Anatomy of a Healer: the UI

The User Interface of a computer game is one of it's most important hooks. No matter how pretty a game is, if you can't figure out how to perform basic functions easily, you probably won't play for long. World of Warcraft's UI can be customized to fit your play style, and tweaking your UI can make your reaction time faster and the survivability of both you and your group or raid go up.

So how can you take your screen from out of control to controlled chaos?

Then:

Although I'm embarassed to show the screenshot to the right, that really is my Priest healing in Molten Core. It's a miracle that I didn't fall into the lava and burn to death every week (I'm not saying I never did, just that it's amazing I didn't do it more often). Not only is it ugly (/shudder), it is hideous. Ok, so yeah, the ugly factor is what is most apparent. But it's also not good to have a 3 inch square of actual visibility. With all the information overload on the screen (most in bulky frames that overpower the environment) it's hard to tell where exactly I was standing, much less see what scary thing might have been heading my way. Luckily, mod makers have come a long way and I've found ways to condense the information while still having access to it. (A larger monitor helps too. At the time of this screenshot my monitor was a 15". So the picture is pretty close to actual size.)

The important information displayed on the screen includes:

• Raid Frames (they're huge!)
  
• Buff Durations
• Target and Target's Target Frames
• Incoming Heals/Heals Cast on the Target (the huge box in the bottom right is tracking who the healers are targeting)
  
• Resurrection Monitor
• Damage/Healing Meter (I'm winning, otherwise it wouldn't be that important)
• Chat Box (where we're discussing a drama magnet in Officer chat...some things never change)
• MiniMap (so I can get lost)
  

Now:
A little over two years later, my UI looks more like this. Most of the information is still available to me, but the overall feel of the screen is more open. I now actually get to see the fights, which is incredibly important with nearly every encounter requiring heightened awareness of what is going on around you. I now also have room to see who has used a cooldown, countdowns on boss abilities, and a truncated combat log.

In my current UI, there are five main areas that I focus on.

1. The Boss Mod (I use BigWigs) announces important phases of the fight at the top center of my screen. This place of prominence is out of my way, but still noticeable enough to be ready for Deep Breaths or Lava Waves (most of the time).
2. The center area is reserved for my cast timer and situational awareness. The scrolling combat text that floats at the edge of this area also makes it easy to notice the big heals that land and, conversely, the ones that are all overheal so I can judge whether or not my healing rhythm is in sync or not.
   
3. The player bar has a lot of crucial information. My totems and their duration are prominantly displayed above the health bar, as is the timer on Water Shield. All buffs are arranged beneath the mana bar. And debuffs appear to the left of my name.
4. My raid frames are also packed with information. Player health bars are colored by class, and players with aggro turn a bright red. Players in range of my totems have the buffs below their bars, so I can tell if we've moved too far out of range and I need to drop them again. I accidentally deleted the names from my raid frames a while back, and, for the most part, I like it this way. If I hover over a player, the name will appear on the screen, but, in the heat of battle, who I am healing doesn't matter. I've always joked about having a "No Heal" list, but I clearly don't. I don't usually even know which dps I'm healing at any given time. The green oval shows my group, which generally has other healers in it. I try to watch their mana to judge when to drop my Mana Tide Totem.
5. My Shaman mod, TotemTimers allows me to see what totems I am using as well as quickly change them in mid-fight. A pop up menu appears when I hover my mouse over the bar, so I can switch from Mana Spring to Poison Cleansing or from Strength of Earth to Tremor when needed. Over to the right, it tracks my Reincarnate, Shields, and Weapon Buffs.
   

How Did it Evolve?
I am constantly tweaking my UI, and I'm proud of how much better it looks now than in Molten Core. But it is also more informative without being overwhelming now. But how did I get it to this point? I started by researching compilations of mods on Curse and WoWInterface. Once I found one with a screenshot that appealed to me, I downloaded it and began tweaking. Over time, many of the individual mods have needed to be replaced, and I've learned how to configure their replacements to do what I need them to do. It has taken a lot of time, patience, and trial and error to create a UI that works well for my play style. I do not recommend downloading a new compilation or any mod that significantly changes your UI unless you have the time to customize it and try it out in a low-pressure setting. You do not want to try to heal with it right out of the box. But if you take your time and work at it, you just may find that it increases your healing effectiveness to have a UI that is aesthetically pleasing and functional.

I also recommend looking at other people's screenshots. I recruited these two from fellow healers in xeno. Mase's Priest and Moxy's Druid both have effective and appealing UIs. I'm tempted to give Moxy's target set up a try. PlusHeal also has a thread going with a collection of UI screenshots. You never know what great idea you'll be able to steal until you've looked around. There may be an awesome new mod that does exactly what you need just waiting to be discovered on someone else's screen. So keep looking and keep tweaking. Your UI is never done.

For a partial list of mods I use, check out this post.

Anatomy of a Healer: the Class

Why is it that looking for the images to accompany my insightful blog posts (it's my blog, I can pretend I'm insightful if I want to) almost takes longer than actually writing them? Today I got distracted by a blog by a med student/resident. Evidently she wants to be a pediatrician (but not the cutesy "here's your lollipop" kind) and has fat cats. Now on to the actual post.

If you don't count rogues with bandages--and you really shouldn't--World of Warcraft has four classes that can choose to heal: Druid, Paladin, Priest, and Shaman. Each is very different both in lore and play style, but all can be excellent at healing. So why should you choose one over the other?

I'm not trying to get into the intricacies of each class, or preach about why one is better than the other. What I do want to do is explain why, to me, it doesn't really matter which you choose, as long as you take the time to be good at what you play. I'm going to oversimplify a lot here. And I'm probably going to get yelled at by my healer friends. Please don't take my statements as gospel, but research your chosen class and read the blogs of people who actually play those characters.

Hybrids:
First of all, all healers are hybrids.

There are four "pure" classes in the game: Hunter, Mage, Rogue and Warlock. These classes cause damage. That is all they can do. If a Rogue respecs from Assasination to Sublety or vice versa, she will still do damage. She does not have a tanking tree or a healing tree--she has three dps trees.

Every other class in the game is a hybrid class. Let me say that again. Every other class--except Hunter, Mage, Rogue and Warlock--is a hybrid class.

I'm sorry for harping on this. But Priests are not pure classes no matter how much a certain guy I know thinks they are. And it's important to think of all healers as hybrids in order to get over certain misconceptions many people have.

Druids:
Now that I've beaten the hybrid concept into the ground, we can focus on the class that is arguably the biggest hybrid of them all. Druids who choose to embrace their outer Barkskin are very powerful healers in Wrath of the Lich King. Restoration druids have many heal over time spells to absorb spiky damage as well as several larger heals that make it possible for them to heal bigger chunks as well. The druid play-style isn't for everyone and requires that you be able to manage a lot of different timers as well as predict who will take damage when. I see druids as proactive healers who can spread their healing over many targets. They are less whack-a-mole and more sand box; they enjoy filling the smaller dips with HoT stacks but are able to pour out more healing on demand to plug the larger holes as well.

Paladins:
Holy Paladins are still great at single target healing, but WotLK gave them more tools to use as well. Playing a paladin well requires quick reactions and is most often seen as whack-a-mole at its finest. I'll admit that I know little about raiding as a paladin. But from what I've read on other blogs, WotLK has given them more flexibility. And I know I'm always glad to have them along.

Priests:
I'm biased. I love the priest class. I chose to bench my priest for a few different reasons, but none of them was because I disliked the class.

Priests are my favorite healers because they have so many different tools to choose from. If you need a priest to be a single-target healer, they will do it. If you need a priest to spot heal the raid, they will do it. If you need a priest to help mitigate incoming damage on a player, they will do it. Priests can do everything, and they can do it all well. I'm not saying that a priest will do better than another class at a specific job, just that they can do any job. Being a good holy or discipline priest requires the same level of dedication as the others with the added burden of choosing the right spell at the right time.

Shamans:
I've talked about shaman healing a bit before, so I won't bore you with all the details here. Wrath of the Lich King gave shamans a few new tricks to make them a little more rounded than they had been before. Chain heal is still what we're known for, but it isn't the only spell in our arsenal, and shouldn't be the only one we use. However, in a raid situation, knowing who to use as the anchor for chain heal based on positioning is very important. Shamans need to have better than average situational awareness (something I'm still working on) in order to choose the right spell to the greatest effect. Using a Chain Heal on the mage who is way out of the group may not be the best choice. Likewise it may be better to cast a Chain Heal on a rogue when those around her are about to take damage than to top her up with a Lesser Healing Wave. I may not advocate true heads up healing, but knowing what is going on around you as well as who is standing where is necessary to be a great shaman healer.

Whack-a-Mole, Sand Box, Heads Up, Spacial Awareness. Whatever you want to call it, healing takes skill, patience and a certain amount of trial and error. I stand behind my assertion that all healing classes can be effective healers. No one class is better than the others, but one class may be better for you.

Anatomy of a Healer: Peripherals

When I first picked up a copy of World of Warcraft (after much badgering by Marnas), I was under the mistaken belief that it would be like every other computer game I'd ever played. I'd played strategy games like Rise of Nations and role playing games like Prince of Persia. I'd even played Warcraft (the original) and Diablo. But the largest number of people I'd ever played those games with was four. I thought I'd load the game on my system and that would be it. I never dreamed that three years later I'd own a special keyboard, a gaming mouse, be constantly seeking a more comfortable (but affordable) headset for vent, and have upgraded not only the memory and graphics card in my computer, but also have purchased a new system--and even have upgraded that.

To start off my Anatomy of a Healer (because really we are a totally different animal than tanks or dps), I thought I'd start by discussing some Peripherals I use now.

Keyboard:
As I have become more and more focused on PvE endgame, I have sought ways to decrease my reaction time. Despite being a typing teacher's daughter and taking a full year of the course in high school (back when we actually used--gasp--typewriters), I fully admit that I have never really mastered the number keys. On a regular keyboard I can hit 1 to 6 fairly reliably. The rest are really beyond me. Especially when my right hand is on a mouse. So for a long time any spells or abilities bound to 7 through = could only be accessed by clicking them. This wasn't necessarily a problem back in 40 man raids when my priest mostly just needed 1 for renew and 2 for flash heal, but as I learned more spells (and went shadow) I needed to be able to hit more keys more quickly.

I currently use the Merc Stealth Gaming Keyboard from Ideazon. And I must say I love it. It combines a regular keyboard with a special keypad. The keypad is offset at a slight angle that has eliminated some minor wrist pain I was experiencing. The number keys are arranged in two rows making it possible for even me to hit all of them when needed. The software allows you to bind keys to any series of strokes you want, making it possible to press one button instead of a complicated series of keys. It takes a little getting used to, but the main drawback I have found is not being able to function on other people's keyboards. I kinda suck on the regular kind now.

Mouse:
I splurged about a year ago and purchased a Razer Diamondback Gaming Mouse. I spent some time looking over the options at a couple of computer stores before making my purchase. The main feature I wanted was a thumb button for my vent bind. I know a lot of other people get fancier with their buttons, but for the most part I'm old school with the mouse. I just wanted it to fit my hand (I have pretty small hands and a lot of the big gaming mice felt awkward to me) and have the thumb button. I appreciate the responsiveness of the Diamondback, and I haven't regretted buying it at all.

Headset:
A few members of my guild often gripe that the Officers don't read Raid Chat. Although I do try to read most of what scrolls through my chat screen, I don't always manage it. And I'm convinced a couple of the other Officers don't really even try. We're vent people, and we'd much rather explain a fight or discuss a problem on our Ventrilo server than try to type it all out. Because of this, I spend at least 11 hours a week wearing a headset. I think I have a permanent indentation on the top of my head where the band sits.

I'm not completely satisfied with the Logitech USB Headset I use, but the microphone doesn't usually make my guildies yell at me, and the sound quality is good. It isn't incredibly comfortable, but that is probably due to the fact that I don't wear it correctly. I run game sounds through my speakers and only use the headphones for vent, so I keep the left earpiece behind my left ear rather than on it. I'm on my second set of similar headphones; they seem to last pretty well even through my rough treatment. I tried using a bluetooth headset for a while, but evidently I sound much better through this headset, and I'm vain enough to not want to sound horrible.

Gaming Peripherals have become big business. Everytime I step foot into BestBuy or another computer store I am amazed at the number of new products taunting me from their shelves. Although I can't bring myself to spend $300 on a headset, I do think the makers of gaming accessories fill a niche in the marketplace. I spend enough time playing, researching, and thinking about WoW to justify making my experience in game comfortable--maybe not $300 comfortable, but even that isn't really absurd. I remember my dad having headphones for listening to his records that I wasn't allowed to touch...I think I once got a spanking just for looking at them. I guess spending big bucks to enjoy your hobby isn't anything new after all.