Ideas for boxing with healers?

[heyaz]

I've been doing a lot a battlegrounds and world pvp lately now that my shaman are fully geared, but unfortunately they are still just too soft to survive big encounters. I find myself overwhelmed and having to stop dps to heal my shaman - and of course that just delays the inevitable and no one dies. In most encounters it's not really possible to take more than 3-5 enemies with me before my shaman all fall over.

I have a priest and paladin at 80, in a little bit of pvp healing gear. I boxed a bit with them before with no specific macros and although it's nothing like a dedicated healer, it made a Huge difference in my survivability, and this is when I was still in deadly.

Ultimately I want the priest and paladin to be able to heal somewhat efficiently but not be bound to my shaman's heal keys (so they don't heal themselves, but keep dps up). At the same time I don't want a bunch of extra key bindings I have to worry about pressing on my shaman during dps.

Couple ideas I had - having a keymap I can turn on when healing is needed so I keep spamming dps and the healers heal at the same time. Keymap would include an oh sh*t macro with pain supression and divine sacrifice, along with prayer of healing to keep me alive. Keeping the main alive should be relatively simple, but what about spot healing? Could it be possible to have healbot running on the healers and have that bound to shaman dps keys, or is that click only? Also round robin passive heals (pws, renew, etc.) would be great to use before I encounter a large group.

If anyone has any experience with this or has ideas of how it could be done, please enlighten me. I know the pve crowd must be doing it, especially the 10 man groups, so that dps can continue while healing goes on.

[Khatovar]

I use mouseover healing {pve} with HKN. I don't know if other programs can do actual mouseover healing or if they only work with click-to-heals. But my setup works the same with 5-man and 10-man since it's mouseover {the only thing that changes is the unit frames are smaller}.

But I couldn't begin to tell you how it would fare in a place like AV. Things get too laggy, healing could become unreliable.

[Greythan]

Mouse over healing is the key, IMO.

Allows you to keep keybinds for DPS (and tank in PVE) related activities and "whack-a-mole" mousework for healing. I use IS and a repeater region to pass clicks through to my priest.

I'm not a PvP guy so not sure how this will translate but its what I would try out.

[Naysayer]

the best defense is a good offense










unless someone else can do the healing for you.

[HPAVC]

In pve the healer is in the DPS rotation, though its not usually as ambitious as the dps spec classes. When needed I swap key profiles and the healer is out of the the dps rotation. To be clear the healer is idle at this stage unless I do something with her. Often this could be as simple as a /targetraid fixit grind or some prayer spamming or whatever.

Normally I shift her out of dps, do a castsequence of a 'fixup tank' and then swap back. I think a lot of people that run with a dedicated healer do this but have it as two keybinds so they press a{1,1,1,1} for full dps and b{1,1,1,2} for mixed dps on the multiplexer.

[Ualaa]

I would think repeater regions would be the best option.
But if you don't want to be clicking Grid/Healbot/Vuhdo frames (possibly with modifier keys), while spamming attack keys, you could try a Keymap approach.



You mentioned a keymap in the initial post.
I'm assuming that refers to IS Boxer and its Keymaps.

You can have a keymap, which is two steps.
Step 1 will activate some keymaps and deactivate others.
Step 2 will do the reverse.

The healer will need a heal macro bound somewhere on their screen.
If the healer is 1x Shaman or 2x Shaman, that's an option, but the priest running with the team works fine too.
It could be as simple as a keybind for an AoE group heal.
It could be a full blown click sequence, with Pain Suppression (assisting the player you are attacking), Shield, Renew interwoven with AoE heal spells.

The Heal Keymap will disable the FTL DPS keys on your healer.
At least the ones your other toons use for DPS.
It will also activate several Keymaps (same number as it disables).
These new keymaps will all use the same input/hotkey as the DPS keys, but will output the Keybind for the Heal macro to your healer.

Pressing the master Heal Keymap, will do the reverse.
It will turn off the alternate Keymaps which use various hotkeys to point to the Heal Macro.
And enable the normal FTL DPS keys.
Each Step could have the screen warning of which mode has been activated (Just copy the Keymaps On/Off keymaps, in the Control Keymaps section).

This lets you DPS normally, but have some of your DPS become healers via a hotkey.
While continuing to spam the same DPS keys you use normally.
(Example J, in my guide to IS Boxer details this for Druid Eclipse in a bit more detail).

You could even have multiple Master Heal Keymaps, which will allow you to toggle more then one character from DPS to Heal mode and back.

[heyaz]

If I use a repeater keymap and something like healbot, could the keys be bound to heal whoever has the lowest health? Or does that require me to click something on the main shaman?

[Crel]

Holy cow I never thought to implement click healing, Thanks alot for the tips.

Have been struggling on my druid team during instances, and this should pretty much solve my problems. I'll admit working shams first and just spamming /target toonx /cast chainheal made me lazy. Glad to see I have been giving myself ulcers for no reason :P
P.S. heal bot tree druids x5 for teh win!

[Ualaa]

With the repeater regions, you'll have something like Grid or Healbot or Vuhdo.

I know with Grid, it colors the box more as a toon is taking damage.
You could set your default heal to a left click.
And another heal to a right click.

I personally like to use modifier clicks, so I can select or context menu the toon, when I'm on the healer.
But Grid needs Clique, which modifies all of your clicks.
Healbot and Vuhdo interpret clicks on their frames, still letting you click the party frames.
So it depends on the addon you are using.

It won't automatically target the worst character.
But it is very easy to see which box is more colored then the others.
And you just click that box with your mouse.