A very gifted guildie of mine (Meloeth, EU-The Maelstrom) wrote an addon that uses combat log events and information to calculate health amounts as they occur rather than waiting for the UNIT_HEALTH tag from the server. It's been extensively tested in our guild the last few months and he's finally released it:

Instant Health | World of Warcraft Addons | World of Warcraft @ Curse.com

Healing using this and grid/pitbull was error-free and the difference immediately noticable. Health bars are extremely reactive to all incoming/outgoing changes. You will also notice that your and other's health bars dip into the negative before the server catches up and actually 'kills' you. It is possible, though rare, to save someone who dips into the negative if they are healed before the server catches up, or also to avoid a hit that would otherwise kill you by vanishing/blocking/bubbling.

The single detriment is that Recount and other damage meters will not show accurate healing meters using this addon. As the health update is instant, the meter waits for the unit_health message and then tends to view most healing as overhealing.**

**edit: Meloeth has updated his code and now all damage meter and combat text addons should play nicely. Make sure you download the newest version on the Curse Page!!!

In any case it is a large improvement and I recommend it to everyone. It is also something I haven't seen before which is why I thought it deserved it's own thread.

Meloeth has explained the mechanics further on his Curse page, Enjoy!

Initial impressions are good. However, after 10 minutes of testing in a battleground, it seems like it cant handle the Spirit Res thing - it reports people at 1 health until they take damage after a res. Also, with Spirit of Redemption, sometimes it reports it as full health, sometimes as 1 health. Otherwise looks good though!

Seems like a very nice addon from just testing it by myself but I'll reserve final judgment until Felmyst tonight. There are lots of times where I know an aoe has gone off and I don't see it on grid for a good 1-2 seconds which seems to be mended with this addon. Thanks.

Interesting addon, I didn't think UNIT_HEALTH was so badly affected by latency.

Should be fixable with a few events.

Although, I'm not sure how you plan to add health from buffs, are you scanning health at some point?

I think you can see the effect of it when you view death reports from Expiration sometimes on Brutallus, you'll see a MH OH hit when the tank is say 75%, see 8 heals land, and then suddenly it says he died with no other damage taken. The health update was after the damage had already killed him and also after the heals claimed to have landed.

I'm curious how this works too. How does it handle effects such as Nightmare Seed and Last Stand?

Also I'm not entirely sure I understand why healing meters are thrown off by this. I've installed the mod and will look at it tonight in Sunwell.

Pretty sure this is correct as I think /combatlog output cannot be influenced in any way trough addons.

The addon shouldn't affect the combat log or WWS at all.

As far as the added health effects, I think that the addon checks against current health values on the health update hook, insuring that the players/member's max health value is constant, and then calculates the change in that value using combat log data <----- This could be totally wrong as I'm just a lowly user and don't pretend to truly understand how this works

I have invited Meloeth to register here and take part in the discussion. I'm sure he can answer your questions better than I.

Hey

I am interested in testing this addon. Got some question anyway :

Recount is taking in consideration PoM, Renew. That is the reason why I use recount as other addons don't. Is PoM and renew also taken in consideration in this addon?
Also, what about healing buffs?
Recount has a graphical environment that explains very clearly who is casting what and by how much. As well for dps as for healing. As wel in numbers as in bars. Is it same in your addon pls?

Many thanks

Zypora

Are you sure you read what this addon does Zypora? I recommend you read the first post/curse page again. And again.

ps: there is nothing special about Renew, it has always worked the way it should on every meter

Yup Vorda,

you are right, misunderstood. I have been a bit to fast.
/offtopic

If the combatlog cant catch them, this addon wont either, and tbh it really doesn't matter from a healers pov as if they're oor, you can't heal them.

Healer A enters portal 3 seconds before DPS B. As Healer A's Spectral Realm debuff falls off, demon begins casting shadow bolt volley. DPS B is hit by volley before exiting. Healer A is responsible for healing DPS B, but didn't catch that damage in the combat log, therefore, health bar hasn't updated.

Does it still update on a HEALTH_UPDATE event or what?

You have to rely on the regular health update in this case, it seems. Wich isn't that way off to make it impossible to heal, at least it worked forever until this addon came out.

Actually saved a tank with NS last night. Health was negative and I popped it, he didn't die. So far really liking this add-on, it makes everything feel much more responsive.

I'm pretty sure when you are out of combat log range it just does it the old fashioned way.

edit: beaten

It's happening to me too with MSBT, everything shows as overheal. It's definitely worth being able to see damage instantly rather than 1-2 seconds later though.

Agreed.

I just installed this addon and some times it seems that it just doesn't update the health bar at all. Other than that it's a pretty sweet addon. Anyone know what might be causing it? I'm using Pitbull, SCT and Recount if it matters.

Will be testing this on tonights raid. Hopefully any conflicting issues with this and MSBT will be sorted soon, as I use the scrolling battle text to show how much my heals land for on the target. Doesn't matter as much with recount really, as that isn't used in combat. I can imagine not being able to trust msbt might be quite annoying though...

Anyways, by the looks of it this is some awesome work and seems to have a lot of potential to it. And almost better, it's still version 1.0, so there's probably still lots of room for improvement :-)

I've never liked the way those addons determine overhealing anyway. If I remember correctly, they rely on the fact that UnitHealth() updates slowly and they do something like:

1) Receive an event that says I healed a unit
2) Check how much the heal was for
3) Subtract UnitMaxHealth() - UnitHealth(), use that as the health deficit
4) Compare #2 and #3.

Seems kind of unreliable since it basically relies on slow updates to UnitHealth, since the UnitHealth call is made after the heal event is received. By the way I just checked Violation and SCT, they both do it this way. Not sure about other addons since those are the only two I have that calculate overhealing.

As a resto shaman, I'm usually taking care of topping off raid damage during fights, and I try to be as proactive as possible. Unfortunately, raid damage usually requires a more reactive touch, on average. For example, the trash sentinel's (in Sunwell) chain lightning... when someone in raid gets hit by this, I immediately find the person with the greatest health deficit in raid (usually a lock or SP (lifetap and SW)) and bounce a chain heal off of them to top off the raid. Based upon all indicators after installing this addon, my overheal was > 80%. This led me to believe, intuitively, that my healing was mostly ineffective, even though the combatlog (WWS) proved differently. I'm going to have to ignore recount and SCT unless they make the same changes as this addon does, and heal 'blind', as it were.

On the other hand, I don't really care what the numbers say. The success of a raid is more important to me than topping meters, and if I can accept that the healing I'm doing is actually effective, regardless of reported heals, then I should be fine. Instantaneous reporting of a person's health is by far the more important.

Mod is highly recommended, and good job to the author.