Resto UI Discussion - Page 2

starcore · 12/31/08, 9:05 PM

Apologies if i am backtracking here a bit. I was reading through the first few pages with regard to tracking Hots with Grid.

I have found an amazingly effective method for tracking HoT timers is to use a combination of 'Grid Status Lifebloom' (and/or 'Grid Status Hots') and 'Grid Mana Bars'.

What i have done is, rather than using the mana bars to watch raid mana, set it to track Lifebloom duration.
The bar can be set to change color based on how many stacks of lifebloom are up on the target and will slowly move down with the duration left. This makes it very easy to track at a glance who in the raid has a lifebloom, how many stacks and when it will need refreshing.

I also make use of the 'Text 2' field to track Rejuvenation or Regrowth, counting down in seconds the time left. The color differentiates Rejuvenation and Regrowth, with my personal preference being Rejuvenation set to a higher priority for display.

Also note: The Grid Mana Bars do not seem to be able to track duration from 'Grid Status Hots' only the duration given from 'Grid Status Lifebloom'

Whïspur · 01/01/09, 2:30 AM

Originally Posted by starcore

Apologies if i am backtracking here a bit. I was reading through the first few pages with regard to tracking Hots with Grid.

I have found an amazingly effective method for tracking HoT timers is to use a combination of 'Grid Status Lifebloom' (and/or 'Grid Status Hots') and 'Grid Mana Bars'.

What i have done is, rather than using the mana bars to watch raid mana, set it to track Lifebloom duration.
The bar can be set to change color based on how many stacks of lifebloom are up on the target and will slowly move down with the duration left. This makes it very easy to track at a glance who in the raid has a lifebloom, how many stacks and when it will need refreshing.

I also make use of the 'Text 2' field to track Rejuvenation or Regrowth, counting down in seconds the time left. The color differentiates Rejuvenation and Regrowth, with my personal preference being Rejuvenation set to a higher priority for display.

Also note: The Grid Mana Bars do not seem to be able to track duration from 'Grid Status Hots' only the duration given from 'Grid Status Lifebloom'

Interesting mana bar idea. What I do is have top left corner text show me my regrowth duration left, and the top right corner text show my rejuvenation duration left. Text 2 shows my lifebloom duration left. Text 3 shows my wild growth duration left. Bottom left corner text shows a total hot counter so I can know if someone already has a hot and how many.

I also set middle left icon as all regrowth and middle right icon as all rejuv, so that I can readily know if I can swiftmend a target.

I like keeping the mana bar addon so that I can easily know who to innervate (usually a COH priest on Malygos).

Mondas · 01/02/09, 2:45 PM

Originally Posted by Rensaelys

As far as HoT timers go, one of my favorite add-on timers is DoTimer. I admit the Wild Growth bit where it spams the add-on and therefore doesn't display the tank until WG wears off.. At the same time, it's incredibly effective otherwise and I have no trouble maintaining HoTs properly on my tank even with Wild Growth concealing the remaining time.

You can configure DoTimer to always have your focus at the top and I always have the MT as my focus.

I'm not sure if you can make it ignore Wild Growth as that would be very useful. When rolling LB's on multiple players it's hard to keep track if you drop a WG into your rotation.

Moknim · 01/04/09, 2:24 PM

Originally Posted by Mondas

You can configure DoTimer to always have your focus at the top and I always have the MT as my focus.

I'm not sure if you can make it ignore Wild Growth as that would be very useful. When rolling LB's on multiple players it's hard to keep track if you drop a WG into your rotation.

Shift+Right Click on WG will take it off of the DoTTimer display.

I used to be a devotee of DoTTimers, but before I figured out you could take WG off of it I switched to Grid-only and find it much more user friendly because all the information is in one spot and you can Grid+Clique to do all your healing, and have all the info, in one spot.

woodsyresto · 01/06/09, 9:57 AM

tks for the input, I wasn't using shadowmeld at all so I'm going to play with that.

A question I'm almost afraid to ask - what's wrong with HealBot? It gives me one click casts for all my heals, shows all my running HoTs, show me range to targets, shows aggro and has debuff alerts. I don't use any of the auto cast stuff but it seems to do eveything else I need. Why does it always get slagged as no good for resto druids?

I am ducking right now to avoid the incoming shit storm I expect is heading me way...... but if ya don't ask ya don't learn.

Rijndael · 01/06/09, 10:51 AM

Originally Posted by woodsyresto

tks for the input, I wasn't using shadowmeld at all so I'm going to play with that.

A question I'm almost afraid to ask - what's wrong with HealBot? It gives me one click casts for all my heals, shows all my running HoTs, show me range to targets, shows aggro and has debuff alerts. I don't use any of the auto cast stuff but it seems to do eveything else I need. Why does it always get slagged as no good for resto druids?

I am ducking right now to avoid the incoming shit storm I expect is heading me way...... but if ya don't ask ya don't learn.

Perhaps addon discussion should be its own thread. That said, I use healbot, and I prefer it to grid/clique. I found it much easier to keep multiple hots rolling efficiently using healbot's display than grid's display. The problem with grid is that out of the box it only displays 1 countdown number, while good druid play needs to keep track of multiple simultaneous countdowns on multiple targets. It IS possible to configure grid to show multiple countdowns, but at that point you start to either suffer from information overload due to all these numbers being clumped together, or grid starts to look like healbot in terms of the amount of space it takes up.

Healbot is usable out of the box and much easier to configure. Healbot's big problem is that it takes a relatively large amount of screen space. For me that isn't a problem since the healthbar display is transparent, and I honestly prefer a more detailed UI for hots/health bars than having a lot of open screen space. I realize this is a highly personal thing with healers, so YMMV.

Onawatta · 01/07/09, 5:36 PM

I noticed a few people posted about GridStatusHots showing countdowns in colors. In the old Raiding as a Tree thread someone posted how to change the dots into numerical values by changing each spells line in GridStatusHots.lua from:

tostring(math.floor(rgtime)..."-"..tostring(hcnttxt))

to

tostring(math.floor(rgtime))

I had tried this back in BC and it worked. I just came back to WoW and tried setting this up again, but it doesn't change the dots to numbers anymore. Anyone know if there is something else i have to do since the mod has changed to track a lot more hots than it used to?

Any info will be greatly appreciated!

• Poly · 01/08/09, 3:09 PM

Originally Posted by Onawatta

I noticed a few people posted about GridStatusHots showing countdowns in colors. In the old Raiding as a Tree thread someone posted how to change the dots into numerical values by changing each spells line in GridStatusHots.lua from:

tostring(math.floor(rgtime)..."-"..tostring(hcnttxt))

to

tostring(math.floor(rgtime))

I had tried this back in BC and it worked. I just came back to WoW and tried setting this up again, but it doesn't change the dots to numbers anymore. Anyone know if there is something else i have to do since the mod has changed to track a lot more hots than it used to?

Any info will be greatly appreciated!

The purpose of this change was not to make it show numbers, it was to get rid of the hot count number the mod displayed by default (this cluttered the display).

To see a number counting down you need to use the corner text plugin. I made this change to my local version since I display the time left on my Rejuv in the bottom left corner and time left on Regrowth in bottom right. I use center text 3? (whichever is lowest) to display the Lifebloom plugin (this one shows time remaining in tenths of a second and colors it according to the stack size). I also have colored dots to show the presence of any Rejuv or Regrowth since I can still swiftmend other druids hots (though I am currently our only consistently raiding tree)

With this setup I can look at anyone in the raid and see the status of my hots on them at a glance.

Bigtoy · 01/11/09, 12:22 PM

Originally Posted by Onawatta

I noticed a few people posted about GridStatusHots showing countdowns in colors. In the old Raiding as a Tree thread someone posted how to change the dots into numerical values by changing each spells line in GridStatusHots.lua from:

tostring(math.floor(rgtime)..."-"..tostring(hcnttxt))

to

tostring(math.floor(rgtime))

I had tried this back in BC and it worked. I just came back to WoW and tried setting this up again, but it doesn't change the dots to numbers anymore. Anyone know if there is something else i have to do since the mod has changed to track a lot more hots than it used to?

Any info will be greatly appreciated!

Hi
I too noticed this. The key missing addon isn't GridStatusHots, it's GridIndicatorCornerText, which just got updated on Curse Jan 10th. I just reinstalled it and it works great. I put together a quick how-to for my guildies that I'll repost here in case anyone else needs it.
---

While Grid is vital for every healer, it is of special import to druids as it is the best and only way to keep track of our HoTs without going absolutely mad. Here's how I roll

The center is Lifebloom where timer is the duration and the color is the number of stacks. Top right is Wild Growth, bottom right in Regrowth and bottom left is Rejuvenation.

Besides Grid there are three addons to displaying this

GridStatusHots
GridStatusLifebloom
GridIndicatorCornerText (there are other corner addons, GridIndicatorCornerPlus & GridIndicatorCornerIcons which would also probably work)

Under the grid menu (accessible either via the Fubar or /Grid config) I set the following frame indicators
Center Text 2: Lifebloom Duration (ignore/uncheck Lifebloom stack)
Corner Text Bottom Left: Buff: My Rejuvenation
Corner Text Bottom Right: Buff: My Regrowth
Corner Text Top Right: Buff: My Wild Growth

Now in the Grid menu open up Status - My HoTs. For each HoT uncheck Show HoT Counter in each of them. This ensures that the corner text shows only the HoT timer and does not suffix the -n where n = total number of HoTs (something I've always found a little useless and cluttering). Note that this replaces the need to edit the lua file manually.

Finally I like to have my Wild Growth not change colors as it counts down. So under Grid - Status - My HoTs - Buff: My Wild Growth I set Color 3 to my preferred color (a light blue) and I change the Threshold to activate color 2 & 3 to 10. Why this makes Color 3 appear and not Color 1 is anyone's guess.

There are some other tweaks you may wish to make (displaying other druids' wild growths, fiddling with the padding etc.) but this should be a good start.

jotch · 01/12/09, 1:34 PM

Thanks Bigtoy, Ive been looking for an answer like that for a while.

Ive been using HoTCandy and Ive been just ignoring it lately, it wont account for talents.

Dynalisia · 01/12/09, 4:02 PM

Originally Posted by Poly

The purpose of this change was not to make it show numbers, it was to get rid of the hot count number the mod displayed by default (this cluttered the display).

To see a number counting down you need to use the corner text plugin. I made this change to my local version since I display the time left on my Rejuv in the bottom left corner and time left on Regrowth in bottom right. I use center text 3? (whichever is lowest) to display the Lifebloom plugin (this one shows time remaining in tenths of a second and colors it according to the stack size). I also have colored dots to show the presence of any Rejuv or Regrowth since I can still swiftmend other druids hots (though I am currently our only consistently raiding tree)

With this setup I can look at anyone in the raid and see the status of my hots on them at a glance.

Funny, this is almost exactly what I use. I tried and rejected the use of cornertext because I felt it cluttered things too much, while it gave me information I didn't need. When it comes to any HoT other than lifebloom there is only a few things I need to know about it: Is it on there at all, is it my own HoT and do I have to refresh it. Color coding corner indicators works just fine for that in my opinion.

Anyway, grid can seem a little daunting in the amount of configurable options and the amount of indicators that could potentially flash up at the same time, but you truly learn to absorb this very easily after a while and it's rare that all indicators light up on even a single person, never mind a raid.

Here's my config for good measure:

Apologies for adding to this digression by the way, but having a proper raid interface is surely one of, if not THE most important tool to improve your healing prowess with, especially for a resto druid, so I figured it does fit the thread.

Vazu · 01/12/09, 5:09 PM

Originally Posted by Dynalisia

What does this actually do for you? I get the curse, poison and aggro monitors. But it seems a little overboard to have grid track every single HOT you can cast for each person. There is such a thing as information overload and how that impacts not only how you heal, but if you can stay alive. It looks great. Don't get me wrong. But I guess I just don't see it being very practical. Why don't HOT timers work just as well? What useful purpose do a bunch of colored dots on grid serve? Are you using grid plus HOT timers? Etc etc. I'd love to hear how the colored dots help you.

Zakariya · 01/12/09, 6:42 PM

Originally Posted by Vazu

What does this actually do for you? I get the curse, poison and aggro monitors. But it seems a little overboard to have grid track every single HOT you can cast for each person. There is such a thing as information overload and how that impacts not only how you heal, but if you can stay alive. It looks great. Don't get me wrong. But I guess I just don't see it being very practical. Why don't HOT timers work just as well? What useful purpose do a bunch of colored dots on grid serve? Are you using grid plus HOT timers? Etc etc. I'd love to hear how the colored dots help you.

I use something very similar to above, though I don't use dots for WG, Curse or Poison, and I find it invaluable.

The above setup tells you, for each person in the raid, how many of your hots are up and which are about to need refreshing. On fights like Loatheb or Sartharion+ or Malygos that is information I cannot live without. If there isn't massive raid damage, I won't care about raid HoTs and they won't be there, so my Grid UI won't be overloaded. But when it matters and I need to know that RJ is about to fall off 3 mages before a Vortex, my setup tells me that in the span of half a second and I can get to refreshing heals as my GCD allows.

The thing about Grid is, to the uninitiated user, it does seem like information overload. You get used to this, though, and learn to read it at a glance. I'd say Grid + corner indicators for HoTs has demonstrably improved my reaction time, though I can't give you a magic percent-increase that doesn't involve a lot of hand-waving and smoke from behind curtains.

Edit: I can haz spelling.

Dynalisia · 01/12/09, 6:49 PM

Your post is a little disjointed, so I'll just go with a Q&A format.

But it seems a little overboard to have grid track every single HOT you can cast for each person.

Why is that going overboard? I don't like my HoTs to be fire-and-forget missiles. Besides, how would you know wether you can Swiftmend someone if you can't quickly see if you have any HoTs on them? How would this work with a HoT timer exactly? You see someone is taking hard damage on your raid frames, decide you want to swiftmend, take a look at your HoT timer to find out if theres a HoT on him and then proceed to swiftmend the person? Or do you just spam swiftmend and try something else if it doesnt work? Or do you waste 1,5 sec by first casting Rejuv and then Swiftmending?

Why don't HOT timers work just as well?

HoT timers work just fine, but Grid simply works much better.

Grid shows everything I need to know about the status of the raid in one centralized location. I can see what my HoTs are doing in the same spot where I can see the HP of the mage who just got aggro and might need a quick swiftmend or NSHT soon. I can see which tank just took a hell of a beating and activated his Shield Wall in the same location as where I'm monitoring his Lifebloom stack, so I don't lose track of the significance of either by moving my gaze up and down my screen. If you're talking about information overload, this is exactly the way to avoid it: by making sure your eyes don't have to scurry all around the screen and connect the information that's coming to you via numerous different addons.

What useful purpose do a bunch of colored dots on grid serve?

It's not important for me to know wether Rejuv is at 11 seconds or 6 seconds as long as the indicator tells me when it's almost falling off. If anything, having a huge list of timers for different people, of whom I have to read the names and the hots to put everything in perspective is massively confusing. If things get messy, I can have dozens of HoTs running around the raid and possibly have to decurse or cure poison at the same time as well, how can you possibly manage without a centralized interface? With my grid I can instantly see a persons complete status in regards to what I can do for him in one glance, nothing else to my knowledge, not even the mighty Healbot does that.

Mizaru · 01/12/09, 7:42 PM

Originally Posted by Dynalisia

Besides, how would you know wether you can Swiftmend someone if you can't quickly see if you have any HoTs on them?

Center icon works for that, besides your not the only person healing in a raid.

Also, you mention hots as not being fire-and-forget, but lets face it the only people in the raid you want to actually keep your hots at 100% uptime is the tanks. I don't think there is any encounter to my mind that requires you to upkeep 10 rejevenations for the entire fight. Rejuvenation and lifebloom on non tank targets are exactally fire-and-forget unless there is something specific going on.