My 1st Raiding UI

My UI When I Was First Raiding Karazhan

Mods were still a new and exciting thing for me back in my early Karazhan days.  As you can see we are still using the ingame sound, vent was something that seemed silly – why install another program when you could just use the ingame version!  Back in this era, I was using:

• Titan Panel
• Decursive
• Omen – this was fairly new and exciting, most people were still using the very popular KLH Threat Meter
• Deadly Boss Mods

And yes, people are hovering in the air (hence why I originally took this screeny) there used to be a bug which sent people who died during the Chess encounter back into The Menagerie (Curator’s Room) and plonk them in the air.  It certainly made us laugh!

My Healbot Experimentation Phase

My Healbot Experimentation Phase

This was a fairly short period of my raiding life when I tried to use Healbot. While I have heard it is now greatly improved, back in the day when I was tinkering around with it Healbot hated Tree Form. Most of my other mod choices have remained.

This screeny was taken during a naked gnome race to Booty Bay. I’ve always wanted a gnome with pink hair…. one day perhaps!

Discovering Recount

You Mean… Decursive Can Move?

When I look at this picture, the first thing I think is “Thank God I Finally Managed To Move the Decursive Buttons!” Aside from my new found discovery of how to move Decursive squares off my mini map, my mod list has also grown and changed.  I’ve discovered Recount and have also installed Quest Helper which makes questing a breeze. Through this phase I used:

• Fubar
• Atlas
• Decursive
• Recount
• Omen
• Deadly Boss Mods
• Quest Helper

An Over Ambitious Disaster

2009 – The Year Of The UI Overhaul

Ok that screenshot above is a terrible mess…. urghhh. I decided to experiment with Grid, Healbot I had learnt was not for me and I was sure that with the right raid frames I could improve my healing… really take it up to the next level. Unfortunately I had found that Grid was taking me a while to get used to, so I played not only with Grid, but also the standard Raid Frames taking up a chunk of my screen so I could still feel in control.

Other mods of note in this screenshot is my newfound discovery of Elkano’s Buff Bars, which I am still using today. I have also installed Spartan UI, which at the time I thought was beautiful. I look at it now and just think, meh…. not worth the reduced MS and frame rates. Mods in this screenshot include:

• Spartan UI – The big grey bar at the bottom
• Chincilla – A mod that allows you to move your Minimap
• Prat – Chat mod that colours the name of the person talking to their class colour & adds a time stamp
• Fubar
• Omen
• Recount
• Decursive
• Elkano’s Buff Bars
• Grid

Vuhdo I Love You!

Taking Control of My UI

After my major overhaul attempts, I got exhausted with trying to make it all work. I went back to standard UI raid frames and layout for about a month before I was ready to dive back in. I wanted things to be simple this time. I still wanted a better raid frames system but I knew I was never trying either Healbot or Grid again. I was ready to start looking into XPerl when I saw a Plus Heal forum talking about a new mod called Vuhdo. I decided to take the plunge and give it a try and I simply love it.

During my UI attempt, I also tried Dominos based on Cass’s advice and by complete accident stumbled across a mod called Sexy Map… which is great because it hides all the mod buttons until you hover over the map. Mods used during this minimalist phase are:

• Dominos
• Vuhdo
• Recount
• Omen
• Decursive
• Deadly Boss Mods
• SexyMap

eePanels2

Tweaking & Nit Picking

I knew I was near the end of my UI journey.  I had finally found raid frames that I liked and I had a group of staple mods that I was now comfortable with.  I wanted to keep everything towards the bottom of my screen with the raid frames taking front and centre position so I could easily heal and view the events surrounding my character at the same time.

I discovered eePanels2 which allows you to put colored panels on your screen to better break up your layout.  In the screenshot above I have 1 Panel which is a stark black in which the majority of my “workshop” is based. Mods used in this screenshot are exactly the same as those listed above, I’ve just added eePanels2 & Elkano Buff Bars.

My final UI is similar but more simplistic again.  I am still happy with the layout shown in this screeny but I found when doing Flame Leviathan – Orbituary (4 Towers) the black panel covered up too much of my screen and blocked part of my vehicle.  As I generally am the gunner for a demolisher and need to constantly scout the ground for Pyrite, this wasn’t good enough.

Stay tuned for a separate post covering my final UI (once I get it all working again with the new patch!) and each mod used & how I got it to work together!

*Update* Evolution of my UI: Final has been posted.

If you’ve wanted to try Grid but don’t know where to start you’ve come to the right place. I’m trying it out for the first time too!

A smart reader asked why I would go through the pain of switching to Grid from Healbot. I’ll admit a small part of me wants to be a fantastic Priest healer: DPSing up the meters one day and switching to Discipline and doing just as well – saving the world with the right Shield/Heal at the right moment.

When Dual Specialisation came out I was asked to choose Holy. I threw spells into Healbot for raid healing and I just couldn’t fit all the spells I wanted to use onto 2 mouse buttons + some keys. I was just starting to learn the combinations I had set up when I changed to Discipline as my secondary build and I’m struggling even more to relearn my key combinations. A perfect time to see if there’s something better out there.

What Grid Will Do

Grid creates a square representing each of your party/raid members. Click the square and you will target that player. You can choose (Grid gives you a hell of a lot of options) what information about the player you wish to display in their little box, but usually you’d start with their name and build up from there.

Grid is intended to replace the default UI raid frames – you know, the groups 1-5 that you have dragged onto your screen from the Social>Raid window.

What Grid Can Do

I honestly don’t know the answer. Ask a devoted Grid user and they will tell you Grid can do pretty much everything.

I do know that you can extend the functionality of Grid in many different areas to accomplish want you want. For healing, you can:

• Download modules that allow you to more successfully monitor your HoTs (a lot of Druids go down this path)
• Download Addons that will work with Grid and allow you to cast heals using mouse button combinations (referred to as click casting, check out Clique and Click2Cast).
• Set up mouseover macros in WoW that let you hover your cursor over Grid and smack your regular spell keys to heal your target

The Basic Basic Setup

Grid is, unfortunately, really really ugly when you first install it.

Default Grid display... does it make your head hurt too?

It took me a couple hours wading through the configuration menus but eventually I beat Grid into something attractive, meaningful and helpful. Personally I think most of this stuff should be set by default. If the creators of Grid made Grid look like this out of the box they’d win over a lot more users. By the way, Grid refers to each player as a “unit”.

• Switch to horizontal health bars, not vertical
• Increased the width of each “unit” so they are rectangles, not squares
• Show more letters/characters in the unit’s name (I think I maxed mine at 20)
• Turned off all the Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Left and Bottom Right corner settings
• Removed the border around the Addon
• Removed (or changed to a Flat) background texture
• Removed all the Border (the border around each unit) settings
• Turned off units for pets

From this base, blank canvas I added some meaningful information. But I’ll go into that later.

The Final Result

Grid in Alterac Valley, 40 players but only a few in range.

Grid in Ulduar, 25 players mostly in range (and yes I captured this for another reason - go number 1!)

My Configuration

Building up from the base setup described above I selected some additional information to display on my unit frames from the options in Grid:

• Unit Border:
  display on aggro (the player/s with aggro get a red border)
• Unit Text – second line:
  display the amount of health lost (eg “7.5k”)
  when they have the Weakened Soul debuff (ie “Weakened Soul”)
  when they have died and released (ie “Ghost”)
• Top Left Corner:
  a square appears when the target has Power Word: Shield active

My advice would be to keep the amount of information you’re monitoring with Grid pretty minimal at first. If you wish to monitor several things try and consider which ones might happen at the same time and don’t assign these to the same visual alert (you have borders, text and four corners to play with essentially).

From Healbot to Grid

If you’re like me and are used to playing with Healbot, I suggest that you run both side by side for a few weeks while you make the transition. This is a screen capture I took as Xata while I was still figuring out the nuts and bolts of the Grid options (you can see I haven’t yet turned off pets and something is being monitored in the bottom left corner of some units).

I recommend running both Grid and Healbot until you adjust.

One thing I love about Healbot is being able to see the icons specific to your class on your raid. It’s really easy to monitor how many charges of Water Shield I have up and also how many charges of Earth Shield is up on my target. I can also see who else has been Earth Shielded by another Shaman. On my priest I can see Power Word: Shield, Prayer of Mending, Pain Suppression and Guardian Spirit, regardless of which priest cast it, which can really come in handy.  Unfortunately I have no idea how to achieve this in Grid, or if it’s even possible.

So far I absolutely love monitoring Weakened Soul with Grid. For such a long time I have been right clicking units on Healbot to Power Word: Shield them when things are going wrong (the only “heal” I can perform without leaving Shadowform).

Final Thoughts

Good luck! Grid takes a lot of work and most of the configuration menus don’t make a lot of sense to first time users. If it all gets too hard, give Healbot a go.

Remember, at its essence Grid will simply replace your current default Raid Frames – nobody is forcing you to try mouseover macros, fancy key bindings or click casting. And Grid won’t do any of those things for you on its own.

I’ve briefly tried mouseover macros – and loved it – except I just don’t have enough easily accessible keys not already taken up with damage/dispelling keys on my Priest (where the 1-0 keys are taken) and it seemed counter-productive to set up keys like X and Z which I find hard to hit. I’m definately keen to try this on my shaman, Xata.

I’m also planning to try click casting using Grid (and Clique or something similar) or trying out Vuhdo which is getting rave reviews. But that’s a topic for another post.

ps. The guild member I quoted above eventually qualified for my Mute and Ignore list when he suggested we all change factions and play horde because “Horde are so much better”. I’m fairly confident I won’t be missing anything worth hearing.

What’s next?

View/read all the articles in this series.

Perhaps if I explain the research I went through I can save you some time on your journey to a better interface.

Some Websites

NoStockUI

NoStockUI features complete interface packages like this one from Taeo. You can download it too.

While a lovely site with great UI examples, I couldn’t quite figure out what Addons were doing what in each screen capture.

NoStockUI will occasionally package up a whole interface for download (basically you unzip and replace your WTF & Addon folders with theirs). I wouldn’t recommend doing this unless you actually like cooking in someone else’s kitchen.

ShadowPriest.com

ShadowPriest.com runs an Interface Competition (the winning entry could also be downloaded in full). All the entries seemed too extreme for me – too far from the default interface which I’ve used for years. And I guess most of these Shadow Priests never heal because they had the smallest, tiniest, square raid frames you’ve ever seen. As small as the mini-map!

ShadowPriest.com also has a great list of suggested/recommended Addons that I came back to over and over again.

Curse

The place to download all these goodies. Except maybe Auctioneer.

Some Guides

In addition to the sites above I read some great guides. Definitely worth a read if you’re interested in healing and raid frames.

Mouseover Macros by Sydera

The idea here is that you’ll use your (right) mouse hand to hover your cursor over your raid frames (using something like Grid) and use your left hand to click a key nearby to cast a healing spell on them. No cursor clicking required to select your target to cast.
http://www.worldofmatticus.com/2009/03/23/a-guide-to-mouseover-macros/

Grid vs Healbot by Keeva

Keeva is a Restoration Druid and long term Grid user. She sets out to compare both Addons and how they can be customised. The only problem is that she tries to turn Healbot into Grid. Now if she showed me how to display a health bar percentage underneath the player’s name using Grid (basic Healbot functionality) I’d be more impressed. A good article nonetheless.
http://treebarkjacket.blogspot.com/2009/02/project-compare-raid-frame-heavyweights.html

Keeva’s Mimimalist UI

Keeva's UI dissected and labeled

More interesting than the Grid/Healbot debate, Keeva dissects her minimalist interface here:
http://treebarkjacket.blogspot.com/2009/02/my-current-ui.html

Terminology

Some lessons that I learnt along the way:

Raid Frames

When you drag raid groups out onto your screen from the Social>Raid window – these are Raid Frames. Raid Frame Addons like Grid, Clique, Healbot (and Pitbull?) will replace these with something better and probably save you quite a lot screen space too.

I should also point out that Decursive, which creates a clickable box representing each member of the raid for the purpose of decursing/cleansing/dispelling, is also a Raid Frame Addon.

Action Bars

Any thing you can drop a spell onto is an Action Bar. Action Bar Addons will replace/configure your bars and let you move them pretty much anywhere it suits you and drop them down until they are almost invisible if you like. Action Bar Addons may also modify you XP bar and main menu (you know, the thing you click on to open a ticket or laugh at your latency). I tried out Dominos but Bartender is very popular too.

Ace and Non-Ace

Ace is a type of programming language or library that can be used to build World of Warcraft Addons. That’s about all I know! I don’t have a preference for one over the other.

Debuff

Debuffs can be bad when they are cast on you and should be cleansed (and this is what I think of when I see the word) but they can also be good when you are casting them on something else. For a Shadow Priest, your DoTs are debuffs on your target.  Shadow Word: Pain, Misery, Vampiric Embrace and even Mind Flay are all debuffs. Mind Blast is not a debuff – it hits and it’s done.

What’s next?

View/read all the articles in this series.