Making the jump to 5x, healer question

Thanks to relatives finally admitting that I'm impossible to shop for and giving me cash, I am now the proud owner of enough Battlechests and 2-month cards to make the leap from 2 to 5. The responses to my previous post about 5 hunters convinced me that I should include a hunter, and I've decided to throw in a mage too for the taxi and conjured food services. So I'm now looking at 3 Hunters, 1 mage, and 1 healer. But I'm not sure what sort of healer to go with. And I'm not sure how to set up main/slaves. In terms of how much needs to be targeted, it seems like it would make the most sense to have the healer as the main so that I can select targets to heal most easily, but then how do I get all the DPS slaves targeting the same mob?

as long as your healer has the mob targeted it should be the exact same way as any other setup, weather or not it's a tank or healer at the head...
Just target with your main and make him the focus and make this macro for the slaves:
/cast [target=focustarget] spell name


And i would use Healbot to heal with since you can just click it and it heals your group, those 2 things together should make it pretty easy

But wouldn't the healer tend to be targeting group members for healing rather than the main mob? I've never played a healer before, so I don't really know how that works.

use healbot.


or use macros with [target=party1], [target=party2], ...[target=party4].
these will tell the spell to target the party member number. it will not make the healer target anything BUT what its already targeting.

You should first figure out what you want to do in WoW:

1. PVE: run instances and heroics solo
2. PVP: battlegrounds or arena?
3. A mix of the two above
4. Just play around in the world, do quests, world PVP, peel off guys solo to run instances with friends, etc

If you want to do #1, you have to have a tank at high levels (heroics), no real way around that right now. Its easier leveling up a tank with your team than try to shoehorn in one later.

if you want to do battlegrounds or play around, your team comp is great. If you want to do arenas, you may have issues, don't really know enough about hunters to comment but resto shamans are not what I would pick as a heal class in arenas -- possibly priest or druid might work out better.

In general, for most things in wow, you rarely need heals. You can do quests and such and never have to use the heal button, just fight and eat/drink after, especially with a mage tagging along. Its better in that case to have a healer class which is very versatile, such as perhaps a ele shaman (who can still heal as needed in non-instances) or a boomkin druid or even a shadow priest.

If you plan on doing instances by yourself though you will need to think carefully through your team composition, while you can go 1-80 and run instances nonstop with a variety of teams (no tank, offspec healing, etc) you pretty much will need a tank and some sort of heal abilities or a dedicated healer for heroics.

I'm leveling a 5 man group, mostly instancing. Paladin, 3 Affliction Warlocks and a Holy Priest. Everything thus far has been a joke w/ the Priest healing. A brain dead, half-asleep Chimp could run the instances w/ a Priest healing. (Only complaint is 4 clothies all wanting the same loot, lol.)

I'd go with a druid so you have someone to take +spell power leather. Plus, MotW is a nice buff, and you have someone that can stealth if needed. I main healed with a holy priest through all BC content through BT, and I think I could out-heal the druids but didn't have the versatility. Druids now have a regular rez (in addition to their battle rez) so that is no longer an issue. The only reason I'd take a shammie is for the self-rez (just don't wipe :) )