Your Healing Style - Why <t> or <tt> (Which is better?)

[Zell]

Ok, so I just recently started leveling Arcanist and I already love it. I plan on going full Sch when I get to 30. My WHM is 50 but I never really healed with it and havn't played it in years.

I have been researching healing macros and ALWAYS see two variations of the same macro....

Example 1:
/micon "Cure"
/ac "Cure" <mo>
/ac "Cure <t>
/ac "Cure <me>

Example 2:
/micon "Cure"
/ac "Cure" <mo>
/ac "Cure <tt>
/ac "Cure <me>

Here's how I see the big difference between the two. The first example, Ideally, you would have the TANK targetted at all times so that you can heal anyone in party with mouseover, and if you need quick heal on tank, you don't mouse over anything and it will default heal/buff/cleanse the tank. You never have to target the tank because he's your primary target at all times which makes your reaction time that much faster. The downside to this method is that you have to ALWAYS focus target the boss/add in order to see what buffs or debuffs it has. If i'm on scholar using DoTs, I need to know when Miasma/Bio/Aero have worn off in order to recast.

For the second example, you would target the MOB/BOSS at all times. You would heal party members with mousovers, just like in 1, however, you would either have to mouseover the tank as well (slower than example 1) or if the boss is targeting the tank, you would just spam heal because the tank would be the boss's <tt>. The problem with this method is that it requires an extra step to target the tank (if the boss) isn't targeting the tank to begin with. There may be times when the tank needs heals ASAP but the boss has moved onto another person, so you have to mouseover the tank for the heal. The advantage of this method is that you know what buffs or debuffs the boss has at all times. You don't need to focus target.

My DPS macros have both <tt> and <t> built in so they synergize well with either method. Though I've been using example 1, I'm thinking maybe it's better to start using Example 2 for the following reasons. Most of the time, the boss is on the main tank, which means <tt> acts as a default when nothing else is moused over. Two, seeing my DoTs on the boss is imperitive so maximizing my efficiency as healer and sometimes dps in parties. Three, the cast bar on target is larger and easily noticeable, so that I know what boss is casting rather than relying on teh focus target icon (smaller). Four, having focus bar up is not practical when facing trash mobs. A tank switches targets a lot during trash pulls, and if i'm going to rely on <tt> for my dps, I may end up dpsing the none "focused" add, which could cause agro to me.

Is it possible to combine the two and have <tt> and <t> in one macro for healing, if so, which line would go first?

As a practical matter, do end game dungeons or Hard modes (Titan) favor one macro over the other. Since I'm just starting out, I'd rather do it the most efficient way rather than learn it incorrectly and have to relearn it. I dont' have healing experience from other mmo's, so I havn't even found my own style.

Any suggestions and or comments are appreciated in advance.

[Arcaloid]

For me no macro is better...
Not sure how people use these macro efficiently. I mean if you use the example 1 in a BOSS fight, you have to make sure your mouse is NOT over some other player every time you want to heal the target.
And if you want to heal some <mo> target, you need to look for them (range will be spread out from each other and melee all stack together).
The only macro I use are Aero <tt> and Stone II <tt>

[Estellios]

I thought people put both <t> and <tt> in macros to have all the bases covered. It would either target a player and succeed or target an enemy, fail, then go to <tt> and succeed, and if you reverse them it would just reverse the "check" but essentially do the same thing.

@Previous poster: My understanding is you can mouseover player names in the party list and <mo> will still work.

[Zell]

I read that <tt> only works for damage abilities and doesn't work for heals... can anyone confirm about <tt>? Otherwise i'll have to test it more tonight.

[Noshei]

oh you can also use <focus>, but it doesn't work all that great. Say you want to use:

/micon "Physick"
/ac "Physick" <mo>
/ac "Physick" <t>
/ac "Physick" <focus>

If you try to cast a heal while targeting something that you can't heal, instead of it casting on your focus it will cast on you.

[Dynamisx]

I use a variation of this technique that works well for me in almost every situation.

My macro is:

/ac "Cure" <mo>
/ac "Cure" <focus>
/ac "Cure" <target>
/ac "Cure" <me>

I keep the main tank as focus target, allowing me to target the mob/boss. I mouseover the party window to heal other members, and if i want to heal outside the party (eg during a Fate) i can target them directly. I also dont have to keep setting focus target for each new encounter.

Its handy have the boss/mob targeted as I can see what the boss is casting, and if the tank loses aggro i can see who is about to need healing. I can also tab around if there are multiple mobs to keep an eye on them while never losing focus on the tank. I find I often lose targets in highly mobile fights (probably from rightclicking on the ground while moving, but this way i can always safely heal the tank just by making sure i'm not mousing over anything and casting my heals.

[Dynamisx]

The downsides are that only 5 debuffs are visible on the focus target due to current UI limitations. Supposedly expanded to 8 at some point, and generally not an issue as almost all debuffs are displayed with high priority.

I also very occasionally find that the spell lands on me instead of the target, but i think this is due to:
a) LOS causing the <focus> to fail or
b) GCD ending after the top two lines of the macro are processed when no LOS issue.
These issues should be common to all macros of this type of course.

[Zell]

I use a variation of this technique that works well for me in almost every situation.

My macro is:

/ac "Cure" <mo>
/ac "Cure" <focus>
/ac "Cure" <target>
/ac "Cure" <me>

I keep the main tank as focus target, allowing me to target the mob/boss. I mouseover the party window to heal other members, and if i want to heal outside the party (eg during a Fate) i can target them directly. I also dont have to keep setting focus target for each new encounter.

Its handy have the boss/mob targeted as I can see what the boss is casting, and if the tank loses aggro i can see who is about to need healing. I can also tab around if there are multiple mobs to keep an eye on them while never losing focus on the tank. I find I often lose targets in highly mobile fights (probably from rightclicking on the ground while moving, but this way i can always safely heal the tank just by making sure i'm not mousing over anything and casting my heals.

This is exactly what I was thinking but my variation is as follows:

/ac "Cure" <mo>
/ac "Cure" <t>
/ac "Cure" <focus>
/ac "Cure" <tt>

The only question I have is, why focus before target? I'm primarily going to heal with Scholar so I need to make sure I can micromanage Embrace with my pets. You cannot macro pet abilities, nor can you set them to work on focus target. The only way is to click on the target and use the ability from a keybind. That's why when I need to heal bomb a target, not just a tank but a party member, I will occasionally click on the party member and cast Adlo and Embrace at the same time. If I focus before target macro (like yours), I will potentially heal my focus target and a party member (one with embrace the other with adlo/physick) instead of healing the one person with BOTH. Also, by having target first and focus second, I can do the opposite and heal the tank with Embrace while I heal a party member with adlo/physic at the same time. The pet is good enough to do it for me, but sometimes I want to micro manage.

Lastly, the <tt> is for FATE grinding. If I have nothing set as my focus, and have the mob targetted without mousing over anything... it will automatically heal the person targetted by the FATE mob (especially a boss). The FATE mob can change targets 100 times and it wouldn't matter, i will always be able to heal whoever is targetted with my macro, so long as I don't have a focus target (which I will never have during Fate grinding).

One more thing, I removed <me> because I noticed during dungeon runs that it would default cure me each time the tank/focus was out of range and I wasn't mousing over anything. I want to know when someone is out of range or else they'll die. So I taught myself to heal myself with <mo>. Problem solved.

What do you think?

[Sinaloa]

tldr

This is how I do it:

On all heals I got
<t>
<tt>
On my casted damage spells and instants that do not trigger gcd I got
<t>
<tt>
On my instant damage spells that trigger gcd I got
<t>

In healingmode I focus the tank and can toss some spells on his target but am unable to trigger a gcd with an instant. Just a saftynet - If a heal is necessary I can abort any cast while focusing the tank. The only exception I set for this is ruin II. I cast that way to often in healing mode to prevent incoming damage.

As the fight goes well I can switch to an enemy still being able to heal his target (most propably the tank) but also being able to dot em up.