[:1]....and fall flat on my face.
After a long break I thought I'd give this character a try again. He had previously been specced and geared (poorly) for feral. Looking to breathe some new life into him I thought I'd give resto a look-see.
Before anyone says anything, yes: I know my gear is horrendous (some level 80 items 4tl) and incomplete. Gear is the least of my concerns at the moment.
I've read the great guides folks have put out and I get the main concepts. The problem I am running into is that I seem to have more heals than fingers to accurately cast them with on the fly. I am pretty familiar with Shammy healing and going from that to this is like a '85 Chevy to a finely-tuned race car that I have no business driving.
With the standard WASD movement setup, how do you good druids prioritize the nearby keys?
I actually didn't.
When I was resto, I used Healbot (or Clique, when Healbot was broken & vice versa) to map all spells to 4 mouse (left, right, mid, and a side one) buttons and any combination of Ctrl, Alt, and Shift.
(As an example, some of my setup:
LB = button 4 (the side button) with no modifiers,
WG = Shift + left click,
Nourish = Alt + left click,
Regrowth = Ctrl + left click,
Rejuve = middle button w/ no modifiers,
Swift Mend = middle button + Shift,
Cleanse = right click with no modifiers or with Ctrl Mod (I had to use Ctrl when I swapped to Clique),
BR = Ctrl + right click,
Innervate = Alt + right click,
Cyclone = Ctrl + button 4.... etc.)
It's quite a different playstyle if you're used to button-healing (I was for years, primarily because I used to heal in feral spec Vanilla through BC, so I didn't have access to all the toys. :P), but once you get used to it, it's a LOT faster, I've found. It also freed up my hands (since they're right in the area anyway) for WASD movement.
Clique is a bit more customizable, so that you can do things like use the caps key or something if you wanted. Healbot only deals with Shift, Alt, Ctrl, and buttons. Depending on your UI, you can use the UI you have with Clique, whereas Healbot gives you another set of bars. I hated the default UI before I got ElvUI, so I liked Healbot then... I'm becoming more partial to Clique now tho.
I'm full feral now (Hated the Cata healing changes from HOTs to straight heals), but I still use those keybinds. :)
Rewatch is the best healing mod for a Druid.
no alt click or ctrl click combinations to remember.
Are you going to PVP or PVE mostly? That may make a difference in how you choose to organize your spells.
The PVP setup I currently use utilizes mouseover macros that combine my healing spells and damage spells to my mouse buttons. For example, mouse button 1 casts rejuvenation on a friendly mouseover target or a friendly target in focus. If no one is under my cursor or currently in focus it heals me. Holding shift and pressing mouse button 1 casts moonfire on enemies who are focused on or under my cursor.
This setup is handy because you can keep focus on a main target for heals or dps, and then fire off spot heals or dots with mouseover on other temporary targets. You can also target yourself with mouseover on your character or on unit frames to prevent losing focus.
I use a pretty simple gaming mouse that cost $30. It has 5 extra buttons, and that takes care of all my basic heals and attacks. Keys 1 - 4 and R & F are hotkeyed for tranq, faerie fire, barkskin etc. This requires a few keys to be unbound and the Clique add on so you can target Unit Frames with all the mouse buttons.
I can share my macros if you're interested in a similar set up,
Cyprus
If youre using a naga (as I am) these settings work for me.
Basically I set up all my healers in the same way.
Because the naga is set out in a pattern of:
123
456
789
I have my mains heals above eachother. Eg 1= Nourish then 4=Healing tough. And then 2 = Lifebloom and 5= Rejuv.
I try to keep them in a similar position so I have my hots in a row and my main heals in another row. I also use QER and then have some Shift + 1-9 macros. Hope it helps!
I walk with my arrow keys. It's a habit I have not been able to break myself of in seven years of playing. I can't 'do it. I use shift, control, and alt to modify mouse clicks in clique to cast heals, and I *gasp* click certain things like innervate and rebirth because I want to make damn sure I only use them when I really want to.
Funnily, on my laptop I DO use WASD to walk... so I don't know. I'm weird.
I use mouseover macros for healing with Grid.
1= Wild Growth
2= Lifebloom
3= Rejuv
4=Swiftmend
5=Regrowth
Shift + 1 = Nourish
Shift + 2 = Healing Touch
Shift + 3 = Nature's swiftness
Innervate/Rebirth/a few others are a click because I'm afraid of fat-fingering them.
And then if I want to throw out some dps, I use alt modifiers.
Cleanse and thorns are triggered through click. Shift Left Click and Shift Right click. And cyclone/hibernate are another mouse bind, but I dont remember which ones.
I use the following key binds with my regular 4 button mouse + wheel.
q,e,r,f,c
Shift + q,e,r,f,c
12345
mw up, mw down, m4, m3, mw push
Shift + mw up, mw down, m4, m3, mw push
My new challenge is adding new key binds for arena (focus and targeting macros).
That gives me about 25 buttons.
Make sure your heals + root + cyclone are not on the bar that gets stance shifted.
You want your heals + human form stuff always available so that you don't have to shift OUT to cast.
macros, macros, macros. i have almost all of my heals on 1-4 with a shift modifier, and a few more bound to mouse buttons.
My setup:
1- casts RG/HT on friendlies (mouseover as well), or wrath/starfire if targeting an enemy. shift to switch between the two
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover, help, modifier:shift]Regrowth; [@mouseover, help]Healing Touch; [harm, modifier:shift] Wrath; [harm] Starfire;[modifier:shift] Regrowth; Healing Touch;
2- casts RJ/SM on friendlies (mouseover as well), or my dots on enemies. shift to switch between the two
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover, help, modifier:shift]Swiftmend; [@mouseover, help]Rejuvenation; [harm, modifier:shift] Insect Swarm; [harm] Moonfire;[modifier:shift] Swiftmend; Rejuvenation;
3 is a similar macro with Nourish/LB, 4 is WG, and 5 is decurse. i have a NS+HT macro on a mouse button, innervate on another.
i never have to reach further than 5 on any fight for any heal with the exception of Tranq, which i have set far out of the way to prevent misclicks :)
I have 1-5, f, c, f, z, x, t, and ` keybound, and then shift+all those keybound. I also have several spells bound to my mouse buttons. :)
http://i.imgur.com/HExyz.jpg
Basically everything has a mouseover macro, and ctrl 1-5 are forms.
