Modifying Your World - Recount & RecountGuessedAbsorbs

Meters! Yay! Everyone loves meters!

Except healers. Well, most healers. Some healers adore them. Especially the kind that like to SPAM the meters in chat channels. I dislike that kind of behavior, and not just because I'm Disc. (No, really, I swear - why are you looking at me like that!? Stop it!)

So today - Recount (and RecountGuessedAbsorbs, which I'll get to in a little bit). This is a mod I've tried on and off, depending on the status of WoW on my computer, and whether I could remember to replace it if a wipe of the addons folder had been called for (I ... don't do that anymore). It hasn't broken for me for quite some time, and I haven't toasted a hard drive either, so my Addons folder remains intact, and this handy little mod remains in use.

Recount is a meter mod. That is, it keeps track of outgoing and incoming damage (somewhat like your combat log) and seperates the different categories of damage and healing into easy to read lists. Those lists are further broken down (in another window, if you click on a certain character's name/bar) with pie charts giving you more in depth information about what they've done within that category.

What I, as a Priest, take a look at is Healing Done and Overhealing Done. Being rather old school, I get twitchy if I find myself very high on Overhealing Done, and if I'm high on Healing Done I develop a slight glow of happiness. Notice that it's merely a slight glow - as a healer, one should be aware that meters regarding healer performance only really show you how often a player has pushed a certain button, not whether that button push actually made any difference to the target character's healthbar, saved a life, or just made pretty sparkles.

Still, if a healer is abyssmally low on the meters, you can be aware that something isn't quite right in healer town. Unless they're a Disc Priest, in which case, there's another part of the story (which, conveniently enough, has an additional mod that can help tell that part of the story, which is part of Recount as well) - so here's where I'll plug RecountGuessedAbsorbs, which is somewhat experimental, but so far as I'm aware it's the only thing of it's kind. It guestimates how much damage the bubbles you've tossed out are absorbing (and doesn't count bubbles you throw out that fall off due to reaching their buff duration, so no cheating). I've found it to be pretty accurate thus far, myself. What you'd do in this instance is check the number for the Priest in question under GuessedAbsorbs, then add that to the Healing Done number, and you'll have a better idea of their performance. Hopefully it'll make their numbers make more sense, though that won't always be the case.

If their numbers remain quite low, you'll want to click that healer's name and see what the pie chart tells you (though the hover over tooltip will tell you a) their 3 most used spells and b) their 3 most common healing targets). For Disc Priests, you'll want to see Flash Heal and Penance in the top three healing spells cast, hopefully Flash Heal more than Penance. Since Penance is on a 10 second cool down when glyphed, there are a variety of other things you can do between Penances that would be very helpful to the people you're hanging out with... You can throw about 4 Flash Heals during the cooldown, for instance.

(Yes, I'm aware that what I'm saying and what the picture shows are rather at odds - all I cay say is that it was a long night on Yogg and I spent about 95% of Phase 2 dispelling rather than healing, and what healing I did do was "OMG Penance the person nearly dead! Ok back to dispells..." If I never see another Magic or Disease debuff, it'll still be too soon)

As always, as a healer the meters can't be taken as the entire story. Bubbles are more accurate, but Healing Done is very very easy to pad, and Overhealing will indicate how much mana may be going to waste -- which only matters if mana is in short supply. Druids, for instance, can only do so much about their HoTs ticking away after someone's already been topped off (I assume, since they're chronic and extreme offenders). For Priests it's a bit easier to minimize the wasted mana; while Overhealing may not be a bad thing, it's also not a fabulous thing, either. We don't tend to have massive crits the way Pallies do, and we can do a bit of everything. Our gap filling abilities should help us keep our Overheals to a minimum and our Healing Done (and Guessed Absorbs) in a healthy place. That said - a Disc Priest, after Healing Done and Guessed Absorbs have been added together - can pretty quickly find themselves among the top healers on the list AND be lower on Overhealing than Pally tanks and DPS, Warlocks and Deathknights. That's quite mana efficient, in my opinion, which just makes me nearly go incandescent with my glow. ^_^

Another picture, to show what the Details window will resemble:

So, that's my super duper long, way more info than you really wanted, post on Recount and it's good buddy Recount Guessed Absorbs. I hope it was more informative than confusing!

Pardon my horrible Paint jobs on the pictures, there comes a point where you really don't care how pretty it looks so long as the names of the innocent or hapless remain protected

Also, apparently I've already posted on this subject before, and these mods, but this time I have PICTURES. And it's sort of part of my newish theme of mods. So it's better and more colorful and better. Nyaaa~