Can we reopen the healing mod/ui discussion?Follow

There's a couple of threads skirting around this right now that I don't want to derail (wrath of the emperor!), so I thought opening a separate thread might be a good idea. Horse started a general one on the main board, but I think it's been a while since we priestie types had a dedicated thread for this, no?

So. What exciting things are you doing with your UI? Making changes? Want to? Been using the same one for years and years because it's perrrrrfect? Got a screenshot you want to post?

I got fed up with Mouseover + Pitbull after using it for at least a year. It just started to feel cumbersome. Too many keybinds (my pinky is not that big), too much crap on the screen. The biggest problem is that having to use both mouse and keyboard to heal impacts my mobility a lot. I want a setup that has the same flexibility of targeting, but where I have to mouse over as little as possible.

I revisited Grid for long enough to confirm I still don't like it. So I've been using Healbot for a couple of days since Dadanox recommended it. I do like the frames, and mouse-healing gets a lot of buttons off my screen (I can memorize mouse clicks but need the cheat sheet for key binds?). I don't like having to move with my keyboard if I need to cast heals at the same time, but I'm adjusting.

However, my big complaint with Healbot is that it hides your target frame when you're in combat. This is st00pid. Obviously if I'm in Wintergrasp or a world PVP situation I need to be able to heal people who aren't in my party/raid. What I did to solve this problem was download Clique and set the same mouse heals up there, so I can use that + my regular frames to heal self, target, and target's target, and Healbot for groups. Of course, if I'm going to do that I could just use Clique with Pitbull and not use Healbot at all, but I like Healbot's frames and the additional features (smartcast buffs means I can be even more lazy!).

My offensive macros are all set to check first for a mouseover, then for a harmful target, then for a harmful target-of-target. With that setup I rarely have to mouse over at all, just press the button and it'll put down the hurt.


Edited, Sep 25th 2009 10:33am by teacake

I move stuff around from time to time...but it never lasts

My eyes get focued on looking for something in a certain spot

I still haven't gotten around to trying clique yet, or mouseovers. Although I would like to try them out and see if it would improve my game some, but hasn't been a problem so far

http://i985.photobucket.com/albums/ae331/smoopie420/myhealsui.jpg

I changed a few things from this but they are very minor




I feel the same way with healbot. I think we have just gotten used to things the way they are.

I never figured out how to add boxes and colors and buffs/debuffs to healbot so i just gave up :P

But I like mouseovers =(
Seriously, I feel the mobility factor every once in a while. Especially if I am not ready for the movement. I wish that I could hold down the right mouse button to move while still hovering over the raid frames instead of having to either keyboard turn or move the mouse off the raid frames. Sometimes I have a hard time finding my cursor again after I move it off of the raid frames.

I have been considering removing pitbull altogether and just running IceHud for my self/target/ToT frames and Grid for my raid frames, but I am scared, lol. I rely on Pitbull for a lot of miscellaneous info and I am not sure I can do without it. I'm pretty sure I could do without my self and target frames from Pitbull, but my focus frame (and focus target frame) is something that I rely on for watching tank buffs/debuffs and boss target switching.

Except for a quick tryout, I have never used healbot or "click" type addons. I am not sure if they would satisfy me, perhaps a combination of healbot with mouseovers would work. Do Healbot frames work with mouseovers for targetting? You know, like keep Penance and Shield as mouseovers, but bind Fheal, Binding Heal and so on to the clicks?

Oh.. ok..... I suppose I should go then



Edit: Do come to my journal though, it needs activity and I promise I won't be mean.

Edited, Sep 25th 2009 8:21pm by Aethien

Here's a couple screenies of what I run nowadays. One in and one out of combat, you'll have to use your imagination and put bosses and mobs and like, other people in there.

In combat
Out of combat

Let's see if I can remember what's there:
Pitbull
Grid (with mana bars, missing buffs and PoM timer)
Bartender
DBM
Chinchilla
Powerauras (<3powerauras) Pretty sure I got that one from you, Aethien off the Hunter forums.
Quartz
Titan Panel
Recount
Prat
SCT
TinyTip

Probably a couple others, but those are the ones that affect the ui.
I noticed that my quartz focus cast bar overlaps my focus buffs. Hmm, now I wish I hadn't noticed... Time to change up the ui.

Edited, Sep 25th 2009 3:22pm by Trylofer

I haven't even looked at Vuhdo yet. I'll get around to it eventually. Anyone else using it or have any comments on it?

The author of Vuhdo hangs out on the Plusheal site. There's an 85 page forum post on Vuhdo there, from it's beginnings to current release. There is also a Vuhdo Wiki.

I know a few of us Allakhazam posters have mentioned using it. It's pretty nice. The configuration just seems a bit more complex than Healbot. Once I adjusted the size of the unit frame and icons, It's working pretty good.

Edited, Sep 25th 2009 11:42pm by dadanox

For PW:S, I set it up in Grid to show a bright yellow border around the frame when it is active and a paler yellow border for weakened soul. When it is cast, they are actually both on the frame, but PW:S has a higher priority so it shows up as bright yellow. When it busts, it falls off and the weakened soul color remains. That way I can see at a glance who has shields, who has weakened soul, and who may need a shield.

I very rarely will recast shield on someone with a partial shield. But it is very important to know who has WS remaining on them, especially if you are running more than one priest.

I have heard mostly good stuff about Vuhdo, I think I will try it out one day when I am feeling bold.

Here we go, my priest's UI.

Pretty basic layout and it still has a lot of imperfections that need to be worked out as I improve it over time.
The gradient fills up with grid, having horizontal groups so it builds up nicely.
Focus target is still between target and myself but I'm not happy with having it there.

Most keybinds are still hidden, and I'll end up hiding more while I get used to my keybinds.

Well good. I downloaded Vuhdo and was kind of relieved when I decided not to use it, because it was starting to seem like I was stalking you and your UI. ;)

Healbot's problem with the PW:S thing is kind of a dealbreaker for me, too. I didn't mind Vuhdo but by the time I got it configured the way I liked it I realized it looked... a lot like my Pitbull frames. And I like the wild customizability there. At the moment, I'm just using Pitbull frames (made really small) and Clique along with macros to cast on self, target, or targettarget.

Pitbull's buff system is not stellar. You can't decide which show up apart from only showing the debuffs that you can cure[lies!]. It also doesn't give you the nifty Healbot-style "hey, fort's worn off, click here to reapply it" thing. You need to get used to paying attention yourself to when stuff wears off and reapplying as needed. I've been using Pitbull for a long time so I'm already in that habit, but that is definitely a feature of the healing mods I like.

What I do like though is that the icons themselves are highly customizable, both in size and where you put them. They show up outside the bar as well, which other add-ons annoy me by sticking them right over the text I'm trying to read there (% health, for example, handy info to have).

Basically if I stick with Pitbull it'll be giving up a little (but not much) functionality in exchange for having the bars look the way I like them to look.

Irritating though how it divides the raid into separately draggable groups. Every time I change my layout I spend half the time I should be healing trying to get them to line up exactly. If one is even a millimeter off, my concentration is blown.


EDIT: I lie. You can indeed filter buffs and debuffs for both friends and enemies in Pitbull. I guess I just liked the default filter and never looked into it.


Edited, Sep 26th 2009 10:20pm by teacake

That is a side effect, yes. Since I reupped my premium this weekend, here is a screenshot of AV with my Pitbull setup. Shhhh, just don't tell Aethien I posted one, or he'll cry over how much room my raid takes up. :) But I have a lot of space between frames which is a personal preference of mine, so you could certainly make it more compact. And 40 is after all worst case scenario.

Plus I changed my keybindings at least half a dozen times in the past week, so I need the bar across the bottom. But my hope is to fade that out eventually. The raid frames look less crowded without pushing up against that.

Do you already use the GridAutoFrameSize addon? I found it useful.