I ran my first instance... (Really messy..)

[Vociferate]

Long story short... I need tips on running a tank and healer.

I've done Tank+DPS or DPS+Healer, but never Tank+Healer.

I am running a druid and priest.


Difficulties:
Targeting other party members outside of my druid
Managing cooldowns properly
Staying calm?

I have most of my macros and keybinds setup for keeping my toons up. Add in others who can pull aggro, and such...

What do you do? H
How do you have your macros setup?
Targeting Keybinds?


Generally what do you do, when you have to control the whole instance? Making the adjustment from DPS variations to Tank and Healer, is killing me.

[Knytestorme]

best tip I can give in regards to healing instances....use target=targettarget and keep the boss targeted. If you have this on at least one of your macros you can cast it to heal whoever the boss is pounding on at that moment.

It doesn't help though if a clothie is getting pounded and then the tank gets agro back just as you cast, so for those situations you should also have 5 heal macros set up for healing each of party1-5 as well so you can single target heal without dropping your current target.

as for how to bind them when running only 2 characters in tank + healer mode, I'd likely set them up on the same keybindings as your tank has their tanking talents and have all the healers macros using a modifier such as shift. That way when you get in the thick of things and you need to cast a heal quickly you can just use shift+1 for example to heal party1 and then as soon as you let go of the shift modifier your tanks actions will start working again.

It will let you remain focused and not have to worry about moving your hands around during the action.

Of course, if you have a G11/13/15/19 keyboard or keypad then you can bind the first 5 buttons to your heal macros and have the g-key setup to send shift+1 etc in one press if that is easier for you then pressing the key combo and trying to remember what is what in the heat of battle...in fact it's how I run my healer.

[Fef]

I guess you control your tank directly, so Mousover healing is not an option.

First thing, that I find to be enough in 99% of cases, direct your heals o FocusTargetTarget. With you tank the focus, heals will go to whatever your tank's target is attacking (usually you tank himself).

In situations where this is not enough, you might want to have 5 different keys associated to the five group members to throw heals to the appropriate character. Use of modifiers will help keeping the number of used keys reasonnable.

Also, you need an addon that displays what your healer is casting on you tank windows. There are several options for that, I use "SimpleCastBar" or something like that (will check up name once at home).

[Svpernova09]

I drive with my Tank, healer always targeting tank. Has macros for /tar partymembername /cast heal. Also has binds for individual heal.

This lets me spam heals on the tank, target a party member, heal them, or aoe heal them, or whatever.

[shaeman]

The biggest thing you can do is simplify things as much as possible.

Use macros to reduce what you need to hit down to the minimum.

On my druid I am in the process of setting up two macros. One I will hit when I'm building up aggro,
the other I'll hit when I've got plenty of rage - so will add maul in. I may have a third for maxing out single target threat.

On your healer you need to be able to target each player easily.
Have 5 macros - that target different party members and that pops a lesser heal or renew on them. If these are always the same you can put names in - if your 3 dps is made up of random pugs then use party1,2,3,4,5 etc.
You can then press your other healing abilities to top them off, shield them etc. Make sure the keys that target your tank or your priest never change. Have the keys for your AOE heals available.

If the whole team takes aoe damage hit your aoe heal, perhaps a holy nova for a quick heal if they are in danger of dying then your longer cast for a bigger heal.

Other than that a lot depends on the ability of the other 3 players. If it's friends then having them hit the same target, and not over aggroing should make things easier. If you are pugging in the other 3 then you might have to be more forceful in encouraging them to let the tank build aggro, and to use their own abilities to drop aggro.

Oh I forgot - perhaps have a macro that targets either the tanks target if it's friendly or the target of the tanks target if it's not, so on bosses if the tank does lose aggro you instantly heal the player that's now getting beat on. (And it gives you the option of targeting a specific player on the tank to heal, which isn't ideal).

With a good group you'll find that the damage and healing are more predictable. Normally restricted to keeping the tank up and healing the odd player that's damaged - with rarer occassions of hitting aoe healing when AOE splash damage occurs.

EDIT: DAMN - Whilst typing this wall of text three other replies completely removed any need for my post. Sorry about that.

[Vociferate]

Is it easier to control the healer and just have the tank do his business? Or vice versa?


What I had done that run was use the F2-F5 for targeting party members for healing them.

Should I use modifiers instead? And have them directed as follows:

/cast [target=party 'x'] HEAL

Or continue to use the F keys? (On my tank I have those turned off to avoid involuntary target changes. I have the unit frames to highlight red if they aggro followed by:

#showtooltip Growl
/cast [target=mouseover] Growl
/assist [target=mousover]
/cast Growl

But if they weren't targeting the mob that is attacking them, the taunt is wasted. (I can usually catch it if the mob runs past, but things happen )

[Khatovar]

I guess you control your tank directly, so Mousover healing is not an option..

Depends what you box with I drive with my tank and setup HKN to be able to mouseover heal from my tank's screen.

[Vociferate]

The biggest thing you can do is simplify things as much as possible.
EDIT: DAMN - Whilst typing this wall of text three other replies completely removed any need for my post. Sorry about that.

But I like your wall!

What are some good ways to practice this? I can easily predict myself and what kind of damage my priest will take. But add in the variable of a pug... And it's a whole different story.

Perhaps a priest isn't the best choice for learning this? When I gift the levels out, would a Paladin or Shaman be of better choice?

[shaeman]

It is tough and I don't think a different healer is the answer.
You'll need to react no matter what the situation is.
I've probably healed most on a druid and wild growth is fantastic - but I also think a priest is very strong.
Prayer of mending with it's jumps to damaged players should help, and circle of healing.

- I think what you are doing is actually more difficult than 5 boxing.

With 5 boxing I have total control over all characters - I know my shaman are going to wait if i need aggro.
I know they are going to be targetting the character my tank is concentrating on (apart from when I forgot to put TAB on the do-not-pass list ) I know that I can whack their threat reduction ability too.

WIth pugs that goes completely out the window. If in a pug I would prioritise. Tank, Healer, dps that know what they are doing, muppet that pulls aggro/ causes problems last.

It sounds like you've got the tanking well under control, so I would probably suggest going on a few pugs as just a healer. The worse pugs the better

See what the bad things are - and what works to react to them. Then try and plan for being able to do that based on a macro.

e.g if an Idiot pulls aggro - do you target idiot, shield, renew, quick heal 90% of the time, in which case castsequence that.

[Svpernova09]

IMO, driving with the tank is the easiest. The biggest thing I had to overcome was getting used to using keys to heal, even when I couldn't see what the healer was doing. Once you get familiar and see what you're able to easily heal through, it becomes trivial. I do the CoS gauntlet in 2 pulls now. Partly because my tank is well geared, partly because I've wiped on that enough to know I can't heal fast enough for 1 pull (wtb moar haste kkthks). So just remember it's a learning experience, you're already doing the best thing you can do, which is come here and see how others are doing it.

Are you tanking with a bear? I posted my tanking macro in Fur's mega macro thread if you need something thats spammable so you can focus on watching your HP, heals, or whatever else.