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Addon Spotlight: Vuhdo

by Matt Low Jan 30th 2010 at 4:00PM


We've received many tips about Vuhdo and it was only a matter of time before it would be featured here. Vuhdo is one of the most popular raid healing addons available. It offers enough features and customization options to keep even the pickiest of UI enthusiasts happy. At the same time, if your entire UI is fried and the raid is about to start, Vuhdo works great out of the box.

What's so great about it? I thought you'd never ask. Let me show you.
Like most healing frames, Vuhdo will show all information that's relevant to you.
  • Health remaining
  • Mana or energy remaining (Rage, runic power, etc)
  • Dispellable debuffs (or non-dispellable ones)
  • Rangefinder (If they're out of range, the player becomes transparent)
  • Players who have pulled threat
  • HoT effects
  • Tags (AFK, disconnected, dead, etc.)
I'm not going to go over every feature, but I will touch on the ones that I find that are the most snazzy.

Debuff management

One very important feature that healers need is the ability to enter and detect customized debuffs. As you can see above, I entered debuffs that normally wouldn't appear as dispellable abilities for a priest. Having Rune of Blood show up alerts me to which players will be taking more damage than others. Inoculated allows me to see who managed to get the buff and who missed out on it (and thus, giving them a defensive cool down of sorts allowing them to live).

Here's what it looks like on the raid frames. It'll even show things like Weakened Soul so I don't end up wasting my time dropping a shield on someone who can't receive it. The number on the icon shows how many seconds left before it expires. It only shows up when the debuffs are close to wearing off.

Key bindings

Another strong case for Vuhdo is the ability to enter in your own bindings.You don't have to rely on Bartender to bind your keys or Clique to set mouse buttons. As a heavy RTS and FPS player, I've grown attached to my keyboard in order to cast spells. I know many healers utilize their mouse extensively to cast spells and there are options for both styles of play.
Click the spell tab on the bottom and this screen will be the first thing you see. This is just one example of how I would set my keys. This is the Mouse screen where you can assign spells, macros items, or commands. Its very easy to set up. Look up the specific key combination you want to use, and then select it and type in the name of what you want it to do. As you can see, in this example, there is no modifier key set. Target is the left mouse button and Prayer of Mending is the right mouse button. If I wanted to cast Flash Heal by using Ctrl + left mouse, I'd just change the panel to Ctrl on the left pane and type in Flash Heal in the same spot.

Easy right?

In the event you're out in the world and you need to blow up some stuff, there is a hostile tab on the right. You can toss in your damage spells instead of healing ones in the same areas. If your target is friendly, it will use the spells and commands that correspond with the healing binds. If your target is hostile, it'll detect and switch over to your hostile configuration as needed.
For those who feel more at ease with a keyboard, the process takes a touch longer.
In the first window, type in the different names of the spells you want to use. You can enter in 16 of them. Once you're finished there, you'll need to load up the in game keyboard controls. Scroll all the way down to the bottom and you can then map in your keys individually. Remember, macros and commands work as well.
Voila! Was that so difficult? Now your keyboard abilities have been mapped. Granted, its not as elegant as other bar or binding mods, but it does do the job. It even shows you what spell is in each slot.

Healing over time spells

Vuhdo has an incredibly diverse way of setting up your displays. Grid users may recognize that Vuhdo also uses a small icon display to show various HoTs. Again, you can customize it as you see fit. Healers will have their HoTs preset. I've got Renew, Protection of Ancient Kings, and so forth listed below. I can tell which player has which effect based on where the icon appears on the player's frame. If I see a square on the far left side at some point, then I know they already have a Renew on them and can move on to the next player. A square on the far right of the frame tells me that I've already cast Pain Suppression on the player (and when it wears off).

Bar configuration

You can configure display options like text, health and position below. Vuhdo is extremely flexible when it comes to displays. As a healer though, you need to figure out what you really need. I've configured my frames so that the health bars of the player match their class (for example, the health bar of a mage is blue while a priest would be white). This way, I don't need a text indicator that shows me what their class is. Health percentage is nice to know but I need to know absolute health numbers. 10% health for a warrior tank is different than 10% health for a squishy warlock. I need those hard numbers so I can make a snap decision.


So how does it all look in the end? I took a few shots of myself in action during an Utgarde Keep run, but here's one that shows what it can do. I've cast Renew on the warrior and the rogue. The green bar on them visually shows how much time is left. Its hard to see, but there is also a blue bar above the rogue. You'll notice he has the Weakened Soul debuff. The blue bar indicates how much time is left before it wears off. After hitting the warrior with Prayer of Mending, I can see that its bounced on to the warlock and its going to wear off in 4 seconds. Its safe to say hes probably not going to get hit again so I can refresh it on the warrior.


I don't have rage, runic power, or energy bars displaying. As a healer, its not really necessary nor is it relevant to what I need.

Those customized debuffs I mentioned at the beginning of the post? They'll usually show up where the Weakened Soul debuff is here. If there are different debuffs, they'll show up side by side.

If you want, you can have it display specific group configurations like:
  • Tanks only
  • Healers
  • Ranged or melee DPS
  • Pets
  • Vehicles
  • Group number

Resources

Curse.com
WoW Interface
Plus Heal Vuhdo forums (Note: Iza is incredibly active in the community and if you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to post them there as well)

If you're a new healer who is looking for a healing addon to use, I strongly urge that you give Vuhdo a try. There are other setups and addons of course, and I'll be writing a post comparing them all at some point in the future.

Tags: add-on, add-on-configuration, add-on-guide, addon-configuration, addon-guide, addons, featured, guide, heal, healing, raid, raid-frames, raiding, vuhdo, wow-add-on, wow-add-on-guide, wow-add-ons, wow-addon-guide, wow-addons, wow-guide

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Add-Ons, Raiding, AddOn Spotlight

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