Mods
January 15, 2009
One thing I hear often: “Why are you using Healbot or Grid??? It’s not really healing! Aren’t you good enough to heal without it?”
It’s often from a DPS that hasn’t thought through the concept of using the best tools you have that are available to you. This topic is on par with someone saying, “Why are you using a computer to do your homework? You’ve got a perfectly good typewriter over there. Or why are you driving your car, you have two perfectly good legs.” The computer and car are just like raid frames, are a tool you can use. Only a fool refuses to use the best tools available out of preconceptions.
I’m going to cover your Raid Frames and making it work. To do this, the two best options are the Grid/Clique combination or Healbot.
Grid
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/grid.aspx
Grid is what they call a Raid Frame, and the best one available for healers who want the most advanced options available.
Raid frames are simply boxes with everyone in your party having their own box for you to click on.
It can be set up to handle 5, 10, 25 and even 40 man raids. Is good for solo play, instances and raids.
The benefits of using Grid is its configurability. If its too big, shrink it, if the letters are too big, shrink them too. You don’t like the surrounding box, get rid of it. Don’t know what its programmed to indicate, tell it to stop. Want something monitored, turn it on. The configuration is what makes this mod the best healing Raid Frames you can get.
By far, the biggest downside to Grid: It is difficult, can be complicated if you have limited raiding experience and is time consuming to set up.
The next problem, you need another mod to be able to use it so you can click on the Raid frame to cast a spell on that person. That mod is called Clique.
If you can get past the downsides, the upsides make the time consuming set up process more than worth while. If you’re looking at performance and ability to heal effectively you will need Grid.
You can find a small user guide at:
http://www.wowace.com/projects/grid/pages/users-guide/
Clique
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info5108-Clique.html
Clique is the next step in setting up Grid. One thing should be said, Clique can be used with any Raid Frame, even the default World of Warcraft UI.
It allows you to click on a Raid Frame, and depending on what you use to click (left click, shift-left click, middle click, right click, right-crtl click) you can program either a spell to cast, to do a special action or run a macro.
You can configure it to do actions based on whether you are casting on a friendly unit, an enemy unit, or even when you’re out of combat.
Even if you choose not to use Grid, Clique is a must get.
Healbot Continued
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/heal-bot-continued.aspx
Healbot is like Grid and Clique combined. It’s main strength is its ease of set up.
You can use macro’s with Healbot, however, you need to modify them to work with Healbot.
Healbot lacks configurability compared with Grid. If it comes with Healbot, its good. If you need an additional function, Healbot is not able to accommodate.
While Healbot is more than fine for most instances and heroics, you could struggle on some fights without something more powerful.
PallyPower
ttp://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/pally-power.aspx
The buffs that Paladins do for the raid are called Blessings. PallyPower is a mod that helps Paladins coordinate and keep track of blessings. The Paladin leader is able to see at a glance what reagents you have, what Blessings you have talents in, and at a click, can assign all the other Paladins Blessing assignments and change those during the night.
It gets better, PallyPower also keeps track of how long is left on each buff for each class. Therefore, you can rebuff your assigned blessing when needed. You can see when buffs are needed to be applied, such as after someone has died, and its as easy as clicking on the class to buff the entire class with a buff.
Install it. Learn it. Use it. Learn to love it. Simple.
Essential Raiding Mods:
These are mods that are essential for any success in a raiding environment. Be suspicious of any guild that doesn’t use these mods, or suitable replacements.
Big Wigs or Deadly Boss Mods
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/big-wigs.aspx
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/deadly-boss-mods.aspx
A boss mod warns you, and the raid of when things happen in boss encounters.
Why is this important?
Well it tells you what is happening, before it happens. This helps in you preparing for the fight. Also, when certain things happen, the boss mods can tell you when to move, when the boss is going to do something bad that you have to prepare for etc. etc.
Which one should I get?
There’s not a lot of difference between Deadly Boss Mods and Big Wigs to be honest. Find out what your guild uses and use that. We keep both updated, so if we pug a raid its easy to switch without needing to download.
Can I run both?
Sure you can, but prepare for it to get messy. Both boss mods will warn you of impending actions the boss will take. Both at the same time! They won’t conflict with each other, but they both do essentially the same job.
oRA2
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/ora2.aspx
It’s the mod that helps the raid leaders run the raid, but it has added benefits for you.
Its biggest use is to set the Main Tank list. The list where the raid knows who the tanks are, their targets, life totals etc. It helps with targeting, and with Clique, can be used to directly heal the tanks.
DoTimer
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/do-timer.aspx
For a Holy Paladin, this is good to keep track of when Sacred Shield, Beacon and Judgements run out and need to be refreshed.
It takes a little while to set it up to ignore most of the buffs and cool downs that you use, but once you get it to where you’re at, its golden. It keeps track of the cool downs, so you can keep track of the healing.
Quartz
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/quartz.aspx
This is a casting bar replacement. What makes this strong is if you suffer from any decent lag (200ms or higher), it helps you know when you should Pre-Cast your next spell.
What’s Pre-Casting?
We’re not going to go into much detail, but when you have lag, you can actually press the cast key, before the spell has cast. This mod will help you Pre-Cast so you have as little down time as possible. Less down time = more heals. More heals = The better you can do your job, which also means higher on the healing meters.
MoveAnything!
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info11208-MoveAnything.html
This helps you move almost anything around. Where this mods shines is its ability to move your buffs and debuffs to where you’ll be able to see them.
There are some situations that if you cannot keep an eye on your debuffs, you become a large liability to the raid, and moving that information to the area of the screen where its best to you is a very smart thing.
Bartenter4
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/bartender4.aspx
This allows you to move around your action bars. MoveAnything also lets you do that. What makes Bartender special is its ability to change the size, and your row to column to ratio of any particular action bar.
Rating Buster
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/rating-buster.aspx
This mod does a couple of things, and both are important to you.
1). When you look at gear stats with this mod, it’ll tell you what they’ll do for you. Eg. It tells you that +72 Intellect gives +0.50 Crit and +16.6 Spell Power.
2). It’ll tell you the item level. This is a fast, but crude way to see if an item is an upgrade at a glance.
Recount
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/recount.aspx
This is a damage and healing meter that measures more than just that. With this, you can check:
- Your over heals
- Your Crit rate for each spell
- How many of each spell you cast
- Your average healing for each type of spell
- Your activity (how often you’re casting)
- Decurse and Ressing Meters.
One excellent feature is a death meters. If you look inside it, you can see what happened immediately before the person died. From what damage to what heals they received, and when. Its good to check how long the tank went without heals.
Sound Event Handler 4
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/seh.aspx
We’ve found this best to track the buffs that you use, such as Seals and give you a sound warning when the buff expired.
Prat 3.0
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/prat-3-0.aspx
This is one of the best chat mods that are available. It won’t make your raiding any better, but will help your chatting just a little bit simpler.
Omen
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/omen-threat-meter.aspx
Although its not a mod needed for a Holy Paladin, there are many raid leaders that make it mandatory to raid with them. Its best not to fight with them, as a
RaidBuffStatus
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/raidbuffstatus.aspx
This mod if something that all raid leaders (or those assigned to police buffing) should use. This mod can be used to easily check that everyone that can buff is doing their job and that everyone is “Well Fed” and “Flasked” or “Double Elixir’d”. This is the bane of slacker raiders.
SpamMeNot
http://war.curse.com/downloads/war-addons/details/spam-me-not.aspx
Won’t help you raid, but will help you eliminate and report gold spammers when you’re in main cities.
BankItems
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/bank-items.aspx
If you have bank alts, use this mod. It lets you look at what your alt’s have in their bags, banks and even vaults. You can even look at your guild’s vault (snapshot taken at the last time you looked in there).
AtlasLoot Enhanced
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/atlasloot-enhanced.aspx
This mod helps you look through what the loot tables are for each boss. You can search both 10 man and 25 man versions of each raid and heroic and normal versions of each instance.
It’s really helpful to make what’s called a shopping list to find out what you need to run to get your upgrades. Looking for group anyone?
Postal
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/postal.aspx
This is a mail mod that is very useful if you either have a bank alt or post things on the AH a bit.
Proximo
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/proximo.aspx
If you’re doing PVP in Arena, this is a must get.
Reliance upon Mods
Even with the importance of mods and their improvements to your performance, it's worth thinking of what you would do if your mods stopped working all of a sudden. This can happen on patch days and can sometimes last for a few days or even weeks at a time.
Having a back-up plan is good.
Mouse Over macro's work with your default raid frames will get you out of a pinch if all hell breaks loose. This is where good macro's can save you.
It can be worthwhile trying out your backup plan once in a while to make sure you're going to be able to heal if you had to turn off all your mods.
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