wtb screen space

I've procrastinated making some UI changes I knew I needed to make for some time. I have never posted a screenshot of my UI because, it's not impressive but it's also downright embarrassing. I could blame my small screen, but that's only the half of it. My UI looked like my desk: cluttered, redundant, and a bit dusty.

So I spent a couple of hours today reworking how my UI helps me play. Because in the end, a pretty UI is nice but it has to have the things I need to be a healadin. This time around, my focus was getting more crap off my screen.

Saving Space Through Addons

Bartender or Dominos are fantastic addons to "buy" screen space. It takes a bit of configuring to get it going, but potentially offers much more free screen space. They get rid of the extra junk (spacing, padding, and decorations) around the standard UI, and allow you to move your bars wherever you want. You can shrink 'em, but most importantly, you can shove 'em wherever you like. You can also hide bars that you don't need in combat. My hearthstone, professions, and self-only oh-shit buttons are keybound and invisible.

You may notice that I have no addon mini-map buttons. They are all disabled, because of how few I actually need when I'm in combat. Most addons have menu or config options that can be accessed with slash-commands.

/al - Atlas Loot
/sg - Surgeon General
/radur - Who's Tanking Frames
/dxe config - Deus Vox Encounters

Healbot and Grid both have drag-tags that you can remove. I set up HB so that the options open up with the right-click of the dead space outside of the bars (I also set it up so that there is no padding or spacing between bars, another space saver).

I used to use Pitbull for raid frames as well as Healbot, but it's redundant (and bogs down an older computer). If your screen is tiny, it's an important question to ask: do I need the same information/spells taking up space twice?

I used to have a bar devoted to blessings, but I've been using Pally Power long enough that I couldn't justify that space on my screen. I have them bound (a bit awkwardly, but that's alright, they are for out of combat) in healbot, as well. That was three places to cast one thing.

Saving Space Through Macros

Macros that can save you bar space. Abilities you always use together, for instance, will only take up one spot on your action bar instead of two or three if they are macro'd (trinkets, too!). Cast sequence macros can help you buff, i.e., a priest can click the same macro button four times and buff fort>spirit>shadow>inner fire. A macro like this would be handy for after-rezzing. A paladin macro might have Seal>Divine Plea>Kings.

Macros can also be set up with modifiers, allowing one button to do different things. A blessing macro could do kings, wisdom, or might, determined by modifier. I have three buttons dedicated to judgments (one is keybound, the others are next to it so that I can switch depending on our raid composition), but if I cared I could set it up so that shift or control judged differently. I may give this a try, but I prefer just to set the right judgment to the non-modified keybind before the pull. In combat, I prefer to keep things as simple as possible. However, if your raid has a pretty darn consistent group and you almost always judge light or wisdom, setting up a modifier for the other wouldn't be such a bad idea.

Mouseover macros can also cast a spell determined by whether the target is friendly or hostile. My priest saves bar space by having a dps spell and a healing spell tied to the same button - smite and flash heal, holy fire and greater heal, and shadow word: pain and renew. While I (rarely) use the DPS portions of the macros, they are helpful and a time-saver when you do need to nuke. (I haven't PVP'd in a while, but there's the obvious application).













I just learned something new! In clique and healbot, you can add macros directly into the interface. For Clique, you type your macro text directly into the window, and in Healbot, you create a macro (using the mouseover script) in Blizzard's macro menu, then import it.

Screenshots

I have a confession to make: when I was leveling my paladin, I had some serious druid-envy. When HB broke and I learned to use mouseover macros, I chose icons for druid heals instead of paladin heals. I never changed it, because it's kinda silly.

Healbot, Unashamed

I usually get smart remarks for using Healbot from some of the healers in my guild. I love Grid as much as the next enthusiast, but this weekend I switched my last character who used Grid (my priest) to Healbot.

Since I've been doing a 25ICC alt-run every week and switching between my druid and priest to round out the healing comp, I've noticed that my druid and paladin get several more frames per second than my priest. Considering at best I get 7 FPS in a 25-man, losing 5 means I am running at 2. That's not really what I consider playable.

I switched to back to Healbot, which is my Very First Healing Addon(tm). On my priest, it's a bit of nostalgia because I suddenly feel like I should be back in Slave Pens or Kara, twitching fearfully in my hybrid disc/holy spec and blues. It didn't take much time to get back into the swing of things, in fact, I was quite surprised how little I had to do to get healing. It was a most pleasant experience.

Why I'm not ashamed of my Healbot

1. Healbot doesn't hog. Of all the healing addons/raid frames, HB bogs my computer down the least. If you're having troubles, you'll probably want to experiment with several setups to find the best, but don't discount Healbot as it doesn't take much effort to run.

2. Healbot plays nicely. Healbot shows you incoming heals from other addons, assuming that healer has a mod, too.

3. Healbot submits to your creativity. I choose to leave my frames looking much like they did back in BC, but that doesn't mean yours have to look that bad! Healbot has updated quite a bit, with lots of options: what you can show, what you can hide, how big you want it, skins you can use, and what colors you can adjust.

4. Healbot knows. I never told it to track my Beacon or Sacred Shield or even Hand of Sacrifice, or count down over the icon when it's almost expired so I know I have 5-10 seconds to refresh. I never asked for tank cooldowns, lucky charms, or encounter specific debuffs, but I have them. Healbot understands my druid, too, showing all my hots and how long they have left.

This weekend I came into an exciting discovery. Healbot knows priests, too! It tracks Power Infusion, Pain Suppression, Guardian Spirit, Inspiration, and Prayer of Mending. The Power Word: Shield indicator is two icons rolled into one - when there's a little plus sign on the corner of your bubble, that's the Weakened Soul still active on the target. When the shield is absorbed, Healbot shows the Weakened Soul debuff, and counts down when it's almost over. That is Improved Happiness for me, it's a way to plan out my bubbling and be ready for new shields on the folks who need them the most.



Other addons can do that too, but I didn't have to beg for it, because...

5. Healbot stands alone. When Healbot is updated (mine lets me know upon login, which is great because I often don't update unless something breaks), there's only one addon to download and I don't have to worry about one plugin causing problems with one another.

I think no matter what addon you use, it's important to understand how our UIs can either get in the way or facilitate healing. Addons can solve (or cause) problems by creative use of space on a small monitor, calling attention to things we might otherwise forget we have, or distract us from more important things in an encounter.

Last week in raiding, my paladin cast 3,601 direct heals. It would have been possible without an addon, I'm sure, but with the sheer amount of activity required by healers, I wouldn't find it fun without a helpful interface to press my buttons in. Whether it be standard UI or healing addon, we all use a healing interface to interact with the game world. Mine is Healbot.

Are mods getting too good?

I've been pleasantly surprised about how sophisticated some addons have been getting recently (and throughout WotLK). Healbot, through the last couple of it's own patches, has gone from tracking your own buffs to tracking anything you can think of - tank cooldowns, healer cooldowns, healer buffs, who's not ready, etc. When moused over, the Healbot tooltip shows the duration remaining on the buff and who cast it.

While this might be information overload for some, I'm using it as an opportunity to learn more about what the people in my raid are doing. Now I know when the DPS are using survivability cooldowns, and I also see what my tanks are doing. It's prompted me to ask questions, especially to my warrior tank sitting next to me. "Hey that thing you just did, what's it do? What's it called?". He's happy to oblige me (who doesn't like talking about their class mechanics?).

Deadly Boss Mods has always been a great helper for raiding, but it's latest installment of announcements for heroics is as thorough as can be. Fights with waves of adds have a list of with quantities of each type of add and timers. We're told to interrupt.. the trash! I was blown away the first time I saw DBM remind me to get out of Commander Kolurg's Whirlwind (and subsequently watched all three melee dps eat it).

With WoW being as popular as it is, it's also made these mods popular. And by extension, they get more development time and show more sophistication. They bounce back quicker if patches break them and are constantly looking for more ways to help us players out, as well as stay competitive with other similar addons. We're getting more options, more customization, more features, and more information.

One of my favorite features of DBM is the countdowns for boss abilities. Knowing when the next Spore is coming helps me plan cooldowns for Festergut. Knowing that the next ability the twins are doing is going to be a "change color or die" helps me know how long I have to get in position. Knowledge is power, and DBM puts that knowledge in bullet-point form with countdowns. It's like a PDA for my healer.

These modules are fantastic to help your game, and are invaluable for me when learning an encounter. I sometimes wonder, though, for those less willing to learn, if they can be a crutch. We can come to the encounter with the mindset that DBM will tell me if I'm standing in a void zone, so I don't need to be watching my feet. DBM will tell me when Anub comes back up, I can daydream for ten seconds or grab a handful of chips. DBM has the potential to be a poweful enabler if you are a good player, but it also has the potential to carry players.

Sometimes popular mods will find their way into the standard UI. Many of the features added in through the last few patches were mods (or features on websites) to begin with - gear sets emerged from Outfitter, we got the option to look at talent builds before officially spending them thanks to Wowhead and other sites, and the "show iLevel" option from, uh, somewhere.

With all the buzz for Cataclysm, I can't help but wonder what new mods (and what new features to the mods we already know and love) we will see. Knowing that Ghostcrawler has had some open discussion over at the WoW healer forums about the standard UI and what could be improved for healers, I half-wonder if we'll see some healbot-esque options show up as options in the base UI. As we approach a new expansion, are developers going to be designing encounters based on the assumption we're running DVE or DBM because they are considered 'mandatory' for raiders? Will healing in raids be tuned with the assumption we're running decursive (like they pretty much are now), or will we see new options to highlight debuffs as standard? Please, Ghostcrawler, can you give me a standard ui Bacon timer? I understand you can't give my priest a pony. But my paladin doesn't like Bacon when it's fallen off my tank.