What makes a Priest UI?
 

This may seem a silly question... but I've been thinking: what specifically makes a Priest UI?

Of course, there may be different answers depending on whether one is a druid, shaman, or cleric, but I think this could a profitable and interesting discussion, and hopefully helpful for developers as they create new windows and UI's.


- In general, what things are absolutely necessary for a Priest UI?

- What things aren't necessary, or get in the way?

- Are there particular windows, arrangements, or features that are important to have in a Priest class UI?

- Are there things specific to Cleric, Druid, or Shaman UI's that maybe the others wouldn't have or need?

- What other comments do you have about UI's for Priest class characters?


I'm looking forward to the discussion!

timer..
 

maybe a timer for clerics casting complete heals in a raid...

My mouse loving cleric is only 51 so my answer is limited, grin...

Timer for buffs (cel heal too)
All target info in one box (pet line, group member, my m and hp, mob hp)
melee spam in one tiny spot
Spell gems next to info box
clickies on the group window would be neat too

/wave

When playing my 40-something cleric, I really like to have a big casting bar sitting right underneath a big target health bar so that I can judge whether my heal will be in time.

I like having target, mana, casting, and group health bars all right next to each other so that I can watch them all at once.

It's also nice to have the F2-F6 labels for group members.

Other clerics have told me that the tick timer in my UI is very handy for CH rotations because it counts out seconds. I could package that up for general use if people were interested in it.

My 2 cents. It really depends on the role of whoever I'm playing. As a healer, I like obvious (but not obnoxious) group bars, preferably with a good contrast between the "gone" hp and what's left. When I'm soloing, the only real info I need is my hp/mana, pet's hp and a few commands, and the enemy hp bar.
I prefer a clear window though...being a cleric/healer is boring, if I can stare at something not related to everyone's hp, I probably will. :) Also prefer one that I can stuff up at the top of the screen, as my chair sits high/my desk is low, to make it easier to keep up with what's going on. (And now I'm just so used to it.) Been using the Vertibrae skins for some time, it has everything I need and doesn't eat up too much screen space.

I think that one of the big things is:

Casting Bar below the Target (all in the same window)

I know when you are casting that CH, and trying to watch the casting bar with their life dropping at the same time, it can get a little close. Do you duck and cast a quick heal then start the CH agian?

I used to play a cleric as my main and this was the thing I would think that would really define a Priest UI.

Edit: I think that a small spell book and an open feeling is very important also. I see that while I was posting some others said the same about the casting bar. Good colors in the group window are a great idea also.

my 2 copper ......
I have a 51 clr. Her ui is open and nice to look at. I hav kelvise color change bars. This way i can see someone going down fast.
Next to them i have the fairy spell bar it compact and easyly used in a pinch. above that i hav a large target bar that easy to read. As for a spell book i have one of t kings undead one.
Everything is open and easy to read and nice to look at. That my 2 copper.
:D

The main thing I look for in a UI when playing my cleric is the group health bars. I find the new tkg2celtic fit the bill nicely, give you changing colors for health precentages, making it easier to see who is in most need of a heal.

First and foremost:
#1. The cleric's hit points HAVE to be in the same window as the groups hit points. To do otherwise can mean a dead cleric.
#2. A cleric should have 2 or more windows. The main window should show all the important chat, and the other 2 windows should filter out the spam you cant get rid of.
#3. The clerics interface should be as uncluttered and non-distracting as possible. Moving animations and large, sweeping images are nice, but can be distracting.


I use 2 MODs I D/Led from this site. The most important one takes my group window and adds my personal info (HP, Mana, STA, Pet, EXP, AA EXP). The other MOD takes my personal window and turns it into my target window. This accomplishes 2 things. It reduces the clutter on my screen, since I can get rid of the default target window. And it makes my target window border in red when my attack is on.

Notice that any window I am not actively using, that is in my actual view area, fades to 0:


My chat windows sort melee hits (both what I hit and when I get hit) to the little window on the far right. The center window sorts out channel chatter, guild chatter, ooc/auc/shout junk, and basically anything that is not group or raid chat.



For my hotkey box, I D/Led one from this site, then modified it to better suit my needs. I even added my large soiled bag so I could quickly and easily check on my peridot/coffin/whatever status, and also easily locate my Necronic Divining Device:

My cleric UI
 

I agree with everything in your post Dikmer, especially that a cleric's UI should be unobtrusive. I also put together mine with bits and pieces downloaded from this site.

Things I find most helpful:

1. Group window that includes me in the list.
2. Access to bags and clickies without opening inventory.
3. I'm a mouse-user so having everything important clustered together in one spot is key.
4. Text labels for spell bar and buff list.
5. Everything as small as possible, and transparent if possible, to allow for maximum viewing area.




Eradikate Exorcista
Cleric of Povar

Well, while I am sure you are very used to your UI, for me, I see 2 critical flaws.

#1, your main chat and your group HP windows are too far apart. Like yours, my set up has my main chat and group windows are side by side. I can't begin to tell you how important that is to me, since I type by looking at the keyboard, and I can't be looking around my screen to read, and look at group bars, and look at my keyboard. They just have to be closer for me. But on yours, the chat is over on the left side of your chat window, which would me bad for me.

#2, for me, not using view port doesn't work. I either have trouble reading the chat windows, or I have to darken the chat windows to read them, which blocks my view.

All in all, the same basic principles I am trying to get across. ;)

Others have said some already, but for me:

The UI has to be monastic. No clutter at all, including no stats or resists or other information I could get from going to inventory. The only exception is current/max hp, xp and alt xp. Stuff like window selector, menu and other seldom-used windows are always off for me until I need them. Until the spell sets, my spell gem bar was always off too since all casts are done by hotkey.

The player gauge must be in the group window. This is probably the most important change for a priest UI.

While the popular buffs-with-their-name buff boxes are nice, having bard songs blinking to me are a distraction. I have just the icons in the shortbuffbox, shrunk to 16x16 and close to the gauges so I'm not looking elsewhere on the screen when I notice stuff blinking in the corner of my eye.

Four hotkeyed inventory slots: primary, secondary, top two general inventory slots. For swapping epic/proc hammer in primary and gvd/shield in secondary.

The hp gauges need to be high contrast and easy to gauge rate of damage taken over time. Part of this for me is making the target and group gauges the same size. I don't have %s or any cues for low life. I tried them and they were distracting. More often than not, I'd toss a small heal onto someone at 96% life during a lull and it was wasteful. I can understand it being a benefit for some, likely most.

Numerical mana % along with the gauge of course.

For a raiding cleric, a 10 min (+foci/aa) timer for Divine Intervention that you can get rid of when it's not needed. I spent an afternoon heavily modifying Arista's timer mod so that it fit unobtrusively into my UI and was just as unobtrusive for the majority of the time when it was off.

All gauges need to be in the same corner of the UI. When things get hairy, everything not in or immediately around the group window gets ignored.

Easy to manipulate chat windows are also nice for a raiding cleric. So you can create a new chat window for a ch rotation and get rid of it when it's not needed.

The loot window should have all 31 slots available without scrolling. This is the one I use. With it you can pluck your epic from your corpse instantly without scrolling through to find it.

High visibility is crucial to a cleric. Being able to see the whole fight and potential problems in the surrounding area. With the need for high contrast gauges, this usually means a viewport or opaque group window background. One thing that helps is to keep everything orderly and sized enough to fit along the screen bottom as much as possible--keeping to a monastic style--to give an unobstructed rectangular viewport.

I agree and disagree with some things said here.

I play as my main a 65 druid with well over 100 aaxps. I often times also play a 65 cleric both in raids and in groups. So what I say are simply my opinions playing in both groups and end game raiding with both of those classes.

Also let me say that Ive been using my own UI (a mod of drakah) for months now and find it perfect for my needs.
link here
http://www.eqgui.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6112

1st. Percentile marks next to any health and mana bar. Not overlaying like the default UI but next too. Its key to have a % next to mana. There are times when im power medding and need to fire off that last heal the second i get the mana to do so.

2nd. I disagree that my health bar needs to be INSIDE the group window. However, it should logically be close to the group window. Frankly, end game raiding as a healer often times you CANT heal yourself as a cleric, and as a druid you should be aware of your life.

3rd. I also disagree about making the UI unobstructive. Currently my UI takes up a good solid one third of my screen and id have NO problems making it larger if i felt it warented it. The action in the game for healers isn't what our 3d toons are doing, its in the pixel movement of life bars, and the rapid action of the chat box.
For this same reason I also put my chat boxes at the top of the screen, not the bottom. My eyes naturally rest near the top of the screen when im playing, so it only made sense to me to have the most important information there.

4th. Notice on my UI theres a combonation box for player stats/pet window/clickies This was an ingenious idea, and actually the first one that drew me to drakah's work. I often don't need any of those 3 boxes, however its nice to have the stat window there as a reference, and clicking over to the other two boxes is simple and painless.

5th. you can't see my casting bar in my picture, but there are actually TWO gauges. One that appears below my target box, roughly where Ghesta Icepaw is floating. Another is simply a small pink line that runs through my mana bar whenever I cast.
OF the two, i prefer the pink line. It gives me a better guage of how much longer my spell will be casting because of the hash marks in the mana bar.
However, I disagree with others that the casting bar NEEDS to be big. I simply don't see it.

6th. Timers. Im sorry, I know a lot of people like timers, but I hate them. I dislike them for several reasons. most importantly, I feel that in most cases they are a crutch. A good cleric should know how long it will be till his heal lands. A shaman should know roughly when to reslow. etc etc etc. Another reason that I dislike timers is this. Every time Ive tried to use a timer, I find something new to time. Mez is X seconds, CH chain is Y seconds, Slow is Z seconds. Why, id need 45 different timers just to keep up. Finally, the other reason I don't like timers is the following. Especially later game, you need to be versitile, you need to adapt on the fly to conditions MUCH quicker than you did in earlier play. CH chain, someone dies, you need to adjust, and you have to adjust IMMEDIATLY or the raid dies. Mobs will dispell debuffs that you stack on them, or buffs on you. Timers, at end game, just don't work imho.

Well, thats about it i guess. hope my input helps, and im sorry if i offended anyone.
:)

As my main char is a 65 cleric, there were a lot of requirements when I was looking for a custom UI.

I have to concur that as a cleric the ability to see my group's HP values was critical as was my stats and mana. I liked what Drakah had done but I didn't need the frills around the windows. That's when I found Vert UIs. The problem always became that this UI was good in design but was a bit too frilly and this one that was clean didn't have the right configuration.

That's why I dove in and created my own based on Vert. My UI takes up approx 1/3 of the screen on the lower portion. The main feature is that the compass bar stretches across the entire screen dividing the viewable area from the information area. It contains the compass, my resists, my name and surname, my level and class and diety, all my stats as well as my exp and aa bars (and numeric percentages). From the left to right are various windows that combine some pieces. Hotbuttons are on the left, then 2 chat windows (one is guild/raid/tell, one is melee/crit spam) then a bit off center to the right is my group window with the LFG button and above the group bars (with numeric percentages noted as well) is my player info including HP, Mana, Stamina, AC, HP/max and ATK. All bars include their numeric percentage values. And to the right is my main chat window. Below the hotbuttons, 2 chat windows and group window is the "target" window which has been reconfigured for right clickables. 5 equipment spaces, primary, secondary, range, ammo then the 8 inventory spaces. Above the compass bar (centered) is the "player" window which has been reconfigured at the target window/casting bar window with a long space for the target name and the numeric percentage value. Below the HP bar is where the casting bar pops up.

The upper left (below the PL info) is the spell gem window with the spell names to the right of the gems. I have modified this window recently to include an extra gem sized spellbook button for the spell lists. Below that, vertically, is the option window buttons. The upper right with the buff icons against the right is the main buff window (buff description to the left) with the song buffs window below that.

It's clean, simple and easy to use. I don't rely on the inventory window for information. All the info is there on the main screen. I don't have to worry what each spell gem/icon means because it's there on the screen. Like I said, all bars also include the value so I don't have to guess what the value is.

The only drawback is that I made it 1280x1024 only. I needed that much to display the info I wanted.

That's what I think makes a Priest UI. BTW, though it's nice to have your char's perspective viewable on the entire screen in the background, it's a pain in the ass when you want to click thing are behind your windows. I found it much more efficient to keep the viewable area segregated from the information.

EDIT: On the subject of timers ... although they are a nice concept, the reality of timers on the interface is a pain. Much better to get a few (I have 3) digital timers in the kitchenware section of your local Walmart. I set them when I need them. For the most part, I don't worry about it since if the buff wears off on me, then I need to recast it.

this my own ui for my cleric.

i added casting bar to the target and chatwindow.
So whatever window i am looking at, i still can see the bar.

YEAY, best saying EVER

OMG how do you people get away with just 2 chat windows?
Right now I run 4 - one for unnecessary spam that I can't get rid of, one for group/guild/raid/ tells, one for my guild's healer channel which is vital on raids so we don't spam the raid chat to death, and the last for my spells and class specific channel - that's a lot of windows so I need a clean UI. However, I also need quick access to things that I have in inventory, such as insta - click items and invis pots so popping up the inventory window is a dang dangerous inconvenience when your invis suddenly drops running thru the Grey to Ssra. So far the Ortin UI had been the cleanest running that gives me access to everything I need without sacrificing too much of my openness - and the soothing blue helps with the frazzled nerves when the SKs get bored and suddenly shout TRAIN!

Cleric perfection is never having to move your mouse more than a few inches! Also your cast bar and group HPs are the same size and colocated for movement rate comparison.

I like that pda thing u have there.. is that avail here?

EDIT: NM i clicked MY SKINS for you and saw it <BLUSH>

Well i took my tzime to read all the Posts to this special theme.

Of course i want to add my 2 cents to all this stuff:

In fact every cleric/druid/shmy would like to have a custom "only-made- for-me" UI. This will be possible if we all would be cracks on writing the needed scripts. God bless that it isnt so, otherwise the servers will explode on the mass of files.
So we all have to take compromisses every day we play our chars, every day we do different stuff which take us in need of different possibilities we need from our UI. In my eyes there wont be a perfect UI for all together.
To get the right view of things i downloaded massive UIs, partial UIs and single window UIs. After all i loaded them to have a look how they are working for me, deleted many UIs i couldnt work with and hooked up to a absolutly nice UI working for my needings.
I downloaded it from this board and im glad that i found my way to get it. Below u see a screenshot of course. Dont wonder why there are so many Chat windows. its unpossible for me to keep an overview with just one or two chat windows. I want clear and nice filtered informations depending in different important channels, keeping melee spam away from me and just slack my heals out when needed.


The nice thing using this UI is that i can minimize all Chat windows, without the need of closing em to get a full overview.
But like mentioned before: This UI works for me, taht doesnt mean it have to work for others too, everyone of us has his special wishes to the UI. No UI (*except Standard UI from Sony :D *) is wrong or bad one, its just the sight of view!

Name of this UI is Drakah Steel. Yeah this guy worked out rly nice stuff in the last time and i want to thank him on this position also for a great work.

So long Aiconus Faustgottes
Clr 65 on Antonius Bayle

[Edit] Forgotten to mention im a Hotbutton-User[/edit off]

www.lodidodi.net

Best priest UI ever IMO, and probably excellent for other classes as well. Changing HP color guages, clickable items and inventory easily accessible without taking up tons of room, text to the side of spells and buffs (without being in the way), a pink casting line under the target window, % next to all HP and mana displays... etc.. all make this a very nice cleric UI. :)

Of course my windows and layout are set up differently, but that is my opinion of what an ideal priest UI would contain.

Hello,

With all the changes to EQ as of late, most notably Health of target's target and cycle NPC, the UI MUST contain a built in HoTT window. There are many other features that I could mention that should be included in a priest UI, however the perfect priest UI is already a featured UI on this website.

If you would like to see what a perfect priest UI is, download, install and use the latest AYA UI. Things like multiple casting bars (one is literally attached to your target's health indicator), clicky items galore, built in HoTT, flashing indicators for low health situations and so much more.

The AyA UI is a priest's dream.

Q

I've used the Sars4 interface since it was released. as a raiding cleric the Target and HoTT are the only windows i need for Healing and /assist healing.

As a grouping Cleric, the bank of hoboxs make hitting my lickies easy and efficient. not to mention swapping out my hammer for the rez stick when needed.

I currently have an interface I put together from four other interfaces. It's a nightmare when patches roll around like today, but I love my setup. This includes:

1. No wasted space. I can't stand having extra flourishes when a simple line will do. Utility and minimalism is the key here.

2. Having my player health bars combined with the group health bars, exactly the same size and style. It looks like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 6 with 1 being my own health.

3. Having the exact number of health and mana as well as the percentage displayed at all times, and the percentage of AAxp gained.

4. Having names associated to my buffs.

5. Having a tiny but functional row of my inventory slots for easy access without opening my inventory next to my hotkeys.

6. Having three chat boxes: one for all group/guild/ooc/etc. chat, one for spell spam, and one for melee spam (I use this setup on my ranger and beastlord as well).

That's all I really need. Some other things I play around with are other information such as AC or raw stats, but these I usually know before I look anyway. Now, on to find a UI that handles the OOW changes. :rolleyes:

Di wadhan chi ulman a pescu all blodd auddi.

Raintide / Teirnon / Diomed

my 2cp worth
 

I agree with others about 1 thing for a cleric or group healer (guess druids would be the same here.)

ABOVE ALL ELSE

My health bar with the rest of the group.

Apart from that I think that the Soran UI is outstanding (see his post in this forum for details)

Fortunately I've learned enough to modify his to be 'just so' for me but I think if you download his optional 6 person group window you have an awesome setup. (I use my modifications on his 0.93 version - the .94 one has a more distinctive style)

The view of the world is shrunk into the area not used by the UI so you don't miss things that happen behind your windows (this also makes it run faster - a friend reckons this setup runs smoother at 1280x1024 than default at 1024x768)

For what its worth- the modifications I made for myself:-
- popped a HoTT bar in between target health and cast timer bars (This owns)
- changed the inventory slots for the ones I use. (inv slot 8 for my mod rod and pants for clicky pet)
- added numbers to the buff window for when the raidleader tells you to get 'junk buffs in slots 1-x

Here's a picture (sorry its a bit big)



Dragnet

(Edited typos)

re: my 2cp worth
 

Dragnet,

Out of curiousity what is the HoTT bar? (pardon my ignorance).

Angling
Cleric - Seventh Hammmer

Out of curiousity what is the HoTT bar? (pardon my ignorance).


Health of target's target- you can see it on the screenshot above.


Dragnet

What i really need is alot of info about mana / hp each grp member status, it needs to be clear in the text and the colours distinkt from eachother, so its easy to spot.
Off all the ones i browsed thru i have not seen any as good as EgrasUI (my personal oppinion)













Clean sharp lines makes it easy to work with when doing high end raiding.
Im not sure u can se it on the screenie, but just above the spellbar, there is a tiny bar for itself with all my gear icons, god bless this, easy acces to every clicky without having to open inventory or make a hotkey for it, just click it!! Whootie
Above (the black box) is target / HoTT - same as your own hp, red/orange/yellow/green, its da bomb!

I am a 70 cleric and pretty much built most the things people are listing as nice to have for a cleric into EgrasUI. Its in the download area with my screenshot and some others.

One thing that I REALLY enjoy is the HUGE group window. I use that on raids so EVERYONE has a huge lifebar and I dont see alot of the other stats. Stacking really allows me to lay out what I am doing at the time in one to two clicks of the keyboard.