Private tanks, I did not know how to use this!!! I got rid of both main tank and priv tank windows!!

I love reading here cause you always pick up some little nice gem to take back with ya!

Private tanks could also be good for fights like in naxx on instructor raz you could make the mc'ing priests in the private tank window to keep hots on them easier, things like that.

I really dig VuhDo for a lot of things, thanks for the suggestion!

Two quibbles, though: One, the display seems kind of laggy. Anyone else experience this, or am I imagining things? Two, the frames don't want to interact with my normal mouseover macros; it seems like the empty entry under "spell" in the VuhDo config is taking precedence over my actual keybinds. Anyone have any ideas about this? It's not a dealbreaker; I can just set my spells up from within VuhDo. It's just kind of annoying when I accidentally drag my mouse through my raid frames while wrath spamming on my alt spec and pop out of lazorchikken form.

Yeah that private tanks suggestion is golden. I just have that column and can put anyone in it-me, tanks anything-it is great. Pretty much my entire guild is using it now and we all love it. There has been a few times when it lagged a bit and the health bars seemed to jum alot, but I can live with that so far.

I cant figure out the private tank so far having a big brain fart I must be missing something painfully obvious.

I cant figure out how to set it so I can put people into the private tank box?

I know I am missing it!

As far as lag, once in a while I will go to move a box and it will lag on me, but thats about all I have encountered in that regard.

VuhDo isnt perfect but im glad more people are using it, for me it has been amazing =)

Have a VuhDo keybind (or button-bind) to "menu". I believe VuhDo comes with the middle-mouse button bound to "menu."

Put the mouse over a player's VuhDo cell and hit your menu keybind.

A menu will appear where you can specifiy that player's roles, including Private Tank. I believe you then use a left-click within that menu to check/clear a role. Once you assign a role, that player will appear in the appropriate box(es).

Roles in VuhDo include private tank, main tank (only if you are RL or Assist), healer, melee, and ranged dps. You can have VuhDo organize your raid by roles (one column for tanks, one for healers, one for melee and one for ranged).

VuhDo will auto-detect healer/melee/ranged, but sometimes you might want to override those settings.

Take a look at the Vuhdo Setup Walkthrough.

Note: Private tanks were bugged in one recent version, but were fixed late last week (or last weekend).

Grid setup:

Top Left - Rejuv
Top Right - Regro
Bottem Left - Inc Heals
Bottom Right - LB
Border - Aggro
Center Text - WG
Center Icon - Debuffs.


Think I covered most debuffs:
Feral Pounce
Flash Freeze
Frost Blast
Gravity Bomb
Iron Roots
Light Bomb
Mark of the Faceless
Napalm Shell
Nature's Fury
Phase Punch
Rip Flesh
Sara's Blessing
Saronite Vapors
Slag Pot
Squeeze
Static Disruption
Stone Grip
Unbalancing strike

I agree some of the timers are useless however knowing who cast hero first (some ppl are a bit trigger happy on hero in our guild) and what br's are up is normally pretty important info for the RLs.

I've been thinking about using corner text to display HoT timers but I kinda have a feeling it's going to be information overload for me. I guess I can try it out in 10mans and see how it works out.

I have recently setup timers instead of just bars/boxes in VuhDo and have been so much more happy with it. Just because I always know exactly which hot is ending and how soon so it allows me to better time things.

It also lets me see things differently as example if a random raid member is taking some damage, but I know it will be just a short burst via aoe or an ability, and I look at the box and regrowth has 12 seconds left and rejuv has 9 seconds left I know they will likely be fine to make it through it and I can then focus my attention elsewhere. (if that makes sense)

I do like the swiftmend & wild growth countdown buttons on left side, what is that being used for that?

I have read this thread extensively, a few different times, and have noticed there are many more posts about the details of Grid+Clique, and less about Healbot. It seems to me that the majority of posters have tried Healbot at one time in the past, and are more current Grid users, and therefore might be less familiar with the new Healbot, which has improved drastically.

Now, first off, I am not a long time WoW player. My husband started me playing just over a year ago, so my raiding experience is probably significantly less than most posters here. However, I have put the time and research into becoming the best resto druid I can be, and am continually working to improve and change for the better as a player. I feel that this is what this site is exactly for that, to discuss experiences and research, collaborate, so each person can make an informed decision, through their own trial and error as well, to find what works best for them. That being said, I currently am in one of the top guilds on my server and am having a great time successfully healing both 10 and 25 man hard modes in Ulduar, which is the current content.

My first add-on was Healbot; prior to that I was raiding by pulling out raid frames from the original UI. I recently decided to try out grid because it’s “the” add-on so many top raid guilds talk about when it comes to healing. I’ve done the research, put together all the grid components, tried the set-ups posted here as well as the set-up Phaelia posted on resto4life, spent a full day tweaking and testing grid to see if I could find a way to set it up to my preference, and experience the satisfaction so many healers have with the add-on. I struggled with getting the range settings right; somehow it kept showing some people correctly out of range, and others in range that really weren’t; not to mention the out of range player background was pea-green. Little issues like that, with a little more time and research, I’m sure would have been easily fixed. The configuration certainly took more work than what I was used to, but once I got the hang of it, it offered a lot of options for personalization. I did find it much harder to see, however, health deficit (those numbers didn’t help me terribly; I prefer to see the percentage of HP like a bar graph on their toon, and that was difficult to see for me becuase of the class colors, but again, could probably be customized to be seen better).

After spending a few days working on this, I feel that Healbot is much more comparable to grid than it used to be. And I have to add, this is the “now” Healbot we are discussing, not the old versions, because most current Grid users aren’t familiar with some of the new capabilities of Healbot. Healbot is lacking in the full-on customization that grid offers, but most of that is based on appearances and comfort. When it comes to the basic features – of what the add-ons are meant to offer for resto druids – both add-ons are equally successful. Where grid offers color coding and placements for HoT’s in the boxes as squares or text, HB offers the actual HoT icons from the WoW spellbook on the bars/boxes (with options to size both icon and countdown text), with optional countdown and stacking numbers on the icon, just as Grid does. A healer can monitor poisons and curses just as easily as HoT’s on both; again, the differences are only in appearance; Healbot shows the actual icon of the type of poison or curse, much like Grid, and personally, I have it set to change the bar color on HB as well for faster visual. HB also has the option to show what personal buffs players are missing, with option to show out of combat only or in as well, which I find much simpler and easier to read than creating frame, icon, or corner-based buff checks. Also, for the Hot countdown HB, the numbers turn red at 3 seconds left, so even if you cannot see the number, you can tell its about to run out by the color. One of the biggest things that I love, using the green settings, HP of raiders changes color based on health lost - someone low will be bright red, IE heal them fast. You can also set your HB frames to show pets, vehicles (even only showing that, if youd like), your targets, focuses, etc, unlike in the past, and can use your normal healing as usual on any vehicles etc. that accept heals. Many of these features have been discussed already, so I won’t go on about these mostly known features of Healbot that are almost identical to Grid.

~~~~What I really want to address here is the Raid boss debuff feature of Grid. Not too many posts ago, a few people agreed this is what Healbot is lacking. However, the new Healbot ***does*** have this feature. Around the time Ulduar was introduced, Healbot started to show raid boss debuffs on individual players with both the icon of debuff (for example, on Kel, there is a blue ice block icon next to your hots) as well as turning the player’s bar/box a vivid deep purple which is very easy to tell apart from my curse color (colors are customizable). I didn’t have to set up these debuffs individually, most appear automatically, and are built into HB; however, you can add any custom debuffs you would like. For example, say on Freya+3 (iron roots icon by my hots, one I added custom – it basically shows the identical debuff icon that’s put on the player in game, which goes as well for poison and curses on both mobs and bosses) or on Kolo’s stone grip, I’ve found it much easier to see the debuffs than with Grid. I know the fights well enough to know that when the bar color changes, which is always the same color indicating a raid boss-specific debuff, and ability-specific icon pops up, I know exactly what the ability is and what I plan to do as a healer about it. I don’t use class colors as my bar (just class colors as their names for less color clutter on my screen), I use the green settings so I can see health lost, inc. heals, and percentages better, so the debuff pops up on Healbot about the same time as DBM calls it out; the color bar change contrasts so drastically to my green HP bars, I can move my raid heals immediately to those with the debuff. Iron roots and stone grips (and nearly all the other major boss debuffs are already included, pre-configured, excepting those like armor crunch stacks, but things like that can be added) show up on all the players it affects, and wears off on HB, well, when it wears off on the players. I’ve found this incredibly helpful, and the debuff icons on Grid, no matter how big I put them on the Grid raid frames, for me, can’t compare, especially in 25 man raids.

Healbot is still lacking in a couple areas; for example, you cannot see other peoples HoTs put up, which some hard core raiders may or may not consider invaluable to healing decisions, but you can still see all incoming heals, including estimated overall HoT and burst healing - I’m not certain about this - I believe regardless of the addons other healers use; I heal 10 man’s with a priest that uses raid frames, and I can see who his incoming prayers will be hitting. HB does not have a priority system, which HB designers might want to look into to. You can’t set a specific icon, as far as I know, that says that person is swiftmend-ready like on Phaelia’s grid set-up; you have to watch your hot icons and say, hey, they have a rejuv or regrowth, and do your thing. To separate tanks out, you have to ask the raid leads/assist to set your tanks as “main tank” status in the social raid UI, which many raiders/leads may find irksome. You can't set the frame to show anything but aggro. HB is more icon and heal-bar color based to show changes to HoT's and the players, while Grid is more color-coded corner/text based. But most of these are visual and comfort preferences, not a major flaw or lack in the add-on itself. You can still use mouseover macros on HB, set non-healing spells to the add-on bindings (I love having rebirth on mine, and just as many key combo’s as Grid+Clique), and so much more that Grid can also do. Healbot has come a long way, and with a little more work, will likely be an even stronger competitor for Grid.

Basically, if you prefer a raid frames combined with heals tracker/addon, or a very large amount of personalization, Grid is for you; it offers the customization of both in one add-on. If you prefer less complex configuration with the same effects, but users may prefer something like x-perl to supplement the less detailed raid frames, or perhaps even prefer the compartmentalization of separate raid frames from your healing bars, go with Healbot. Healbot is focused exactly on healing, healing spells, buffs, debuffs, etc, while Grid is your sort of all-in-one package, assembly required. Basically it comes down to what your preferences and priorities are in an add-on for healing. Both add-ons will continue to adapt to the game, but as far as the great debate of Grid vs. Healbot, they are on a far more even playing field than ever. As a player, remember to adapt as well; if you’ve used Healbot for ages, test out Grid, and vice versa, as newer versions of each come out, to see what best fits you. Only by that sort of testing can you really decide which one will optimize your playing skills and capabilities.

(As a side note, I’m currently sticking with Healbot; I prefer the fluid bars, the fast configuration, the look, the feel, I really love how it uses the in-game icons for easier identification – easier for me anyways - and the space it takes up in my UI is the same amount as Grid. With it, I use X-perl, DBM, Dominos, and Cooldown - to get the WG, Swiftmend, Innvervate, Rebirth, and NS CD's to be as big icons with countdown timers like in the interface a couple posts back, just do it with dominos on a seperate bar and move it near your healing bar add-on, setting the columns and size to your preferences. For healing, I use a combination of mouseover macros and HB bindings.)

Restrodru18 that was a nice post, nicely worded.

I would highly recommend trying VuhDo as I was not far off what you described I did not like the look and feel of grid overall but VuhDo is like a mix of grid & healbot (and I was using recent versions of healbot as well)

Anyway though good thoughts there!

After reading my earlier post, my class lead wanted me to post what Healbot UI looks like - she uses Grid, and was curious to see - she also thinks many other Grid users might want a look.

I'm using X-perl, Dominos (which is glitched in a couple of photos, but w/e), Healbot, Countdown, Recount, DBM.
Keep in mind for the Razor picks we were goofing around getting the achiev for the meta for those that didn't have - these shots were not very serious attempts.

http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...809_184516.jpg
AB - Out of combat details. White bars are ppl missing MoW - can set other buffs with other colors also, mouseover tooltip for out-of-combat only is how I have it set, showing class, your buffs on them and duration left, level, other misc. info.

http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...809_223951.jpg
Razor - This one shows HoT line up and countdowns in a raid setting, nothing special.

http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...809_183940.jpg
EotS - Red bars around my box, showing I have aggro; poisons on nearby BG'ers, their boxes are dark green (color settings are all customizable), the the poison icons with the poison countdown next to my HoT icons. The abolish poison shows too when it's up, with a countdown also (not in the pic tho, I don't have one up). Also a good example of how you can see ranges on HB.

http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...809_192115.jpg
Strand of the Ancients - Notice the HoT countdowns, how they line up, and how they turn red at 3 seconds or less. Also, people with lower HP bars turn colors for better notification - green>yellow>orange>red.

http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...809_224240.jpg
Razor - This one is solely to show how lifebloom stacks looks - The way my icon and icon text sizes are set up, the stack number covers the countdown number a bit, but that still turns red at about 3 seconds left so I can see its about to go off. You can also see the red aggro bars around Askem, which the size can be changed.

Also, some people may not like how large my boxes are - those can be made much smaller, and the icons/counts scale with that, and also can be set individually. You can also set different skins, and switch, say from a 10-man skin with apporpriate sizing to a 25-man skin with appropriate sizing in a couple clicks. As for VuhDo, I'll definitely check it out; see what the UI and settings are like, etc. Hope these screenshots are helpful to some ppl. When I get a shot of a raid boss debuff, I'll add it to this post.

Tried spartan, didn't like it, took up way too much space - But I picked up IceHud, VuhDo, and Chincilla minimap, also cleaned up my x-perl, love the way my new UI looks, and my hubby got some of those too, he liked them so much.

As far as healing frames go, I really think VuhDo is the perfect hybrid between HB and Grid - can set it up to look like Grid but cleaner, and with the easy config of HB - Win/Win!

Glad you like VuhDo, based on your post it seemed like it would be a good fit for you as it was for me. I like Spartan so far, I do wish I could trim down some of the excess artwork on the panel but it is ok. I am doing a lot more pvp now and I like the better field of vision from most of the screen being wide open.

If I did just raiding and pve then I might stick with what I had but Spartan feels like I have more viewing area.

One thing you can do for users switching from Grid or Healbot, is just adjust the size of the VuhDo frames. One strength of Grid imo is the ability to make the boxes small to take up less room. I never tried this with healbot but I do not think it would even look that great, whereas VuhDo scales nicely.

Started to mess with ForteXorcist for a nice compact cooldown tracker. Hard to describe it's workings in a screenshot so I posted a short youtube hd video that should give you a good feel for it. Best to watch hd and full screen to see what's going on -- no narration but I think you'll understand it. Really liking this.

YouTube - Fortexorcist Demo

I'm using Grid along with GridStatusLifebloom and GridStatusHoTs and I'm having a problem where if I set the left upper corner text to show lifebloom duration, it also shows the total HOT on the target as well. Picture is of the problem; the green "2" is the HOT count, which I'd like to remove, "7.6" is lifebloom duration.

Go to grid>Status>Myhots then uncheck show hot counter for everything. That should work for you.
I like to have my LB counter on the centertext2 where there is more space right underneath the name.

Here's my UI. I used to use grid as my raid frames but found its way of displaying the information wasn't very clear. I now use Pitbull 4. They introduced a few new features which have made it awesome for Resto Druids.

You can set up custom aura bars to count down how long your HoTs/Buffs have left on the target. You can see the Green bar for Lifebloom on the tank in the screenshot and the purple bars for Rejuv.

On Pitbull 3 you couldn't filter out your own HoTs/buffs, I was fortunate being the only active resto druid at the time so it didnt matter for me but if i ever pugged with another resto druid it became impossible to differentiate between mine and their heals. Pitbull 4 has now fixed this. I genuinely can't think of anything bad about it so I urge you to all to try it out!

That's got to be hell to look at in 25 man raids. Seems like it would be a but cluttered and clunky looking. A big part of Grid for me is how the frames take a backseat, and all the information is easily noticeable, well organized and compact.

This is how it looks on 25 man, I think its a nice size, but i guess each to their own. The good thing about pitbull is the amount you can customize it, If you wanted it as compact as grid that is totally possible.

This is my new UI for Resto. I redesigned it for 3.2 using Loui's LUI from WowInterface which I edited for 1980x1020 and reconstructed so that I could have Grid in the middle because I personally can't focus having it on the right side of the screen.

I have looked at Healbot and VuhDo, but after becoming so comfortable with Grid and with the extensive customization it offers, I just can't make myself switch to anything else.

The 1st shot is a solo/idle shot that shows the way everything collapses when not in a group/raid. The 2nd shot is 10-man Yogg to show the placement of oRA2 and RCD. The 3rd shot is 25-man Sarth to show full Grid set-up along with focus/player/target cast bars.

What tooltip addon is that?

Looks like Tip Tac