Starryknight, GM of the iHorde guild on Executus, has written a comprehensive guide to configuring Healbot Continued. The developer of Healbot Continued actually pointed me in her direction, so you can bet this is a decent write-up.
It also prevents me from having to re-invent the wheel, so kudos to Starryknight! Instead, I thought I would share some highlights of the guide, and my own tips and tricks to using Healbot Continued.
Many of you who read part one of the Healbot Continued saga have asked if this addon is suitable for PvP healing. As it turns out, Healbot Continued has a skin pre-loaded with battlegrounds in mind. Called the Alterac Valley skin, it will build a frame that is well suited to healing your battleground group, but wait, there's more! Healbot Continued has a built-in range finder, which will fade out individual players' bars if they are out of your healing range. This is a great way to avoid wasting heals, although it can't save you from losing a heal because someone leaves your maximum range while you're midway through a healing spell.For those of you who have concerns about cluttering your User Interface, you can select the "Hide Party Frames" in the General tab of your options interface. You can also select "Include player and target" to remove the player and target frames. Although I don't choose to do this, if you're concentrating on healing only, it can be a great way to clean up what can quickly become a cluttered UI.
Also, in the General tab, you will need to select "Monitor Aggro" if you want Healbot Continued to show you who has aggro. In regards to the "Fluid bars" option, I would not recommend using this function, as it adds what I think is an unnecessary, cosmetic change.
The Spells tab holds an important option called Smartcasting. I recommend you use Smartcasting, as it is one of the stronger features of Healbot Continued. Basically, what this does is run down a list of spells to cast while out of combat. It will cast resurrection spells, buffs and cleansing spells when you are out of combat, making it an easy way to stay on top of your utility functions. Something to keep in mind is that, like a macro, Healbot Continued will cast the highest rank of a given spell unless you specify a rank. To do this, select your "Spells" tab, and input the spell name in whichever key/click combination you would like to use. For example, if you select the "Left" option and type into the "Click" text box, the following would happen:
Lesser Healing Wave - Would cast your highest ranked Lesser Healing Wave spell.
Lesser Healing Wave(Rank 2) – Would cast Rank 2 of your Lesser Healing Wave.
Healbot Continued requires that you tell it what cleansing spells and which buffs you want cast on whom. It's a simple interface made up of drop-down menus on the "Cure" and "Buffs" tabs. Simply select the buff(s) or your available curing spells then select who it should be cast on. It's important that you remember to configure this, else you'll miss out on two important functions of the addon.
For players new to this addon, I recommend making full use of Healbot Continued's tooltip. It will give you a summary of what spells will be cast on each key/click combination. For example, if you simply hover over a bar it will show you what spell will be cast if you click that bar. (Left, Middle, Right, etc.) If you were to hold down the CTRL key, it would tell you what spells would be cast if you combo-click that bar. (CTRL-Left Click, CTRL-Middle Click, CTRL-Right Click and so on.) If you select the "Show detailed spell information" option in the "Tips" tab, it will also display spell effects in the tooltip. Until you build a foundation of familiarity with the key/click combinations, it can be a great set of training wheels to carry you through the learning curve.
Some of you may be wondering how you can configure Healbot Continued to use your treasured macros. Believe it or not, this is simpler than one might think. To use a macro, simply type the name of the macro, instead of a spell name, in one of the text boxes on the "Spells" tab. A word of advice, don't use the exact name of a spell, as Healbot Continued will cast the spell instead of calling a macro if the names are the same. I use the following paladin macro with Healbot Continued, to save over-zealous DPS classes.
/cast Divine Favor
/cast [help] Holy Shock
Although I used to use this macro as part of my action bar, I now bind it to a SHIFT+Left Click. It functions very well as an instant, critical heal using Holy Shock. The developer has included some great, starter macros in the readme.html document, which is included in the addon's folder when you download it.
David, the developer, is currently working on an update that will allow Healbot Continued to synchronize heals with other healing addons. In addition to making the addon play well with other mods, the developer says he's made some improvements that will lighten the memory footprint. In my own experience, Healbot Continued has never bogged down my system, even in the heat of battle.
In the end, Healbot Continued is a great tool for any player wanting to streamline their healing efforts. With an active developer, who is working to make the addon play well with others, this addon appears to have a bright future. What features do you use and which do you not bother with? What features would you like to see in future versions? Finally, for those of you who opt to use other addons for healing, stay tuned to Addon Spotlight, I'll feature your favorites soon!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
3-06-2008 @ 11:33AM
Naix said...
What is with all these addons? I don't want a program telling me when I should hit a button. I want to be smart enough to know when to hit it myself. If I wanted something to play the game for me I would write something and play more GH3.
Thats just me.
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3-06-2008 @ 11:43AM
jst8 said...
Yah, that's just you.
It's all a matter of degree. You accept (as useful or legitimate) the input we get from the default UI, but even there you have choices in how you set your interface options. Addons like Healbot that modify what information you see, and what you need to do to perform various actions are just, well, additional. Additional interface choices. When you look at how many official interface changes have their roots in addons, you can see that Blizzard feels the same way. For example, patch 2.4 will internalize a bunch of the stuff that Omen does now.
I loves me some good addons. Even though TMA tells me I'm a wuss for only having 79 of them running...
3-06-2008 @ 12:01PM
Naix said...
Exactly.
If you want an addon telling you when to push a button. The only input I want to see is if the tank's health staying above 1. Anything else (to me) is overkill. I understand if ppl need some help in doing so.
79 addons? That is a lot of addons.
3-06-2008 @ 12:08PM
Dave said...
Yep, it's just you!
Addons are meant to enhance the experience and take a lot of the otherwise unnecessary crap out of maximizing your performance in this game. You don't have to use them. Most of them don't tell you when to do anything at all, you're still up to your own intelligence level as to when and why you do things. They just offer a helping hand, or one less step or a much better look at things.
For example, it's a proven fact that your eyes and your brain work better when they have to do less work. If the important things you need to watch all happen in the same portion of the screen, you're much less likely to miss things that are important. This is why a lot of people dislike the built-in Blizzard unit/raid frames, as they're honestly in a pretty terrible location and aren't very informative and for the most part that's one of the most important things to replace. Your eyes have to go all over the place to use them, and that's going to cause eye fatigue and you've got a pretty high chance of unintentional mistakes or not noticing changes in your game environment if you're looking at the upper left corner of the game rather than somewhere approximately in the middle.
Blizzard designed their interface to be able to take advantage of the innovations that other people can come up with. It's the new way of thinking, collaboration with everyone rather than closed design is a much more productive way of working. Blizzard gets to focus on the important things of making sure the actual game works, and lets the community figure out how they'd like it to be represented. Blizzard has the full ability to shut down any addons they want at any time whatsoever, so it's silly to not take advantage of them for the most part. Some people go overboard of course, but there are a lot of very good reasons to use good addons that enhance gameplay.
Blizzard's default UI is meant to be changed. It's really the reason the game is so popular I think. Lots of people would quit and get frustrated with an interface of a game far more quickly if they couldn't customize it and remove the limitations they feel are inherent in the system.
i personally think that most of the people who are addon resistant are probably much worse off in the game than those who embrace at least a few of the more helpful ones.
3-06-2008 @ 11:39AM
biglou said...
I love my healbot. However, (unless i missed it) I wished it could tell you when someone is out of line of sight. When you're in AV that would be nice. Also, I cant figure out why the "skins" will change but the buffs wont. I tend to use 10min buffs in BG's and 30min buffs everywhere else, so im generally fumbling around with that screen to reconfigure from blessings to greater blessings. Overall though, a good addon.
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3-06-2008 @ 11:53AM
Rob said...
Healbot is a must have for healing classes. It's perfect for Shammy or Pally healing. Everything you need is close at hand!
Holy Priest though... it can be rough. Dare I say we have too many healing spells? I just can't keep all the different combos strait.
I suggest binding your most important spells to your left click combos... then setting right click to just target unit. That way you can quickly select people at hit them with any of the other spells you have with keybindings.
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3-06-2008 @ 12:35PM
Bootsanator said...
I used to think addons were a crutch. I was like, yeah, I'm uber enough to do it without the addons.
Then I got healbot, and was like, well, sure i *could* do it without this addon, but OMG, i love healbot!! It makes things so much easier.
Basically, it streamlines those things that, sure, you Could do without the addon, leaving you free to make the rest of your play stronger.
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3-06-2008 @ 2:02PM
Dr. Lurker said...
It's not just you.
Personally I don't even use all of the options that have been added to the base UI, for example, the notifications to indicated that Overpower, Execute, or Hammer of Wrath can be used; I want to make that determination myself, not have the game inform me, and suffer the consequences if I fail to do so.
Of course you can make the argument that I am already reliant on the game to inform me of conditions like these, by displaying the target's health, or changing the icon to a ready state, I can't dispute that. But there's a degree past which I'm simply not comfortable, and it includes things like show enemy spellcasting, threat meters, and from the sounds of it Healbot Continued.
I'm not criticizing those who choose to use the tools available to them, and I'm sure that I am less effective in the game because I choose not to, but in the context of a recreational activity I find avoiding the feeling of distaste that comes with these tools more important than maximizing my effectiveness.
3-06-2008 @ 12:37PM
arcady0 said...
It's not just about having a program telling me when to hit a button.
The most vital use of Healbot for me is being able to cast on targets without changing target. WoW has two targets - the one your auto attack is set to and an alternative which is used to allow a number of things even within the default UI to be acted upon without switching off of your auto-attack target.
Healbot, like Clique and other similar addons, lets me use that other targetting system, and I never have to lose track of what I'm focusing on. This is particularly ideal for alt-healers that are still contributing to the group DPS or even tanking...
Beyond that, it is handy in that it is basically a package of casting macros built around mouse+key presses, with the items to click all focused in one spot on the screen. Couple that with, yes, that spot being a combination of health and mana bars, and it makes it very fast to cast without losing focus away from the encounter.
Those health and mana bars mean that healbot is something I keep active even on my rogue, hunter, and tankadin - so I can know when one of the casters is about to spam 'OOM' before they spam it, and adjust my tactics accordingly, so that hopefully, they never get to spamming out that message.
The final two great features are the cure configurations and buffs. The cures do not work well... This is my one frustration with Healbot - if I have a target that is poisoned and losing health rapidly, and I click on the healbot bar, rather than remove poison it will cast a heal. Out of combat it will reverse that, and remove the poison rather than the heal - even for a minor poison on a severely wounded target...
For that I added Clique to for a certain set of clicks to always do cures...
But, when it does work right, it is very handy.
The buff monitor on the other hand is very handy. When I group people I'm with are always wondering how I manage to track what buffs they need so fast, and it is simply because I've configured healbot, even on my mage, to shift color whenever a buff is lacking. Unfortunately it is missing some major buffs - like windfury weapon for shaman (unles that was finally added - been a while since I ran a shaman). But it has most of the things you're going to want.
Even with the above minor flaws, the features of Healbot are so handy that I always make a major push in my guild every time a new healer pops in to get them using the addon. In raids, I can reliably outperform better geared healers simply because I have the info on hand and can heal without switching targets...
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3-06-2008 @ 1:44PM
Eternalpayn said...
"Flash of Light(Rank 2) – Would cast Rank 2 of your Lesser Healing Wave." Hmm... That's interesting. Would Lesser Healing Wave(Rank 2) cast Flash of Light rank 2? :P
So, I don't get it... it seems like this could all be easily done by monitoring the addons I have now (threat meter, whole-raid health meters, a buff/debuff timer), a keybound macro to choose a target, and an macro to cast all of my Out of Combat spells...
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3-06-2008 @ 2:31PM
Shumina said...
To the first time user, Healbot *will be* confusing. It's highly customizable and therefore a newb is going to feel a little overwhelmed. For people thinking that this addon is too much of a hand hold through the shock of raid healing I can only offer up praise for it. It doesn't heal for you, it helps you heal faster. It doesn't tell you when to heal any more than the regular raid windows. You see health go down, you decide heal whenever you want. What really saves the raid from wipes is that you can see everyone easier, and with single clicks, you're doing your job.
When I was without Healbot, I was lining up my raid windows so I could click to target then F-keying the heal. It was fast and it worked for Kara. It's a bit too slow for my tastes above Kara though. Healbot cuts my casting time in half. If you like the system you're using now, stick with it. If you're looking for an addon that will help (given that you're okay with the learning curve), this one gets my biggest band-aid/bactine thumbs up.
Thanks for the article! I didn't find much of the info new/helpful, but I've been using this thing for a long time.
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3-06-2008 @ 5:37PM
Aerendil said...
The only thing, in my opinion, that this add-on is missing is a countdown timer for HoT's right on the bar. Nothing worse than letting a fully-trinketed Lifebloom expire!
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3-19-2008 @ 11:01PM
Smeeg said...
@Aerendil
Healbot Continued does have a Hot timer feature which u can place on the bar...
I've been using this addon for near on a year now and have converted many of the "It has Bot in it" brigade in guild so almost 80% of healers now use it..tbh the only way a lot of these ppl was converted is to see it in action in 25 man raids on raid healing....just shows you how much more you HPS you can put out with better co-ordination. I got vids of me comparing using a similar style X-perl manual heal and HB in Gruul's Lair back when I 1st started using it... the difference is awesome...
Also tried the pitbull/clique combo and was not impressed tbh....If there was one add-on I could buy shares in it would be Healbot Cont..
3-06-2008 @ 6:59PM
MartinC said...
Those that either have not tried Healbot yet, or are currently unhappy with Healbot, should try the superior PitBull + Clique combo.
Everything Healbot does, but better.
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3-06-2008 @ 7:20PM
zedwards said...
Healbot was my first end game add-on that I swore by but lately it has been super buggy and unresponsive at times and has been slowing down my computer. I have been messing around and loving grid/clique. It is clean and shows HoT's and everything I want it to.
One thing I am wondering is how they syncing between other healers hb's in raid parties work and if that would work with grid?
3-06-2008 @ 7:01PM
MartinC said...
And faster.
As a tank, one of my biggest complaints of those healers that want to use Healbot, is that they are always too slow with the heals.
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3-06-2008 @ 7:12PM
zedwards said...
Soooo... when you are raid healing 15 people while they are getting poisoned/cursed left and right you are able to keep that in check? /bow
Really HB is not about healing one tank.
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3-06-2008 @ 7:20PM
zedwards said...
Er...that was supposed to be to @1 Naix
3-06-2008 @ 10:12PM
jwto said...
What's the difference between "Healbot" and "Healbot Continued"? I'm confused as to which to try out.
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3-07-2008 @ 1:11AM
Tadri said...
Grid, BunchofBars, Pitbull, PerfectRaid and VisualHeal all use the Healcom library to share healing information. Using any of these addons along with whichever method you use to cast heals will share that information with other people using a mod that incorporates Healcom, or indeed anyone who's just got the Healcom library loaded.
To the best of my knowledge a similar stand alone library is not available for Healbot. I run with Healbot loaded but hidden so that Healbot users can see my heals, I use Grid and Clique primarily. That covers all the bases.
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