FAQ: Healing

Pray.. that i will heal you in time

Hi welcome to this weeks FAQ section. I was just recently asked to help a person heal on her alt. Healing has its perks and downs. For those who have been healers you can understand how frustrating it is when tanks pull and youre OOM, or when party goes out of LoS. But more importantly you have probably heard that each healing class has its limits. AoE healing vs single target healing, mana regen, instants vs shortcasts, etc.

This post will help shed some light on newbie healers, how to handle spec, skills, and UI. I will start off with some simple suggestions.

Download A Raid UI (Xperl, Grid, Boxer, etc) there are a ton. These make it easier to have ALL raid targets in screen and are much easier to click than the standard Blizzard UI icons. Furthermore some of these have advanced options that will make your life easier. I.E. These can be configured to gray out icons of ppl outside 30yard range, to put a purple shade on icons for ppl with curses, a green shade on ppl with poisons, etc.

Download Clique.
If you have ever heard of healbot, Clique is a revamped version of that. Only clique is MUCH easier to setup use and fix. for starters, you choose what spells go with each mouse+keyb combination.

Short and easy run thru on clique:
open Spellbook (´p´) you will see a 5th tab. Open it. This opens a second window with a pulldown menu on the top right and some options on the bottom frame. If youre gonna use Clique to heal, choose from the topdown menu: “helpful actions”, then go to each tab where your skills are and hold the button u want to use for combination with your mouse click (let me rephrase that: if you want to link Alt+left mouse click on Flash of Light, hold down “alt” then left click on the Flash of light spell on the spellbook) and you will see that on the second window it will now show: Alt+Left mouse click   Flash of Light.

(note: i do not recommend using ONLY left or right click as in without a key combination, or u will not be able to target or right click that person to uninvite or such, you will constantly cast the programmed spell on him/her. It can be VERY frustrating trust me.)

Now to cast that Flash of light all you have to do is hold down Alt, and left click on a party frame or a raid frame.
gratz! you can now heal with simple mouse clicks without having to change target. Your Reaction time will now be much faster and your healing meters will go up a bunch.

I am at the moment writing a GnT on how to set up Raid Frames, and I will also write a Healbot GnT.

Perks:  You get to roll on a LOT of offspec gear (when no one else needs it)
Cons:

YOU NEED TO KNOW YOUR LIMITS

Limits: Each class has a preferred stat. This is usually because such a stat benefits your class above all other for a certain purpose. As i’ve said before no 2 healing classes heal alike. Druids can HoT indefinitely but cant really drop big heals, Pallys can spam cheap quick Flashes of Light, (but they need a ton of crit and mp5 to keep it up) or spam Holy Light with a ton of crit and a huge mana pool; Priests can hot, flash heal, aoe heal, but they’re limited by mana regen; Shamans can chain heal or raid heal with riptide, leser healing wave spam, but they depend entirely on MP5. Some classes can dispel different debuffs, some cannot. In the end it comes to knowing what YOUR class can or cant do.

Also dont trust healing meters. At least not as if the were a proved and very well knowledgable science. Hots tend to favor healing meters, since they get to heal while the other classes’s heals are being cast. Shields prevent a lot of damage and do not show on healing meters.

Overhealing mechanics have changed since pre BC. In the past the best healer had the most healing with the least overhealing. today we face harder bosses, cap limits, crushing blows, inevitability on big hits. Healers have to predict, or try to at least, when big hits are coming and start a cast before something (not totally) unexpected happens and finishes off a tank, even at full health. Overhealing is now a necessary evil to keep targets alive. Thankfully there are ways now to predict such blows. Raid Frames can show a red square around a person who just got aggro (including yourself). Bosses tend to have skills with cooldowns and addons like DBM can warn about some of these skills. So if you know its coming in 5 seconds and your heal is 3 seconds cast, count to 2 and start casting.

Just whack them heals on the raid

So the healing game is a very reactive, and at times proactive,  Whack-a-Mole game. Having mousover macros, or using healbot or raidframes+clique, helps your response time. Most important thing is to use keybinds you feel comfortable with. so you are hitting dispel when you are trying to heal someone.

Most important thing is to remember your class specific abilities. Earth shield and riptide for shaman, have to be up whenever possible. Pallys have to refresh sacred shield, beacon, use holy shock when available, and for those with enough brain space to remember use hands (sacrifice, salvation, etc) or improved auras, or even divine sacrifice (for those specced into it). Druids need to remember to swiftmend, priests use divine hymn and hymn of hope, also should use prayer of healing and mending when possible, use divine guardian on tank,  etc.

Some tips for each class:

Druids:

Always keep a rejuvenation on a tank (and if possible a regrowth as well), so you can swiftmend them in those pesky moments when they will get hit by a lot. Its much quicker to nourish than to put a lb, or a rejuv+swiftmend. Macro your Natures Swiftness with Healing touch and if possible rebirth. If the healers are good you probably won’t use your “Oh shit Biggest instant heal” button, or if a tank dies, you might want to bring him up as quickly as possible (long cast on brez)

Priests:

Don’t forget about pw word: shield (don’t use it if there is a disc priest), Prayer of mending is Awesome. On raid AoE damage make sure you tell healers that you will heal group #, use a prayer of healing for the most HPS. Holy nova if a lot of people are near you. Divine Hymn  for heals on the lowest health raid members, and hymn of hope for more mana.

Paladins:

Holy shock, holy shock , holy shock. JUDGE, 15% haste for a minute from judging is OMGWTFBBQPWN. If you remember to always keep that 15% haste up and use holy shock whenever you can,  you will do ok, since holy shock gives bonus to your other heals. Read about your hands and divine sacrifice, so you can practice on using them.

Shamans:

Earth shield is FTW. riptide gives your next lesser healing waves haste, sometimes you can heal more from riptide LHW spam than from chain heals. Healing stream totem, specially if specced into it heals for a LOT, ask for wisdom if you are using it. TOTEMs: Don’t be afraid to use your fire/earth elemental totems.

WA News: New writer, maybe new readers

Wow-allogy is proud to announce we are working on convincing a very hot mage (she likes fire) to become our writer for the mage section.

Right now, we are farming hMGT daily for the white chicken. And doing some old instances, apparently she has never been in TK! so im going to be her tour guide this week thru 75% of TK (sorry, can’t 2man, the eye… not yet at least).

I know its not very big news…. but she read some of my articles… considering all 5 of the people that read this blog (me, polo luis, and 2 ad bots), she’s like 15% of the reader community!

Also don’t forget our spanish version of this blog:  http://todologiawow.wordpress.com

GnT: UI mods

Guides and Tutorials: UI mods

Welcome to our first Guides and Tutorials article. This week we will be reviewing several mods/addons to help you improve your User Interface.

First off, lets see a screenshot of a modded UI and start working towards something like it.

Modded UI

This is currently my hunters UI. I use a different one for my hybrid classes (pally, druid)  but i chose this one because it allows for a deep understanding of some of the most common mods. With the exception of the Unit frames, Pitbull, for that single addon will get a guide of its own (unfortunately its one of the hardest to set up).

Some of the addons that we will review here are:

• Satrina Buff Frames
• Recount
• Omen
• Dominos
• SexyMap
• Prat
• Minimap button frame
• TitanPanel
• Elkanos Buff Bars
• Pitbull (just a lil bit)
• Mik’s Scrolling Combat Text

We will just barely look into these addons, to get the minimum or the starting point for modding your UI. Each and every one of these is very customizable, and could each have their own guide. TIP: install these 1 at a time or 2 at a time tops, since each of them causes a bit of mayhem and chaos the first time before you set them up.

First thing most people notice is the minimap in the middle of the screen. Thats Sexymap, it has an already available option called ” Burning Sun ” that will make it look like that. It can be locked or you can drag it around. To set it up, after you install it, just right click on the sexymap border.

Next off is the lack of Action bars. That is Dominos. After you install it, you will log on and find a hellish amount of HUGE blocks in the lower half of the screen. You can middle click any of them and disable them (i left 3 active). Right click any bar and you can change its size, and some functionality (like rows, columns, etc). Tip: move all bars to the side, put the ones you will work with in the middle, change their size, and everything until you like it. Drag skills to the bars on the side, use the Dominos hotkey function (in the interface menu) you can just hover the mouse over the skill and press the key you want to hotkey on to it. then go into dominos config mode (interface menu or /dominos config) and disable those bars. You can still use those skills through hotkeys, but you will only see the ones in the middle.

At the top of the screen you will see my buffs. Thats Satrina Buff Frames (/sbf). This mod has a lot of options.  To set up Satrina Buff Frames, i created a set of frames called buffs, which are beneficial and set to player. I also created a set for debuffs, then tarbuffs, and tardebuffs. I set those to target instead of player. You can then set each of the frames as horizontal or vertical and growing regular or inverse. For my personal buffs its horizontal and inverse. debuffs show just below that. and my targets buffs debuffs show to the right. Takes a little bit of practice, but you can change a lot of stuff (size, separation, click through, tooltip, etc). If you feel sbf is a bit too much to handle for starters, try BISON.

Omen and Recount are two addons that are not necessarily a change for the UI. However i hate to see ruined UIs because we forget we can change the way these 2 addons look. For Omen its /omen config and you will find its very easy to set up, just scroll a bit down to where it says “parchment” and you can change the look very quickly. For recount its a bit more complicated, /recount config will open up the Configuration window. There is a tab for options on changing the look of recount. You can change the background color, transparency (or alpha), bar color, etc.

Ok , so far we have gotten rid of buffs, minimap and action bars. Here are some other addons that help a lot even if they affect the ui minimally.

Minimap Button Frame (or /mbf ) is a lil minimap button that makes a square appear or disappear. This square takes all of the other minimap buttons and hides them here. This pretty much frees up your minimap. This addon is a must if you dont use Sexymap. Sexymap can hide minimap buttons, but if you still want to use both, make sure you go to sexymap config options and on the option called buttons,  disable sexymap handling of buttons, so minimap button frame works correctly.

PRAT is an addon you’ll never want to let go off. It colors names based on class color. It remembers what channel you were last typing to, so you dont have to type /o, /p, /g, /r each time. It has so many options, you have to check it out. It’s practically set up out of the box, but you can check its options in the interface menu.

Mik’s Scrolling Combat Text or (/msbt) is a replacement for the combat text, that looks pretty cool. Doesn’t show on the screenshot, but you can very easily set it up, by dragging the areas where you want to show the combat text, and what text you want to show.

Titan Panel is an information addon. This is basically a bar (at first shows up top) that shows gold info, repair info, among others. It’s very easy to set up, I set it on the bottom (i have Fubar on the top, set to hide and show on mousover) and you can just right click on it to set it up. It has many internal options, even memory tracking (to see what addons are hogging memory) and some addons integrate to titanpanel.

Unit Frames. This is the most important part of setting up a proper UI. In the screenshot up top, i use Pitbull. If you want to try it out, do remember not to freak when you install it. Just go to the pitbull options and disable all modules. Then you can start by adding the modules (from extra modules section) that you want. Start by Player, Target, Target of Target if you use it. Then you can set up party, etc. The set up isn’t hard once you lose fear of clicking on all the suboptions for each module. If you want to try something a little bit less configuration dependant, i suggest you try X-Perl. It’s a very complete addon, and its a little bit easier to set up. You can practically use it out of the box.

When setting up your UI, remember these tips:

• Visibility. you need to clear up room so you can see and not go into the “tunnel vision” effect. This helps move out of the fire, and help OT, or MD or taunt if needed.
• Hotkeys! the less you have to click the better. Doesn’t mean clicking is bad, but saves time for your eyes to look down to the action bar and follow the cursor then click.
• Survive! Dead DPS = 0 DPS. So keep your frame (and your targets if you want) near the middle, or at eye level. This way you can easily notice if you are getting hit.
• Actionbars close to the action. Specially for tanks. The closer the action bars are to your toon, the easier it is for you to remember what hotkey or click on the skill you need to use. It allows for better adaptability. If you look closely I separated all action bar buttons for easier clicking.

All of these addons can be downloaded off http://wow.curse.com
My next Guides and Tutorial segment will be on using Grid and Clique for healing. I’ll also write a piece on Pitbull and Sabrina Buff Frames.

Until next time,

Cheers,
Isma

TotW: Loot Systems

Topic of the Week: Loot Systems

OMG The Shiny LOOTS!

Every player, wether newbie or experienced raider, will at some point face a loot system. These systems are intended for distribution of drops among a certain group of people. Unfortunately there are many systems and many different reasons to have a system, each with its pros and cons.

A this point you’re probably wondering why i said “different reasons”, but unfortunately, for each group there is a different reason to fulfill with each system. If it’s a progression group, for example, to balance out gear to maximize progression, even if it means giving cloth/leather to mail/plate users. For a Pick Up Group it could be to support fairness and that the most people possible receive loot, or to hand out loot based on performance, or a myriad of infinite possible reasons.

So let’s start from the beginning (my mom said i was a genius), and let’s mention some of the most used and common loot systems:

• DKP: Dragon Kill Points, points earned for killing a boss. When an item drops, it either has a  set price, or people can bid using their points.
• Suicide Kings: Same as DKP, but every time you win an item your total goes to 0
• Loot Council: a person or group of people (officers, Guild leader) determines who in the group deserves the upgrade. Loot councils take into account any of or all of these next variables: attendance, tardiness, upgrades earned (don’t want 1 guy taking 5 items in 1 run), how big an upgrade it is, balance of the raid/group gear, friend/foe (yes personal feelings sometimes jump into account)
• Priority Rolls: Theres 2 status with this system, those who have PRs and those who don’t. how many you have left doesn’t matter, people with PRs always roll against other peopl with PRs. If you win an item you lose  a PR. If no one with PRs wants an item, people without PRs can roll on them.
• Other Variations: these include dkp points given based on punctuality, or effort. Free rolls, MS > OS,  etc.

Now, there are many objectives we need to fulfill with a loot distribution system.  So let’s try and point them out:

1. to distribute drops from a boss
2. to support (or encourage) attendance, performance, effort
3. to be fair
4. to punish lack of attendance, tardiness, slacking
5. to balance out a group/raid to be able to progress.

Now, each group or guild looks for different things. But most try and fulfill these 5 points.

Unfortunately, these same points create chaos in groups specially as time passes. People become hoarders* (as in save a TON of points and always buy everything, so new people don’t get as much gear… creates imbalance), loot councils aren’t perfect, or people don’t always agree with the choices made, using priority rolls on earlier drops makes people miss out on the good drops later on, etc.

No loot system will be 100% fair, balanced, and everyone will like it. There are many things left to randomness. If a spot was filled by a pug, the rules change, or they have to be made very clear before the pug decides to stay.

After a while of discussion, and loking for alternatives, a friend and I came up with a simple (not more complicated than others) system that balances most of these points out. Unfortunately after voting our guild decided to use a different system, but here it is for those out there who want to give it a try:

Balance

Mini DKP Limited Progression System.

1 boss kill = 1 dkp
limit is 5
you can spend a max of 3 dkp per item

This is to ensure progression, people have to use their points often or they are stuck at the limit, this way people don’t save bids for bigger upgrades, and the whole raid is getting upgrades more often. Since there is a limit on dkp, there is no hoarding. a Max of 3dkp can be spent, this is so that if a spot is filled by a casual raider one night, a regular raider still has an advantage of 2 (support attendance). Everyone has the same shot at loot (to be fair), if 2 people want the same item and both have 3 dkp (even if 1 of them has more) they roll and high roll wins. Always Main spec over offspec.

Offspec items are loot counciled (not as important, given out to those who have the dual spec, or use their dual spec more often— os tank/heals)

An easy way to track this is to jot down the DKPs on the Officer’s note.

There are other options available. People can come up with their own loot systems. In the end, its all about luck, and being mature enought to accept that not every drop is hunter loot… er that everyone will get a chance at a drop.

Fire

Yesterday there was a terrible accident
a day care center caught fire in our town Hermosillo.
31 kids have died, 20+ are still in grave danger, so many more are hurt/have minor burns (the school had 140 students)

It is in awful dire times that sometimes we can see the best of people.
-The president sent his plane to help transport burn kids to burn specialized hospitals
- a Burn hospital sent their plane and is receiving 21 kids in their hospital free of charge (phoenix,az)
- Doctors From mexico city are constantly calling and offering their help free of charge.
- several air ambulances have been sent to send kids to a burn hospital in mexico city.
- on the local news, Several local businesses are donating today’s earnings for the hospital bills that this kids may incur into (locals, please go to these establishments today)
- on the local news, women are offering to baby sit, so parents can go find their kids in hospitals (many are still unidentified)
- several men are offering their cars and rides to hospitals for parents to find their children.

We can only pray now for the health of those who made it.

update:
-it seems the fire originated in the next door tire shop.
-a man drove his truck and tore down 3 walls in the nursery and rescued 8 children.
-the nursery used to be a warehouse, and had a fake ceiling where the smoke gathered and when the fake ceiling came down it was already too late, the smoke pitch black (possibly from the tires)  made it very hard to find the kids in the fire, and many died of asphixya.