On Saturday, I was invited to join staff writers Mike Schramm, Matt Lowe, and Elizabeth Harper for WoWInsider’s weekly podcast! This show was focused around healing and included some great discussion of ways that Blizzard might change healing to make it less segregated from the rest of the game. Additional talking points included:

• Glyph choices for Restoration Druids
• The Scourge Invasion
• Our opinions of who the best healer is right now
• Our plans for picking up a copy of Wrath and what we plan to do at release
• The awesomeness that is [Glyph of Levitate] — /jealous Priests
• General talk about Resto4Life

From the show description over on WoWInsider.com:

It was all healers all the time this past week on the WoW Insider Show. Special guest tree Druid Phaelia joined us from her site, Resto4Life.com, and our good friend Matt "Matticus" Low brought his priestly insights from World of Matticus (and our own Spiritual Guidance column), and our producer Elizabeth Harper brought some Paladin judgment to the table. We chatted about how healing is going lately in the game, which classes are doing well lately (and which are doing not so well), and what Ghostcrawler might do for healers to make things more fun than whack-a-mole. We also talked about the 3.0.3 patch, and where we’ve been in the beta, and where we’re going first on launch day.

It was a wonderful honor to be invited, and I hope you’ll give it a listen!

Related Posts

• Epic Dolls Episode 43: Druid Discussion
• Resto4Life Says “Farewell” on Twisted Nether
• Some Follow-Up

On Monday Ghostcrawler announced that Blizzard has both Circle of Healing and Wild Growth on their nerf-dar:

Circle of Healing and Wild Growth are definitely on our radar. This would be a good time to discuss them.

Our concern is that they are turning two classes with a large arsenal of healing spells into single-button healers. Meanwhile, ironically, the other two healing classes have fewer heals to use in the first place.

We have seen raid parses where 75 to 90% of a priest’s healing is through CoH. It’s a good spell, useful in a variety of situations. But I think you can understand our concern.

A Priest said to us the other day "Please nerf Circle of Healing so I can push another button!" He’s even thinking of going Disc.

This statement comes quickly on the heels of a statement Ghostcrawler made the day before that:

We decided rather than try to make CH a bad spell, we’d just leave in those new talents to get you to cast other spells once in awhile. The difference is we think you’ll still cast CH 90% of the time or whatever, but maybe that remaining 10% will require you to think a little differently about what to cast (and at least it’s not 100%).

I’m at a loss as to why it’s considered acceptable for one healer to be based 90% around a spell that requires an extraordinarily low amount of cognitive awareness but Druids were considered to be too dependent first upon Lifebloom (subsequently beaten soundly with the nerf bat), then potentially Regrowth (/mourn [Glyph of Regrowth]), and now upon Wild Growth. Blizzard clearly wants to encourage a diversity of spell selection among Priests and Druids and will nerf our various spells until they’re all equally handicapped!

The development team is apparently contemplating limiting the spell’s use by applying a 6-second cooldown:

Based on feedback from this forum, elsewhere and our own brainstorming, what we are thinking about right now is something like a 6 sec cooldown for Circle of Healing and Wild Growth.

We’re less concerned about Chain Heal, in part because it’s not instant, prevents movement, falls off with multiple targets, and is the spell that shamans are supposed to be hitting, while priests and druids have many other spells.

(In contrast to Lifebloom which must be consciously targeted, heals one person at a time, carries a heavy penalty if allowed to lapse, and must be maintained even if the target is at full health, leading to a large amount of overheal. Clearly, this spell needed to be nerfed!)

At 6 seconds, you would still want to use CoH/WG in the right situations (though hopefully not *every* time they are up), but you’d also want to use other spells during the cooldown. To be fair, a lot of priests and druids are asking to push other buttons.

This sounds like a potentially scary change because it has a lot of ramifications — one of the reasons we are mentioning it so early is to get feedback. We don’t want Resto shammies to push other healers out of raids. We would change some of the encounters knowing that CoH spam was no longer possible.

Druids asking to “push more buttons” have termites for brains. Asking to push more buttons is what got Lifebloom nerfed to begin with, and while I concede that maintaining a Lifebloom rotation on 3 or more targets was not my personal definition of fun, I have long advocated for focusing on mana regeneration so that Regrowth could be used more liberally. Not only was this more effective, but it was less tedious and, therefore, more fun.

Ghostcrawler goes on to discuss a few other nerfs that were considered:

We don’t like the stacking mana cost solution in this case, though we did talk about it a lot. We suspect that would actually lead us to the land of priests saying their mana regen sucks because they have to spam CoH to be competitive, and I’m not sure we can count on all you guys to be around to explain the logic when that happens.

We don’t want to just nerf the healing throughput on the spell because then it won’t be able to do its job. CoH was in this state before when Holy just ignored it.

A cast time might work, but the instant nature of both spells is part of what makes them so useful in emergencies.

We’re not crazy about reverting the smart heal aspect, though that is still on the table. Having too many spells that favor party over raid forces you back to having to worry a lot about your raid composition. "Oh, sorry hunter, we can’t bring you because we need another melee for our melee group or else CoH won’t reach you." PoH isn’t as big an issue, because honestly it’s just not such a big contribution to total healing. Though we could consider pushing it raid wide.

Cooldowns are a reality of a lot of damage rotations and they generally work as long as the system isn’t too complicated. You typically have the spell you really want to use in a given situation and then the others you fall back on when the favored spell is on cooldown.

I’m glad they eschewed these potential nerfs in favor of a cooldown. The idea of adding a cooldown or cast time to Wild Growth is amusing in the context of the recent change to Gift of the Earthmother so that it affects Wild Growth, allowing the spell to be “cast on more people faster.” I wonder if they will revert this change. (P.S. The cooldown on WG would make GotEM even less useful. Elune is apparently a person who takes her gifts back.)

Though to be honest, because of the nature of Wild Growth (an AoE HoT that tapers off over seven seconds), this nerf will affect us less than the same change to Circle of Healing, because while we could spam Wild Growth for the initially stronger ticks, it was considerably less efficient since it would frequently target the same people, overwriting the spell and invalidating the later ticks. This isn’t to say that I’m happy about the change, especially given the recent trend of nerfing every spell in our retinue to make them all similarly weak, but I’m less upset than I would be if I were a Priest.

Additional Reading

• Lume the Mad: Now is not the time to evaluate CoH and WG
  Includes an encounter-by-encounter look at which spell(s) excel. Especially helpful for people who haven’t seen the dynamics of Black Temple or Sunwell Plateau (myself included).
• Tree Bark Jacket: AoE Heals under Fire
  Kheeva warns against CoH and WG to Chain Heal based on currently skewed Sunwell Plateau parses.
• The Nyxes: Druids’ Moment in the Sun
  Nyxilyn laments the fun that she feels will be lost if a 6-second cooldown is applied to Wild Growth.

Related Posts

• Blue: Nourish may be Affected by Wild Growth
• Wild Growth … Grows a Pair *
• Nourish to Benefit from Moonglow and Wild Growth HoT (and Blues)

A new version of the Belkin n52te Tournament Edition SpeedPad was released at end-of-year, 2007. With the impending release of Wrath of the Lich King and the new abilities it introduces, I thought now would be a good time to rewrite my previous article to update it for the new software bundle and improvements I’ve found in the planning process for key bindings.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Nostromo SpeedPad, it’s a computer peripheral that rests under your left hand and mimics the key commands of the keyboard. The keys themselves are laid out as follows:

• 14 keys in 3 rows (the last of which only has 4 keys)
• A rectangular thumb button
• A circular thumb button
• A clickable scroll wheel
• An analog directional pad

The 14 base keys are where you map your primary abilities. The four fingers of your left hand rest on the middle row of keys (6-9), and there’s a home row marker on key 8 so that you can quickly find your hand position without having to look at the pad. The Nostromo SpeedPad works by mimicking key presses from your keyboard. So your first step is to configure your gamepad so that each of its keys corresponds to a key on your keyboard.

What You Will Need:

• Bartender4 (via Curse.com)
• Belkin Nostromo N52 TE (via Amazon.com)
• Paper and pencil

Quick Links

• Configuring the Nostromo N52te
• Laying out Action Bars with Bartender4
• Key Binding with Bartender4
• Pagination with Bartender4
• Planning Your Macros
• Sample Role-Based Layouts
• Key Binding Character and Camera Movement
• Key Binding Shapeshifts
• Macro Help: Mouseover Healing
• Macro Help: Heal Self
• Macro Help: Form-Specific Abilities

Configuring the Nostromo N52te

Install the drivers and software that came with the Belkin Nostromo SpeedPad. If prompted to restart your computer, be sure to do so. Now we’ll want to map the keys on your Nostromo to keys on your keyboard. I have my keys mapped in the following way:

You can, of course, map your keys however you want, but avoid using keys that are bound to common interface functions you’ve grown accustomed to using (such as C for the Character screen). I’ve bound my thumb key to ALT since that’s the “alternate” key I like to use in my macros (since it has the fewest number of characters) and my red thumb button to "jump" for interrupting spells or just hopping around to annoy people. Note that in my configuration, I use F1-F4 for shapeshifting, but I’ve never used the keys to target group members as is the default configuration.

Laying out Action Bars with Bartender4

By default, Bartender starts with several bars enabled and displayed in the center of your screen. We’ll want to start by hiding all but two of these. To do this:

1. Open the Bartender4 configuration by typing /bt.
2. Click on Bar 3 in the lefthand pane.
3. Uncheck the Enabled checkbox to hide this bar.
4. Repeat steps 1 and 2 for bars 4-10 if necessary.

Because each action bar within Bartender4 is limited to only 12 keys, we’ll have to use two bars to simulate the key layout of our Nostromo.* We’ll set up the first bar as 5 columns by 2 rows and place a second bar below it that’s 1 column by 3 rows so that it looks like this:

* Note: There are multiple configurations that can work, but this layout is one that will give you the most flexibility when it comes to activating automatic paging based on shapeshifts.

To configure bars 1 and 2 to resemble the layout shown above:

1. Open the Bartender4 configuration by typing /bt.
2. Uncheck the Lock checkbox at the top of the dialog box.
3. Click on Bar 1 in the lefthand pane.
4. Set the Buttons slider to 10.
5. Set the Rows slider to 2.
6. Click and drag Bar 1 into position, leaving enough room to position a second bar beneath it.
7. Click on Bar 2 in the lefthand pane.
8. Set the Buttons slider to 5.
9. Set the Rows slider to 1.
10. Click and drag Bar 2 into position beneath Bar 1.
11. Check the Lock checkbox at the top of the dialog box.
12. Optional: Check the Button Grid option for Bar 1 and Bar 2 so that you can easily see which buttons are unfilled.
13. Close the Bartender4 configuration by clicking on the Close button.

Key Binding with Bartender4

Now that our action bars resemble the key layout above, we can bind the keys of our Nostromo to their corresponding action bar buttons within Bartender4. To do so:

1. Type in /kb. This will put you into Key Binding Mode.
2. Mouseover each key on your action bars and press the key on your Nostromo you want to associate with it. For the sake of symmetry, I like to bind the fifth button on Bar 2 to a key on the side of my mouse. I generally map this key to emergency ability such as Barkskin.
3. Exit Key Binding Mode by clicking the OK button.

Pagination with Bartender4

Druids have many abilities that are form-specific, making stance-specific pagination (automatic bar swapping when you shapeshift) especially helpful. I recommend paginating your action bars as follows:

1. Open the Bartender4 configuration by typing /bt.
2. Click on Bar 1 in the lefhand pane.
3. Click on the State Configuration tab in the righthand pane.
4. Ensure the Enabled checkbox is checked.
5. Under Bear Form, set the paging dropdown to Page 3.
6. Under Cat Form and Cat Form Prowl, set the paging dropdown to Page 5.
7. Under Tree of Life and Moonkin Form, set the paging dropdown to Don’t Page.
8. Click on Bar 2 in the lefthand pane.
9. Click on the State Configuration tab in the righthand pane.
10. Ensure the Enabled checkbox is checked.
11. Under Bear Form, set the paging dropdown to Page 4.
12. Under Cat Form and Cat Form Prowl, set the paging dropdown to Page 6.
13. Under Tree of Life and Moonkin Form, set the paging dropdown to Don’t Page.
14. Close the Bartender4 configuration by clicking on the Close button.

Planning Your Macros

Since your default action bars will be those available to you when in caster form, you’ll want to map all those abilities you want to have easily accessible to buttons 1-14. Note that how you lay them out will probably depend upon the spec you play primarily. A Restoration Druid will probably reserve her home row of keys (6-10) for healing spells while a Moonkin will probably use those keys for her Balance spells. Because we’re limited to only 14 keys for the spells and abilities that are available from caster form, we’ll want to create macros that “pair” abilities based on the use of an alternate key such as Shift, Ctrl, or Alt (whichever key you’ve bound to the thumb key under Configuring the Nostromo SpeedPad). To do this in an intuitive way, I like to categorize my spells and abilities based on what function they perform and what they require:

Healing	Spell DPS
Direct Heal: Nourish, Healing Touch, Regrowth Heals over Time: Lifebloom, Rejuvenation, Regrowth Area of Effect: Flourish, Tranquility Decursing: Remove Curse, Abolish Poison Emergency: Swiftmend, Nature’s Swiftness Shapeshifting: Tree of Life	Direct Damage: Wrath, Starfire Damage over Time: Insect Swarm, Moonfire Area of Effect: Hurricane, Typhoon, Starfall Crowd Control: Entangling Roots, Nature’s Grasp, Cyclone, Hibernate Debuffing: Faerie Fire, Insect Swarm Additional Utility: Force of Nature Shapeshifting: Moonkin Form
Melee DPS (Cat Form)	Tanking (Bear Form)
DD, CP Builder: Claw, Mangle, Shred* DD, Opener: Ravage* DD, Finisher: Ferocious Bite, Maim (stuns) DoT, Opener: Pounce (stuns)* DoT, Finisher: Rip Buff: Tiger’s Fury Buff, Finisher: Savage Roar Debuffing: Mangle, Feral Faerie Fire Utility: Prowl, Dash, Cower, Feral Charge Shapeshifting: Cat Form	Direct Damage: Maul, Mangle Damage over Time: Lacerate Area of Effect: Swipe Emergency: Frenzied Regeneration, Bash Debuffing: Mangle, Demoralizing Roar, Feral Faerie Fire Taunts: Growl, Challenging Roar Shapeshifting: Dire Bear Form
* Must be behind the target
Miscellaneous
Buffing: Mark of the Wild, Gift of the Wild, Thorns Protection: Barkskin, Shadowmeld Resurrection: Rebirth, Revive Additional Utility: Innervate, Teleport: Moonglade, Soothe Animal Shapeshifting: Travel Form, Cheetah Form

I will often create a macro that combines two skills within the same category, with the less frequently used (or sometimes the one that feels more powerful) version set up as the alternate ability of the more commonly used one. Such a macro looks like this:

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:alt] Ability2; Ability1

The above macro will activate Ability1 by default and Ability2 when pressed and the alt key is held down. The #showtooltip line will automatically display the appropriate tooltip for the ability that will be activated (and icon if you chose the icon when creating the macro). Example pairings that I like to use include:

Default Action	+Alt Action
Innervate Self	Innervate Target
Entangling Roots	Nature’s Grasp
Abolish Poison	Remove Curse
Wild Growth	Tranquility
Rejuvenation	Swiftmend
Nourish	Healing Touch
Mark of the Wild	Gift of the Wild
Wrath	Starfire
Moonfire	Starfall
Hurricane	Typhoon
Insect Swarm	Faerie Fire

Obviously, many of the above pairings are spec-dependent since a Restoration Druid won’t have access to Starfall, Typhoon, or Insect Swarm (in which case, she might instead pair Moonfire with Faerie Fire), and a Balance Druid won’t have access to Wild Growth, Swiftmend, or Nature’s Swiftness. Ferals tend to have fewer abilities available to them within a given form, so it isn’t as important to pair them up like this. However, by doing so, a Feral frees herself to keybind abilities that will shift her out of form when necessary. It can be helpful while soloing to have heals readily accessible, especially when you have “heal self by default” enabled. (Note, however, that a Bear might not want to risk accidentally popping out while tanking.) These are just to give you some ideas of how you might choose to set up paired abilities.

Sample Role-Based Layouts

Caster Form

Caster (Basic) Caster (Alternate)

Row Column Base Ability + ALT   1 1 Innervate Self Innervate Target   1 2 Entangling Roots Nature’s Grasp   1 3 Cyclone Hibernate   1 4 Remove Curse Abolish Poison   1 5 Shapeshift: Tree of Life /cancelform   2 1 Lifebloom Activate Trinket   2 2 Rejuvenation Swiftmend   2 3 Regrowth Nourish *   2 4 Wild Growth Tranquility   2 5 Healing Touch NS + Healing Touch   3 1 Moonfire Faerie Fire   3 2 Wrath Starfire   3 3 Hurricane     3 4 Mark of the Wild Gift of the Wild   3 5 Barkskin Shadowmeld

Cat Form

This layout assumes level 75+ for Savage Roar and Maim (but was created on my level 62 Feral Druid, hence the icons):

Cat (Basic) Cat (Alternate)

Row Column Base Ability + ALT   1 1 Prowl     1 2 Tiger’s Fury     1 3 Cower Nature’s Grasp   1 4 Feral Charge – Cat Dash   1 5 Shapeshift: Dire Bear Form /cancelform   2 1 Ravage   2 2 Rake     2 3 Mangle – Cat     2 4 Shred     2 5 Rip     3 1 Feral Faerie Fire     3 2 Savage Roar     3 3 Maim (nostealth)*, Pounce (stealth)   3 4 Regrowth Self Rejuvenation Self   3 5 Barkskin Survival Instincts

Bear Form

I tried to match abilities between Cat Form and Dire Bear Form to make the learning curve between the two a little less steep. For example, the Bear Form stun, Bash, is mapped to the same key as Pounce/Maim for Cat Form, and Barkskin/Survival Instinct remains the same. This layout assumes level 51+ for Berserk (but was created on my level 62 Feral Druid, hence the icons):

Bear (Basic) Bear (Alternate)

Row Column Base Ability + ALT   1 1 Growl Challenging Roar   1 2 Enrage     1 3 Frenzied Regeneration Nature’s Grasp   1 4 Feral Charge – Bear     1 5 Shapeshift: Cat Form /cancelform   2 1 Maul     2 2 Swipe     2 3 Mangle – Bear     2 4 Berserk     2 5 —     3 1 Feral Faerie Fire     3 2 Demoralizing Roar     3 3 Bash     3 4 Regrowth Self Rejuvenation Self   3 5 Barkskin Survival Instincts

And to help you plan your own custom layout(s), I’ve created a printable template in Acrobat Reader.

Key Binding Character and Camera Movement

Movement — including strafing — is important in many PvE encounters and especially in PvP content. To facilitate this, I keybind my Nostromo like this:

• Analog Down: down arrow key, back up
• Analog Right: F2, strafe right
• Analog Left: F3, strafe left
• Analog Up: up arrow key, move forward
• Round Thumb button: spacebar, jump

Then I use the in-game key bindings (Escape> Key Bindings > Movement Keys) menu to bind F2 and F3 to strafing.

Note: you may find the analog directional pad to have a non-intuitive orientation (where the up/forward key feels like it should instead be right/strafe right). If this is the case, feel free to shift your directional bindings clockwise one position.

To maneuver the camera, I hold down the right mouse button, and to turn without strafing, I hold down the right and left mouse buttons and move the mouse left or right.

Key Binding Shapeshifts

Even pairing up abilities as described above, you may find yourself short on space when it comes to being able to map your different forms. Over time, I’ve settled on using the scroll wheel for shapeshifting. I use "scroll down" for Dire Bear Form and "scroll up" for Cat Form. I then reserve key 5 for my spec-specific form — either Tree of Life or Moonkin Form. This macro won’t shift you out of the specified form unless you hold down ALT:

#showtooltip Tree of Life
/cast [nomod,nostance:5] Tree of Life
/cancelform [mod:alt]

Because my bars are set up to switch to another page when I’m in a Feral form, I use key 5 to switch between the two forms. In other words, if I shapeshift into Dire Bear Form, key 5 is set up to let me switch into Cat Form and will shift me back into Bear if I’m in Cat Form. The Bear to Cat version of this macro looks like this:

#showtooltip
/cast [nomod,stance:1] Cat Form;
/cancelform [mod:alt]

And the Cat to Bear version of this macro looks like this:

#showtooltip
/cast [nomod,stance:3] Dire Bear Form;
/cancelform [mod:alt]

Macro Help: Mouseover Healing

Mouseover techniques are worth mentioning here because of their potential when paired with a gamepad like the Nostromo SpeedPad. By setting all of your heals (and decurses) up as mouseover macros, you can heal raidmates and groupmates by simply sliding your mouse over their unitframe and pressing the corresponding key on your gamepad, all without ever having to click to target. This is a particularly great technique when paired with the Grid addon and is often used in lieu of a mouse-based healing addon like Clique. I personally prefer this technique to Clique-based healing as the number of our heals increase. This also gives you increased visual feedback on what heal you’ve selected rather than requiring you to memorize which of the 5+ buttons on your mouse perform which function. A simple mouseover healing macro looks like this:

/cast [target=mouseover] Rejuvenation

And when we pair it with an alternate ability, it will look like this:

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:alt, target=mouseover] Swiftmend; [target=mouseover] Rejuvenation

If we want to get really fancy (and we do), we can build a macro like this:

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:alt,target=mouseover,exists,help][mod:alt,target=target,help][mod:alt,target=player] Swiftmend; [target=mouseover,exists,help][target=target,help][target=player] Rejuvenation

The above macro will do the following:

1. If ALT is not pressed and the target under your mouse is one you can help, it will cast Rejuvenation on her.
2. If ALT is not pressed and the target under your mouse is one you cannot help but your current target is one you can, it will cast Rejuvenation on your current target.
3. If ALT is not pressed and both the target under your mouse and your current target are ones you cannot help, it will cast Rejuvenation on you. (This is particularly helpful for healing on the run via insta-cast HoTs in PvP!)
4. If ALT is pressed and the target under your mouse is one you can help, it will cast Swiftmend on her.
5. If ALT is pressed and the target under your mouse is one you cannot help but your current target is one you can, it will cast Swiftmend on your current target.
6. If ALT is pressed and both the target under your mouse and your current target are ones you cannot help, it will cast Swiftmend on you.

It’s a long macro, so it helps to cut-and-paste into notepad, make modifications for applicable spells, then paste it into the macro creation window. You can do something similar for other paired heals like Wild Growth and Tranquility or for Remove Curse and Abolish Poison.

Note: While you could opt to use the interface option for “Heal Self by Default”, this option won’t attempt to heal you should you have someone harmful targeted. The above parameters are necessary to achieve the PvP-friendly behavior described above.

Macro Help: Heal Self

A Feral or Balance Druid might find these macros useful, whether for soloing or PvPing. They’ll shift you out and cast the heal spell on yourself:

#showtooltip
/cast [target=player] Rejuvenation

Macro Help: Form-Specific Abilities

Because Druids have so many form-specific abilities, it’s easy to run out of character-specific macro slots. Save on macro space by building one macro that performs an action based on your current form then map that macro to the same position in either form! For example:

#showtooltip
/cast [stance:3] Feral Charge – Cat
/cast [stance:1] Feral Charge – Bear

You might be wondering why you would want to make such a simple macro when you could just as easily drag the two different abilities to your paginated action bar, but you can add alternate abilities onto this macro like so:

#showtooltip
/cast [stance:3,mod:alt] Dash; [stance:3] Feral Charge – Cat
/cast [stance:1] Feral Charge – Bear

I like to call the above macro my "Go!" macro. For your reference, the Druid forms/stances are:

1. Bear / Dire Bear
2. Aquatic Form
3. Cat
4. Cheetah
5. Tree of Life/Moonkin

Related Posts

• Hibernating via Focus Target
• Macros for Reagent-Driven Spells
• Heal Self by Default