Healing Grid Tutorial

[Aliena]

So. You're a new healer, or maybe an experienced healer, and you've heard about this add-on called Grid, but whenever you decide to give it a go it looks a set of hella ugly tiny boxes that just don't tell you anything and you don't know where to start to change this. Right? Right. You've come to the right place then.

Before you make any changes to Grid, get the Grid Mana Bars and GridStatusRaidDebuffs add-ons. Once you have those installed, we can start.

This is how Grid looks in its most basic form:



No worries, not for long. Go to "Frame", and change the settings according to the screenshot below.

Show Tooltip: Always
Center Text Length: 10-11, that way names don't get abbreviated at 4 letters.


Now, go to "Frame" > "Advanced" and make the following changes.

Icon Border Size: 1
Icon Size: 9
Border Size: 1
Corner Size: 6
Font: Colibri v1 or any other crisp font you like
Font size: 9
Frame Height: 27
Frame Texture: Graphite
Frame Width: 50
Orientation of Frame: Horizontal



You should have something like this so far:


Click the Plus next to Advanced, click on Mana Bars and select
Side: Bottom
Size: 30

Then go to Layout and make the following changes:
Solo Layout: None
Party Layout: By group 5 w/ pets
10 Player Layout: By group 10 w/ pets
25 Player Layout: By group 25 w/ pets
Battleground Layout: By group 40

Clamped to screen: Check
Frame Lock: Uncheck if you wish to move grid around, check if you want to keep it in place
Padding: 0
Spacing: 5
Scale: 1.3-1.5
Border: Set opacity to 0% on the slider.
Background: Set opacity to 0% on the slider.

It should look like this:


Now go to "Status" > "Colors", select "Pet Coloring by Owner Class", click on "Class Colors" and change them to your liking.

Then go to "Status" > "Health" and make the following changes:



Then adjust "Status" > "Raid Debuff" to your likings. Hands down most useful grid add-on.

Afterwards, go to "Status" > "Range", "More than 40 yards away" and change it like this:



Then go to "Status" > "Incoming Heals" and enable it if it isn't.

That covers the most useful visual adjustments. Now to actually have stuff show up in grid. You can either download an add-on called "GridStatusHots" which is useful, or add indicators for grid yourself. If you're new to Grid, I'd recommend downloading "GridStatusHots". Then go to "Frame", and click on the Plus next to it to expand it. Now you see how it pops up all those different places on the Grid that you can add indicators to.

For example, "Border" should have "Your Target" enabled.
"Healing Bar" should have "Incoming Heals".
"Center Text" should have "Death Warning", "Debuff: Ghost", "Feign Death Warning", "Health Deficit", "Incoming Heals", "Offline Warning" and "Unit Name".
"Center Icon" should have "Raid Debuff" and "Debuff Type: Curse/Disease/Poison/Magic".
"Top Left Corner" should have "Aggro Alert".
"Frame Alpha" should have "More than 40 yards away".
"Mana Bar" should have "Mana".

How you set up everything else and what buffs you want Grid to show is entirely up to you. I'll walk you through adding one example, a weakened soul debuff.

Go to "Status", "Auras", click into the field below "Add new Debuff" and type "Weakened Soul", then hit enter. A new field will pop up called "Debuff Type: Weakened Soul", click on this. Adjust color and Priority to your liking, make sure it's enabled, then go to "Frame", "Center Icon" (or any other place you'd like to have it show", and enable "Debuff: Weakened Soul". Now, whenever you cast Power Word: Shield on anyone and they're afflicted by Weakened Soul, it'll show up as the center icon provided no debuff or buff of higher priority that shares the center icon is currently on the target.

Also very useful is to enable "GridAlert" for "Aggro" and "Detox". This will give an audible warning whenever there's a debuff you can dispel or you get aggro. Make sure that in "GridAlert" > "Triggers", the right triggers are set. For that, go to "AggroAlert" and make sure that under "Player Gains" "GridAlertAggro" is written. Under "Debuff Type: Curse/Disease/Magic/Poison" (depending on what your class can dispel) make sure that under "Any Unit Gains" "GridAlertDetox" is written. Following that same pattern you can set up different audible alerts to your liking.

That concludes the basics of Grid! Should you have questions about my setup or specific buff questions, feel free to ask here.
Also, you may have to relog to make changes appear.

[Pavidus]

Wow, very nice and detailed. Much better than any video tutorial I've seen.

I managed to get my grid working how I want it to aside from one thing that isn't even important. I was under the impression that GridStatusRaidDebuffs came with a large majority of the debuffs already saved to it. If that's true, then I cannot find these debuffs to apply priority settings. I also am under the impression that you can download Debuff "packages" with Debuffs for new raid content, though I cannot find these packages through google. For now, I have been manually putting them in as needed.

If anyone knowledgeable of GridStatusRaidDebuffs could shed some light on this for me, it'd be much appreciated.

Again, very nice guide. There's a number of things you mentioned that I'm changing in my Grid setup after this post. Thanks.

Edit: One more question. I've tried swapping profiles using /grid profile(profile name). Grid responds, "(profile name) is not a valid option for /grid profile". So that must mean you can swap profiles with a /command because other wise it would've said "profile (profile name) is not a valid option for /grid." Anyone know what the correct command for this is? Then I can macro/keybind it and even set it so it doesn't swap in combat if I bump the hotkey. (Assuming it will allow you to swap it in combat. I've never tried, so Idk. lol)

[Maèl]

There are a couple of class/spec specific adjustments you want to make.

For example I strongly discourage Disc priests to show the weakened soul debuff icon in the middle of a unit. That's for the really important information(think Anub p3 heroic).

What you should do is show the weakened soul debuff as a grey dot in the lower left corner(so it won't be covered by the mouse pointer) and show the PW:S buff as a yellow dot in the lower right corner. This is vital information for you. Aegis or not is only important on a tank and should rather be covered by an addon like Power Auras or similiar. I'd also be reluctant showing ProM in Grid. Same goes for Inspiration. Less is always more.

Many debuffs only deserve giving information wether they are magical, a curse or disease. The problem is that many really important debuffs are encounter specific so you can only really test it in that encounter.

The point is it greatly depends on your spec and on your role what is important to you.

Always ask yourself what information you REALLY need and filter accordingly. It's quite easy to suffer from information overload with grid. You need only the most relevant information so you can see at a glance what is wrong with your raid member.

@Pavidus
GridStatusRaidDebuff - Addons - Curse

[Pavidus]

Oh my god I feel like an idiot. I've had Grid2StatusRaidDebuffs the entire time. Completely missed the "2" in there. D=

Just downloaded and replaced, and it's working. Ha ha, thanks. Afk while I go get my eyes checked out. O.o)

[Aliena]

I much prefer having a visual for weakened soul which is why I have it in the center frame, but its priority setting is below penetrating cold so penetrating cold will show up whenever it's active. What I tried to give was examples from my setup, not telling anyone to copy it, so don't get me wrong, but with all due respect, the same goes for your minimalistic approach.

What a healer is comfortable with depends entirely on the healer. This thread is for setup questions, not personal preferences.

[Maèl]

Aliena, I completely agree with you. It is absolutely up to the individual how to set up grid.
But I have to disagree on Penetrating Cold. As a Disc Priest I need to see both because I need to know if I shield the affected raid member first or step in with my direct heals. That's why I additionally have the lower corners for both shield and ws.

But as you said. It depends on the individual and the role you have during healing.

[Meeks]

Obviously it comes down to preference but I leave the center of the frame only for debuffs.

Anything of my own that I want to track is a colored dot in some corner. Beacon and sacred shield being the two main ones for me. I also have divine plea as a dot so I see when another paladin uses it and I know to help him out if something happens.

These are things I want to know all the time and not interfere with important debuffs.

[Amamaeth]

First, apparently there is a missing image or something right before the second image.

Second, awesome post. I'm a VuhDo user myself but I'm going to repost this on my guild site so hopefully some of our newer healers can put grid to good use

I do have a question, for you or anyone, is there any major difference in decleansing or debuff reporting between VuhDo and Grid? or is it just a personal preference thing?

[Mammoth]

Great post. I've only begun to dabble with healing on my priest but an additional addon for Grid that I've quickly grown to love is:

GridIndicatorSideIcons

Allows for additional Icons on the Top, Bottom, Right, and Left of each Frame. I leave the center Icon for Encounter Debuffs, Top: Magic Debuffs, Bottom: Diseases, Right: Weakened Soul, Left: Curses/Poisons. The added icons frees most of my corner indicators to single task, helping me react instead of decipher.

[Pavidus]

I have poisons on Side Text Left, curses on Side Text Right (Because my mouseovers on my mouse are poisons left, curses right. =D) Bottom Left is my Rejuv timer, bottom right is my Regrowth timer, top right is my Lifebloom timer. Center Icon is Raid Debuffs of course. Center text is Name, then Incoming Heal amount. (Don't care about the amount, as it's not always right, it' just so I know something's coming in.) and top left is aggro, which I have found to be horribly laggy. The bosses target will change to the OT and it'll take 2-3 seconds for it to show up on Grid.

So uhhh.. No one knows the correct /command for swapping profiles? I still can't get it.

[bluewire]

Great guide, thanks!

I have been using Grid effectively (with Clique) on my priest. The profile shifting works great moving from disc to holy, which I tend to do often. Disc for Faction Champs, Holy for twins, etc...

To weigh in on the weakened soul discussion, I like a simple corner color to display it. Personal preference of course. For me it may be due to using decursive to cleanse rather than grid/clique.

Anyway, my question is druid related. I rely on healbot for my druid because of its ability to graphically display my hots with little icons for each spell. There aren't enough corners in grid to display all the hots, plus incoming heals/shields. Also key are the timers/counters shown on healbot's spell icons to know when regrowth is almost off, or to track stacks of lifebloom. Any ideas how to add that functionality (timers/counters, and spell icons rather than just corner colors) to Grid?

[Maèl]

I have a similiar problem.
I used to have a corner free in order to see if there are any HOTs ticking on a raid member. It really helps determining if I should send a Flash Heal or let the HOTs run its course. But now I need to know who has aggro(red dot in the upper right corner) or who has incoming heals on him(green dot upper left corner). I've run out of corners...
Healing a fully HOTted person in a raid where you don't expect damage any time soon seems to me to be wasteful. I'd better spend that mana for an SW:P. I'd also like to see at a glance where my ProM is. Or as a matter of fact who has been blessed by my Grace. But I guess so many dots would make it very hard to see at a glance what's going on.
I think a couple of things are best handled by Power Auras.

[bluewire]

POMTracker works nicely as a stand-alone addon to see who has your POM, how many jumps it has left, and how much it has healed total.

Grid has an option to highlight the border of a cell in red to indicate who has aggro. I find that works very well.

[Maèl]

Great! I'll try that. Seems like I was satisfied with my Grid setup too soon.
Trying to make the best of it becomes a grueling task when it comes to the nitty-gritty details.
Off to Lake Wintergrasp to test it.

[Igrado]

That covers the most useful visual adjustments. Now to actually have stuff show up in grid. You can either download an add-on called "My Hots" which is useful, or add indicators for grid yourself. If you're new to Grid, I'd recommend downloading "My Hots".

I can't find an addon on WOWInterface or Curse by this name. Perhaps you are referring to GridStatusHots?

[Aliena]

Yep! Changed.

[Igrado]

Thanks for the great guide Aliena.


EDIT: I was in fact not using version 1.30200 :: Ok great. Also, it appears that GridManaBars is currently incompatible with the most recent version of Grid (Grid-1.30200.2009081101). This causes grid to not appear completely. If you are having problems with Grid not showing up, one of the first things to try is disabling GridManaBars. If that fixes your problem, you could try backgrading to an earlier version of Grid.)

[Soan]

Really? My GridManaBars hasn't caused any issues, and I'm running the same version of Grid as you.

Also this thread totally deserves a sticky imo.

[Igrado]

Looks like I had downloaded the ZIP for version 1.30200, but never actually installed it. My mistake. GridManaBars looks to be working fine now!

[Goomba]

I've been using healbot since i started my priest, and frankly, the recent incarnation of Healbot is the best yet, fixing a lot of the stability and dual spec issues I was having....

so I have 2 qq's

1) how does grid work? on healbot, I shift+Lclick for this spell, and alt+Rclick for another, according to how I program it...same with grid? or different? is it a macro mouse-over type setup or what?

2) why switch? I'm pretty decent with healbot, so i'm experiencing some serious reluctance to trying grid....that being said, I'm noticing that in 25 man content, HB seems to be not updating as fast as I would like, even with the refresh all the way up....seems to be the only thing I notice, and I just make sure that i'm staying engaged with the fight, not just my boxes, and I cast according to what I know the fight is doing instead of only what HB says is happenning, but still...might be nice to have a faster, more accurate readout...will grid do this?

I'm looking for feedback from people who have honestly used both, not just dun 2 min and quit it....they take a lot of customization time and practice with to get results, in my experience...