Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Another favorite Addon - Clique

I want to tell you about perhaps the most important addon you should have. It's Clique. If you have any spells, abilities, or items(bandages?) that you can use on party or raid members, then you should have Clique.

What does it do? It enables click-casting. Click-casting is when you cast a spell on target just by clicking on it's healthbar (usually while holding down shift, or ctrl, or alt, or a combination of these.)

Let me just give an example.

I'm on my priest in the BG. I'm partied with a Warrior and a Mage, and I'm targeting the enemy hunter that the warrior is attacking.
The warrior starts to take some damage, so I just right click on her healthbar, which causes me to cast Renew on her. This does NOT change my target - I'm still targeting the enemy hunter.
The mage in my group is also taking some damage, and I need to Flash Heal him. I hold down Alt and left-click on his healthbar and I cast Flash Heal.
Oh no, an enemy mage just sheeped my Warrior. I hold down Shift and left-click on my warrior's healthbar to cast Dispel Magic on the warrior to free her up.
My mage is still taking damage, so I decide I want to PW:Shield him. I hold down CTRL and SHIFT and left click him, and he's instantly shielded.

I hope you're getting the idea. I've got a bundle of spells that I can cast just by left or right clicking on the healthbars of my party members depending on what combination of modifier keys i'm holding down.

It's a little like playing a musical instrument. There are "chords" of keys you hold down to do various things.

I want to point out that I'm not a button clicker. By that, I mean that I hate clicking buttons on my action bar with my mouse to cast spells. I perfer to hotkey everything. Targeting a party or raid member, however, makes mouseclicking a necessary evil. There just isn't a more efficient way to select a raid member as the target of a spell than to click on their name in your party or in CT_RaidAssist's big block-o-names. Using Clique, I can combine the action of casting a spell and selecting the beneficiary of that spell in one motion.

Here's another useful example to illustrate the power of Clique.

I'm on my Druid raiding... whereever. I need to cast HoTs on a bunch of people.
I hold down CTRL and ALT...
I left-click warrior1
I left-click warrior2
I left-click rogue1
I left-click rogue2
etc...
I let go of CTRL and ALT.

Simple simple simple.

If you're not using Clique, you should be.

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