Healing: Addon Reviews
 

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HEY THERE! Its a me, a Verttex. Today I am here to talk about the topic of click-based healing. This is a big topic so lets dive right into it. So as we have many addons to pick from, I will go ahead and list them out with pros and cons.

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Pros:

• Easy to understand and configure.
• Shows Debuffs, including Magic,Poison,Curse
• Click Casting with modifer keys.
• Widely popular with plugins to other UIs (like NUI)
• SmartDispel and SmartRes
• Most Downloads

Cons:

• Not as configurable as Vuhdo/Grid/Others
• Can freeze up and SmartDispel is sometimes broken.
• Not easy for authors to make a plugin FOR the addon.
• Has had problems in the past for layouts disappearing.

Verttex's Thoughts:
As it is the most used addon for click-casting, it is full featured and very easy to understand. After awhile of using it, you figure out you need something MORE featured

Final Rating:☻☻☻☺☺ or 3/5 faces.

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Pros:

• VERY FEATURED!
• Shows Debuffs, including Magic,Poison,Curse
• Click Casting with modifer keys.
• Widely popular with plugins to other UIs (like NUI)
• SmartDispel and SmartRes
• Able to do many more things than Healbot

Cons:

• Hard to understand configuration menu.

Verttex's Thoughts:
I used this addon for a long time healing raids and dungeons and battlegrounds. With my time with it I came to love it with the auto-change layouts and more catagories than Healbot.

Final Rating:☻☻☻☻☺ or 4/5 faces.
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Pros:

• Simple and Basic, not as much as Healbot
• Shows Debuffs, including Magic,Poison,Curse
• Click Casting with modifer keys. WITH CLIQUE
  
  Quote:

  Originally Posted by Unkn Clique is not needed with Grid. You can easily make mouseover macros and you will never have to use Clique. That's how I've always done it, and it save you having to depend on yet another addon when patches hit.

• Widely popular with plugins to other UIs (like NUI)
• MANY MANY MANY Plugins to add to it.
• MACROS! (with Clique)

Cons:

• Really nothing. Just that Clique is needed and Clique has high memory usage.
  
  Quote:

  Originally Posted by Cladhaire (Post 240995) I'm the author of Clique. I've been the author of Clique from the day it was released. I have never once, in the entirety of the time that Clique has existed, had a single complaint about the memory usage of Clique. As the author, I would be interested in a single report you have from a single user, so I can work to address any shortcomings that might exist in the addon.

Verttex's Thoughts:
I used Grid for a little while until I switched back to Vuhdo. I still give it a solid rating for functionality.

Final Rating:☻☻☻☻☺ or 4/5 faces.
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Pros:

• Easy to understand and configure.
• Shows Debuffs, including Magic,Poison,Curse
• NO CLICK CASTING, NO MODIFIER KEYS! ONLY BUTTONS :D

Cons:

• Not as configurable as Vuhdo/Grid/Others
• EARLY ALPHA!

Verttex's Thoughts:
I found this on curse (sorry guys, its currently only on there :( ) and immediately fell in love with the idea. I am a lazy healer so being able to use one hand is amazing :D

Final Rating:☻☻☻☺☺ or 3/5 faces.
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In this section we will be reviewing the HOT and DOT timers used for healing.
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Pros:

• Easy to understand and configure.
• Shows all spells
• Mostly made for druids but can be used for other classes.
• Light-weight
• Updated Often

Cons:

• No multiple timers.
• No way to filter.
  

Verttex's Thoughts:
Very well made addon. Currently use this in arenas for my healing priest.

Final Rating:☻☻☻☻☺ or 3/5 faces.
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Pros:

• Cast Bar AND Cooldowns
• Vertical
• Nicely Configurable
• Updated Often

Cons:

• LUA Errors often
• Can be hard to super configure it.
  

Verttex's Thoughts:
Don't use this one a lot.

Final Rating:☻☻☻☺☺ or 3/5 faces.
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This topic is about the addons healers use that don't really compete with anyother addon.

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Pros:

• Easy to use dispels using just two keys unless configured differently.
• Updated Often
• Nicely Configurable
• Most healers use this is raids for easy dispels even if they aren't a needed thing for the fight.

Cons:

• I currently don't like how the config menu is layed out.
  

Verttex's Thoughts:
I really didn't use this one until I got to a raid. During 5 mans unless it is NEEDED I wouldn't use it.

Final Rating:☻☻☻☻☺ or 3/5 faces.

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Clique is not needed with Grid. You can easily make mouseover macros and you will never have to use Clique. That's how I've always done it, and it save you having to depend on yet another addon when patches hit.

I am bad with macros.

Great guide verttexx :)

/cast [@mouseover]SPELLNAME

:)

the end


Now you can cast the spells on all your frames, not just raid frames :) Heck even on name plates or characters in the game world


PS. I do like your write up :)

Clique does that easier. :P

Currently Looking for MORE healer addons to review. :D

Having used both methods extensively, I can say that each has its ups and downs.

Macros give flexibility. As stated you can use them nearly anywhere that responds to the mouseover conditional. The downside is you are placing the mouse over something then pressing a key. This can limit mobility if you do not do extensive rebinding of your keys .

The click casting method is somewhat the opposite. The mouse is already there so you can use its own buttons. Leaving your other hand free for movement/anything you might need not related to clicking. However as stated it is one more addon to keep up to date.

In the end it is preference. Personal play style is as always a factor.

One comment however on the overall write up. Overall the memory usage for an addon is not that critical. Unless someone is using bare bones amounts of ram (maxing it out) it won't make much difference. Mostly load times are effected. CPU cycles are far more important in overall performance.

Nice little review overall. :D

Via the options panel in Clique you can set up a blacklist which is amazing for ONLY healing using Grid.

Going to do a review on cooldown timers and hot timers for healing later.

Added new addons to the list.

It seems you've missed the most important healing addons of all.


Pros:

• Shows you who is inferior in the ways of the Healer, giving you lots of pleasure as you make subtle (or not so subtle) hints to them with how they could maybe improve to one day get close to your numbers!
• Spam guild/party chat with your latest HPS, make them jealous!
• Gives you something interesting to watch so you don't get bored with that boss fight you're fighting for the 10th time while the DPS get your raid killed again.
• Haven't got a party? No problem! These addons give you hours of solo entertainment as you spam yourself with heals over and over again seeing how high you can get your HPS.
• And more!

Cons:

• May cause depression if your Healing prowess is underpar.

Probably should remove that statement since it has no bearing on the performance of the addon. ;)

Other than that, I do like the writeup! I've tried them all, and Clique for healing is simply the bomb. :D

When I was healing hardcore with my druid in lich king I used ForteXorcistl for HoT's. So you could add a review for it if you wanted. I use clique with ouf_freebgrid as the screen layout.

Great review post!

By the same token Clique works amazingly with any unit frames, not just Grid. There's so much more to the world than this post indicates..

Also, I'd like to dispute the fact that Clique has high memory usage. I get a whopping 158KiB with everything (including the GUI) loaded, none of which impacts the game at all. With 45 bindings and a lot of caching to make things quicker when changing binding-sets, it weighs in at about 200KiB, almost all of that strings. Perhaps you'd like to explain why that's a problem or even falls CLOSE to the memory usage of the other addons you've listed?

Healium works like a champ! I threw all the rest out including Decursive which I didn't need anymore. Don't have to worry about any key combinations. You just watch the health and left click the spell you want. What could be easier? If they are out of range you see it right away. This alt, shift, ctrl key combo, remember which spell is which key, is BS! I can size everything for larger groups as needed. As far as early Alpha not sure what you are talking about I have been using it for several months flawlessly.

I used Healbot before grid before vuhdo.

I believe Healbot has another pro, share settings with another player in-game.(I am not sure if it still exist anymore, i switched to grid at the end of lich king)

Grid is a very flexible addon, since the layout is small and neat. There are too many plug-in/module, so it was hard for me to manage all that.

Vuhdo is the one I am currently using, and I like the direction arrow on the out of range players. Make me hunting them easier.

I used healium a few times in the past, but it really reduce my healing abilities in a hardcore raiding guild.
Clicking it on the side always slower than my key pressing =P

Very nice review, may add to the final post. :P

Currently many people do suffer from high memory useage from Clique. It really all depends on the computer its on.

I used to use this for just the cooldown timer but now use CoolLine

Blacklist options FTW!

Well currently it runs for around 2MiB for me with LUI at 7MiB

It is updated often but is very very new in the healing addons category

I belevie Healium should only be used in a 5 man.

Sure is.

Long post ftw :D

Do you have an addon that can separate loaded dependencies from an AddOns memory usage? Since Clique is fairly early in the alphabet, it's libs may be adding onto it's memory usage even though they're supporting other addons.