Are raid frames necessary?

[codsafish]

I only ever raided in TBC (as mage) I didn't use any raid frames. I used a special addon for decursing.

Of course I was only fireball spamming 99% of the time. So my UI was EXTREMELY minimal. There was pretty much nothing on my screen. At one point I even made it so non-crits wouldn't show...so all I saw on my screen was crits, no dot ticks or non-crits. I got to enjoy all the visuals to the max, and the only numbers that popped up were crits. Feltgoodman

[Cairhiin]

No you are not doing it wrong. the current blizzard raid frames are actually really good.

Compared to what's out there, they are not really good - they are in fact pretty mediocre.

[Polarthief]

No you are not doing it wrong. the current blizzard raid frames are actually really good.

If "really good" = the new ones that I can't figure out how to move or anything and aren't too customizable, then yeah I guess they are :/

On-Topic: Healbot, Vuhdo, and other alike addons (even X-perl, though not as good as the other two) will definitely give you an edge, but hey, if your raid isn't suffering because of your healing, then why should it matter? =)

Once you start wiping because of your raid frames, THEN you should definitely consider getting something new, but why fix something that isn't broken?

[Souxlya]

Compared to what's out there, they are not really good - they are in fact pretty mediocre.

Although they are mediocre compared to Vuhdo, they are much better then in Wrath and below. So I wouldn't say "they are not really good". You can now run with no unit frame addon, and if you are so inclined, make mouse over macros and keybinds the same as if you were using Vuhdo, Grid, or Healbot. As a healer on a 5 year old computer, I've gone over that thought many times. But haven't taken the time to switch over from Vuhdo to the Blizzard unit frames with mouse overs.

[ComputerNerd]

3rd party raid frames or any other addon for that matter which is deemed to be duplicating what is already present in the stock UI often has more customisability in what you can choose to display or not display and in what format.

Grid and I believe Vuhdo and Healbot offer the option of whether you display indicators as icons, symbols or numbers. An option that you can choose between based on what you find easiest to read or interpret.

The blizzard default raid frames have no doubt improved hugely, but they were improved so by borrowing many of the basic features that grid etc have been offering for years.

Therefore you can't really pick fault with those addons because those are the reason the blizzard frames are in their current form at all.
Blizzard designed the UI to be enhanced in such a way to provide freedom of choice, a recognition that the default is not "one size fits all".

You use the tools which you are more comfortable with, or provide the functionality that you want and let your actions and your skill speak up for you.
Your UI, your choice.

[Deleted]

First off i would like give you my sincere respect
There is no chance in hell i would be able to heal using blizztard Standard frames, on that matter of swapping if you feel comfortable with the blizztard ui there is no need to change, but if you at some point feel the standard ui isnt sufficient anymore i would highly recommend Vuhdo.

[Arlee]

In a nutshell that answer is that raid frames and/or ui addons are only needed if you really want some functionality that the blizz ui doesn't give. If you find yourself wishing you could do something with your UI you can't then you would want to consider an addon

[Primernova]

For a priest, a raid frame can quickly tell you who has yellow/red agro, renew, PW:S and Weakened Soul.

Other then that, they can be smaller and easier to let you see what's going on then the stock UI.

[Tyratops]

Blizzard raid frames are fine these days, easy to setup and have enough customisability, pretty much plug and play and will cover all main buffs/debuffs.

[Deleted]

i think i only use grid for encounters where i need to track raid icons on party members assigned by dbm or other addons, but to be fair last encounter where that was absolutely necessary was probably anub'arak hc 25?

i found aoe plugin for grid a little buggy a while back so i decided to drop the addon and i've got much better "feel" of where to drop my PoHs on my own, mind you its just a 10 man, for 25's i'd prolly still use some sort of helper for this, depending how well the raids positioning would be organised.

the only thing that i'm missing is being able to tell if a certain debuff is dispellable or not... but it's easy to memorize which debuffs are dispellable for which encounters and how the icons look like. i turn "view dispelable debuffs only" on for pvp though for clear view, since pretty much all the rest is being communicated on skype.

for me standard UI is just fine and less hassle

[Themos]

I use the stock raid bars on one of my alts and while they are functional, addons like Vuhdo, Grid, etc.. are much better visually. I mean, even if you don't want the extra features an addon raid mod gives(and they have great customization), presenting the information in a way that doesn't make you want to barf should be a consideration as well. For a raid healer, the raid bars are a critical component of our complete UI.

Maybe I'm spoiled by years of CTRA, Grid, and Vuhdo use but the stock WoW raid UI in Cataclysm still looks like ass. On my main I currently use Vuhdo and am loving it.

[babylon]

if you do your job well and heal fine, then who cares what addons you use?
if youre getting ranked on first wol page (shoo meters haters), as you mentioned, it means you do some healing and arent carried by other healers in your raids, so its all fine.

i use vuhdo and <3 it, its all about personal preferences

[Gilian]

The new standard raidframes are perfectly fine to use. They are good.

Grid or other addons just give that extra personalization. I used Grid with mouseover macro's and liked it a lot.
Just look up what would be better about using an addon instead of the standard raidframes and if it's worth it then just get used to them.

[Deleted]

You definitely don't want to raid with default UI as a healer. Default UI does its job but it clearly doesn't have any priority how auras are displayed, everything gets listed and you have to look for your buffs in it. Let's say you are a disc and you want to track Grace, PoM and Weakened Soul on both tanks on Rag, or you are dispelling Wrack on Sinestra. You are never going to perform so well with standard UI as you could with Grid or Vuhdo. It's just so inefficient regarding Information/Pixel, not to mention that it doesn't have the functions most raid healers would need to have. I personally would take no healer using standard unitframe into progression.

Edit: 10 man are easier to heal through so maybe it is possible to perform better but just that the player is playing in such a chaos and doesn't even try to filter out the informations he needs, means for me that this player is not able to learn as quickly as the others.

[Dunee]

if you are using the blizzard standard ones then you are still using raid frames (which is perfectly fine), just not addon frames but if you are not and purely healing from mouseover and target wherever people are in the raid (I doubt this) then you are gimping yourself.

[Deleted]

Honestly, I never used Blizz UI and don't know much about it. I have to admit I just assumed it didn't do as much as what vuhdo can.

Can you see Sinestra debuff's timer from the time it's been put on the target?
Can you see tanks and healers cooldowns with their timers when they are being used on someone?
Can you set it so you know which target is the most efficient for your aoe heals (PoH, CoH)?
Do you see who has aggro?
Can you set it to look differently in 10 or 25 environment?

[Deleted]

install clique just done, i would recommend vuhdo though.

[Kelesti]

Can you see Sinestra debuff's timer from the time it's been put on the target?
Can you see tanks and healers cooldowns with their timers when they are being used on someone?
Can you set it so you know which target is the most efficient for your aoe heals (PoH, CoH)?
Do you see who has aggro?
Can you set it to look differently in 10 or 25 environment?

• Yes.
• Only Priest ones, most cooldowns can be treated as Audibles anyways, so it's not a true loss.
• No, but even the Grid plug-in itself can only guess from the time to start of cast (not as good as you think). That said, it still sorts groups out, and if you can eye your raid members you can tell who you want to chain Prayer off of to hit that mage 70 yards away.
• Yes.
• And yes.

[Arlee]

For me the knowing you will be able to raid on patch day is the most compelling reason to use standard Blizz frames... can't tell you how often I facedesk because someone's addon didn't get updated yet and they can't raid without it ><

[Deleted]

For me the knowing you will be able to raid on patch day is the most compelling reason to use standard Blizz frames... can't tell you how often I facedesk because someone's addon didn't get updated yet and they can't raid without it ><

This, this and this. It's really annoying when half the raid bail out on our Thursday raid because the patch on Wednesday completely broke their UI.