Playing a Holy Paladin can be as easy or as hard as you want to make it. Some people like to use addons like Healbot, or Grid to fill all there needs. While this is all well and good, I highly suggest learning to heal without these tools first. A day may come when these addons no longer function. Then where will you be? I personally wont be left in the dark.

So I wont lie. I use healbot. Its an amazingly useful tool, especially in the raid environment. That said; let me tell you how I learned to heal.

Healing 5 mans is an interesting juggling act for the paladin. Its simple in raids. The raid leader will point you at the main tank, and say go to it. In 5 mans however, you not only have to keep the main tank up, but you have to keep the group up as well. Beacon of Light, our bottom tier talent, makes this easier then it use to be. Cast beacon on the tank, heal the group. Allow me to suggest a few practices that will make your life easier though.

Creat Focus Macros for Flash of Light, Holy Light, and Beacon of Light; make additional macros for anything else you think may need this functionality.

Beacon of Light Macro
/cast [target=focus] Beacon of Light
/sw 59
/script Stopwatch_Play()

This macro will case Beacon of Light on you focus, and start an on screen countdown timer to tell you how long before you need to recast it.

Other Spells
/cast [target=focus]

This macro simply cast spells on your focus.

Now the above two macros can be written such that holding a modifier key (ctrl, alt, shift) will cast on your focus, and no modifier will cast on your target. If you want that option though, you will have to find someone smarter then me.

So set up your UI to show two bars, one above the other. Put all your “Focus” macros on one, and all your other skills on the other. Now when you go into an instance, remember to /focus the tank. Once that is done you are ready to heal. Anytime the tank needs healing hit that focus macro. It doesn’t matter who or what you currently have targeted, the heal will go to the tank. While a bit complicated to set up, this is about as close to healbot you can get with the base UI, and a standard mouse and keyboard.

I personally used this method of healing through most of Burning Crusade. It was only in the final months that I switched to healbot and believe it or not, I do look back.

Healing is about the only thing I don’t use a ton of keybinds for. Because of this it is a bit alien to me. I Tank and DPS with a mouse a finger board with a Thumb D-Pad. I heal with nothing but the mouse. I don’t even need the keyboard. It just feels strange. In another post I will talk about how to set up the n52Te and other Similar Devices for healing.

I challenge you though. Run with your guild, turn healbot off, and try healing the old fashion way. Youll be a better healer for it.

Light be With You
~Bloodgarde