Warcraft Game Guide: Healing Vanilla vs Healing Addons

Hello and welcome to one of the most controversial topics a healer could ever come upon which is the old healing sans addons versus healing with addons (such as Grid + Clique, Healbot, and Vuhdo). Some will sing the praises of particular addons whilst others do not even acknowledge the existance. A healer will either be for vanilla healing or against it. What I'm going to do is give information about the pros and cons of both sides to the story. It's up to each individual healer to make the choice on their own. The basic anatomy of a fabulous healer is good judgement and quick reaction reflexes. Using our healing skills to the best of our ability is something each and every healer should and will learn over time.

And with that said; Which side will you choose?

Healing without addons

In this playstyle a healer will drag raid frames to anywhere on the screen. Our spells are then mapped to keys 1-9 as key binds. Before Blizzard made the 'focus' frame if you wanted to pick tanks as focus you would then drag out the single bar of the tank from the raid frames for your focus. Nowadays the modern vanilla healer will use macros coupled with mouseovers to speed up their heals. This method is actually the click to heal bind method healing addons attempt to simulate.

Pros: Good judgment skills. Knows how to heal and use spells to the best of one's ability. During patch day, no need to re-install addons that broke during the new patch!

Cons: Default UI frames are clunky especially in 25-man raids. Extreme overhealing which leads to lack of efficient heals. Important information missing in the debuffs/decursing area.

Healing with addons

First of all let's put to rest something long ago nailed in the coffin by Blizzard. Healing addons are not(repeat it) botting programs. Once upon a long time ago(Vanilla WoW ) yes it is true that all addons were capable of automating quite a bit. Yes it is true that because of the ability to pick who to heal the healing addons would then choose the right spell to cast for you. Which in turn led to the lazy healer. However Burning Crusade was about to release and those addons were commanded by Big Blue to no longer do so as it was now a bannable action. In other words, healing addons have severely changed.

Therefore this is the here and now.

Our healing addon choices are many but the top three are thus:

Grid + Clique
Healbot
Vuhdo

Each have their respective niche but essentially they all simulate macros that bind to mouse/keyboard keys. If you have a mouse that is stock with extra buttons you can also assign spells to those keys as well.

Pros: Significantly increased awareness and reaction time. Ability to see debuffs, aggro, and incoming heals from other healers. Frees up keys 1-9 for dps spells. No complex macros to write out by hand.

Cons: Have to install and re-install addons should they break during patch day. Extra memory usage for PC. May lead to dependancy upon the healing addon.

Conclusion

Do addons make the difference between a good healer and a bad one? I honestly do not believe they do but you can be certain that addons do increase performance for some people. Whether you heal with or without addons do not make or break a healer. Should you use an add-on or do not it honestly does not matter in my personal opinion. This is because in my eyes a healer's situational awareness, reaction times, and good judgment are the basic foundation of what makes a healing king/queen.

In the end, it is simply put; a matter of preference and playstyle.