Couple of Healer questions!

Hey all so I've been playing since early release but just now decided I want to try out WHM! As a side note my forum character is my main WHM character.

Right now I am a level 22 Conjurer and have had a blast healing Ifrit and Copperbell Mines, but I have a few questions I'd like if anyone could help me out with.

- is there some sort of easy way to switch hotbars? I use 1-5 a lot and when I go from healing to soloing I need to click and drag my abilities around.

- does anyone have any basic UI tips? I feel like I have tunnel vision looking in the top left and not so much the fight.

- are there any handy macros that every healer should be using? Right now I'm not using any.

Any general tips would be much appreciated too! This is my first time healing in an mmo ever and it's very fun for me!

I have a tip for the tunnel vision. Try moving around Party Character Box to maybe the right of the enemy health bar so you can focus on the monster, field and team without having to draw to much attention away from the battlefield. Try to also just train yourself with mainly focusing on the battlefield and checking the party box every few seconds, soon enough you will come to look at the entire field without feeling lost in one thing. Or just position yourself further back than everyone else, sounds simple but pulling the emity gets in the way sometimes if you have a problem with that.

The way I have my hotbars setup is:
1 - dungeon skills i don't really use elsewhere
2 - solo skills (attacks)
3 - main heal skills
4 - other skills not keybound

I have them on my UI as:
4------------
1/2---------- (switch for dungeon/solo)
3------------

The keybinds for the 1st bar don't change even if you switch it to the 2nd so you don't have to worry about more keybinds.

O and you can also set a keybind to switch to a specific hotbar or cycle up/down, if you need to.

Thanks for the tips! I completely forgot about switching the main hotbar, every mmo I've played has had that option I just need had a reason to use it, now I do.

I set up basic party macros so I don't have to worry about changing target filters just to heal somebody once.
For CNJ, that would be
/action "Cure" <2>
/action "Cure" <3>
/action "Cure" <4>

Those will take up space on the action bar, which could be a problem at later levels.
You can also use the mouse-over <mo> and target's target <tt> placeholders.
Another option is to set a target filter to show only party members or only player characters. So you would have to switch target filters, select the character, cast cure, switch target filters, resume/repeat. Or you could just have player/party filter on all the time and use <tt> macros for all attacks.

I use a controller, so switching hotbars (R1) and target filters (L1) are built in, but you should be able to keybind them.

Get rid of hotkeys 6 to 0 and replace them with x q e r z f t and use g as well. The best place for your group health bars is always just to the left of your screen next to your character. A good healer will use mouseover macros
/ac "Cure" <mo>

Create a seperate hotbar and place it next to your group frames, use this hotbar to monitor your cooldowns rather than looking down at the bottom of your screen

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KeyboardCowboy

Get rid of hotkeys 6 to 0 and replace them with x q e r z f t and use g as well. The best place for your group health bars is always just to the left of your screen next to your character. A good healer will use mouseover macros
/ac "Cure" <mo>

Create a seperate hotbar and place it next to your group frames, use this hotbar to monitor your cooldowns rather than looking down at the bottom of your screen

---

Could you maybe post a picture of your UI in a group, I am a bit confused what you mean with where to place the party/raid frames.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Crabsy

Could you maybe post a picture of your UI in a group, I am a bit confused what you mean with where to place the party/raid frames.

---

http://oi44.tinypic.com/iv8s3q.jpg

Hope that gives you an idea

http://i44.tinypic.com/iv8s3q.png

A great macro to have is one that alerts other healers in party when you are resing someone.
/ac "raise" <target>
/p casting raise on <target> <se.02>
This way your other healers don't also attempt to raise and are alerted that you are unable to heal for the next 7.5ish seconds.
A big tip for the harder end game stuff. when you raise someone as soon as you finish the skill run from that spot. Most bosses like to throw aoes at targets, if you stay standing there your fellow team mate will be insta killed the moment they res up.

A macro I find useful is:
/focustarget <tt>
This sets my focus target to my current targets target. I generally use this while targeting the tank to set his target as my focus. Bosses are always set my focus target so I can see what they are casting.
I also macro abilities I would cast on the boss to cast on my focus so I don't actually have to stop targeting my party members (I'm a scholar so life drain and virus).

Oh awesome tips about the focus target macro and raise macros I will be sure to use those!

Now about my UI, I am a bit OCD with my UI so it has to be pixel perfect and I really hate UI elements floating in the middle or not touching edges. I've tryed putting my party frame near my hot bars and in different spots but I just can't seem to get it in a comfortable place. Does anyone have any UI tips or know of a good website to check some out? Right now my party frame are in the top left with max size and it's kind of comfortable but not really.

PS - I would have posted more yesterday but I wasn't high enough level SIGH :|

I usually put the party frame right above my log against the right margin of the log. Having it closer to the middle will do u a lot of good. Conversely, I have my enmity list on the opposite side of the party list on the right. I find that I really have to sacrifice some of view of what is happening out there to enable your eye and cursor to track quickly. You have to pay attention your party's debuffs constantly so it helps to be front and center. As for tool bars, I have 3 horizontal bars on the bottom. Bar 1 (Healing spells) is 1,2,3,4... Bar 2 (Solo/Targeting mobs) is Ctrl1,C2,C3,C4 Bar 3 (emergency macros and utilities) is Shift1,S2,S3,S4 (this will overwrite the keybind to quick select tool bars). If you want to add a forth u can make it Alt1,A2,A3,A4. 2 Vertical Bars for class switch & pots

I move the XP bar to the bottom and my HP/MP/TP bar up a bit, I dragged my status bar from the top to where my HP bar is then I dont' have to look up at the top all the time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by pbplaya7

The way I have my hotbars setup is:
1 - dungeon skills i don't really use elsewhere
2 - solo skills (attacks)
3 - main heal skills
4 - other skills not keybound

I have them on my UI as:
4------------
1/2---------- (switch for dungeon/solo)
3------------

The keybinds for the 1st bar don't change even if you switch it to the 2nd so you don't have to worry about more keybinds.

O and you can also set a keybind to switch to a specific hotbar or cycle up/down, if you need to.

---

I just switched to this yesterday myself and am loving it. I think it's a great way to separate "dungeon" from "solo" without having to worry about clogging up your UI or remapping hotbars.

I personally find that macros are inefficient and not particularly useful. There is nothing they offer that I can't do faster myself with VOIP. We always know who is assigned to battle res in my group (usually not a healer) so there's never a reason to to wonder who is doing what. I dislike having macros because they clutter my hotbars and are completely static actions.

If you are using mouseover macros, fail to see how this is any different than simply clicking and using a hotkey. For a mouseover macro to work you have to move your mouse and use an easily accessible hotkey to initiate the macro. Accessible hotkeys are valuable real estate and macros just are not that valuable to me.

A typical action could be F4 - heal, T, T, heal on tank - ect. A lot of the hotkeys already exist to quickly jump through targets. I also recommend to re-bind Q/E to skills, and then use mouse right clicking to emulate strafing. Nearly all turns I do in the game are camera angle driven.

I do wish that I was able to re-order the party menu so that my primary targets are always F1-F4, and the rest I can handle with clicks. I've never had any issues with tunnel vision, it helps a ton to slide that party menu closer to the center of your screen. Use 1-2 vertical hotbars to create almost a reticle-like effect to box in the center of the screen. It actually helps you focus on the center because most people are drawn to symmetry.

Here's an awesome UI walkthrough:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THAeJ...g&noredirect=1