Elements of a proper healer UI?

[garicasha]

It’s not easy to get the health bars of every raider near the center of the screen without obscuring the entire view area. In retail every decent healer streamer has them near the character but with clear vision of the ground, but it’s a little tricky with 40 instead of 20.

—Health bars of every raider
—Mana bars of every raider
—Any HoTs that are overwriteable such as renew you should be able to see so you’re not overwriting
—Debuffs that are important should be color coded
—Ability to turn on and off specific debuffs
--Edit: Range finder / graying out people out of range
--Edit: Predictive healing, very important in such large raids with such slow casting heals.
—Ability to see someone missing buffs you can give (edit: separate addon for this is fine)
—Your own health and mana bar near the center of the screen

Not as critical but not a bad idea:
—Healing meters (good for catching mistakes, for example one day I didn’t swap a mouseover macro back from my benediction quest)
--Threat meters

...and then there’s still a lot more that can be done, but it starts to get in to WeakAuras for specific fights. That level of UI design isn't really needed in Molten Core, but I'm guessing by AQ40 some of that can be helpful.

Oh and do we have EXRT yet? I still need an addon for raid cooldowns.

[Puupi]

1. centered raid frames
2. debuffs and encounter specific buffs
3. defensive cooldowns on raid frames, you need to see when someone has their cd's active
4. absorb values
5. resources

[Binaris]

Blood fury debuff indicator so you know to let that idiot die.

[Thunderball]

—Mana bars of every raider

You dont need that unless you're a raidleader.

—Ability to turn on and off specific debuffs

Not really.

—Ability to see someone missing buffs you can give

There's absolutely no reason to do it on raid frames for a healer. You're just adding clutter at this point. Usually done with a separate addon.

—Healing meters (good for catching mistakes, for example one day I didn’t swap a @mouseover macro back)

Not needed. Logs take care of that. And also there's no reason you should be swapping macros. If your setup out of raids and in raids is different you're just wasting time, fix it.

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1. centered raid frames

This is actually a really bad idea if you're using you're doing any kind of PvP.

3. defensive cooldowns on raid frames, you need to see when someone has their cd's active
4. absorb values
5. resources

Totally useless.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Most people over do this.

-Just have your frames in a place that allow you to see your feet and the frames within the same field of vision. So if you end up in the fire you can see it easily and still have your eye on the healing ball.

-These frames often self setup these days but make sure if you need to track a shield, HoT, or something like that is trackable on the frame. Helps you from needlessly clipping these things and you can easily tell where healing is rolling still. With Classic this isn't insanely useful for a lot of classes but a couple its ok. Sometimes its just a little square in the corner or an icon on the side. Something like that.

-Have the frame flip colors if you can dispel it or have an icon pop up in the frame and, again, this typically comes pre-setup these days. Makes it easy to know, hey, I can and probably should dispel that.

Aside from that just have your binds ready to go and something like clique, a frame that supports direct inputs, or mouseover macros ready to roll. Everyone does this part a little different but just make sure you aren't clicking, casting, clicking, casting type because you can reduce apm and increase healing.

Everything else is just fluff. Not to say some of these things might not help you out but often it doesn't change much. Tank has his CD up? Guess what? They probably thought they were going to die and will need heals still. So you should heal them. Just like you should heal them if the tank was just dying from normal damage without a CD. But sure, a super max player might adjust ever so slightly but this isn't rocket science and honestly over thinking it to that point is mostly fruitless.

[Thunderball]

OT:
* Properly setup raidframes, ideally positioned diagonally from the character model. Left/right is also fine, higher/lower centered is a big no-no.
* Properly setup buff/debuff indications. HoTs/Fear Ward, PW:S/Weakened Soul, Mortal Strike type debuffs, dispel/CC/dispellable CC indicator.
* Health/target bars and debuffs in easily observed position. Default is just horrible, but different people prefer different positions.
* Replace actionbars with cooldown indicators.
* Bufftracker. Dont do that on your raidframe if you're a healer, get a separate frame/addon, preferably one that autohides in combat.

You dont really need WAs for encounter specific debuffs because either you add them to your debuff indicator (I prefer highlight for dispellable debuffs+important debuff indicator which includes encounter specific debuffs) or you just dont care about them.

Some stuff that could be helpful but that I dont consider must-have:

* HUD-type Weakauras - selfbuff reminders, totem timers, etc.
* Separate manabar with 5sec indicator and ticks.
* Buff frame anchored to player healthbar.
* Wand/melee swing timer.
* Threat/damage/healing meters.

[garicasha]

You don't need that unless you're a raid leader.

Highly disagree with that, lots of places where knowing what other healers have left is very important. Onyxia at 10% with 5 other healers above 50% mana? No need for a pot. Onyxia at 10% with 5 other healers on fumes? Time to chug one of the expensive ones.

[Sezh]

The reason people have frames centered on retail is because the boss mechanics actually require us to see what's going on in the fight. That's not the case in classic. You can have the frames in the top left and still be able to stand still in the exact same spot doing nothing but press your one or two buttons without any effort.

[garicasha]

^ although obviously true in Molten Core, I doubt any reasonable Naxx guild is going to take a healer without predictive healing on their UI.

[Puupi]

You dont need that unless you're a raidleader.

Yes you do, a good healer must know the mana status of other healers at all times.

This is actually a really bad idea if you're using you're doing any kind of PvP.

No it isn't, you just need to position them correctly so they won't block your view.

Totally useless.

Again, nope. You are just a terrible healer.

You need to know when someone is using their defensive cooldowns. You need to know how big of an absorb is currently on a player. Resources are mainly important to know the mana of other healers, but it's also useful to track tank's resource so you know when they can or will eg. Death Strike or Ignore Pain.

[Thunderball]

Highly disagree with that, lots of places where knowing what other healers have left is very important. Onyxia at 10% with 5 other healers above 50% mana? No need for a pot. Onyxia at 10% with 5 other healers on fumes? Time to chug one of the expensive ones.

Sorry I dont play with people of that mentality. I'm always chugging the expensive one.

[Throwaway35123]

Hello guys, long time lurker but first time poster here :

I mainy play Hpal with the default raid ui frame in wow, and i am looking (and i think a lot of healers should as well) for an addon that shows WHO is tanking in real time,here is an example in retail wow (cant post link here, just search for 'wow raid interface ' in Google and look at the 4th image ) :
Fendra and Bolvang have a red border , it means they have 'aggro' of something, and thats exactly what i am looking for in classic for blessing of protection (if a boss or smth else run on a healer for example).

DO you guys have any info of an addon doing that? i have tried with Grid, Luna unit frame ( i dont like this one) .

Thanks a lot !

[spalernTJ]

I just have my raid frames somewhat centered on the left, sized to my liking, but not so big it starts cluttering the floor or boss mechanics. My raid frames are made with Vuhdo, and as a resto druid, they only display my hots. Debuffs are shown by their health bars turning a different color; Blue for magic, dark green-yellowish is disease, green is poison etc. Only does this for stuff I can dispel too.

Health bars are not needed, mana not needed, healing meter not needed, though it's fun for the "on the spot" competition between some people.

It's a lot like hotkeys for me. I have my interrupt on the same key across all characters. and I have healing frames that work for me on all healers. Sure, you can look to streamers and other healers' UI and copy it, but you have to find what fits you the best.

[Mendzia]

I see posts here with many different ideas so here are things i want to see on my grid:

- if person is in range
- incoming heals/absorb values
- other healers mana
- Power Word: Shield/Weakened Soul indicator
- if target is already indicated with Renew
- debuffs i can dispel on person in one place
- debuffs i can't dispel on person in different place
- if person got fortitude/spirit/shadow prot
- important encounter-specific debuffs that can be easily spotted

Honestly i think most of the stuff will be personal prefferences tho.

[Thunderball]

Is there anything the default raid frames doesnt tell you already?

This all sounds overkill for the lvl of raiding classic have. And that includes Naxx.

Yes, default UI indications are shit. Overall it's not too bad, especially for PvP but it for sure lacks some basic functionality for raiding.

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aggro indication

I use Luna, it has aggro but it was but it was unrealiable two months ago when I last played. I just got back so I didnt have a chance to test it right now.

[VigilantRose]

I'll mention something that no one else has: a mouseover health/debuff indicator in your visual field.

You can't realistically put unit frames in your visual field because they block your ability to see/click. However, you can put a HUD in your visual field - and play tricks with UI mods like Weak Auras to add a mouseover indicator so you always know where your mouse is on your unit frames. This allows you to keep your eyes on the battlefield while still using click-casting and mouseover macros.

[AeneasBK]

I know its kinda cool to be all edgy and say "Huh lol, who needs addons for Classic WoW huh?"

But really. Isn't it easy enough already? By the time Naxx comes around, PuGs are going to be averaging more DPS than guild raids did back then, is anyone actually anticipating any challenge other than "Maybe by then we'll only have 30 people to run it with, then we'll have to be maximised".

Can you really call yourself a "proper healer" if you have to use any crutches for this? (Note: rhetorical)

[Thunderball]

I know its kinda cool to be all edgy and say "Huh lol, who needs addons for Classic WoW huh?"

But really. Isn't it easy enough already? By the time Naxx comes around, PuGs are going to be averaging more DPS than guild raids did back then, is anyone actually anticipating any challenge other than "Maybe by then we'll only have 30 people to run it with, then we'll have to be maximised".

Can you really call yourself a "proper healer" if you have to use any crutches for this? (Note: rhetorical)

Yes? Raiding in vanilla is not based around getting stuff cleared once to get the achievement, it's based around clearing it efficiently every week without spending stupid amounts of time and money for consumables, because you're going to have to farm it for a long time to get everything you want.

There's also a speedrunning scene where requirements are completely different.

[Linri]

Raid Frames are a must as a healer
Debuffs on players is also a must have so u can rid them of bad stuff
Mouse over macros for healing, are really nice as well

[Nnyco]

Blood fury debuff indicator so you know to let that idiot die.

Imagine being this guy who kills party members because you have to press your heal twice.