UI placement tips for new healers?

[tocsin]

As a new healer to ARR, I am having a little bit of trouble with my UI placements. Either my eyes are constantly dartiung around the screen for information, or I cant see mechanics as they go on. Do any experienced Healers have any suggestions on placement of party frames, threat bars and such? (screenshots appreciated!)

Thanks in advance!

[Cynfael]

A lot of it just getting used to monitoring all the information you need for healing in this game. Party HP, buff/debuff status, focus target bar, aggro table, game mechanics, party/enemy positioning, etc. etc.

I did shift my party list a bit down the screen to bring it closer to my skills for faster mouse targeting. I also moved my focus target bar closer to the party list so that I could easily notice it while taking care of usual business, making it less likely that I would miss an important mechanic with a casting bar telegraph.

If you look up YouTube guides on end-game content (like Coil of Bahamut), you'll see some ideas for UI placement that might fit your preferences.

[Miggiwoo]

Hi Tocsin,

I would suggest considering mouseover heals, and making sure your most common spell are bound to keys that you use (remember you can bind keys to Shift+ and Alt+ and the bars dont have to be visible). You can also use macros to combine commons pells, for example swiftcast, divine seal and Medica 2, or swiftcast and res, etc.

This will minimise the space your abilities take up on your screen which will reduce oveall clutter and make the important things more easy to manage.

The other thing, I moved my focus bar to the top of the party list, that way I can focus on a smaller part of the screen.

It all comes with practice though.

[micropanther7]

I'll add what I found really useful... positioning party menu and important spells in a couple of hotbars to the left/middle part of my screen, has improved my healing immensely. But what I found really useful was positioning the focus target where it catches my eye quickly, which is usually slightly off-centre. This really, really helped me in Titan HM for example, being able to spot quickly what he was casting and time aoe heals! So was slightly less painful experience Everyone is dead right though when they say it comes with practice, tinker around with what suits you and feels comfortable.

[Estellios]

I would suggest moving your party list so the middle of it is around your eye level. It feels like it makes it easier to glance at and notice while still being able to see what is going on around you without putting it right in the middle of the screen and having it block everything.

For the Alliance status windows, put them in a corner and reduce their size so they are out of the way. The only information you need to know from the alliance windows are whether a person is dead or alive, and that is easy to see even with a smaller alliance window.

Assuming you aren't colorblind, enemy list + hate meters are probably fine being off to the side but somewhere you can see them out of the corner of your eye while looking at your character or at the party list. In almost any case the only relevant information from that for a healer is going to be "Are any of the dots by an enemy orange or red?" which shouldn't require you to look directly at the enemy list.

Really most of it will come down to practice. Just stay calm.

[QuCont]

Place all the important information in one central location so you don't have to dart all over the screen.

The reverse is also important, remove unnecessary clutter from your screen so you don't get distracted.
I used to have a macro to disable the duty list, inventory, gil and all non-skill HBs (basically everything on the right side of this screenshot) back when playing on a PC with 1366x768 resolution.


click for actual size

[Cynfael]

Hi Tocsin,

I would suggest considering mouseover heals, and making sure your most common spell are bound to keys that you use (remember you can bind keys to Shift+ and Alt+ and the bars dont have to be visible). You can also use macros to combine commons pells, for example swiftcast, divine seal and Medica 2, or swiftcast and res, etc.

This will minimise the space your abilities take up on your screen which will reduce oveall clutter and make the important things more easy to manage.

The other thing, I moved my focus bar to the top of the party list, that way I can focus on a smaller part of the screen.

It all comes with practice though.

Good call-out with the keybinds; I'd totally forgotten that part.

I came to this game from playing mostly Neverwinter, so I remapped a few of my keys to reduce the need to use the mouse for skills. On SCH, Physick and Adlo are mapped to Q and R, Succor is E, Lustrate is X, Leeches is Z, and so on.

[Risvertasashi]

Place all the important information in one central location so you don't have to dart all over the screen.

I second this. My setup is mostly like QuCont's, though I have the radar/minimap more central as another way to help keep tabs on my party.

[TravelerX1]

Anyone have any tips for us folks on Ps3/4 (4 here)
I am fining it hard to do anything besides heal, targeting enemies and then back to party members is a PITA, and can get the Tank killed.

I am just waiting to be called out on it in a dungeon "Why no DOT" "Because I suck and you like to remain breathing......" LOL

[Seryl199]

Anyone have any tips for us folks on Ps3/4 (4 here)
I am fining it hard to do anything besides heal, targeting enemies and then back to party members is a PITA, and can get the Tank killed.

I am just waiting to be called out on it in a dungeon "Why no DOT" "Because I suck and you like to remain breathing......" LOL

You can cycle through the enemy list by holding L1 and pressing up or down. Then, pressing up or down let's you quickly go back to scrolling through your own party. Also, I found setting up filters helped me. Having a filter for only enemies or only aggroing enemies means less targets to tab through, and again, your party is always accessible through pressing up or down.