I have a confession to make:  I am a good little healing minstrel who also loves to *thump* the heads of baddies!

Now obviously, when I am playing in a fellowship, and my fellows are counting on me to be the dividing line between glorious victory and head-hanging, foot-shuffling defeat, my main focus must be on strumming my theorbo for all it is worth, keeping those morale bars nice and fat.

So, what’s a mini to do when they really, really just want to sneak in a Ballad of Resonance or a Piercing Cry?  First of all, I recommend that you not — I repeat, not — give in to this urge if you are pounding those heals as fast as you can till your fingers are bleeding.  However, if the pace is a little more leisurely and you are able to throw a few damaging spells in between keeping your companions enheartened, using the following options might help to streamline the process for you.

Options –> Combat Options –>Show the Vitals of Your Selection’s Target — Allows you to select a target, such as the tank of your group (who should be attracting most of the aggro), and see which mob s/he is targeting and what that mob’s morale and power are at.  Useful for keeping track of bosses and other bothersome mobs without switching the focus of your attention from your fellows to the mobs and back.

Options –> Combat Options –> Enable Skill Target Forwarding — Here’s the REALLY useful little trick.  This option allows you to bang off healing skills intermingled with damage skills without changing targets, saving you time and potential confusion!  How does it work?  Well, if you have your tank targeted, you are already throwing heals that way, but if you are desperate to flex your big, strong minstrel muscles and want to toss in a Ballad of Steel or whatnot, you perform the offensive skill and (in my imagination) that skill flows through your target, not harming or healing him/her, to their own target, the enemy, and then executes.  Another way I have found this option useful is during soloing.  I can be bashing away at a mob and need some healing, so instead of changing my target to myself and performing the heal, I simply keep attacking and sneak in a heal when needed, never breaking rhythm or a sweat.  The heal passes unnoticed through the enemy and comes back to me!