That VuhDo that You Do
One of my raidmates recently mentioned something about his UI during a raid and brought up an addon I had never before heard of, VuhDo. My big ol’ pointy ears perked up immediately, as VuhDo was, apparently, a raid frame addon which is highly functional for healers, along the lines of Grid. I did some research into this addon and learned that it does indeed function like Grid/Clique, but with additional bells and whistles built in that would elminate the need for SEVERAL other addons I currently used. Really? Really! Of course, I had to give it a try! Wheeeee!!!!
The first thing I did was to remove Grid and all Grid associated addons from my addon folder. Those I eliminated immediately were Grid, GridStatusLifebloom, GridManaBars, GridStatusHots GridIndicatorCornerText, and Clique. After the raid last night I also removed HoTCandy, and will soon be confident enough to remove SmartDebuff. That’s right. VuhDo quite comfortably replaces EIGHT addons I was currently using.
I then downloaded VuhDo from Curse.com. You can find it here. Out of the box, VuhDo showed up like this on my UI (Click on image to link to larger version):
It automatically put a link in my FuBar, but it also adds a button to your mini map so it is very easy to find the configuration panel and get started. Here’s a shot of what the config panel looks like:
Every function on the config panel has a tool tip when you hover over it that gives you a pretty good idea of what it does, unlike the Grid setup which is always confusing for me, even when using guides. I was able to find my way around and figure out what I wanted to do quite easily. However, there is a Wiki available for Voodoo that has a user manual (so nice!) and you can find that here. In addition, there is a very long thread on the Plus Heals forums that the author responds to quite regularly to address user requests and issues.
I was able to do all of the same mouse click assignments that I had setup for Grid very easily. Here’s the config panel for mouse click assignments:
As you can see there are many, many click combos available making this incredibly functional. I was able to map all of my heals plus decurses and poison cures to very comfortable combinations using my five button mouse, shift, and a couple of alt combos, with dozens of options still open. You can also assign clicks for targeting and macros.
Once I had my heals mapped as I wanted them to be, I set about customizing the way that VuhDo looked on my UI. You can start with the Move tab and relocate things where you want them to appear. One of my favorite functions about this portion of the setup was a button you could click and hold that would show you what your raidframes would look like if you were actually in a raid, so that I did not have to beg people to join a party or raid group with me just to have some idea of what this would look like when I joined a raid. You can see that function in this screenshot:
There are functions to change the scale of your raid frames, the group arrangements, the appearance, the font, and so forth. You can make your name always appear first in your group if you wish, or to make your group always appear first. You can skin the frames as you wish, using something similar to what’s above or choosing as I did, to have each frame colored according to player class. Mana bars automatically appear under raidmates who use mana. You can also set this up to show rage, energy, or runes. I ended up being able to make the raidframe look and feel very similar to when I was using Grid. Here’s how my UI looks with VuhDo while soloing in Dalaran:
Here it is with a raid group forming up:
And here it is in the middle of us fighting Yogg Saron (I had forgotten to disable HoTCandy before logging on, which explains why it is shoved up and scrolling over my minimap in this pic):
As you can see above on the VuhDo frames, with this addon you can map HoTs to different locations on frames and give them colored buttons with timers, just as you can with Grid if you add a host of companion addons. But with VuhDo, this function is built right in. Lifebloom was already set up to have a red background if one LB was stacked, Yellow background for a 2 stack, and green background for 3. The red dots you see in each frame are from a function that you can enable that shows you if Swiftmend is on cooldown and is available for a raid member based on what HoTs are currently rolling on them (cool, huh?).
Other cool functions included a buff watcher that you can put GOW and/or Thorns on to monitor whether everyone has the buff and click on to instantly cast it. You can also set the program to autores raidmates out of combat. You can customize aggro frames, target frames, colors and frame appearance for debuffs, and many other functions.
I will be working with my setup before I next raid to move the frames a bit farther apart, as I had some trouble with information overlapping a bit last night. I also need to make some changes to how a poison shows up on the raid frames, as my choices made it so it wasn’t very apparent and I ended up using Smart Debuff for Yogg on Phase 2, although I am sure that I can drop that addon very soon once I get the kinks worked out.
In all, this was a very fluid, responsive, and intuitive experience for me. I am not deleting Grid and associated addons from my computer altogether just yet, as I’d like to test drive VuhDu more before I make a final decision about it, but overall I was excessively pleased with this addon. I was able to pick it up and run with it through a progression run on the first day I had it with very little trouble at all and many things that pleased me greatly. I’d recommend that anyone give it a go.
Oh, and… drumroll please….
We got our guild first Yogg Kill last night!!! Woot!!!
There are 18 Comments to "That VuhDo that You Do"
The only healing addon I’ve used so far is HealBot. I like it sometimes, and I find it annoying at others.
I’ve considered trying Clique/Grid before but I always here bad things about setting it up even if there is near-constant praise once it gets there.
I don’t heal very often, but I’m starting to enjoy it on my druid quite a bit. If that continues on, then I might have to go ahead and give VuhDo a try.
Thanks for the info!
Psynister´s last blog ..Graphic Glitch
Something important to add…. it was our first Yogg TWENTY FIVE man kill so it’s even better.
lol true that, K. Our first Yogg TWENTY FIVE man kill! woot woot!
Whoot! Congrats on the Yogg kill!
Think I’ll still stick with Grid, I like how it looks visually and how I’ve set up all the icons on it.
Kae, f.y.i. I heard a rumor that Grid may not keep updating in the future, although I could not substantiate it although I did a good deal of looking around. May just be a rumor, but it was part of the reason I decided to try out VuhDo. I didn’t include it in the post, though because I couldn’t corroborate what I had heard.
Very nice writeup and grats on the Yogg kill. Although I’m a pretty solid grid fanboi I might just have to take this addon for a spin as well.
Sunkist´s last blog ..Ghostcrawler Q&A
What’s the name of your mini-map addon? I like the look of that.
Grats on the Y-S kill!
hey night! how are you and karley and the baby doing? I used Chinchilla to shape the map that way and minimap button frame to collect all fo my minimap buttons into a collapsible/expandable frame. =)
Thanks so much for this write-up! I’d been curious about VuhDo, but somehow managed to keep avoiding playing around with it. And although I abandoned Grid+Clique for “further testing at a later date”, since I used them I haven’t been as contented with Healbot…I think the “later date” for further add-on testing has arrived.
And grats on the Yogg kill!
Taz´s last blog ..The Fantastic Four
Karley’s doing well and the baby is brewing fine. I’ve felt her (yes, it’s a girl) kick a few times this week, so everything seems to be going well!
Still missing Syll, but glad to know things are going well in your new home!
Night
I’m on my second try of Vuhdo now and I like how the setup is but I can never seem to get it to do what I want. I’ve never used a healing addon before although I tried Healbot and Grid+clique but the configuration was a nightmare and I gave up. If you or anyone else know of a good article on how to set it up I would love to check it out. I’ll check out the wiki and see if that helps any.
Intravax, I used the wiki and my experience using the Healbot and Grid to set it up. If you give it a shot and get stuck with something, let me know. I might put together a post in the next couple weeks that is a step by step setup guide, but that might be a little too ambitious. lol. we’ll see how it goes.
Thanks so much for the write-up on VuhDo! My little druid (Balance/Resto dual-specced) hit 80 a month or two ago, and I’ve been slowly but surely running some heroics and gearing up. I’ve never raided before (my old main hit 70 just before Wrath came out), so finding a set of raid frames that worked for me was my big remaining obstacle before I take the leap into 10-mans. It looks like VuhDo does everything I would have liked Grid to do, but is easier for me to configure without hunting down more addons to add to the addon. Anyway, having used VuhDo a few times now, I love it. Customizable HoT timers FTW! And I never would have even heard of it if not for you.
The one thing I haven’t figured out yet is a way to set my left-click to select a party member. Anyone know how to do this?
Nevermind on the question. I just found the VuhDo documentation. (http://vuhdo.ithato.com)
If anyone else has the same question, it looks like you can put “target” / “assist” / “focus” / “tell” in place of a spell name.
@Zanzi, I’m just tickled that VuhDo is working out for you and that you found it as easy as I did to set up. Woot woot! =)
Long time no see
I took a break from my druid to level a lock and rogue. I’ve finally found a new guild but of course they need healers. So, back to my barky toon. I still use healbot and smartdebuff but this looks promising. Grats on getting into the new guild on the new realm!
Popped VuhDo onto my machine and after messing with it for 20 minutes or so I’m still undecided. I prefer the way healbot displays the my hots. It seems so much easier to read at a glance. The dots that VuhDo uses aren’t as useful since they aren’t together next to each other. Maybe I’ll get used to it because I really enjoy the way it sets a private tank. I’m 95% sold if I get over the stupid dots for hots which is why I gave up on grid.
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