Reader UI of the Week: Absinth's simplistic healer UI
by Mathew McCurley 
Oct 11th 2011 at 2:00PM
This week is a big submission week for Reader UI of the Week, meaning I need you fine folks to send me a new crop of interfaces to discuss. BlizzCon is coming very, very soon, and that means I have to get some columns in the bank, so to speak, for when I'm away having an awesome time with you guys and gals at the convention. So submit your UI to Reader UI of the Week. You know you want to. Send submissions, explanations, and screenshots to readerui@wowinsider.com.
As for today's submission, Absinth is a priest is a clear goal: make a healing user interface that gets rid of the clutter, put most of healer arsenal on VuhDo, and keep the screen free. Overall, I think the style and configuration works, but some players may be reluctant to give over so much power to a healing addon. That fact does make you wonder about the power disparity between healing addons and the default user interface, though ...
Absinth's healer UI -- healing, VuhDo, round buttons!!!!
Let's hear it for the UI, Absinth:
Reader UI of the Week,Thank you for the submission and email, Absinth. There is a deep, dark secret living in my soul that you all deserve to know: I am very scared of healing user interfaces. It is not a frightening sort of fear but a deep-seated horror of breaking my old habits and trying to relearn a whole different system of healing. I've been running a Clique and Grid setup on my healer, which is fairly similar in mechanics to the VuhDo/Healbot setup, so I'm at least on the same page with click-to-heal user interfaces.
I thought I'd submit my UI this week. It's been working really well for me over the past 84 levels so maybe other people would.
My goal here was to make as much of the screen available as I could while still including everything I need to heal. Most of my heals are set up in VuhDo so my shortened action bar contains stuff I'd rather press on the keyboard. Buffs and necessities are under my unit frame with mounts and food just above the chat frame.
Here's how I have my addons set up:
Dominos Easy to configure action bars
ButtonFacade (Masque) just makes all the buttons look better and erases the need for panels
PitBull Unit Frames easy setup if you know how to work it. tried to make the frames small enough so they don't take up space but large enough so I can see what I need to
Prat + Chatter I use these two chatframe addons together for some reason I can't even remember. Basically, they're easily configurable and look nice
Deadly Boss Mods a must have for anything WoW
Decursive a must for healers. I haven't quite figured out where I want it positioned yet
Skada I use Skada to keep track of my heals+absorbs
Recount Recount and I go back way too far to replace it with Skada. so Recount for DPS
SexyMap it's just sexy
ForteXorcist A beautiful tracker with many more capabilities than others out there. (I only use the bar)
fbngBuffFrame don't usually see a lot of people with this but it's simple and easy to move around. It has these little cooldown bars next to each buff that are basically useless but add a little spice
MSBT best battle text I've ever used
Quartz slick cast bars - they're just so slick
VuhDo the configuration takes some time to learn but once you do, there's no limit to this raid frames addon. it has great markers for healing and an easy-to-bind spell setup
In case anyone cares, here are addons I also use that you don't see in the picture:
AtlasLoot
Auctioneer
Combuctor
Crap Away!
Equipped Item Level
MoveAnything
Postal
RangeDisplay
Let me know what you think if you get the chance! Some feedback on the setup would be great and, if possible, some tips to improve it.
Thanks,
Absinth
Many people, however, live in a world where a click is nothing more than a selection tool that must be followed up with a button press to achieve any sort of function. There is a better way, people.
Layout
The first aspect of Absinth's healer UI that stuck out at me was the layout. Addon placement is simple, if not a tiny bit disjointed in the level aspect (eAlign would help), but overall everything feels like it is in the right place. The stated goal was to see as much of the screen and world as possible without being cluttered up and to retain enough healing power to effectively do the job. This layout supports the stated goals.
With VuhDo and the utility bars for buffs and regular keybinds, there is enough utility and spread, especially for the priest's varied healing arsenal. The short stack of addons above the keybind bar is nicely placed and can expand upwards if needed for 10- or 25-man raiding. The self station, as I'm calling it, is ideal for personal cooldowns and seeing your own health and mana -- having an area of the UI dedicated solely to the abilities and items/cooldowns that effect your character personally is a great idea to me.
Keeping meters small
You'll notice that Absinth's UI does feature the standard meter setup that you are used to, namely Recount and Skada. The difference here is that the meters are not the focus of the user interface. Many people continue the trend of big meters because they believe that in-combat gauging of their performance is going to turn the tide in some manner, especially DPS. While this may be the case, you do not need the robust DPS calculations going on while you are in a fight; you can and should save that for post-attempt discussion to iron out your mistakes or ways to do better. Having a Recount meter showing 16 people along the side of your screen, especially when you want to conserve space, is just not prudent or needed. If you don't care about space, by all means ...
Absinth's meters are large enough to get the job done and small enough to be tucked away in the corner, free of the trappings of most meters I see slapped on to a UI. It's nice to see smaller meters happening out in the wild.
The truth about healing
No one is going to come to complete agreement over which type of healing user interface is the best or most useful. People do agree on a few simple facts, though. Having a robust system of click-casts and keybinds is a valuable tool that the best healers sometimes can't live without. Constant streams of effective information help healers make snap decisions in terms of cooldown usage. Having space open and keeping the screen free of too much clutter can help with movement and stop from getting too tunnel-visioned and standing in some bad stuff. Healing isn't the easiest job in the world, but there are ways to mitigate the pain.
Absinth's UI works under all of these principles to create a healthy healing environment. The static elements of the UI are static enough that when things change up from group to raid, the logic jump isn't that much of a leap. The pieces of the UI that don't need to be huge or sprawling are not huge or sprawling. Keeping just a short bar of keybound abilities makes for a focus on clicks and keeping healing on the very specific binds needed to get the job done. Budding healers should look to Absinth's UI and make the connection that healer UIs do not need to be completely subsumed in addons to be functional. With the Raid Finder coming up, healers will be in great demand, and having a simple UI structure setup like shown here will be a great boon.
Interested in getting the most out of your user interface? Come back once a week for more examples of reader UIs. For more details on individual addons, check out Addon Spotlight, or visit Addons 101 for help getting started.
Filed under: Add-Ons, Reader UI of the Week
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Arbolamante Oct 11th 2011 2:10PM
I don't think of the meter as being missing. I don't understand people who run with it open -- who has time to stare at a meter? I got green bars to fill up and fire not to stand in -- I'll look at the meter later.
Arbolamante Oct 11th 2011 2:25PM
Read that too fast -- not missing but small. Again, I don't bother.
Neirin Oct 11th 2011 2:26PM
100% agree. Recount is a great way to analyze what you did, but a poor way to spend your attention in the middle of a fight. Looking at the meters mid-fight could give you an idea of your raid's overall dps in a dps-sensitive fight, but that's generally easier to tell from queues built into the game (i.e. did you push the next phase before a 3rd add spawned?).
Jebediah54 Oct 11th 2011 6:23PM
Maybe it's just me, but I've always used Skada in the middle of a fight to glance at to see if I'm performing to the best of my abilities. I think people jump on the whole idea of "people who look at dps in the middle of the fight are too worried about damage and not the fight" way too quickly. I don't spend the entire fight staring at the meter, but if there's ever a lull where I'm just going through my rotation and I have the luxury of seeing how I'm doing, I'll do it, know if I'm pulling my weight. It's more of a psychological thing for me at this point.
And besides, what else would I put in that spot on my screen? I already have everything else in place.
Wellsee Oct 11th 2011 2:33PM
Two comments:
I use vuhdo and decursive, though I don't know why I still have the latter installed as I never use it. I let vuhdo color the unit frame for remediable things, then I use vuhdo's spell binding to single click (or mousewheel down in my case) the nasty away. Why keep decursive when vuhdo allows you to single click cure/dispel/decurse?
And then... sigh. I so want to have my heal frames tucked so nicely down at the bottom, freeing up space and being pretty like this UI. I've tried, I really have, but it makes my tunnel vision even more deadly with moving my eyes from the bottom to the middle to see fire, DBM warnings, etc. So my vuhdo panels are clunkily laid out to the left of my toon, in the center of the screen. It is ugly, but fewer people die that way.
Hillazon Oct 11th 2011 4:15PM
Because Decursive goes "Bong".
Firestyle Oct 12th 2011 9:58AM
I use decursive for the "bong" as well as since it frees up key bindings. I can then use left and right click on a frame for another spell. I believe I use left for chain heal and right for riptide.
It's simpler for me than having to use a shift/ctrl/alt modifier to dispelling.
Wellsee Oct 12th 2011 10:08AM
Ah, I don't notice the bong, but I guess my unit frame changing to a bright color does the same thing for me. It isn't like I'm looking away from the frames anyway! I found it easier to have the dispel tied to my healing frame because it resulted in less mouse movement.
In regards to running DPS meters above, I laughed last night thinking of the comments because in a BH 25 pug I wish I had one showing DPS when about 40% of the raid died at once. Both tanks were alive and healthy so I could have brezzed a DPS, but I didn't know which ones had been doing the most damage.
icepyro Oct 11th 2011 2:34PM
I... I like it... I like it a lot.
I also use Vuhdo for healing so it's nice to see someone else put it in their ui. I've been trying to make this work, but my screen feels cluttered. As such, now that I look at this... I think I'm going to go home and work on my UI.
alyssa G Oct 11th 2011 2:52PM
Where I can steal...I mean borrow...this from?? As someone who has always used to wow UI ,I am always reluctant to use a custom UI...but this..its perfect! And it doesn't clutter
avgjoe Oct 11th 2011 3:22PM
i really like this ui and will more than likely borrow from it.
Vendos Oct 11th 2011 3:08PM
Simplistic is a pejorative, dawg.
jason_1975 Oct 11th 2011 5:52PM
Can he export his Vuhdo setup for us to download? It's easy to do in Vuhdo.
Also, would love to see his macros for priest healing spells.
Welldead Oct 11th 2011 6:14PM
I need to re-do my Ui, it completely sucks atm lol. I might borrow some ideas from this ui :)
Firestyle Oct 12th 2011 10:02AM
I would actually recommend using Elv's UI over this. I used to run a pitbull frame setup, but it's far more complicated than the author gives it credit.
Plus Elv's UI tracks critical raid debuffs and flags them for you, and updates to the addon will capture new debuffs for new raids. Pitbull this list needs to be managed manually. However, neither addon tracks critical buffs (e.g. healer and tank cooldowns) for you and you need to whitelist these.
If you do download Elv's UI, the first thing you'll want to change is the UI scale. The setting is pulled out from the standard frame and placed under the Elv's setup. I suggest running the healer mode, even if you dps.
/ec brings you into Elv's UI config and /hb brings you into keybinding mode. The 'L' on the chat frame will unlock the UI and let you move stuff around.
Welldead Oct 12th 2011 11:16AM
Marvelous, Thanks! i will try it tonight once im done from work lol,just started working and will get out at 8 :p but thanks for the tips.