Saturday, August 8, 2009

Twig Heals: HealBot (setup 1)

Notice:  This Healbot setup guide was written for version 3.2 and is now somewhat out dated.  You can find my setup guide for the newest version of HealBot (v. 3.3.0) here.


The biggest obsticle new raiding druids have to get over is learning to use a healing addon. Whether you choose HealBot (which is easier to use "out of the box") or Grid + Clique (which is much more customizable), you'll need to understand how they work in order to get the most out of them. This guide will focus on the setup and use of HealBot (the debate of Grid v. HealBot is best saved for another blog).

Let's take a look at each HealBot screen and see how they affect the addon.


HealBot 3.2.0.0 General tab:

The top half of the HealBot 'General' tab mostly affects your UI. The options are fairly self explanitory, save for the last two.

Disable HealBot: Disable all events and hide the bars (This is the off switch)
Show MiniMap Button: Show button on minimap, hold right mouse button to move
Lock Position: Locks the frames in place
Anchor: Set the anchor point, HealBot will then grow away from the anchor
Close Automatically: Closes the frame when no one needs a buff/heal (only when out of combat)
Play sound on open: Plays a sound when the frame is opened.
Hide options button: Hides the option button on the frame
Right click on panel opens options: Enable right click to open the options menu
Hide Party Frames: Hide the standard party frames (yourself and target optional)
Enable libQuickHealth: Allows your addon to interact with other healers so that you can see what targets have an incoming heal and what targets are being resurrected. It's very useful in a raid situation and should be enabled.
Use CPU profiler: Allows HealBot to interact with a CPU usage addon. Basically it tracks how much of your pc's resources are being used by your addons. If you don't have a CPU usage addon installed, there's no reason to check this box off in your HealBot setup.

The bottom half of the 'General' tab allows you to send automatic messages when you perform an action with HealBot. Spamming notifications in raid will frustrate and annoy, however, so check off 'Notify for resurrection only' or nothing at all.

Once you have your general setup taken care of, it's time to map your mouse keys (which is the whole reason you downloaded an addon to begin with). Think about your healing style for a minute before you start mapping your spells.


HealBot 3.2.0.0 Spells tab:



The drop down menu let's you choose if you want your HealBot bars enabled at all times or only in combat. I recommend having them on at all times so you can get used to looking at them for party information (instead of the standard party frames that you're used to.)

You'll notice five buttons below the drop down menu. This is where you map spells to the corresponding mouse button (i.e. Left for left click, right for right click, etc...) You've probably realized by now that we have more than 3 to 5 healing spells, so in order for healbot to give you access to all of your talents, we have to include 'Shift', 'Ctrl', and 'Alt' with our mouse clicks. (Note: If you have other actions mapped to these keys in your interface, you should move them now.)

The way you set up your spells is up to you, though I recommend mapping your most used spells to the simplest click and then continue from there. (You may notice that my middle mouse button is strictly resurrection and debuff spells. I find having my battle rez mapped there keeps it out of the way.)

Save unique spells for each spec: Allows you to map different spells for your duel spec without having to constantly change your HealBot settings.
Use Enabled Settings when target in combat: If the target is in combat, your HealBot settings will be enabled for that target.
Always use Enabled Settings: Always use enabled settings in or out of combat.
Avoid accidental PVP flagging: Keeps bars disabled if the target is PVP flagged and you're not.
SmartCast when out of combat: This will automatically select a spell when out of combat to res, buff, remove debuffs, or heal your target (binds to left click).

Take your time on the 'Spells' tab and study where you have your spells mapped. It will take some practice to cast your spells in this manner, but once you have their hotkeys mastered, you're healing will become much quicker and efficient.


HealBot 3.2.0.0 Healing tab:


The top half of the 'Healing' tab allows you to choose what bars appear on your HealBot UI. You obviously want your party/raid to appear and it's important to have your own bar there as well. Whether you want pets to appear is up to you, and if you'd like the tanks to be seperated from the rest, there's an option for that too.


Alert level: Sets a target %hp for HealBot to alert you when a target needs heals. The target's health bar will go from opaque to solid whenever their health reaches this level or lower. This setting allows you to know exactly who's taking damage and who you should be focusing your heals on.
Range check frequency: This changes how often HealBot will do a range check on your raid. The more frequent you set it, the faster you'll know if someone moved out of your range or not.


So there you have the first half of the HealBot setup. At this point your HealBot is ready to use. The second half of the tutorial will cover monitoring and removing debuffs (in and out of combat) as well as changing the look of healbot to fit your preferences.

13 comments:

  1. Hi There,

    I am looking to get back into Resto raid healing and have not really used any addons before to heal. Has there been a change in any form of confirguration of HealBot with the new 3.3patch and the update of HealBot to meet this patch?

    Are there also any healing macros you can recommend for quick, strong heals and what kind of stats should a good Resto Druid be looking at?

    Hope you can help. Love your work and effort.

    Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello Anonymous ;-)

    The newest version of healbot (3.3.0) is configured slightly different than the version you see in this guide (3.2.0). All of the options are the same, they're just located on different screens now.

    One great thing about 3.3.0, however, is that it will save all your options when you upgrade from 3.2.0, so you don't have to go through the entire set up all over again.

    If you don't have an addon installed yet, and you're having trouble finding all the options you're looking for in 3.3.0, try installing 3.2.0 while using this guide to set it up the way you like... then upgrade to 3.3.0.

    For stats, remember Spell Power > Spirit > Haste > Crit > Int. What those stats add up to will depend on your gear, so ultimately your gear will tell you want content you should be running.

    If you're in Ulduar gear, then you'll want to spend some time in ToC and Ony to gear up. If you've got mostly emblem gear on (frost + triumph) then you're more than ready for ICC.

    I wish I could tell you there's a bare minimum for each instance and what those minimums are, but there aren't any. It all boils down to skill, experience, and group make-up. Still, I know people like to have something to compare their numbers to, so here's what I started running ICC with...

    2.2k spell power (not in tree form), 550 mana regen, 400 haste, 20% crit, 18,000 mana. That's from a 4.9k gear score, and I've seen many trees get by with less.

    The bottom line is, get out there and start healing whatever you're comfortable with. If you succeed then move up to a tougher instance. If you don't, then spend some time farming emblems until you do succeed.

    I hope that helps some.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have been using Healbot for a few months since I started healing on my shaman; however, I recently started having some trouble with it and can't figure out how to fix the problem! I have an 8 button mouse, button 4 is set up for me to key up to speak in ventrilo but since yesterday, my key up button on my mouse makes me use my Riptide ability. It isn't set to anything in Healbot, I have all the buttons BLANK to try to figure out the problem, so when I click inside the healbot box of members in my party, nothing happens except I key up!... but when I click anywhere else on the screen, I key up AND pop Riptide. How do I fix this. (I have the same problem with button 5 on my mouse using Earth Shield)
    Any suggestions would be great. Thanks

    Luu

    ReplyDelete
  4. My only guess as to what could be causing your problem, Luu, is you have riptide bound to your mouse button in the WoW key binding screen. Open your game menu (esc key) and see if you have mouse button 4 and 5 bound to anything.

    If not, try installing the latest version of healbot (3.3.0.15) and see if that fixes your problem.

    I hope that helps.

    ReplyDelete
  5. in the spell section, along with the left, middle and right mouse button it also lists button 4 thru button 15. What are these buttons??

    ReplyDelete
  6. There are world of warcraft gaming mouses that offer users up to 15 buttons. Healbot allows you to map as many of those buttons as you deem fit.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I Disabled healbot, and hid the Icon in the minimap. There is no way for me to access the healbot settings to enable healbot again. How do I bring up the settings without accessing it through the icon on the minimap and with it disabled.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Kyle, typing /hb o should reopen the healbot options menu for you.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I am a discipline priest.. is there a way too get heal bot too show the weakend souls debuff.

    ReplyDelete
  10. HealBot v3.3.0.13 or newer should automatically be displaying weakened soul indicators on your PW:S icon. If you have icons disabled, or are
    simply not seeing the indicators, the best way to display the weakened soul debuff is as follows:

    1. Go to the Cure Tab and click on the "custom" button.

    2. In the New Debuff field type in "Weakened Soul" and save.

    The health bars of your shielded targets should now change color for the duration of the Weakened Soul debuff.

    ~Beck

    ReplyDelete
  11. I don't know if this blog is still active but I've got a minor problem.
    I've been using HB for a while now..
    I used to see people on my healbot screen who were in range. Now everybody, in range or not in range, is gray (Less opacity). I want to see people inrange with a higher opacity..

    How can I do that?
    Thank you

    ReplyDelete
  12. If you go to the skins tab and click on 'bars' you can either raise the enabled (in range) opacity or lower the disabled (out of range) opacity.

    ReplyDelete