The Matticast team received numerous emails and feedback regarding our most recent show on healing raid frames. I just want to emphasize that there isn’t a right or wrong answer here. You should ultimately use the addons that are most comfortable for you. We certainly understand and respect that your experiences may have differed from ours.
So just a quick poll here. I’m quite curious. Which healing raid frames do you use? If your option isn’t listed, go ahead and specify it on the comments. What convinced you to use that particular addon?
Which raid frames do you use to heal with?
- Clique + Grid (Or Grid standalone) (36%, 331 Votes)
- Vuhdo (34%, 315 Votes)
- Healbot (15%, 138 Votes)
- Blizzard Default (7%, 65 Votes)
- Other (Post in Comments) (4%, 41 Votes)
- Perl or XPerl (3%, 24 Votes)
- Pitbull (1%, 11 Votes)
Total Voters: 924
Loading ...A story
Let me tell you where my personal disapproval of HealBot came from. I touched on it briefly on the show, but I’ll write about it here in more detail. I was in a pickup Naxxramas raid. We were clearing to Clifford Gluth and this Holy Paladin just spazzes out. Apparently his HealBot broke after he switched to Holy. Memory is a bit fuzzy here. We spent a good 15 minutes waiting for this guy to download and reinstall and reconfigure his HealBot but he wasn’t able to get it going right. A patch had come out recently and HealBot had not been updated yet to work with it. Ultimately, we had to call that raid. When we asked if the Paladin could just use a different addon, he stated that he didn’t know how. He would just use whatever spells HealBot suggested. He mentioned something about not knowing how to heal without the use of HealBot. Couldn’t even use the default, drag-out UI either.
I was amazed because this one guy’s dependency on a single addon crippled the efforts of 24 other players.
I hearthed out of that instance vowing to never participate in a pickup Naxx again.
I violated that rule in about 48 hours on my alt Shaman.
Anyway, to reiterate, use the addons that make you comfortable the most.
But… Clique is not a raid frame. Did you mean Grid?
Edit: haha no worries Matt. Grid+Clique it is…
Here’s a look at the way I setup Grid in my UI:
http://curtistownson.com/wow/Vedaria_vs_Atramedes.jpg
Wish I had a more impressive screenshot though 😛
Curtis: Yes I did, fixed.
Forgot coffee.
Err. I see clique on that list, but isn’t that more of a “Click this way to cause heal on target” rather than a raid frame itself?
Personally, I’ve used them all once or twice. I keep going back to the default though, since I raided BC with XPerl which was broke most of Wrath for me. And I dare not touch it for Cata! 😛
Domh: No you’re right. I forgot to couple Clique with Grid which continues to be a highly popular setup.
I’ve heard people in BC tell me that they used to do exactly what you described that Holy Pally doing. I used Healbot for Naxx but quickly grew tired of it’s default configurations, and by the time I was working on OS+3D attempts, I’d moved over to Grid + Cliques. Still don’t see the appeal of vuhdo.
I use Grid + mouseover macros myself, I find it incredibly easy to get used to. If not a little annoying as my macros are filling up quickly!
I use Grid, no clique. I have had a few issues with it, but most of the config I have done to it is very simple to redo so when patches come out ang break it, I can get by with vanilla grid.
When I have to raid with the default frames, my screen gets too cluttered. It’s already too cluttered.
Vuhdo is my choice. Back just before TOC was out, when I started to get into raiding I was in a guild that was having trouble in Naxx. Forget Ulduar. But one of the healers one say couldn’t heal at all because something had broken his Xperl frames. I was disdainful because I healed with the default, but it made me realize that maybe healing frames were useful. So I did my research. I tried Healbot for thirty seconds, hated how it looked and felt. Tried Grid for a day. It wasn’t working for me. Too many options. Then I heard about Vuhdo. Downloaded, tweaked, never looked back. To me Vuhdo is “just right”.
I love that I download ONE update every patch, I don’t have to manage a million addons, and Iza is responsive to comments left on the PlusHeal forum. If anything ever makes Vuhdo stop working I’ll…. cry, and then try to make Grid work. Ugh.
If anything ever makes Vuhdo non-functional, Iza would fix it within a day ^^.
It’s funny you mention that about the paladin and healbot, as our paladin uses healbot and occasionally has issues(such as not being able to heal someone flagged AFK). Really, healing addons should be a tool, not something you’re totally reliant upon.
As a very longtime grid user, I vowed by that for years, but when I wanted a change of scenery I used tukui.org and now I’m using whatever the built-in healing mod is(which doesn’t look particularly like grid). All you really need, IMO, is something clean, that shows hot durations, debuffs and who has aggro. I macro in all of my healing/decurse spells, which is annoying, but as a shaman I have enough space still.
oUF is used in the TUK UI 🙂 I really love it too!
Healbot for me, always has worked great with a little setup so never needed to change, tried grid but liked Healbot better, seemed more responsive to updating health bars. And don’t like the many different plugins for grid.
Should do some screen captures of it in action!
I have used Healbot, Grid+Clique, ElvUI+Clique, and currently run Vuhdo. I stopped using Healbot when, after a particularly huge patch, it no longer worked at all and 95% of our healers couldn’t heal their way out of a paper bag because their healing setup was hosed. I also really disliked how much SPACE it used to take up. You couldn’t make the unitframes small and, well, Grid-like. (This has since been updated, but I still don’t like it)
Grid+Clique works extremely well. When running Vuhdo in the past, I would have Clique duplicating all my Vuhdo binds and with the latest edition of Vuhdo, Clique handles my click casts exclusively.
The biggest reasons I like Vuhdo over the others is how small it is (memory-wise), it’s inter-operability with other addons, and the option to either accept the settings out of the box or complete granular customization down to the smallest detail. But most of all is it’s constant state of development. It doesn’t break, because the developer is on top of WoW patches/changes and is constantly making tweaks and improvements.
I have mouseover macros squirreled away in the event of a complete addon meltdown, as well.
“I have mouseover macros squirreled away in the event of a complete addon meltdown, as well.”
I’m doing this as soon as i get home.
Vuhdo is so ridiculously good and Iza (the developer) is so responsive to the community that I would NEVER switch. I can understand if you are used to something else and want to stick with it out of inertia, but if you don’t have a favorite, download Vuhdo and you will. There used to be a great page that explained how to tweak it out that might be a little out of dat but I am sure you can find it on the Vuhdo wiki if you need help.
healbot – I just could not get into it used it one night and deleted it. for some reason I consider this a pally addon, not sure why but your story confirmed this bias.
Grid + Clique – I try every once in a while but it comes down to spending a TON of time and effort to make it do what Vuhdo already does elegantly. Without fail I always have to make some compromises when I set it up and end up scrapping it.
Also Vuh’du here.. ever since Wrath.
If you want to you can make it look like grid 🙂
I have ALL other raid frames turned off and the action bar buttons hide in combat.
I did that because it makes me ensure that everything I MIGHT want to use is on a button somewhere. I should say that I use a Razer Naga and Belkin NT52te so I have plenty of buttons to use and so very rarely actually use the keyboard at all.
The nicest thing (apart from Iza being mega responsive) is that out of the box, you can heal with Vuh’do with NO configuration.
As you get into it, you can make it as complicated or simple as you like.
One thing I did.. I wanted my Naga Button 1 (not the left mouse button, Button 1 on the side) to do PW:Shield but I already had that set to do Chakra. So I used Vuh’do’s local key binds to make Button 1 do PW:S and left the global keybind to do Chakra.
Click B1 on the target, he gets shielded. Click anywhere else, I get Chakra.
I’ll do the same thing with other buttons for stuff like Divine Hymn and Holy Word: Sanctuary.
It sounds like that paladin was using an old version of Healbot or something. I started using Healbot late BC for battlegrounds, heroics, and Kara. It was a straight-forward, simple click healing addon. Maybe it tried to do some sort of down ranking? The whole recommend/auto healing thing from Vanilla sounds like a bunch of crap anyway.
Early in Ulduar I first heard about Vuhdo and I soon switched. I loved having separate tank frames, duplicate healer frames, and control over debuff and HoT/buff display in the frames.
Grid+Clique user here 🙂 I just love it.
I’m using vudho currently. I’d like to swap to ShadowedUnitFrames + clique, as I’m using them for my player/target/focus/etc, and would like to avoid another addon just for raid frames.
The clique aspect works fine, but I’ve had issues getting all the info out of them – it can color the bars on a curable debuff, but not different colors for magic/disease, I can show either mydebuffs or all debuffs, but not just curable, etc.
For the record, I use X-perl with Healium on some of my healers. I don’t use Healium on my main healer, a holy priestess – I learned to heal on her without Healium and prefer to continue healing that way. But I find Healium useful on my pally, drood, and shaman healers.
104 votes and I’m the first using Pitbull? I’m surprised. With the in-built functionality and luatexts I’ve never needed another addon specifically for raid frames and have only recently added extra things like Grid’s center icons and indicators by using Pitbull4_VisualHelpers.
In-use example: http://i.imgur.com/fggaQ.jpg
I use Shadowed Unit Frames with mouseover macros but can heal on any unit frame including the default one due to the flexibility of the macros.
Clique can be used with any raid frames, it isn’t exclusive to Grid (and shouldn’t be coupled with it, either, imo, because Clique isn’t part of Grid). I use Grid + mouseover macros. I try out SuF or default raid frames on alts here and there, though.
Currently using Clique+ElvUI raid frames (although, realistically, this could be shorthanded to Clique + insertraidframehere)
I use Aptechka+Clique (previously Injector) It’s very similar to Grid, but doesn’t require all the plug-ins.
Since the expansion came out, my ISP took a nose-dive and I’ve had to rely on the in-game raid frames as a constant back-up. Healing add-ons hate loading up groups mid-fight.
As long as I have clique, I’m happy 🙂
Some time ago, I got tired of the various unit/raid frame add-ons breaking after patches and have found that the new Blizzard raid frames work just fine for progression raiding when combined with Clique.
Our guild had some issues in the past with HealBot-dependent healers ending up completely dead in the water if something broke and I actually came really close to banning the use of HealBot entirely. There’s no excuse for a healer to be so inflexible that they can’t perform their role just because one add-on breaks. To that end, I also have a full set of mouseover macros on standby so I don’t end up holding up the raid should Clique break at some point.
At the end of the day though it’s simply a matter of personal style and I have no issue with anyone’s choice provided that they are able to triage and heal raid members in a timely and consistent manner.
I use OpenRDX (http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info11127-RDX8.html) to design my own raid frames. For anyone willing to spend a couple hours learning its UI, it’s the best way to get exactly what you want and need out of your raid frames.
I chose the other options because I use oUF frames configured by Haleth. I love oUF because of the configurability – if a feature isnt EXACTLY perfect it drives me crazy and since it relies on coding to configure it is highly configurable but definitely not easy to change.
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/fileinfo.php?id=17892&so=&page=3#info
It’s funny because I remember everyone telling me how horrible Healbot was because of the exact issues that you describe here, except that I must have become a healer just after all of those issues were resolved. I haven’t had any issues with it at all. Ever. The only thing I have to ask is that the RL label the tanks so that Healbot moves them into their own section.
I vote Healbot. It has been super intuitive for me and easy to learn. I’ve tried Grid+Clique and even Vuhdo, and neither of them made it easy to set up. *shrug* That’s just me though.
Long-time Grid + mouseovers user. Don’t like clickcasting, don’t like Vuhdo.
Used Grid and Clique until after one patch, Grid broke, and they weren’t very fast about fixing it. Besides, some of my Grid addons hadn’t been updated in a year or something.
Thought about the highly-anticipated new Blizz raid frames, but I liked watching countdowns on my HoTs, and I didn’t see those frames doing that in their microscopic buff display. (Maybe there is a way to accomplish that, but I couldn’t find it, and I was desperate to get something up and running before raid time.)
Switched to Vuhdo (with Clique still hanging around). Much simpler to set up, with the help of some blog guides, and I liked the little arrow which showed me in which direction to run if my target got out of range.
And that, as they say, is that. 🙂
I’m a Grid+Clique user since BC.
With Grid I can see exactly what I want, where I want, and nothing I don’t want
The new Bliz raid frames are ok but they aren’t nearly as customizable as I’d like. I’ve tried using them when I’m healing Chimaeron with people who don’t use Grid…but I don’t really like them. I suppose I could get used to them if I had to(except when I heal on my druid…must see who has my hots)
Tried Vhudo sometime in Wrath…don’t recall what it was I didn’t like about it but there was something that made me go back to Grid.
Never used Healbot, XPerl, or anything else for Raid healing.
Just grid, no clique, plus decursive. If I have to use the default raid frames I don’t enjoy it, but I don’t have to change my fundamental healing methods to cope. After classic, when every patch completely broke every addon I refuse to become too reliant on any addon.
Two of our three raid healers (me as a tree, and our Holy Priest) use Healbot – it’s not the “hold your hand” type of thing it used to be: apparently you used to just click on people and it would automatically choose the spell and rank! I only started using it towards the end of Wrath. I use the standard setup with a player grid, and key+click combos to cast spells. You can also set it up so that you can display dispellables, debuffs, incoming heals etc. I think our Shammy uses Vhudo, and from what he’s told me it’s pretty similar.
You mention the Paladin story Matt, but I recall a story you once told about your raidframes disappearing after a pull (I believe you dc’d, came back and had no frames) and you had to pull out blizz frames to continue the fight?
This is pretty much why I run with the bare minimum of addons. If I become dependant on them and they bug out or fail to update, I can still play the game. (bare minimum is Decursive, Recount, Omen, DBM)
So for me, Blizzard raidframes since day 1. No macros, no mouseover.
Yup. Freya Hard mode. Came back, toggled on my name plates and heads up healed like a boss. We still wiped.
Now I there’s a cost/benefit if I make that assumption. For me, the benefit of using the addons I use outweighs the odds and chances of my computer taking a crap especially since I purchased a new one. WoW has only disconnected once (maybe twice) since Cataclysm debuted.
I use grid and a set of mouseover macros I have written myself. They cast the heal on the mouseover target, or if I do not have a mouseover target, simply my target. The beauty of the macros is they work perfectly with the default UI without me having to change a thing! Good times ^_^
On a side note I was also put off the use of complicated raid frames by the ‘patchday no-raid’ that used to happen to my guild in BC because a few of the healers addons hadn’t yet been updated.
One thing I really wonder about is how many people continue to run Decursive simultaneously with a set of raid frames. I just don’t understand why when most frames (especially the most popular ones) easily support debuff display and cleanse/decurse casting, usually with the most minimal amount of configuration.
I have decursive along with vuhdo because I play on a laptop with a touchpad. Two buttons means not a lot of keybindings available, so decursive just makes the cleansing easier.
oUF,
I love it since years to pieces!
Before I always used Grid but I could also never enjoy HealBot as I want to choose my own spells!
I use Clique and FreebGrid, which is an oUF grid style unitframe addon. It displays all the HoTs in easily notable ways, especially the charged ones (PoM, LB, ES, etc) using clearly identifiable at a glance icons.
I <3 Clique, because it can easily handle offensive binds as well, which makes my atonement priest quite happy
I use PerfectRaid and Clique.
I can never remember which picture is which spell – especially for other classes. But PR tells me in little letters next to a member’s name LB(#sec left) telling me the Druid has Lifebloom up on the tank. PoM for Prayer of Mending.
The other reason I started using PR is because my old computer couldn’t handle all of the graphics from a 25man and a large amount of addons. So I had to limit myself to DBM, Omen, Clique and one more…PR had the smallest footprint that I could find.
I’m a huge fan of Shadowed Unit Frames.
I run tukui (tukui.org), and it has built in raid frames. I’m pretty sure the unit frames are just a modded version of another unit frames addon, maybe oUF… but I’m not sure 🙂
I use ElvUI (variant of TukUI) for my raid frames. I thought the raid frames were based off Grid, but I could be wrong. I used to use Grid, but I prefer mouseover macros to Clique or any of the other click-to-cast mods, which I used way back in BC before Healbot didn’t get updated for a few weeks after a patch and I had adjusted to not using it.
Grid/Clique, with a mouseover macros as backup and for all the little utility spells.
Tried Vuhdo, but the customisation interface is painful to navigate. Grid’s super easy to tune as you want, and the only thing I really needed for it (Raid Marks) can be picked up as an addon.
I use Grid and a Razer Naga with keybound mouseover macros.
I use PerfectRaid along with Clique, I have tried all the others and this by far is the simplist one of them all. Yet it still gives me the information I like to see. As for my druid HoTs, I just use HotCandy.
Virtus, could you share more Info om your setup? I ude vudoh on my chars but would love inspiration. Whats your setup?
Jakob
The first “real” raiding guild I joined in Vanilla required all raiders to use RDX. Yup, the paid version. I fell in absolute love. I used RDX.Cid for a long time until it broke and the follow-up by the developers ended up being vaporware. I tried OpenRDX, but got fed up with trying to config it (typical for me – most difficult or option heavy addons take about 3 times or so of me downloading them, trying to make them work, and then deleting them before I finally get the hang of it).
Since I had to switch off of RDX.Cid I’ve been using Grid & Clique ever since. I can customize it easily to show exactly what I want. Mid-Wrath I finally created a few mouseover macros because I felt like constantly clicking rejuv was going to give me carpal tunnel.
Hey 🙂 I use ouf_freebgrid with mouseover macros
Started out with Healbot because that’s what everyone in my first guild told me to use but I hated it. Tried Grid cause that’s what all the bloggers I respected used but I couldn’t get it to show my shaman’s Earthshield charges so I didn’t care for it either. When Vuhdo came out I made the jump to it and haven’t looked back since.
That doesn’t mean I let myself get dependent on it, Healbot broke far to many times to let me trust any addon. These days I have a Razer Naga and use mouseover macros with Vuhdo frames. In BGs I’ve been known to turn on nameplates and heal that way as well.
Hello,
I used Perfect raid + Clique. I agree with Kimster. It is easy to use, do what I want no more no less.
I use PerfectRaid and Clique. PerfectRaid is exactly what I want.
I used to use grid + clique. When grid broke for me later on, I replaced it with vuhdo. I might go back to grid if I get it working. I liked how grid could show the missing health in a brighter color than the health itself. I never managed to get that setup on vuhdo.
I wonder how many healers heal without an addon for the player, focus and target frame? I used to use pitbull, but it broke for me and I just ran without it.
Grid and Vuhdo shows me the health and mana pretty well. I use sound cues a lot, and so having a big manabar on my screen isn’t needed for me to manage mana efficiency.
The only reason why I’d consider reinstalling it would be to get configurable frames for my focus target and focus targets’ target.
I play a holy priest, and was mostly assigned to “float”. I fill in where needed.
healbot user since i started my first healer. any healing addon is only as good as the person using it. i have no idea how that pally got his healbot to tell him what to use but having it choose for him just shows how bad he was. not a healbot problem. tried grid/ clique and vuhdo but went back to healbot solely on the graphical layout. i still rock grid/ clique on my non healers and clique on my pvp toons (healer and non)
Using OpenRDX.
It allows me to mod pretty much everything in my interface, from the ground up, and i like it very much.
Started out with Healbot, mainly cos at the time most people used it, then our Druid in Naxx suggested I try Vuhdo as its quicker, and I have used it ever since.
Also have Clique setup ready to go ‘just in case’ Vuhdo borks at a bad time, so far it never has though 🙂
I use healbot but only because I like its buff tracking, this is the only reason it is still installed.
I actually heal using key bound mouse over macros as I like to be able to run using stock UI if required.
I used Grid+Clique for longest time since BC, I just currently switch to Vuhdo 3months before Cataclysm has released. Both in my opinion are the best raid frames out there right now, It has similar functionalities and great for any class roles.
I sympathise with your unlucky experience with a Healbot user, however I feel that this was just that – unlucky.
Healbot garnered a pretty bad reputation back in the day because it indeed behaved like a healing bot – instructing what to cast and when and, often, without changing button. I find this a reprehensible way of ‘playing’ and I’m glad the code was changed to make it impossible – no AddOn should ever carry a player.
I wasn’t playing WoW that far back, so when I started using Healbot to complement my Razer Naga it was as standard raid-frames with just the right amount of customisation that I needed and signalled debuffs, threat, HoTs etc in a way I found very accessible. (I tried Grid + Clique, Clique is brilliant but I couldn’t get along with Grid).
By keeping core spells that cross specs (Flash Heal, PoM, Renew etc) on the same binds and keeping the mod updated, I have never had a problem or caused a problem because of Healbot. But then I am able to play my class well enough with standard UI if I have to, as all good healers would.
~Reala