HoT-based Healer UI

constantius · 08/09/07, 4:03 AM

I'm trying to help our token resto druid become better at his job. Part of this is his UI - it's a grab-bag of random crap he's installed when people suggested it at the time.

If there's already a post about this, just junk bin this and direct me to it. I did a couple of searches, and didn't find anything that seemed to be directed enough to help me out.

I have to design a UI for scratch, for a tree druid.
I need the following for sure:

- unitframes / raidframes with clear support for debuffs and HoT tracking
- barmod tool (Bartender3+cyCircled+CooldownCount, probably)
- HoT timers
- Omen/Threat-1.0
- simpleMiniMap

My question is ... and it's directed basically only at druids, and tree-ones in particular ... what have you found works the best for tracking your HoTs, especially if you're assigned to Lifebloom/Rejuv-Swiftmend on a tank. Keep your 3-stack going, refresh rejuv when you have to, blow Swiftmend when the tank spikes, and watch the cooldowns on your trinkets for making Lifebloom sexier.

Your suggestions for tweaks and addons to make someone who has a crap UI do better would be much appreciated. I've never played a druid, so I really don't have much experience watching my Hots. I just renew once in a while and mostly PoM / GH.

Sletznikova · 08/09/07, 5:38 AM

I'm not a druid, but as a priest that is a fan of renew I have learned that hot timers that are not on the unitframe itself are quite useless.. The only thing I'm satisfied with as a hotter is Grid in combination with GridStatusHots and GridStatusHotStacks.

The setup I'm currently working with is having GridStatusHots and GridStatusHotsStacks both assigned to the CenterText2 field in Grid. This way you see the number of hots already on that target if you didn't hot that target yourself and you see the time left on your hot + number of total hots if you did hot someone.. If you assign different colors to both these statuses it is really easy to see who you hotted and how long your hot will still be running.

I have no experience on how to upscale this setup to 3 hots but I'm hoping this might give you some ideas....

MrMacca · 08/09/07, 7:26 AM

I am not a Tree Druid but a Priest, however i find the 2 following addons perfect for me to keep track of my HoTs.

First recommendation would be HoTCandy. It's a set of bars that will appear whenever someone is Hotted up. This can be useful if you Hot alot of targets. I use this alot when I cast Renew on people. A quick glance at the bar and I can see the names of people whose hot is about to Expire.

Quartz is the next addon I would recommend. Ultimately not a Hot/Dot Addon but more of a casting bar addon, it can however be configured to display the Hots on your current target and Focus target.

Again it can display timer bars with the name of the Hot/Dot along with the time until it has run out. If the healer is healing the main tank and the Maintank only, then this addon can really be intuitive and helpful regarding the upkeep of Hots/Dots.

Download Links:

Hotcandy - http://files.wowace.com/HotCandy/HotCandy-r43070.41.zip
Quartz - http://files.wowace.com/Quartz/Quartz-r45703.2.zip

Both addons are Ace2 so it means easier updating.

Maynard · 08/09/07, 10:41 AM

I use Chronometer, centered and below my character. Pure HoT timers might be better, but I like being able to also track Fairie Fire (to assist dps if there is no feral druid on the target), and it's nice to track roots/cyclone for pvp.

For tracking HoT timers on the MT, nothing works better than a visible focus frame and macros to target it. Maintaining lifebloom stacks on two tanks (nice for trash but not useful on too many encounters) can be done by binding target last target. I have this all bound to my mousewheel, up to set, down to target, middle to target last target.

Uldreth · 08/09/07, 10:55 AM

Grid, Clique and HoTman do the trick for me.

HoTman is a tiny Ace2 addon that tracks hot time. It works well, but one problem with it is sometimes timer bars just outright disappear. I am not sure if that is a glitch in the addon itself, or something I'm missing in the settings to tweak. Not a huge deal, as there's a small indication of HoT time on the buff slot of the target these days (or at least in my own Pitbull settings).

That's the quick and dirty way to get started. I'd probably be better served by actually getting GridHotStatus to function properly and configure Grid extensively to boot.

Akomos · 08/09/07, 11:46 AM

Tried HotMan, hated it. Buggy and weird. If it ever gets more stable I'll give it another go; I like the idea of it.

Grid + the hot extensions are money. Personally I have the center text set to my Lifebloom counter and center icon set to curse/poison, and it's brilliant. I also use Quartz (partially as a holdover from the mage) to display all my target's buff durations under my target frame, so I can keep an extra eye on the tank. Works really well for me.

Oh, and having mouseover macros for your heals is what makes Grid the best ever. I almost never retarget; I just hover my mouse over the Grid frame of whomever I want to heal and hit my heal key. It's genius.

If you're unfamiliar with mouseover macros, the ones I use look like this:

#showtooltip Lifebloom
/stopcasting
/cast [target=mouseover, exists, help] [help] [player] lifebloom

Mulva · 08/09/07, 5:06 PM

Personally I use a combination of PitBull with aura timers/countdown enabled for MT/Target frames, and Grid with GridLifebloomStatus to track lifebloom stacks/times. The text on grid gives time and stack data for lifebloom: red=1 stack, yellow=2 stacks, green=3 stacks. The other HoTs I have set up as different colored dots in corners.

Sorry for quality was taken from a fraps, and not a screenshot in game:

Spazmo · 08/09/07, 8:17 PM

I use Grid and GridStatusHots for indicators of who I have HoTs on. I need timer bars though as visual aids rather than numerical countdowns. Until someone invents timer bars that appear on the Grid unitframes (please oh please), I use DotTimer.

DotTimer obviously works for HoTs as well. It can show timer bars grouped by unit, kind of like this:

Tank1: #Lifebloom#####***
       #Rejuvenation###**

DPS2:  #Regrowth##*******

It also has an option for your current target's HoTs to appear at the top of the list. I find this very useful to see the timers for my current target easily.

Phoe · 08/10/07, 6:39 AM

Grid and the addons available for it are the best way for seeing at a glance which hots are where. Would reccomend it above any other sort of timers, which generally take up too much space in a raid situation.

Django · 08/10/07, 6:58 AM

I would also recommend Grid for watching which raid mebmber is hotted, even when setting it up for all your needs will take some time. There are several Plugins to customize it even mor for yourt needs. This thread will help

For checking the remaining HoT-Times on the current traget or focus target Quartz would be my way to go. Since WoW is able to report the remaining time on own buffs/debuffs this is more accurate than older HoT/DoT-Monitors that calculated the remaining time on their own.
Quartz has a buff/debuff portion for target and focus. It's a bunch of scalable, configurable and moveable bars for all all own buffs/debuffs on target/focus sorted by remaining time. Again it takes some time to set it up properly but I guess that's the price you have to pay for being able to customize addons to personal flavour.

Ente1369 · 08/10/07, 8:14 AM

I use sRaidFrames on my druid together with mouseover macros (or click casting). It's currently only showing druid hots in form of icons but could configure it to show other buffs/hots as well e.g. renew. It also shows the stack number e.g. LB is stacked 3 times at the time.

The number you see next to the hot icons is generated by another addon- Incoming Heals and depicts ticking hots in this case.

---
/edit
I think I 'fixed' Incoming Heals so it shows Lifeblooms now. If any user is interested:
Locate and open IncomingHealsLib-1.0.lua
In line 35 (or thereabouts), correct the tooltip wording for hot_direct = Lifebloom spells:
Old:

["tooltip_regexp_hot_direct"] = "for (%d+) over (%d+) sec.+healed for (%d)",

New:

["tooltip_regexp_hot_direct"] = "for (%d+) over (%d+) sec.+heals themself for (%d)",

---

So between those two addons I see a) who has which/how many druid hots and b) how much are they ticking for.

Nature Enemy cast bar to the left then shows how long the spells will last (cast on a target or focus so admittedly it's of limited use for a mouse-over healer).

Ailetha · 08/10/07, 11:44 AM

I use Grid in combination with all its addons from WoWAce; Omen, and Clique, among others that aren't HoT related.

I have Grid set up so on each individual box target:

the top left corner shows a pink box if I have lifebloom on the target;
the top right shows a red box if someone has aggro;
the bottom right has a white box if someone has regrowth
the bottom middle shows a green box for incoming heals
the bottom left shows if someone has rejuv;
the middle left shows if someone is missing MOTW/GOTW.

Since I am the only resto druid, I don't have to worry about whether there are other HoTs on the target; I'd just adjust grid to show both my HoTs and other druid HoTs if this were the case.

I also have Clique set up for these buttons which make things sooo much easier. I don't have to actually target anyone; I rarely use any other spells, so I can just mouse-click away to my heart's content on Grid, healing the whole raid when I need/want to WITHOUT changing my target:

Ctrl + Left Mouse Button Regrowth
Ctrl + Right Mouse Button Tranquility
Alt + Left Mouse Button Rejuv
Alt + Right Mouse Button Swiftmend
Shift + Left Mouse Button Lifebloom
Shift + Right Mouse Button Barkskin

Hope this helps. The biggest helper for me was setting up Clique this way; it has done wonders for my healing output; which was pretty good to begin with (I was top 3 efficient usually, last night I spent nearly the whole time at #1)

I use NaturEnemyCastbar but not usually too much in a raid; I get alot more use out of it in 5 mans and during PVP/Arena.

Melador · 08/10/07, 2:53 PM

Mine's pretty simple, and pretty effective, it's just Grid + Chronometer.

Grid: top-right is LB, middle-right is Rejuv, lower-right is Regrowth. Lets me know when I have something I can swiftmend off. and at a glace tells me whether something has fallen off.

Chronometer: Right above grid, pretty center to my screen. I don't have it remove hots when they're removed from targets (ie. swiftmend) because that causes problems when you've got multiple druids -- other lifeblooms expiring will remove your lifebloom timer. Very easy to see whose HoT needs to be updated next if I'm cycling LB or who's going to need a refresh of Rejuv or Regrowth soon.

Axl · 08/12/07, 12:56 AM

I prefer using Pitbull and HotCandy. I filter the target's buffs to only those castable by a druid. Pitbull keeps a little number down there how many times something is stacked so as long as you can mentally filter through the different druid buffs that are on various people you can generally keep track of who's HoT'ed and who's not. Depending on how big you make the buffs they also have a visual indicator of how much time remains on them (the buff looks like a refreshing item in your inventory depending on how much time is left).

And the biggest reason I like pitbull is it lets you know who in the raid is being targeted by a mob by turning their health bar red. The moment I see someone squishy go red, they get my attention. The warning someone is about to get wailed on really helps because a druid more than any other healing class is about anticipating damage. You have to get your HoTs on the target earily, because they don't work right away. Even then our quickest direct heal is still rejuv then instantly swiftmend it off.

I mostly use this feature not for timing when to refresh lifebloom, but instead to see who's 'ready' for a swiftmend and who's not.

I use HoTCandy for focus targets and my current target to get an exact easier to read timer on lifebloom and rejuv.

Mostly though, to be honest, using Lifebloom and rejuv really is more about having a 'feeling' for it. This advice is non UI based. Generally you know you can keep up 4 lifeblooms if you ONLY are chain casting instants. Generally you can keep lifebloom up on two targets and throw in a regrowth or keep both of those targets rejuved. It never hurts to re-apply lifebloom early either in case your attention gets pulled elsewhere.

Arkangelll · 08/12/07, 4:27 AM

Originally Posted by Akomos

Grid + the hot extensions are money. Personally I have the center text set to my Lifebloom counter and center icon set to curse/poison, and it's brilliant. I also use Quartz (partially as a holdover from the mage) to display all my target's buff durations under my target frame, so I can keep an extra eye on the tank. Works really well for me.

What he said... =)