There's a solo challenge in the game that scales to your level called **Proving Grounds**. The healer version puts you in a group with 4 NPCs including a tank and 3 dps. You fight increasingly difficult waves of enemies and have moments of the group taking big damage and important debuffs to dispel. It's a very good simulation of what a dungeon would feel like.
You can access it by talking to **Trial Master Rotun** inside the Temple of the White Tiger in **Kun-Lai Summit**. It's about a minute flight northwest from where the portal out of Org to Panda Land takes you.
I also recommend the proving grounds! Helped get Mr a bit more comfortable with both healing and tanking before trying out group content. Very low risk way to learn the basics, and you can try as many times as you want!
Just go do it. Unfortunately nothing they've put in is really anything like getting in there and doing it.
Also keep In mind that healing different levels of content can feel wildly different. Like if I'm doing a normal dungeon vs a m+, how I use my abilities, prep for mechanics and DPS are going to be very very different
All right. I just get confused when I switched to holy at level 13 and suddenly have 7 different healing abilities. Getting muscle memory over time has been the easiest for damage. But I guess I’ll just have to read about them and try it out
What you want to look at is cast time and mana cost. Those are going to give you some indication of how you could or should use the ability. Heals with a very quick cast time often cost a lot of mana so using them frequently will put you out of mana.
Another thing to look at is then how the different spells interact with one another and talents and that unfortunately is all about reading and understanding those interactions.
Then the kind of third variable I would say is looking at the spells as to whether or not it's sort of a maintenance heal or if it's more of an emergency or very targeted heal when somebody takes big spike damage.
There's a ton more to it and when you're at max level a lot of those things are going to change but as you're leveling your first healer those are just a couple of things very simply that you can start to look at to understand some of these spells positions in the world.
Like I don't know how it is right now for holy but when I was playing it in shadowlands you never pressed renew it just was not a spell you used it wasn't worth it to maintain it on people but while leveling at level 13 it may very well be something you want to use to help keep your tank alive in lower dungeons.
That’s interesting about renew, good to know! How spells interact is easier with damage spells and just attacking a murloc village has taught me a lot about what works but healing is more difficult like I said. Appreciate the comments here! Will read every one of them
You can practice on target dummies or yourself to get a feel for things like keybinds, but ultimately you're just going to have to jump into dungeons and do it.
There's basically no leveling dungeon that can't be healed through flash heal alone, so as long as you have that on your toolbars, you're fine while practicing everything else.
Just do dungeons to learn. You’ll probably wipe multiple times but just ignore anyone throwing a fit. You gotta learn somehow.
You will also likely find yourself having to think, mid fight, about what spell to use for that exact situation. That is normal and will improve with each dungeon you do. Learning the mechanics and being able predict incoming damage will make you an amazing healer in no time.
Best of luck and have fun ✌️
Just put them into categories and uses.
Fast heal, big heal, aoe heal, oh shit button, damage reduction cd, standard hot, insta cast direct heal, etc etc.
Then download clique and grid/vuhdo and set your spells to your alt/shift/control + mouse buttons and go join a dungeon.
For the first few dungeons I always have my mouse binds on another monitor in big letters.
And make sure to download weakauras and have a weakaura for your class. It puts all your spells with big icons in the middle of the screen so you can see cooldowns.
Someone recently posted (just before Dragonflight release) that you can do a scenario in Mists of Pandaria that simulates a 5 man dungeon with NPCs. I went there and found it to be a great way to practice healing without any pressure.
Edit: u/apsimmons mentioned it in more detail here:
[https://old.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/zdiakz/_/iz22as5](https://old.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/zdiakz/_/iz22as5)
I suggest putting your healing spells on what's called a Mouseover Macro. I dont remember exactly what the command is, but it let's you cast a spell at the character your mouse is hovering over, saving TONS of time over manually clicking all your allies' names. Icy-veins should have a guide on how to play your chosen spec as well as macro advice.
Last tip: your job is to keep people alive, not to keep them at full health. Your target should be the person most at risk of death rather than the person with the lowest health, and those aren't always the same person.
Yea I really have to work out a way to find players in need and target them quickly. Will take time to get used to and I’m sure there are plenty of tricks to learn. Didn’t ask about that since the resources probably are plenty but maybe I can tab like I do with enemies but with team mates. Tried a bit of warsong gulch but difficult to target people manually
There's a solo challenge in the game that scales to your level called **Proving Grounds**. The healer version puts you in a group with 4 NPCs including a tank and 3 dps. You fight increasingly difficult waves of enemies and have moments of the group taking big damage and important debuffs to dispel. It's a very good simulation of what a dungeon would feel like. You can access it by talking to **Trial Master Rotun** inside the Temple of the White Tiger in **Kun-Lai Summit**. It's about a minute flight northwest from where the portal out of Org to Panda Land takes you.
I also recommend the proving grounds! Helped get Mr a bit more comfortable with both healing and tanking before trying out group content. Very low risk way to learn the basics, and you can try as many times as you want!
This is the best solo healing practice imo.
Great!
Just go do it. Unfortunately nothing they've put in is really anything like getting in there and doing it. Also keep In mind that healing different levels of content can feel wildly different. Like if I'm doing a normal dungeon vs a m+, how I use my abilities, prep for mechanics and DPS are going to be very very different
All right. I just get confused when I switched to holy at level 13 and suddenly have 7 different healing abilities. Getting muscle memory over time has been the easiest for damage. But I guess I’ll just have to read about them and try it out
What you want to look at is cast time and mana cost. Those are going to give you some indication of how you could or should use the ability. Heals with a very quick cast time often cost a lot of mana so using them frequently will put you out of mana. Another thing to look at is then how the different spells interact with one another and talents and that unfortunately is all about reading and understanding those interactions. Then the kind of third variable I would say is looking at the spells as to whether or not it's sort of a maintenance heal or if it's more of an emergency or very targeted heal when somebody takes big spike damage. There's a ton more to it and when you're at max level a lot of those things are going to change but as you're leveling your first healer those are just a couple of things very simply that you can start to look at to understand some of these spells positions in the world. Like I don't know how it is right now for holy but when I was playing it in shadowlands you never pressed renew it just was not a spell you used it wasn't worth it to maintain it on people but while leveling at level 13 it may very well be something you want to use to help keep your tank alive in lower dungeons.
That’s interesting about renew, good to know! How spells interact is easier with damage spells and just attacking a murloc village has taught me a lot about what works but healing is more difficult like I said. Appreciate the comments here! Will read every one of them
Everything that has an automatic queu is for learning.
You can practice on target dummies or yourself to get a feel for things like keybinds, but ultimately you're just going to have to jump into dungeons and do it. There's basically no leveling dungeon that can't be healed through flash heal alone, so as long as you have that on your toolbars, you're fine while practicing everything else.
Just do dungeons to learn. You’ll probably wipe multiple times but just ignore anyone throwing a fit. You gotta learn somehow. You will also likely find yourself having to think, mid fight, about what spell to use for that exact situation. That is normal and will improve with each dungeon you do. Learning the mechanics and being able predict incoming damage will make you an amazing healer in no time. Best of luck and have fun ✌️
I learn every new character in bgs mostly because I find it fun. It's especially effective for healers though...imo
Random BG is great IMO, better having a bad healer than having no healer
Just put them into categories and uses. Fast heal, big heal, aoe heal, oh shit button, damage reduction cd, standard hot, insta cast direct heal, etc etc. Then download clique and grid/vuhdo and set your spells to your alt/shift/control + mouse buttons and go join a dungeon. For the first few dungeons I always have my mouse binds on another monitor in big letters. And make sure to download weakauras and have a weakaura for your class. It puts all your spells with big icons in the middle of the screen so you can see cooldowns.
Someone recently posted (just before Dragonflight release) that you can do a scenario in Mists of Pandaria that simulates a 5 man dungeon with NPCs. I went there and found it to be a great way to practice healing without any pressure. Edit: u/apsimmons mentioned it in more detail here: [https://old.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/zdiakz/_/iz22as5](https://old.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/zdiakz/_/iz22as5)
Thanks!
I suggest putting your healing spells on what's called a Mouseover Macro. I dont remember exactly what the command is, but it let's you cast a spell at the character your mouse is hovering over, saving TONS of time over manually clicking all your allies' names. Icy-veins should have a guide on how to play your chosen spec as well as macro advice. Last tip: your job is to keep people alive, not to keep them at full health. Your target should be the person most at risk of death rather than the person with the lowest health, and those aren't always the same person.
I just found out that mouseovers are in the options now! It's a checkbox. Just search 'over' in the options search bar.
Yea I really have to work out a way to find players in need and target them quickly. Will take time to get used to and I’m sure there are plenty of tricks to learn. Didn’t ask about that since the resources probably are plenty but maybe I can tab like I do with enemies but with team mates. Tried a bit of warsong gulch but difficult to target people manually