As for addons, I’d be fine with healing 10man without addons. The challenge comes with 25-man. Grp healers will benefit a lot from unitframe addons like grid. Otherwise they will have to cover their screen with 25 (1cm by 3cm approx) unit frames from the default raid tab. Definitely won’t be a pleasant experience. This is unless of course the raid leader don’t mind having each grp healer in charged of 1-2 grps only.

Recently I had to raid heal but was not on my computer so I was pretty much stripped of all my addons which sucked horribly. Rather than attempting to try to go download the addon to use it while where I was, I decided to just rough it and go naked WoW (its my term for no addons used). Was it hard? Comparitively speaking totally. I had to gauge health amounts differently, I couldnt easily access who had a debuff I could dispel, and unable to tell who was within range of me. Could I do it? Totally. Once I got past the initial foreign feeling of having not done this in a long time, I was healing back how I used to way back before I used an addon to heal.

The only differences I had were my reaction time was a bit different but not as big a difference as you’d think. The other players commented on how I allowed their health to dip more than I usuallyl do as they always comment on how comfortable they feel knowing Im healing and Im spot on. I was slower on dispel and such. But outside of that, no trouble at all. I was happy knowing I could without addons.

I think thats the point that you tried to make here.

Since we are working towards raids, Ill look into it! If I can be more effective, why not!

So, do you guys have any suggestions for a new to raiding? What would be the add ons I should get?

By the way, your blog is great!

Yes, but they wouldn’t take off if they weren’t working. Emergency use only.

Nihilum vs KJ @ blizzcon last June. nuff said.

if you raid on a regular basis, find some class/spec specific addons. your game play will increase dramatically. if you don’t you are hurting your raid.

I like actually having to play my priest and pay attention to every1s greens.

I have a healer friend who flat-out refuses to run addons. No Unit Frames, no custom UI, no Decursive, no threat meter, nuffin. Something about ruining the purity of the game and making it too easy … then again, the hardest things he’s healed are BC instances … I wonder if his attitude would change in a raid setting.

On the other end of the spectrum was a priest in Deadmines, level appropriate, saying he can’t heal because his addons aren’t working. It’s freaking Deadmines! The group I was with fell apart waiting for this guy to get his HealBot rolling … that’s just unacceptable.

Addons are good and all, nothing wrong with using them, but short of a raid or arena setting, I really think people should be able to function perfectly well without them.

I agree with Vonya (a trackback on her article led me here, lol) about VisualHeal being useful for not double-healing targets or wasting Tree HoTs, but really, if you “can’t” heal with the default UI, I have to wonder if you’re playing the game or if your addons are playing it for you.

Will you heal less effectively without addons? Sure. Addons give you more information than the default UI, making you more informed and therefore a better healer. But, if you lost all your addons tomorrow, would you be ABLE to heal your party or raid?

I don’t think anyone is saying you shouldn’t use addons. Just that you shouldn’t NEED them to heal.

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