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Addon Spotlight: Raid healing addons, part two
Two weeks back, I looked into two fine contenders for raid healing addons, namely Healbot and VuhDo. There was a great and lengthy tussle between the two, and no clear victor was named, although VuhDo snatched a narrow lead. As I promised back in that column, I've gone away to test two more raid healing addons, or party healing addons, as you prefer. Actually, I tested three of them, to be precise, but one probably couldn't stand alone as a healing addon, and is more a raid frame replacement. Those three addons are Healium, Clique and Grid. I began with Healium, for no other reason than because that was the first one I decided to switch on, but as it happens that worked out pretty well for the testing as, when I wandered into the settings, I discovered it could work with Clique. Healium Healium takes quite a different approach to the other addons I've reviewed so far in this set of Addon Spotlights. VuhDo, Healbot, and Grid+Clique are all click-to-heal addons, that is to say, they take a set of either their own frames or a third-party set of frames, and set up mouseover macros on them. A left-click on a frame fires one heal at that player, while an ALT+ left click fires a different one. Healium, on the other hand, as can be seen in the header image, doesn't perform quite like this.
Addon Spotlight: Raid healing addons
What's Tori Amos doing as the header? Well, since starting to do the research for this column, I haven't been able to get this song out of my head. I'm not 100% sure what the song's about, but I've replaced the words in my head with the two addons I'm going to be talking about today. There are other raid healing addons, and next week I'll likely be comparing the third of the big three, which I consider to be Healbot, Vuhdo, and Grid+Clique. If there are others out there that do the same thing which you'd like me to look at, do let me know via email on olivia@wowinsider.com or in the comments below, with links please! But back to Tori. I never was a Vuhdo girl, I thought that was a good solution, hanging with the Healbot girls... I've been a Healbot user since I found out what a raid healing addon was, way back when, when I discovered that there were ways of healing that didn't require you to select your friendly target then cast spells. If you're not aware of exactly what all these addons do, they essentially replace your raid frames, and turn them into clickable frames, allowing you to heal with clicks on frames while holding various modifiers. I've talked before about why I don't like these for PvP healing, but for PvE, they're very handy.
Raid Rx: Is addon-less healing possible?
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. I see a fair number of emails and messages about this topic. Is it possible to heal without using any addons of any sort? Naturally, the default user interface (or UI) includes a limited number of features where this is possible. Is it recommended in dungeons or raid instances? No, not quite. I've seen opinions from some players where they practically insist that healing without addons should be the way to go. Anyone who does use addons is relying on a crutch. I don't think that's quite fair to say. It's not like these addons are scripts or anything that can "think" and heal for you.
