In-built raid frames

Original article:
http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/07/07/addon-spotlight-blizzards-built-in-raid-profiles/#continued

The new raid frames
We've come a long way in regards to the raid frames. CT_Raid showed us that things didn't have to be the way they always were. Grid and other similar addons gave us better debuff monitoring and a smaller footprint on the screen. Blizzard's raid frames get us most of the way there, and the new raid profiles get us even closer.

To access the new raid frames options, hop into your interface options from the main menu and select Raid Profiles. You are greeted with a window of options that will allow you to set and save profiles based on character, specialization, or anything your imaginative mind can think of.

The top-most check box allows you to use the Grid-like raid frames as your default party frames. Rather than using the bulky party frames, many players prefer the slimmed-down box style of the raid frames. The Auto-Activate check box under this option allows you to set when the box-style raid frames will go into effect, including options for all types of group sizes, your two talent specs (you might not want the raid frames when you are DPS but only while healing), and whether you are in a PVE or PVP zone. Just click the check boxes for all that you wish to apply.

Made with healers in mind
Really, the group of players most affected by raid frames and the options they provide is healers. Raid healing has become more challenging since the days of CT_raid and old-school Decursive. Dispelling has become mana-intensive, and healers work triage instead of topping everyone off at all times with spammable Chain Heals. The raid frames and the options they allow you to tinker with must take away some of the guesswork with healing.

Blizzard's raid profiles allow you to set the frames to display incoming heals to minimize the amount of overhealing or double-up heals you will hit on targets. Displaying Power Bars will let you see other players' mana, energy, rage, and all of that good stuff to gauge when to use a mana cooldown or mana restoration ability for your raid. Displaying the main tank and assist will help focus tank healers without having to whack-a-mole their way through the raid frames to find their target tank. Finally, healers will want to have debuffs shown on the raid frames to accurately be able to work with dispels and can even set the frames to only show debuffs that they themselves can dispel. These are all excellent features healers should have by default.

Showing health is also a tricky subject for healers, as some prefer seeing health levels as deficits rather than full pools, which can help gauge what type of heal is needed at any specific moment. The built-in raid profiles allow you to set health as health remaining, health lost, or a health percentage, giving most types of healers options for their preferred way of viewing health and health-related numbers.

The basics

Allowing you to set the frame's height and width is a no-brainer, but it's fairly new for Blizzard. Usually, UI elements are static things, with a very defined motif set up around the average player's needs. With addons and UI mods, this obviously all changed, and Blizzard has been slowly adding into the game more focus on customization.

There are still some basics missing from the Blizzard raid frames/profiles that Grid and healer-focused frames like Vuhdo and Healbot feature, like making it easy to bind spells to mouse clicks, but Blizzard is upgrading the basics to what is under everyone's hood, regardless of what you've installed.

Profiles

The last thing I wanted to say was that I am extremely happy that Blizzard has created a profile system for raid frames, because it signals the beginnings of a profile system for most of the in-game options. Currently, you can create profiles for which addons to turn on per character, but each addon requires its own, personal profile system in game. I am hoping that one day we get a much more streamlined profile system that maybe even Blizzard leads the charge with. Saving and creating profiles for gear with the built-in equipment manager has become a much better experience, and the new raid profiles system will hopefully lead the way to bigger and better things.

Can you tell that I like when Blizzard makes such awesome changes to the interface? While the Blizzard frames will not be replacing my Grid setup just yet, new players and addon-lite players have a capable and feature-rich raid frame built in to the game that is getting progressively better and more useful. No matter what else you have installed, we all now have this basic quality-of-life feature that has evolved through the game's lifespan through the community letting Blizzard know what they want.

Download the Blizzard raid profiles at [it's already installed].

I actually use the raid frames in party too - I like what bliz has done, and I move them near the center of the screen for my healer so I get better idea of what is up while I move around avoid fire and trying to keep the rogues alive *whistles* My super cool mac monitor is so large I need to have important info at the center *chuckle*

I still rely on my own custom health information addon mostly because I'm used to it - what I'd like to move towards is using mouse over macros for healing so you can mouse over a raid frame, hit a hot key, and do the type of heal you want - bind the hot key to one of your mouse buttons so you can run around avoiding fire and healing rogues too. I still do a little too much clicking (like whack-a-mole) I want to make healing more like tanking for me where I never clicked, always used mouse or hot keys.

I haven't explored all of the raid frame profiles yet but it looks really powerful.

I tried the mouse over macros Hales, never could get them to work properly, of course it would help if I had mad programer skillz like some people....