that I’m casting. It’s not precise, it’s just an additional colored section on the cast bar, but when I was Holy spec I found it incredibly useful, especially when healing dpsers whose health bars I don’t know like the back of my hand.
As Disc spec it’s less useful for personal use, but I keep it installed not only for the times I do cast a Greater Heal or a Flash Heal but also for the benefit of the other healers in my raids.
You see, if multiple healers have the addon installed, the addon will actually report whether or not the person I’m healing already has an incoming heal.
Oho, and now the magic of the addon becomes clear. I start a heal on StabbityDeath, but it turns out he’s already got an incoming heal from the shaman. First off, will my heal on top of the shaman’s be mostly overheal? Or will my good buddy Stabbity need my heal in addition to the shaman’s heal?
The addon will, in an easy to use visual format, give me the information I need to determine whether to stop casting on Stabbity and focus on the suicidal enhancement shaman instead (hi Shatter!) or maybe the ret pally who seems to cut himself even more often than the warlock does (hi Nyisa!).
It’s a great tool that allows healers in a raid situation to coordinate their heals and help each other keep the raid up.
2) X-Perl
X-Perl is a unitframes addon – that means it replaces my target window, group window, and raid windows.
I use X-Perl for healing because I have an incredible, magic ability to miss whatever it is I’m trying to click on in the default UI.
Health bars in the default UI are dangerously small for me. In truth, they’re not small at all, it’s just that I somehow manage to MISS the health bars when I use it. X-Perl allows me to resize them to something I am less likely to miss.
In additon, X-Perl is set up to fade out any characters that are out of healing range for me (so I don’t bother trying to heal someone I can’t reach, a common problem any healer who’s ever done Gruul can sympathize with). It also highlights the group member in blue if they have a dispellable magic effect, and yellow if they have a dispellable disease effect.
Oh, and it also has a counter for the number of HoTs on a character. I run with a tree druid – I’d piss him right off if I started flash healing someone he just Hotted up, and rightfully so. It’s not a contest to see who can heal the fastest, it’s a contest to see if our raid can defeat the boss. And me wasting the mana of two healers just to show up higher on the healing meters is NOT helping us defeat the boss.
Macros
I have two macros that help me in my healing role. Are you ready for this? It’s really complicated…
/cast [target=mouseover] Dispel Magic
and
/cast [target=mouseover] Abolish Disease
(Note : for those of you doing Grobbulus, I recommend changing “Abolish” to “Cure” so as not to accidentally cleanse his disease on a target before they’re in position, thus dropping an expanding ring of glowing green death right on top of your melee and tanks. Not…not that I would know anything like that….)
That’s it. Those are my magic healing macros. I have them bound to my mouse wheel scroll up and down.
When I see a character light up with a blue outline courtesy of X-Perl, I move my mouse over their character health bar and spin my scrolly mousewheel. BAM. They’re cleansed, and I never lost my target. It saves me two buttons on my Nostromo and about two seconds if I had to click on the spell.
I can also use it to dispel a buff on a boss – in order to get the heroic Utgarde Keep achievement, I kept an eye on King Ymiron. As soon as he started casting a shadowy spell, I moved my mouse over him and started spinning the wheel, cleansing his Bane before the melee had a chance to trigger it.
Wait…that’s it?
Yup. That’s it. I don’t use Grid, I don’t use Clique, I don’t use…whatever the other popular healing addons are.
I credit my Nostromo with the majority of my “success” as a healer – it allows me to shave my reaction time down to a miniscule amount (and it removes my clicking-on-buttons problem completely).
Summary
I’m not saying that if you use those other addons, you’re cheating, or that you’re a lesser healer.
I’m saying that if you can’t heal WITHOUT them, then you’re crippling yourself, AND you’re crippling your raid. What happens if a new patch comes out that breaks your beloved addon? Do you just stop raiding until it gets fixed?
Play the game however makes you happy. But if you’re a newbie healer and your head is spinning at all of the various UI mods that well-meaning people throw at you…take heart.
It is very very possible to heal successfully with nothing but the default Blizzard UI. If you decide that you’d like to include some Addons to help in your healing, do so with your eyes wide open. You don’t need every memory-intensive, complicated UI system available to healers.
Try them out, by all means. But make your own evaluation of what works for YOU and the way you want to play.
January 15th, 2009
Hm, I don’t know if I can really get behind that philosophy.
In a way it’s like saying “If you can’t walk to your job, then you shouldn’t drive to it. You’re crippling yourself because maybe one day cars will no longer exist.”
Well, yeah, but one day maybe the road (X-perl) and the traffic lights (Visual Heal) will magically disappear as well. There’s a lot of things that people could do that they simply don’t (They’re add-ons because none of them are essential), but they nevertheless do perform a service that is making a difference. In example, I like Grid + Click2Cast because I can focus on what’s going on around me and still be able to heal with 100% efficiency. You could argue that a person could still do it, but as with the above metaphor a marathon runner COULD run to work even if it’s 30 miles away, while a common pedestrian wouldn’t be able to.
But since “the worst” doesn’t happen, and likely won’t (Blizzard has stated it likes most of the add-ons and tries to make it possible for them to exist), then it seems like a somewhat illogical phobia.
Either way, I think being a crippled healer is cool. It gives you an excuse to pop vicodin.
January 15th, 2009
I read this and I got a different philosophy than Shatter did.
I saw : “You don’t need the tricked out corvette when your geo metro can get you there just fine and with better gas mileage.”
For some of us, PC memory usage is like prime real estate, these days. The more addons I have running, the longer it takes to zone in and the more likely something unexpected will happen. This accumulation of required processing power is something Vonya didn’t mention, but it can be a big deal and a deciding factor on whether the big flashy add-on is worth it.
I use Grid for the same reasons V uses VisualHeal and X-Perl. I haven’t mastered how to make my party frames vanish during a raid, so I needed a compact way to see everyone. The incoming heal is not as important for me as most of my heals are hots anyway, but I like having it so I know if an emergency situation is already being dealt with. Nature’s Swiftness+Healing Touch? Or just a regrowth to top them off and keep a HoT for a buffer for any residual or continuing damage. (Living Seed ftw)
Taking her two mouse-over macros to an extreme, I have every heal spell macro’d up so I can point at a frame or a figure running around and push my 1-5 keys to use the appropriate heal. Sometimes in an aoe-intensive fight, I may not know who the most central person is in the blast, but I can see the character standing there and splash a Wild Growth on them in order to efficiently hit the five people around them as well.
I love how versatile the UI addons are in WoW – there really is no reason to follow a cookie-cutter approach as opposed to putting together a setup that works best for you and your style.
January 15th, 2009
Just a quick note. I use Pitbull and it can be configured much like X-Perl and has the Visual Heal functionality built in and doesn’t require the other raid members to have the addon for it to fully function. I currently play shadow, the thing I like about it is that it tells me when I have a heal incomming. I’m a good little hybrid DPS and will heal myself if the healers have too much to worry about
January 15th, 2009
@ Ego
Hey now just because I’ve taken more damage then our tank, on Loatheb, doesn’t mean you need to pick on me…
January 15th, 2009
I understand what you mean about hurting yourself if you rely completely on addons, however there is a Priest in my guild that, although he is pretty good at what he is doing, just can’t react fast enough on his own. I introduced him to Heal bot (as it is what I use) and this allowed him to keep up where multiple differing spells were required on multiple targets. Without the add on he just could not keep up, does that mean he is no good? Nope. He has gotten alot more confident and volunteers to heal more often since then, not everyone has the dexterity to minimalist heal, thats why add ons were created.
At the same time I knew someone who wasn’t aware they had certain spells because their add ons didn’t auto add them into it’s program…
I personaly heal any instance I goto for the first time with heal bot turned off just to get a feel for it. Some of this Northrend stuff had me scrambling lol.
January 15th, 2009
@Shatter: you win the post for your close.
Addons are like an artist’s choice of brush and canvas. You might be able to make good art with a burnt branch, but you can certainly also make good art with Photoshop. If there was a magic helmet that painted a perfect image of whatever you thought of – an artist would still produce art, and a nonartist would still not. The tools mostly limit the expression of the artistic vision, likewise a bad interface only hinders the skill of a healer.
Healing, like most computer tasks, is a three stage process. 1) absorb information, 2) make decisions, 3) tell the computer your decision. Stages 1+2 aren’t challenges I’m interested in, I view these as wrestling the interface not healing. The thinner I can make those stages, the more critical stage 2 becomes to my performance. I wouldn’t use any addon that chose the heal for me. That’s impinging on stage 2.
We live in a modern society, with centrally heated houses and lots of pretty shoes. Maybe come the revolution this will all be taken from us, however until that day, I will be warm and snug inside. I don’t want to live in the WoW dark ages either. The future is bright!
January 15th, 2009
I only recently found out about this blog via a podcast. If I’m not mistaken you said you never down ranked. While I’m sure you heal/ed fine without it and without good mods it’s not effective. It will work, and may seem easier if you are used to that but that doesn’t make it anymore effective.
I’ve met healers who tell me they click the default Blizz unit frames then go down and click their heal spell. They’ve been doing it for years and can’t switch now.
January 15th, 2009
Ego, I love your approach. I always felt a little guilty that I don’t use a ton of addons, but everything I tried felt like it was getting in the way. Really, I only use X-Perl regularly, but Visual Heal sounds like exactly the sort of thing I should install. Binding those macros to the mouse wheel is a great idea, too – I think I’ll be doing that as soon as I log in today.
January 15th, 2009
I havent used do many add-ons. Used omen some didnt like it, the WOW default ui gives me who is grabbing aggro and if I am being targeted. Haven’t used any healing ones yet. My personal feeling is the add-ons prevent me from “playing” the game, taking the participation in the game away. I may heal slower, or over heal or double heal, (which I agree is not good to have happening) I am doing it myself. The addons you suggest seem very viable and the macros also so I will be trying them.
January 15th, 2009
Ha Ha Ha! Ego’s secret macros are mine at last! Good-bye Decursive! On another note, I will never knock someone for using addons to heal, and I’ve had a fair share of other healers suggest their own for me to use. However, I’ve been priest healing for two years at least now with just X-perl and Decursive, and I couldn’t imagine healing any other way. Everytime I hear you tell us about your old school healing ways Ego, I am thrilled to hear that I’m not an outdated old coot. It makes me want to go and do a happy dance. And honestly? One click healing would make healing even more boring. I really don’t know how paladins do it.
January 15th, 2009
Add ons are about giving you information in a way that you can process it best for you. Blizzard got rid of quite a few hooks in the game long ago that gave you a one button ‘do-all’ ability (anyone remember the original Decursive?).
If the default ui doesn’t present info to you in the way you prefer, then by all means go get an add-on that does. This doesn’t make you any better or any worse imo. I don’t use any of the ones Vonya listed because they don’t present to me information the way I like it, so I use different ones that give me the same info, just in a way I prefer to be presented.
January 15th, 2009
To me add ons have almost become a mini game to me. I enjoy fiddling with my UI nearly as much as I enjoy healing. In NO WAY do my add ons do my job for me. My add ons allow me to heal faster. My add ons allow me to put the information I want where I want it and in a format that appeals to me.
My heals are bound to my mouse through Clique for 2 reasons…1 that frees up my nostromo for other spells, and 2 it allows me to quickly place heals on any raid member. For spells with cast times this is not a huge difference as you can easily switch targets while your spell is casting, but for instant cast spells it is amazing. I also can heal one person while keeping the tank or the boss targeted, which I have come to like a great deal.
I use grid as it is compact and I can customize it to show the information I want to see. I also love being able to add new debuffs to it on the fly. I like turning the health bar bright pink as a hey heal this person fast they have ______ nasty debuff on! In this way I have a heal already casting before the person has a chance to holler out in vent.
I could list off other examples, but really my add ons or mostly a visual change that helps me to see the information I need to see. With default UI I had to look in multiple locations for different things. With my UI I have everything I need to see in combat grouped together in a manner that is easy for me to see all at once. By no means am I saying everyone must use add ons. This is a personal choice that actually built up slowly for me. I started out as a purist. Even worse I sneered at those that “needed” add ons to heal. Then I changed unitframes….and got a couple other little things….and then more. Now I do not ever…EVER want to go back to healing without. I could yes, but I do not think I’d like it as much as I do now. I do not think I’d as fast or effective as I am now.
So in closing I say use whatever add ons you like. Skip them if you do not like them. This is a game and we should all play it the way that we want to. However try not to judge people based on their add ons or lack of add ons. Judge a healer on their performance…not their tools.
P.S- good post Vonya
January 15th, 2009
Great post
In the end, it is what you are most comfortable with and how it compliments your playstyle. I am one of those evil keyboard turns and used to, before grid and clique, use my mouse to click on my spells.
I can heal without grid and clique. Probitley not as fast, and not as effective, because using the defeult UI makes my eyes travel too much and if I bound spells to keys (which I do have) then I have to spend the second to go up, click on the frame and then press the button, thus moving my hands away from my movement keys.
Being minimalist may works for others, just not me. I really love my grid and clique set up, not because healing it “easier” for me, but because it’s set up works more naturally with my playstyle. Like Lillend, I love having everything all in one place and easy to see what is going on. Too many frames make my eyes bleed. Using my mouse for my macro combos help since I can still move and cast at the same time.
Likewise, I can understand what you mean about the add on not doing the work for you and I really think mine don’t. All they do is allow me to absorb the information faster and react in the speed I naturally would respond in.
In the end, each healer develops their own playstyle and their own “must” haves to make their job more manageable. None is worse or better, just different.
<3
January 15th, 2009
Ego – I LOVE that you did this. AddOns can be quite rough… there are so many. And so many BAD ones too! It is what caused me to start my reoccuring post on my blog called “Add On Corner”. I know you don’t use any other mods… but please please please please please try out power auras. Especially if you have Imp HC, and SoL. The time you will spend out of 5 Second Rule wll be so much better. You commented in the Podcast over on “The Ego has landed” where you said you “look for the sparkles at your feet”.
Trust me… you’ll love it!
Check out my post on Power Auras, Ego. http://www.talesofapriest.com/2008/12/add-on-corner-power-auras.html
January 15th, 2009
I, too, use X-Perl. I like being able to make raid frames, focus frames, etc. bigger and smaller. There’s even the plugin that lets you see what the other healers are casting!
I almost bought a Nostromo several months back because I thought it would make Druid healing even easier (what with all the mouseover HoTing I do), but talked myself out of it due to the price point. But it would be a fun toy.
I might still do that. My boss gave me a Best Buy gift certificate for Christmas. It might be time for a present for myself.
January 15th, 2009
Yeah you can heal just fine without addons. I only started on Grid when I started raiding and need clearer information.
It’s interesting the different ways people heal and the addons they use.
*goes to look at Power Auras post*
January 15th, 2009
Went to grid when I started healing av on my paladin. Same scheme is what made it easy to raid heal.
January 15th, 2009
I will also vote for power auras…definitely one of my favorite add ons!
January 16th, 2009
I’ll chime in on power aura’s also. One might even go so far to say that it is pretty pimp! Also, it is not a ‘healer’ add on. It has uses for every class. I think Vonya was trying to stick with healer specific add ons
Most of you already know I hate x-perl
-
January 16th, 2009
Yeah Hildi, but what do you think of X-perl?
(Zoolander Joke! Zing!)
January 16th, 2009
I started a comment, but it turned into a post.
tl;dr version: I don’t use many healing addons, and everyone is startled.
http://phreid.livejournal.com/199956.html
January 16th, 2009
@Kwane: …
Ill login this weekend and say hi again. Beware. Incoming!
January 16th, 2009
I did like PowerAuras, However ThankGod is a very nice alternative (with an even nicer female voice)
January 16th, 2009
I’m of the school that you should use whatever tools that make you the most effective healer. If you can do the job well with the stock UI, great, if you love your addons, cool.
Setup the game so that it works with you, not against you.
That said, I do have one question for Vonya. Have you essentially moved your healing addons from inside the game (ala Grid+clique, healbot, etc.) to a piece of hardware outside the game, the Nostromo? How well would you do if the Nostromo broke? Are you conceptually treating them as different when they are actually doing the same thing, just in different locations?
Bah, I’m not sure if I asked that question at all well — need more coffee this cold morning
— I’m just curious since I can’t ever wrap my mental processes around the devices such as the Nostromo.
January 16th, 2009
[...] this topic was a post on /hug where Aurik discusses his take on some recent blog posts from other bloggers. Before I dive right in, though, allow me to lay some foundation to work from. All three posts [...]
January 16th, 2009
Your uber-mouse is actually an add-on, by the way. A hardware add-on, not an in-game software add-on.
Just sayin
January 16th, 2009
How can your mouse be an “add-on”? I mean, really. There’s some things that just beg the meaning of how you’re defining something.
My mouse has a page back and forward button, does that make it an add-on? Oh man, and some mice are optical instead of the rolly ball kind! THAT’S AN ADD-ON too.
Strawmen arguments suffer from the same thing as the Strawman did in the Wizard of Oz — a lack of brain.
January 16th, 2009
[...] read World of Matticus’ post earlier this week, and Egotistical Priests’s, and enjoyed both posts quite a bit. And then my mind turned to other [...]
January 16th, 2009
All these comments and no mention of HealBot. Whereas I use X-perl, I don’t use it for raiding, come to think of it, I really only use it for target and target’s target and of course the 3D portraits. Healbot is Grid(x-perl) + Clique(binding macros to mouse clicks) + VisualHeal all in one. I see incomming heals, disease and magic debuffs, who has aggro, who has a HoT and the “can’t bubble them again yet debuff” (with 9 sec. count downs), and where PoM is. Single click healing. The occasional hand gymnastic if push-to-talking/moving/healing(three modifiers shift/alt/control) at the same time (normal keyboard) is to be expected, but it works fine.
As for the whole patch destroying my ability to play. Well, duh, I’ve raided with this add-on since my birth at 70. I pimp it to my fellow healers as it will help them achieve “success”. When “doom” comes, so what? I’ll re-tool and re-train – lol, this isn’t a job – its a game.
@Ego
You’ve done it again, your offfensive Dispel Magic macro bound to the mouse wheel is a brilliant move I’m going to copy.
January 16th, 2009
offensive*
Might as well add some more now… =D
To beat the Queue one evening, I didn’t go home after work and just logged in from the office. Thats fine as I’m at a remote location I’m playing from my laptop already. The problem was my mouse’s mousewheel clicks wouldn’t make it to WoW, they worked fine in windows, but for nought in WoW. The thing of it is, the heals on the button wern’t the problem, it was – I forget now – missing either my Assist player or Target player that was most problematic for me. I ended up just finding a new binding for it.
My point is that a failure of any hardware or software you use to play everyday will disrupt you somewhat. As in life, we maximize our advantages, despite pending death from falling meteorites.
January 16th, 2009
Three in a row! yay, ok so I missed Underdark’s comment that mentions Healbot.
January 16th, 2009
@shatter
If you are binding macros or game-specific functions to those keys, then, yes you are using an hardware-based addon.
I mean, if I hover my mouse pointer over a player portrait, the press Mouse-Four button, and have a mouse over macro go off, how is that any different from hovering over a name in Healbot and doing the same thing?
Don’t forget that using the G15 keyboard with the Logitech software has been a bannable offense. The G15’s software macro recorder and playback was certainly a TOS-violating hardware addon from Blizzard’s point of view. What I’m trying to say is that even though a piece of hardware is needed to play the game (keyboard, mouse, etc.) that hardware can be powerful enough or configurable enough to fall into the addon category in specific instances.
January 16th, 2009
So am I allowed to ask the super noob question?
Do gamepads replace your keyboard when gaming? Because that would suck how do you talk to ppl in game then? *crawls back to her noob hall*
January 16th, 2009
[...] bit of a discussion going around the blogs lately about addons. Matt at World of Matticus and Vonya at The Egotistical Priest both wrote posts about how relying on addons essentially makes you a bad healer. Naturally this set [...]
January 16th, 2009
[...] So don’t take my word for it. Read. Ego’s Post. [...]
January 17th, 2009
This issue always seems to strike a lot of debate amongst healers. Because it has this weird ability to strike at the core, either for or against a healers performance that causes such a reaction I think. As a very very very (former die hard shadow priest) who was more then a little rough around the edges healer long ago — people TRIED to throw add on after add on in my face, and I felt so overwelmed and FUSTRATED because of how hard they were to configure to someone who didn’t know how. If it was possible, they made me heal — worse. I just wanted so desperately to be a better healer. And when everyone threw the add ons at me, I thought ‘this will make me better’ but they just confused me more.
In the end, I did away with the add ons. I use bartender4 to heal. That’s it. I moved the buttons around on my screen so they were within easy mouse click range of each other — through trial and error I found a way to place them on my action bars a way I like them. I macro’ddispell magic and abolish disease with left button dispell off target, right button dispell off me clickability and called it a day.
I even use the default raid frames given by blizzard. I use to look down at healers who had to use other add ons, once I’d mastered the art of not using them. And then I realized .. it’s really just about personal comfort for the person using them. That as long as the person is TRYING .. no matter how they choose to heal — so long as they’re being effected — whatever method they use is ok.
Because lets face it being a healer is not for the faint of heart, even on it’s best days.
January 17th, 2009
I suppose I’m a little uppity about addons, but I’ve always looked down on healbotters and the like. The only addons I use that affect healing are the ones that are required by guilds (like DBM and such) and unit frames that make the health bars bigger. I do so for two reasons.
The first is because I don’t want to cheapen the experience. If I wanted to only push two or three buttons I’d have rolled dps. I find so much strategy in the order that I choose my heals, and revel when I get through a crazy damage burst or near wipe. I am engaged in the game, enjoying what I’m doing. I prefer slightly bad runs to easy runs for a similar reason. Bad enough to make me scramble is better, because I get sharper and faster at what I do.
This brings me to my second reason. It has always been my firm belief that ‘healing mods’ are fantastic tools to make a bad player ok, but a good healer can get along (and even excel) without them. Most of the truly good healers I’ve met even say that such mods get in the way. I’ll be honest – I prefer playing with the truly good players over bad players that are rendered decent by their addons.
I still remember the time, back in BC, when I was tanking heroic ramps on my alt (which is fun because I get to see how other healers do), and we wiped multiple times because the paly’s healbot kept healing the warlock’s lifetap in the middle of the first boss instead of healing me. This happened 5 times, and the pally had no idea why we kept wiping.
January 17th, 2009
Does anyone remember when they took away Decursive?
“HOW CAN WE DO CHROMMAGUS NOW?!”
January 17th, 2009
If you like Visual Heal you’ll love LightMeter. Does the same and a bit more since it gives you mana management in a nifty bar just below the healing bar. Let’s you see how much mana you still have and how much you will gain from pots or Hymn of fiend. It also helps to decide when to get Shadowfiend or pop the Mana potion.
On another note, VH is not really needed. The incomming heals can be seen on most unit addons (X-Perl included) if you have LibHealComm installed. That’s the lib that allows addons to communicate heals to each other. It’s really the only addon we asked our healers to install.
January 17th, 2009
*looks up through Sari’s nose nostrils*
*laughs*
January 17th, 2009
Wait. WAIT. The Pally’s *healbot* healed the warlock? Healbot is capable of no such action. It just sits there as pretty as you’ve configured it and waits for you to “choose [your] heals.”
January 17th, 2009
Fair enough. However, it does illustrate the general experience with the quality of play I’ve suffered from people with that addon.
January 17th, 2009
To be a really good healer, I think you just need
1) Raid Frame addon (Grid, X-perl, etc. for the reasons stated in the article)
2) Mouseover macro for each heal, decurse
3) Memorized keybindings (either on keyboard or game pad- I use an N52)
If you are mousing over targets (never have to “select”) and pushing memorized buttons (clicking is too slow and takes your eyes off the bars or off the action), you are golden.
January 17th, 2009
To be a good healer you need to be alive.
Prove me wrong.
January 17th, 2009
Wow. Here I thought Hanna was the one that started all the angry talk, but noooo. Give a keyboard to Vonya and world is at war the next day lol
(gg V!)
@ Slighted – I like mouse over about as much as I like X-Perl. Which is to say not at all, and I heal very fine thankyouverymuch. IMO, to being a really good healer is knowing what to do when, and that has little to do with add-ons.
Like I said before, add-ons are about giving you information the way *you* want it given. If you can heal aok without them, fine. Who really cares, anyway?
PS: I think I need to get a l blog now. I feel somehow left out. Where do you all get the time for this? hehe
January 17th, 2009
I have seen a few people now mention add ons reducing the numbers of buttons you have to press or similar statements. I use Grid and Clique to heal. This does not choose my heals for me. I still have to do that. Instead of binding them to my keyboard or Nostromo I am binding heals to different mouse buttons in combination with keys such as Shift-Left click.
Grid…it is just raid frames with a lot of information in a very small space. All Clique really does is allow me to heal without having to target first. I just click the person I want to heal with whatever mouse button/key combo I need for the heal I wish. Also I have tried Healbot and it works pretty much the same as Grid with Clique or Click2Cast. So if you want to bind your keys to the keyboard fine and great, but it really is not that much different than a person choosing to use an add on to bind those same heals to their mouse.
Just trying to clear up a possible misconception.
January 17th, 2009
“It is my very strong opinion that if you are incapable of playing this game without addons, then you are allowing those addons to play the game for you.”
So, next 8-man Naxx run is without add-ons? Or does that achievement belong to the developers of your add-ons?
*ducks out of the bar before Kwane finds ‘em*
January 17th, 2009
She used the same add-ons (or lack thereof) during the 8-man as she would during a 10 — I don’t understand your point.
January 19th, 2009
@ Iratio -
I don’t get your point either. Saying “you should be able to play the game without addons” isn’t saying “you should always play the game without addons of any kind.”
Also, the developers of Xperl run Naxx with no addons? I never knew.
January 19th, 2009
As I think Iratio is trying to point out, it is confusing when she says that she has a problem with the default raid frames and missing the buttons and that is why she uses xperl, and then later says that if you can’t play without addons then you are allowing the addons to play for you. She just said she has trouble with the default raid frames, so is Xperl playing the game for her? Does she routinely disable xperl and run raids so that she can stay in practice using the default raid frames?
Like someone said earlier, I have played with enhanced raid frames since early MC with ctra, sure I might have trouble healing with the default raid frames after a patch, but thats just because I am not used to how it is presenting its information, not because my raid frames play the game for me.
Overall, I am not sure what Vonya is getting at, there are no addons that can play the game for you currently, Xperl can pretty much do everything that any other raid frame addon can do. I mean grid is just another version of xperl, which is just another version of the built in raid frames. And every single person that plays the game in some way or another clicks/pushes at least one button for each heal they cast, no matter what. Besides changing what you push or click to cast, and how the information is displayed to you, there really are no other addons. I can see this argument 3 years ago when people sat around pushing one button to heal the person on the top of the emergency monitor, with the perfect size heal, but I don’t think the argument holds much water with the current state of the game and addons.
January 19th, 2009
@ George:
How do you get that from “So, next 8-man Naxx run is without add-ons? Or does that achievement belong to the developers of your add-ons?”?
She DID heal the 8-man with her current set up, so it seemed like a blind shot in the dark.
It’s like you guys are just digging for complaints at a certain point and it’s a bit small.
January 19th, 2009
“It is my very strong opinion that if you are incapable of playing this game without addons,
then you are allowing those addons to play the game for you.”
-her stated addon philosophy
“I use X-Perl for healing because I have an incredible, magic ability to miss whatever it is I’m trying to click on in the default UI.”
-what she says later on about having trouble with the default UI, which is also something I have always struggled with, and is one of the main reasons I hate the default raid frames.
So does xperl play the game for her? Those 2 statements seem counter to me. And the way I read Iratio’s comment he was pointing that out.
Imo pointing out that I disagree with her main point and explaining why I don’t really understand where she is coming from is what these comments are for. She is a good writer and has had some really good posts, and I am sure she will have many more. It’s just this one I happen to disagree with what she is saying.
January 19th, 2009
It isn’t about you disagreeing with what she’s saying at all. Everyone has the right to disagree, but at a point people start to seem like their feelings are hurt and you expect an apology for her saying how she felt about something that doesn’t pertain to you — you are not an add-on, nor did you write any of them. Her philosophy is hers, and it’s a minimalist one.
I’m pretty sure if she had to she could heal optimally without add-ons, and that a bit of hyperbole was added for levity as the post was not intended to be taken as a call to arms for people, but that same levity she offered backfired because people use it like some area for pitched battle.
Unless you really believe XPerl imbues her with a magical accuracy that she would be able to ascertain otherwise. Which is hey, on you.
January 19th, 2009
I have to (as I have since the beginning of this debacle) agree with Shatter. I think 90% of the bloggers dealing with this are taking it way out of context.
Neither Ego nor Matticus was trying to make anyone feel horrible for using addons.
I just think people are going off for no reason.
@ George – Vonya is perfectly capable of playing without xperl. But, she misclicks sometimes and its a bad thing. So she uses Xperl. If you CAN heal with the basic UI but sometimes miss curses and poisons and so you use an addon to make it more clear when someone is cursed, same thing. You COULD heal and decurse with the default UI, but that addon improves your game.
_Misa
January 19th, 2009
@Shatter
Nah Grid is the only one that imbues magical accuracy, XPerl just gives you magical stamina.
I don’t think this is really the place for arguing with someone, but I will say, all I did was say my opinion if I came across as being offensive or attacking in some way, I am sorry. I only meant to state my opinion on the matter.
The statement you called hyperbole might have been just that a hyperbole and not to be taken seriously. But as I said earlier I have a hard time using the default raid frames, for that same reason, so I took her seriously. If that is the case than I misunderstood. But I still believe that her philosophy on if you can’t play with addons is not entirely true anymore for the reasons I stated above.
Also maybe it is just me and the way I see things, but this pitched battle you talk about really just seems to be people stating their opinions on the matter and having a good discussion. As I believe Mike Schramm has said on wowinsider there best posts and what they are constantly striving for is to post something that will get people to respond and give their opinions on, disagree, agreeing and just plain creating discussions around the web. I think this would be true for any successful blogger.
Anyways at the end of the day I am sure all the people that commented will be back tomorrow, or the next day or whenever the next post is put up to read it, and for the vast majority of the people it will not just be to bash what she said, but because we want to hear what she she has to say.
January 19th, 2009
@Shatter and Misamane
Its a pretty simple gauntlet I tossed on the ground. By her strong opinion, either her team is capable of 8-man Naxx without the use of addons, or the add-ons they do use “play the game for them.”
I’m not trying to poke her eye out, I’m trying to get her to reconsider.
January 20th, 2009
Look, this is like one person saying they enjoy a glass of wine with their dinner while another says they down a bottle of vodka every day. Yes they’re both drinking alcohol, but to say that the effects on the liver that they have are equal would be childish.
January 20th, 2009
Addendum to Iratio,
I’m looking at your WWS now, and if you are an example of what advocating for using MORE addons is, as opposed to Vonya who is an advocate for using LESS… well.
The proof would lie in the results, wouldn’t it?
January 20th, 2009
@ Shatter
Let me remake my point via exposition. I could not (won’t be able to – if anyone insists) heal as expected by the raid without my Healbot add-on. When I’m using my Healbot add-on to heal as the raid has come to expect, in no way is Healbot “playing the game for me.” Simply put, Ego’s strong opinion is mistaken – and yes she is entitled to hold it if she chooses to.
Listen up! Using the left mouse button to click on a raid frame and then clicking/releasing a button on the keyboard versus using one of several mouse buttons, very often in combination with a modifier keyboard button (shift/alt/control) to click on a raid frame is a simple matter of choice and possibly individual dexterity.
@Everyone who thinks its the strategy and choices of action that makes the healer
Exactly.
January 20th, 2009
@Shatter
Would it bring a smile to your face to know that all those 25-man Sartharion wipes with victory at the end were under my raid leadership ? I bet it did *smiles himself*
Now that you’ve suggested I am a poor healer based on some “results” you gleaned from my WWS reports, lets agree that I am a terrible healer.
It makes no difference if I learn to heal using Ego’s setup or continue with my own – I’ll still be as good as I ever was and will improve at my own rate and Ego will continue to be as great as she is and will continue to improve at her own rate.
January 20th, 2009
oops, WITHOUT victory at the end…
January 20th, 2009
@She said addons were bad then she said she used addons OMG HYPOCRISY
No, stupids, you missed the point entirely. At no time did Vonya, Matticus, or anyone else say or even imply “if you use addons of this/any kind you are bad”, and if you got that impression then you need to read the entire post, else you may want to try http://www.rosettastone.com/personal/languages/english-american . No one in their right mind could play WoW with the default UI for any significant length of time and think addons are nothing but crutches. The point, gentle snowflakes, was KNOW WHAT THE HELL YOU ARE DOING REGARDLESS.
Addons streamline what is a pretty shoddy, ugly default interface. Addons streamline some otherwise inherently clumsy actions. The important part is understanding the what, how, and most importantly, why. Decursive doesn’t hurt anybody, until some clueless healer starts wasting global cooldowns and mana cleansing that pesky frost bolt debuff off the tank because Decursive said there was something to cleanse so *clickclickclickclick*
In other words, worry about learning wtf you are doing first, then pick and choose addons to streamline your interface in ways that are helpful to YOU, don’t just install a bunch of fluff that some other person recommended. Chances are, if you are rendered incapable by the absence of any particular addon, then you did this early on, and you never really learned how to play the game, just how to play your addons. Ergo, your addons are playing you, and you might want to look into figuring out just what the hell it is you’re actually doing, as you’re likely borderline incapable WITH the addon and just don’t realize it.
That rumbling you hear is the sound of a thousand baddie priests humping their CoH keys in unison while crying out “It’s just a gaaaaame!”. Yes, it IS a game; this fact does not render badness an impossibility, nor does it preclude anyone from being better at it than you and knowing it. Nor does it mean that your performance in said game is a triviality, at least while playing, as the average denizen of Azeroth doesn’t really care who you are or what you do outside of the game. Many simply pray that you can pull your finger out of your nose long enough to kill a boss or two without giving them a 100g repair bill.
Now pick up your gauntlets and stop rending your clothing, there’s nothing wrong with being not-so-good or even bad. Playing any game is an acquired skill, and you can always get better. It only becomes a problem if you’re bad, know it, and are OK with it. Even more so if you know it, are OK with it, and still tout your opinion around like you’re some kind of expert despite your admitted lack of proficiency. Even MORE SO if you know it, are OK with it, and think that anyone calling you out on it is just an elitist jerk lording it over you and immediately retreat to “I can play how I want cause it’s my 15 dollars and mommy said I’m special and it’s just a gaaaaaame”.
And seriously, nostromo = addon? Really? Do you even know what the hell a nostromo is? I use a high dollar gaming mouse, because it’s more sensitive, precise, and fits my hand better than the generic mouse that came with the comp. I also like to use a split ergonomic keyboard because the separation of the left and right sides makes it easier for me to hit wild macros like ctrl-shift-B without looking down or hitting the wrong keys. OMG THEY’RE JUST LIKE ADDONS!!1!oneone I tried using a nostromo once, but it was unfamiliar and frightening, like the gentle caress of a stranger in the men’s shower. I felt dirty afterward, and cried myself to sleep in the loving arms of WASD.
/purposefully vitriolic since it seems to be the trend
January 20th, 2009
@Rockevis
“Chances are, if you are rendered incapable by the absence of any particular addon, then you did this early on, and you never really learned how to play the game, just how to play your addons. Ergo, your addons are playing you, and you might want to look into figuring out just what the hell it is you’re actually doing, as you’re likely borderline incapable WITH the addon and just don’t realize it.”
/yawn
You missed the point, no one is saying *the above*, but just so you all know it *the above* must be repeated over and over again. So long as we fisrt say thats not the point, anyone who responds to *the above* is just missing the point / being stupid.
January 20th, 2009
Posting in a legendary flamewar.
btw, just for kicks I’ll mention that I use a couple of mouseover macros bound to mouse buttons. Kinda Clique without the interface. iirc it’s because I couldn’t bind mousewheel up and down through Clique.
I’m also considering getting a Logitech MX620 because my “high tech gamer mouse” by SteelSeries a) doesn’t support left and right mouse wheel, b) won’t let me bind modifier keys to buttons. I just prefer clicking to pushing buttons, double-fisting isn’t for me. (genuine term for that input style)
January 20th, 2009
ahahahaha. I hadn’t read any posts on Matticus’s blog in a long while. Now I remember why. That dude is a perfect example of the OCD type that takes the game way to seriously and forgets about having fun. I play in a laid back guild with no ridiculous rules (or no rules in general for that matter). We’ve had heroic Naxx on farm for months now. Matticus doesn’t need a video game, he needs a job. I guess being unable to find one has lead to him turning WoW into one.
I really need to resub to his blog. His posts crack me up.
January 20th, 2009
“That rumbling you hear is the sound of a thousand baddie priests humping their CoH keys in unison while crying out “It’s just a gaaaaame!”.”
^–is my favorite thing to come out of this so far.
Also (channels Joker in the interrogation room) “look at you go”.. 65 replies before mine!
To the point of the matter at hand, lets keep the arguments on topic and not result in directly flaming the character of others. Please.
After all, your friends can have a different option than you, be “wrong” about something and you’ll still love them.
January 20th, 2009
@Rockevis….the fact that your name does not link to a blog full of posts similar to your comment saddens me to the very depths of my soul.
I am crying thinking about what I’m missing.
Go, now, and begin working on something.wordpress.com.
The world will be better for it.
_Misa
January 20th, 2009
Lol wow this is a lot of debate here! I found this late but I am glad I did it is a very interesting read that I am enjoying.
I agree with IRATIO you shouldn’t say something if you don’t mean it lol. I use a lot of addons but i like to click my moves because it feels better and i don’t rely on too much addons, but if you say you don’t use addons then you shouldn’t use any! Lol try living with Omen if you want to be good at this game! My guild doesn’t even need omen most of time, i’m always busy taunting off them lol!
And yeah CoH is a very good spell it’s what my healer usesall the time i saw a SS of his UI and it was all just CoH everywhere in all the spots. I wonder if he used an addon to get extra action bars? Because he had 2 on the side and I only have my one in front! LOL!
anyway good blog and read, I hope you guys can make her stop saying stuff she doesn’t mean, because it’s a lie! Lol!
3TPS
January 20th, 2009
Yep, you really stirred the pot with this post Vonya. Hell, it even spilled over into Hanners subsequent post.
I’ve tried a few add-ons, but mostly rely on Omen and Recount. A rogue does need to know when he/she’s close to gaining aggro, and of course those big eviscerate crits make us beam with pride. I recently installed visualHeal for use on my Drood. Haven’t tried X-perl, but I have that same magical ability somehow manage to miss clicking on my target in the UI, even when the freakin mouse is RIGHT OVER IT! How the hell does that work? Or not work? So I may try X-Perl or something similar.
@Everyone who disagrees with Vonya on this. She does say in the end “Try them out, by all means. But make your own evaluation of what works for YOU and the way you want to play.”, which shows her wiseness. Errm, her wiseosity. no wait, her cleverness. That’s it! She makes a good point in that patches come along often with Blizz, and we’re all scrambling for our add-on updates afterwards, because they often become obselete.
Love your posts girl. Keep it up.
January 20th, 2009
Wow…what a thorne bush *jumps in* So I just use grid to heal. I have lots of add ons to tell me niffty stuff like..how many fish I have caught, optimize my questing paths. And honestly if I could get my brain to get used to healbot or clique I likely would. And I still want a game pad *sighs* but since my desk tray barely fits my keyboard that too is out.
I think what you all missed was pretty simple and easily missed. Kudos for the undestated, too bad so many missed it though hun. Its not: you shouldn’t use addons. It Is: if you can’t play the game without addons. Its a subtle distinction. I can play without all my add ons. My hunter will hate it since Zhunter freed up a TON of realestate for me when I got it. But I can do it. I have done it.
Its not a contest of how l33t am I. but more a statement that addons get screwed up. We as players shouldn’t be so dependant that when they screw up we can’t cope and play the game without it. Will our reaction times be slower? sure but we can still man up an do it.
At least thats what I got out of it.
January 20th, 2009
[...] effort to take a mental break from my job, I came across the topic of healing and addons. Now, from the egotistical priest, the world of matticus and /hug came a whole slew of information, thoughts and ideas. Now, as [...]
January 22nd, 2009
Well, a fine kettle of fish we have here. It would seem I am a couple of days late to this mad house, but in the event there is some poor soul such as my self late and catching up, I shall post also.
As for add ons, I use them. I am a Healbot person. As stated somewhere above before the bloodbath began, its is basically som eof the other add ons congealed into one. I have also used Vis heal before, and it also is pretty much like healbot. Can I heal a 5 man instance without add ons….you are darn tootin I can. Can I heal a 10/25 raid with it? I can but with MUCH less efficiency and poor reaction time. Add ons were created to maek us streamlined and more efficient. You WANT to be able to see if a heal is coming in form another person in your raid group yes? Save that mana if you can, you may very well need it later on. Since mana efficiency can mean the difference between a whipe or a win, I use my add ons happily, and the healing team in TDE often get told “nice healing”, “good job”.
Do I know ppl who do not use add ons at all to help them. No. Are they out there…perhaps they are, but not in our guild. Now, coud I use the macro’s and such that Vonya has happily decided to share with us (thank you Vonya), I could, but I will admit if she had not posted it now I would not have thought of it, I am macro deficient. I am not even sure why it works when I see the directions for it. I use the add ons instead. I still cast the spells myself, I just get to set it up in the add on vs making the macro. To me they are the same species, just from different branches of the family tree.
I think that this arguement is much like the one about CoH empowering bad healers and healing….poppy cock. I am not sure who it was that gave the best reply to all that mess, but it basically asked, “Did you live? Did you win? IF the answer is yes, then it was the right choice.” Or for those who dont like that and want to start argueing about it, its like Almond Joy vs Mounds…..you either want it with or without add ons. Its your 15 bucks, play it how you like, but dont ridicule others for thier choices or opinions, its just rude.
Thanks for the stimulation Vonya,
Solaril
January 23rd, 2009
I could and have healed with the default UI, it’s just not nearly as efficient. I COULD…I just would rather not. Do people actually do things using the default UI anymore? Other than newbs??
January 27th, 2009
Healbot is the only healing addon I have ever used, although the way I have used it has changed. As a new healer, I used Healbot (HB) as a more of a crutch than as a tool. What happened, as Underdark pointed out in an earlier comment, is that I became more confident in my healing and over time was able to assess what spell was appropriate for the situation instead of simply left-clicking over the target’s bar for a flash heal. Currently I use HB as an interface, just like unit frames, for my mouseover macros (I have ten set up on the numerical keypad). With HB, I can see:
1: Party members targeted by a bad guy, along with their health and their incoming heals.
2: Who is in range of my heal.
3: Party members afflicted by a disease or magic affect.
4: Status on Power Word Shield, Renew, Prayer of Mending, and Abolish Disease on each party member.
For the record, I didn’t know you could use the HB bars as mouseover targets until well into level 70. Having as much information at my fingertips help me to be a better healer. If you are keeping your raid up, they won’t care what kind of addons you are or are not using.
February 8th, 2009
Ok i have only one point to make here in that when you talk about not using in game addons and the nt52e is what you use. Its a programable keyboard interface.
So what does that actually mean.
Well in general 90% of keyboards you cannot preprogram buttons for macros or keystrokes. However the nt52e is massively programable and can be set up for all kinds of key sequences and macros which can with a mouse over do EXACTLY what in game add ons do.
So i think it is rather silly taking a stance that in game add ons are a sign that people cant play when your using a programable keypad capability which gives you a huge advantage.
Playing the devils advocate , go play the game with a basic keyboard and no addons then repost how good you are and you may not be as “efficient” as you claim to be.
February 8th, 2009
@ and Anyone else who cares to reply
Please read and understand the thread and comments
From this point on, any reply just to be argumentative or derogatory will be deleted.
I admin the site and have just grown tired of the replies to this thread and the types of replies that come from not fully understanding what you are commenting on.
Sarala, two comments above basically captured the idea and thoughts behind this post with:
“What happened, as Underdark pointed out in an earlier comment, is that I became more confident in my healing and over time was able to assess what spell was appropriate for the situation instead of simply left-clicking over the target’s bar for a flash heal.”
Further, if continuing replies arent intended to be constructive I may well delete the thread all together, if people arent finding any wisdom here in.
February 10th, 2009
[...] Lets start where I started Vonya’s, WoW’s resident Ego , post. [...]
January 16th, 2010
In August of 2005 I was booted from the #2 guild on my server because, due to a patch, i was watching 6 other healers in our raid fail miserably and I told them how useless they were. Since that time I have made it a point to heal (disc priest) using only decursive and full announcements from my raid mod. I will have to say that I definatly do not need the tricked out vette or the geo metro. I can do it better and to a much finer point with only my scooter.
What I learned from that was how crucial planning is, If you are not prepared for the raid then you will need the fancy add-ons to make up for the gaps in your preparations. I review every raid I do for an hour before going regardless of how many times i have been there, ( farm status excluded). that is what makes a good healer or a good tank. and yes dps are a dime a dozen and not all that important.
January 21st, 2010
Well, I can’t believe no on has asked yet… so I will: what are your key bindings on the Nostromo? I play a fresh 80 priest, leveled in shadow, have dabbled a bit in the BGs as disc, but am ready to jump into randoms. My Nostromo is set up for shadow, and I’ve been using Clique + Grid for healing… but I’m finding myself running into walls and junk because the clicking is messing with mouse turning. I know, I know, I look like the noob I am. But I’d like to hear more about the other half of your kit, since the Nostromo is such a big part of your setup. Thanks!