I can heal without Grid. Really and truly. I remember pulling out raid frames back in the day, so I certainly don’t believe any addon will make or break a healer, but I wouldn’t trade the efficiency and sheer knowledge that comes from having Grid.
It can certainly seem daunting at first, but once you get into the meat of the interface, you can easily configure it for just about any purpose. This, however, isn’t a general guide to setting up Grid. There are plenty of those on the web. Instead I’d like to illuminate a few things you may not know exist in Grid, and what you can do with them as a holy paladin:
Tracking Buffs
You may have used this feature by tracking certain debuffs in new raids before the Grid library was updated to include them - Incinerate Flesh and Bonespike Graveyard, for example. Did you know you can add buff tracking the same way?
Open up Grid config and expand the Status subsection. Click on Auras, then where it says Add New Buff, type in the name of the buff you want to track. In this case, we’re going to add Beacon of Light. Hit enter, then expand the Auras subsection to see Buff: Beacon of Light.
Click on Buff: Beacon of Light and take a look at the options. You can change the color of the indicator here, as well as the priority. A higher priority will make sure the indicator shows above other indicators in the same location. Below the priority slider there are several options, but since I’ve decided I want my bacon to show an indicator when it’s on a target, I only check Show if Mine.
Just like a custom debuff, though, if you don’t set it to an indicator, it won’t do anything. Currently I have my Grid set to display an aggro indicator in the upper left corner and a cleansable debuff indicator in the top right. Let’s say you want Beacon to display in the bottom left. Go up to Frame and expand it, then click on Bottom Left Corner. Check Buff: Beacon of Light and make sure everything else is unchecked, and viola! I have a way to track Beacon of Light on Grid.
You can do this with blessings, as well. Add a new buff the same way you added Beacon, then go in and tweak the options. You can choose to Show if Missing, but I still keep it to Show if Mine. It tells me the same thing without giving me more information than I need. This isn’t a substitute for PallyPower by any means, but if for some reason your standard buffing addon isn’t working, you can still see who in the raid has buffs at a glance.
Tracking Aggro
Let’s say you’re in a raid and one of those silly warlocks starts Lifetapping mid-pull. You figure ‘Alright, he’s not getting hit by anything, so I’ll keep him on a lower priority.’ But suddenly, there’s a dead warlock on the ground and everyone’s looking to you for answers. Turns out the warlock got aggro from an AE pack, but Grid’s default aggro indicator (a flashing red line around the box) was at a lower priority than the low health (flashing white line) indicator, so you didn’t see it. Even if you had, by the time he actually got aggro, it likely would have been too late. He is a warlock, after all. Just look at them and they fall over dead. *
But did you know you can track threat via Grid? Expand the Status subsection and select Aggro warning alert. Check the Threat box and you will get three separate color indicators to configure. After that, you can go up to the Frame subsection and decide where you want it to show. I have my aggro warning indicator set to the top left corner at the highest priority.
Now when that warlock is inching up to the tank in threat, you can see it via a High Threat indicator, allowing you the chance to toss a Hand of Salvation on him to calm his Hellfiring butt down. Yep. You’re just that awesome. Everyone can line up to thank you later. Preferably with chocolates.
Tweaking Icecrown Debuffs
I like to call this one: Making sure I don’t cleanse the abomination like a dumbass.
If you’ve updated Grid in the past few weeks, you’ll notice it now auto-tracks things like Bonespike Graveyard and Mark of the Fallen Champion. This is great, but we can do a bit more tweaking to maximize the efficiency of these indicators.
Expand the Status subsection and then expand Raid Debuffs. Click Icecrown Citadel and Load. You should see all of the debuffs from the zone, separated neatly by boss. Let’s just say, for starters, we want to do a few things here. Mainly, we want to solve some problems:
Mark of the Fallen Champion is getting covered up by another icon! Halp!
Go down to Deathbringer Saurfang and click Mark of the Fallen Champion. Set the icon and color priority to 10 and your problems should be solved!
I need to know how long my target has on their Mutated Infection! Halp!
Go down to Rotface and click Mutated Infection. Check Remained time and you should get a little timer with your icony goodness.
I keep cleansing the abomination on Putricide and everybody hates me! Halp!
I’m sure I’ve…. Never done this. Ever. But if I had, I would go down to Putricide and uncheck Enable so this icon won’t show at all on Grid and I wouldn’t be tempted to cleanse it…
I imagine most of you awesome healers know about these advanced configurations, but I’m hoping it helps a few people get a bit more out of Grid. While you can certainly get the same thing out of other addons, I like having everything in one nice, pretty, boxy… box.
What about you? Do you use advanced customization for Grid, or are you happy with the standard setup?
* No warlocks were harmed in the making of this post.
