Interface
A good user interface can provide you with a lot of important information mid-fight. The way to set this up depends entirely on the person, but you want to reduce unnecessary information to not get overloaded with information during pulls. Try to keep information relevant to the encounter you are in and to the spec you’re playing.
As a healer, I would recommend:
Raid Frames: I prefer to use addons to customize my raid frames. I’ve used base blizzard raid frames, ElvUI and currently I use Grid2. It has a ton of customization options while also being fairly user friendly and easy to get into.
Bigwigs/DBM: Seeing the boss timers in the encounter is very important to plan your healing. Knowing when the next mechanic is going out and what it’s called, you’ll learn how to prepare for each mechanic. This is important as both healing and your movement and positioning can depend on the mechanic and it will increase your overall awareness.
Nameplates: There’s several different options for nameplate addons, but the most used add-on is Plater. This add-on comes with customisation but also the option to import other people’s profiles and use them for yourself.
Method Raid Tools: This addon allows you to see custom notes and other helpful stuff like everyone’s (healer) cooldowns. If your guild sets up healer notes for cd’s this is a way to import them and make them show on your UI.
Macros
Mouse-over macro
Make sure you are using one of the variations of mouse overs and you’re not targeting a player each time you’re using an ability on them. This is extremely important as it saves you a lot of time between casting spells and you want to lose as little time as you can while playing.
There is a setting to do this in the base blizzard settings, but you can also opt to go with macros.
For macros: you can use these macros and replace “spell/ability” with each spell or ability you’d like to mouseover:
#showtooltip SPELL/ABILITY
/use [@mouseover,help,nodead][help,nodead][@player] SPELL/ABILITY
So as an example we’ve used Emerald Blossom:
#showtooltip Emerald Blossom(Green)
/use [@mouseover,help,nodead][help,nodead][@player] Emerald Blossom(Green)
Self-cast macro
Verdant embrace is a lot safer to self-cast, to avoid flying through raid mechanics and dying. An example of a macro for that is:
#showtooltip
/cast [@player] Verdant Embrace
Rescue macro
Another macro that is purely for safety is a Rescue macro. Rescue can be great to use for repositioning and to give your ally a shield with Twin Guardian. However there are a lot of actions required to use this safely. This macro will rescue your mouse-over target (so if you want it to be a specific player you should edit it to say their name), to your current location:
#showtooltip
/cast [@player] Rescue
/target [@mouseover,help,nodead][help,nodead][@player] Rescue
/stopspelltarget