What healing addon do you use?

[klaugh]

I currently use only default raid frames plus mouseover macros, mostly because I'm trying to break my dependence on addons as my computer ages and isn't able to keep up with the game as well as it used to, until I'm able to buy a new one.

I'm doing just fine without Grid+Clique, as I used to with them. The only thing that's possibly suffering is that in order to display everything the frames are slightly larger, but I can deal with it for now, 22" screen is enough. My only gripe is that last time I tried I couldn't get SUF to work well with the default raid frames. :-\

[Zeuq]

I use VuhDo, and I highly recommend it to everyone. Hell, I've made a point of being obnoxious in my guild about promoting it with some silliness when someone asks a question about other raid frames "How do I fix such and such in Grid/xperl?" "Uninstall it and install VuhDo." Seriously though, I love it because it's highly configurable (ie, there isn't a thing I've wanted to do with it that it can't do), very well maintained (developer releases regular updates and usually responds to bugs within 24-48 hours of them being reported), and offers functionality that I have not found in any other add-on (eg, cluster detection, dynamic range/direction detection, bouquet indicators, etc.).

I played with Grid briefly, and it's a solid healing add-on, but I just wasn't a fan of needing all of the plug-ins, it seems like it takes longer for it to get updated, and it doesn't have a few of the nifty things VuhDo does.

Before that I used Healbot for a while and, like someone mentioned upthread, I think it's a good addon for those just starting out on healing because it works pretty much out of the box and it's not as intimidating to configure, so they can instead spend time learning how to heal and learning how to use click healing rather than resulting to targetting then hitting a hotkey, but the problem is that a lot of healers who use it end up resisting changing to VuhDo or Grid once they've outgrown the simplicity of Healbot.


And to those who said "real" healers don't use add-ons, nice True Scotsman fallacy. It's one thing if healing add-ons were like they were in the early days of vanilla where it literally did the work for you, but that isn't the case anymore. The reason that add-ons are helpful is because of their configurability, you can have the information presented to you in a way that works well for you. I really don't see how it is meaningful to say someone is more skilled because they can extract information from a poorly oraganized raid frame. Instead, it let's the skill come out because, now that you have all the right information, you can focus on making interesting choices about target and spell selection, mana management, and movement. To me, those decisions are fun and interesting, where struggling to get the information necessary to make those decision out of a poorly organized frame is just frustrating.

That said, the new default frames are definitely miles ahead of where the old ones were, so it's not inconceivable that someone might want to use them rather than an add-on, but they still leave much to be desired in terms of the level of configurability that VuhDo or Grid offers, and some of that configurability is stuff I find very helpful.

[KungenTCG]

Grid

You can configure it any which way you want it.

And mouseovers

Don't be a failclicker.

[Zakgra]

Grid

You can configure it any which way you want it.

And mouseovers

Don't be a failclicker.

Zeuq speakes the truth - he really does. VuhDo is awesome. I often hear peeps using Grid+clique complain "how do I see stacks of Mystic Buffet" on Sindragosa for instances...and other Grid users tell them that all thay need to do is to go through a series of setup functions to configure it and this is only possible if this and this plug in installed and only if it is this version of it and so on, while VuhDo just shows it.

And to the quote: Failclicker? so you have your mouse over the target that needs healing with your finger on the "trigger" and decide to use your other hand to move it to the key that has the assigned mouse-over macro in order for you to use the most time possible to get the heal off? why just dont f''king push the trigger?

[harky]

Grid and associated plugins. Clique is too inconsistent for my taste, I prefer macros for reliability. Same effect ultimately, just less glitchiness. VuhDo is also a good 'all-in-one' type add-on, but isn't configurable enough for me. I'd rather spend 5 minutes getting it right than have something less than perfect, but easily accessible.

[coockiedough]

Vuhdo and power auras for some procs

[Frozenbeef]

Add....on? 0o

[Kacie]

This is my grid setup, just wanted to show that it can be just like all the other addons.

VuhDo isn't that good, alot of my guildies use it and it crashes, and sometimes the spells don't work.

I've tried no addons in vanilla then in tbc i tried healbot then grid.

I tried Vuhdo once didn't like it, so i've been using grid for about 3 yrs now

[AlexTheGreat]

How is healbot? I always hear great things from it.

[Ynna]

Using Grid (+ various plugins) with mouse-over macro's.
I also use Power Aura's.
There's also a cooldown timer on my screen, but I hardly ever watch it. I get into some kind of flow when healing, but at the moment my flow breaks because of the new cooldowns on CoH and PoM.

[Zeuq]

Grid and associated plugins. Clique is too inconsistent for my taste, I prefer macros for reliability. Same effect ultimately, just less glitchiness. VuhDo is also a good 'all-in-one' type add-on, but isn't configurable enough for me. I'd rather spend 5 minutes getting it right than have something less than perfect, but easily accessible.

I'm just curious, exactly what sort of configuration things can Grid do that Vuhdo cannot? For instance, I can get Vuhdo to look virtually the same as Kacie's setup. In the past, it did have some lack of configurability, like when it could only show 4 indicators or when all custom debuffs had to have the same configuration, but both of those have long since been addressed, along with the additional features I mentioned above.

This is my grid setup, just wanted to show that it can be just like all the other addons.

VuhDo isn't that good, alot of my guildies use it and it crashes, and sometimes the spells don't work.

I've tried no addons in vanilla then in tbc i tried healbot then grid.

I tried Vuhdo once didn't like it, so i've been using grid for about 3 yrs now

I've had zero issues with Vuhdo crashing for some time now. It was buggy early in development, but it's been extremely stable since. In fact, it was still working just fine even immediately after 4.01, with no throwing errors or whatever. To be fair, the buff watch thing was acting a bit weird for about 2 days (though not throwing bugs), but since I didn't really need to use it anymore with all buffs being raid wide, I just turned it off.


I think for many of those who tried Vuhdo and didn't like it, probably tried it a while ago while it was still being developed, so it was lacking features and it was buggy. I would implore anyone who tried it before cluster detection was added (IIRC, maybe around March or so, I'd have to look) to give it another shot and specifically try out the features that are exclusive to Vuhdo. By that time, all the bugs had been worked out, and some of the nifty features started getting added. Since then he's added bouquets and dynamic range/direction. These are all features I didn't even know I wanted until I had them and saw how awesome they were.

For instance, cluster detection helps find good uses for CoH by finding clusters of people who are below a certain threshold. This may not sound particularly great, since it's intuitively easy to use anyway, but it can potentially make CoH useful in situations where it might not be intuitively useful, like when the raid is seemingly spread out enough to not make it effective, but sometimes damage patterns arise that make it useful.

Same sort of thing for dynamic range and direction. Sometimes someone needs a heal, but they're not in range, this feature shows me exactly what direction they're in and how far so if, for instance, they have Infest or Unbound Plague (Slimes, Defiles, Valks, and Spirits seems to play a havoc on raid positioning), I have the information available to know if I can and if it's worth adjusting my position to heal them. Often times, they're just a few yards out of range, but if I can't figure out which direction they're in or I guess wrong trying to get them in range, I'm probably too late.

[Kacie]

Today a druid failed to cast rebirth on a raid member because of his VuhDo, i tried it back then and recently, just don't like it, it crashes alot and its just the same as healbot but with extra features.

Grid can do almost anything so i will stick to that.

[Zakgra]

Today a druid failed to cast rebirth on a raid member because of his VuhDo, i tried it back then and recently, just don't like it, it crashes alot and its just the same as healbot but with extra features.

Grid can do almost anything so i will stick to that.

Used Vuhdo for more than a year now and didn't have a single crash or incident where a spell wasn't cast. My guess is that this druids overall setup is less than perfect^^ and if he had used Healbot, grids or whatever he would have had a crash too.

Keyword here is "almost" btw. That is not the case with Vuhdo. There is no "almost".

[Kacie]

Grid doesn't crash been using it since tbc each to there own, but vuhdo does crash i've used it before.

As does healbot.

Grid and mouseover macros is perfect

[Restorection]

Vuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhddddddddddddddddddddddoooooooooo

In short I use Vuhdo. More combustibility.

[sharpy]

None.. They just get in the way.

[Deleted]

mouse over macro's are all you need realy.

[Shyardik]

i used to use grid with mouse over macros, but now i'm just using blizzards new raid frames with mouse over macros.

[Thatwsntmilk]

Mouseover Macros and Grid - You can customize it in every way you could ever imagine. E.g. corner text with the exact duration of hots/effects in 1/0.1 seconds. Thats what a decent healer should aim at.

[Qhara]

None..I just use regular UI. Although I use mouseover macros to make up for it.