UI time!

Every few months I take a look at my UI and make changes or tweaks. It's usually not the most sexy or even sometimes efficient, but sometimes changing things all at once just makes things worse.

I wanted to show what I was using largely because I had a guildmate or two ask about it. The rest of you are along for the ride! This first part will show Clique and Power Auras.

I still make changes but here is a screenshot of my UI just sitting there (well, with one low mana indicator but I will get to that)



To break it down here is what I have:

Sexymap with a Resto4life configuration
Default buffs and debuffs (X-perl still wasn't working right as far as their buff/debuff configuration)
X-perl unit frames
Dominoes bars
Vuhdo party/raid frames
ForteXorcist cooldown bar (spell bar is off due to using Vuhdo instead)
PowerAuras using Krogarum's Tanking Auras bear export, TBJ, and my own healing set up
Skada meter
Clique
Other hidden things like Omen and DBM.

There could be ways to make this even cleaner or smoother but it works for me. What I enjoy is the amount of so called Real Estate space on the screen. Since Cata, with healing circles and bad things on the ground, actually seeing stuff matters! To clutter your screen with too much stuff will hurt you and your raid.

Clique

If you haven't tried it yet and using mostly click to target methods, I would say this is a lifesaver. It may take some getting used to with the mouse keybinds, but after a while they will part of your muscle memory. I previously used it with Grid, but Vuhdo has an option to use keybinds through their mod or just import your Clique bindings (which saves a lot of time setting everything back up).

There is an option to create modes for friendlies, enemies and both so you can easily switch from dps to healing and back. Before I went feral, my Clique was set up for boomkin and resto and because of that I kind of ran out of mouse options due to laziness (Starfall is still on their but I am not spec'd for it now). I will spare you the full list but here's a screenshot of most of it:



You don't have to go hog wild like I did if you are starting out. Even just binding your commonly used spells to a few buttons will help you see a difference in performance.

Power Auras


This one intimidated me the most. I didn't know how to begin so I started with tanking first since that's what I had the most trouble tracking.

I started with importing previously made codes by Krogarum at this link.

Not everything he had I was interested in so I chose the ones that mattered the most to me, namely Pulverize, Maul, Demo Roar, FF, Berserk and Lacerate. Barkskin was also important so I used Keeva's at TBJ. After that I tweaked with opacity and such to suit my needs.

For healing, I started mostly with the ones on TBJ but I found using symbols didn't translate well for me. I needed words, so I used the option called "Text Aura" and typed the words I wanted on the screen with the Moonstar font (but you can choose any font).

Edit: since this post I have discovered RestoDude's Auras and I found that I enjoy that set up of Omen of Clarity and Lifebloom reminders.


Innervate Export:

Version:4.9; anim1:6; g:0.6667; icon:inv_alchemy_elixir_02; beginSpin:true; r:0.3804; bufftype:9; alpha:1; aurastext:Innervate; duration:2; sound:23; threshold:80; textaura:true; spec2:false; aurastextfont:12; combat:true; size:1.06; y:174; finish:4

This gives me a pulsing "Innervate" on my screen when my mana reaches a certain threshold. Also, it has a sonar sound that isn't obtrusive but still gets my attention. All of this is helpful because I want to innervate early during a boss fight so it is back up in a timely manner. You can set the threshold to whatever works best for you.

Low Mana Export:

Version:4.9; b:0.9333; anim1:10; icon:inv_alchemy_elixir_02; r:0; begin:3; x:92; groupany:false; unitn:Only for raid/group.; bufftype:9; texture:9; alpha:0.5; aurastext:Low Mana; symetrie:2; isResting:0; sound:37; stacksOperator:=; threshold:30; textaura:true; aurastextfont:12; size:1.1; y:-24; finish:3

This gives me a warning early that my mana is getting low and I need to make some emergency choices. Additionally, I wasn't happy with the default message blizz gave us so this new message is bright and circles around my character in case I missed it the first time.

The result:



To use an string that someone has made, copy the code then open Power Auras (/powa). There should be an option to "Import" then Ctrl-V (paste) your new aura.

Honestly, it felt easier to make whatever auras I wanted after seeing how a pre-made was done. I think I spent an hour or two just playing around with it and seeing how it worked, giggling most of the time.

Later I will show Vuhdo and it's glory and a brief mention of FX.

UI time (Part 2)!

I previously mentioned what I use as far as Clique and Power Auras set up. Now we move on to the crux of my mods, Vuhdo.

Vuhdo

I was unhappy with Grid and it's extras not being updated timely and I missed the customization when I used the default frames. Thus, I looked into Vuhdo.

This video has a good introduction, even if some of it is possibly out of date.

There is a lot of nitty gritty that I tweaked and messed with.

Explaining it all would take a video, which I am not that savvy at, but I will point out some adjustments I made and show what it looks like. Note that a lot of functions have their own tooltips explaining what happens when you enable/disable them.



Here is the misc General configurations. Notice I check marked Clique to use those keybindings I had set up. I hid party and raid frames, well because that's what Vuhdo is for, and at the bottom there you can use their feature to announce resurrections.



This section can change the color of the panel to show the color of the debuff that is on the target. I wasn't quite happy with the default colors so above is what I have set up.




This is all my hots going. What I didn't realize after making that screenshot is you can enable the mod to show stacks of say... Lifebloom as well as the timer. Now, this looks like my frames have the case of the measles but I am quite used to it.



This is what the frame looks like with some hots, a raid icon, and showing incoming heals.



Example of a debuff during a Deadmines run.

FortExorcist

This mod originally was a warlock mod (which still works great for that and I use it for my lock alt) but it has increased it's functionality for all classes. One of our healers uses the default raidframes, so using the spell tracking feature that FX provides helps him keep tabs on those pally things (read: sparkly buttons).

For myself, I have Vuhdo for most things, but FX combined with Power Auras let's me track so much more. The cooldown bar tracks my trinkets, internal cooldowns like Nature's Grace, Swiftmend etc. It's quite handy and can be moved to anywhere on your screen.



Similarly, if you are only wanting a cooldown bar without having to turn off a bunch of extra features, try CoolLine. It's lightweight and has a similar look to FX (inspired by it actually).

You can find all these mods at your favorite addon site (Curse, WoWInterface, Ace, etc).

4 hours of sleep.

Let me first off say that I normally go to bed at 9:00 pm. Last night I went to bed at 2:00 am (ish). Largely this is due to our friend who came over for dinner with the knowledge that the patch wasn't going to be done until 5 o'clock anyway. Seeing no point of rushing to log in we decided: bitching about the patch over a lovely meal > bitching about the patch while dealing with the whole server at once.

Then I promptly went online and the next thing I know, it's past midnight.

I didn't sleep in and figured I would take a nap later today. So, as I write this, I've had about 4 hours of sleep. You'd think it was expansion day or something!

Addon Pain

As with every major patch of this scale, your add ons will suck.

Of course, I totally forgot to fix a major one before doing some heroics and was not happy!

If you can't find the latest Grid you can download it here. It is Ace3 dependent which you can download here.

(Last night the other places like Curse and WoWinterface were not up to date. This probably has changed since this morning)

The new raid UI works very similarly to Grid and is found in the interface options. I sadly am so used to a third party raid window that the only way I would move away from Grid is to get Vuhdo.

I realized this morning that I miss Lifebloomer. I have dot timer but it's not the same as having things in one clean window. If someone knows of a replacement, I would love to know.

Had to update x-perl in order to get that eclipse bar to show on my screen.

WoWInterface posted a list of their updated add ons but there are still some issues.

Ahh remember Vanilla? I do and am amazed at how dependant on mods I have become. For perspective, I am reminded of Dark Legacy Comics. I'm a good healer!

Alts

Ciras enjoyed her new Barrier goodie but I haven't had the time or chance to really flesh out the new stuff like Archangel. Figure the time will eventually come but she is low on the priority list.

Helaina, my lock, however is semi raiding with some other alts from the guild and so I really worked on her late last night. I am disappointed with my Affliction numbers and begrudgingly went to Destro. On the test dummy, it pulled higher numbers for sure. Just when affliction looked like it was holding it's own, things go back down again for them. We shall see; I've been affliction for four years (even when it sucked, I refused to balk) and watching dots is like watching hots for me.

Could very well be gear since she is rather new to 80 and still has some blues (I know!)

Please be kind to your tanks (or Faceroll vs Finesse)

I know it will be hard to keep all those crits and new toys at bay, but if you want to keep tanks around for Cata, for the love of Elune please remember they will have a learning curve. Lum was struggling to keep his threat up and hold all the mobs like he used to in a five man. In his words regarding our up and coming raid tonight "Dps are going to die. Lots." I really don't want to have the dps feel like the healers are just going to save them when they pull agro. Even though we probably can and will, that is not the point and never has been. Wrath has made a lot of things one big faceroll and I would like to see a bit more finesse.

Hmm, getting tired. Maybe it's nap time now?

Guild Changes

Guild camaraderie

Some people care about achievements more than other people. Ever since Blizz implemented this arguably epeen waggling system, it has been a love/hate situation with our guild.

I admit some fascinate me more than most, like Insane in the Membrane. We have at least a couple folks with it and I am astounded at the level of dedication needed to complete it. I gave up on goblins long ago, I sure as hell am not leveling the other factions. Still sitting at 39/40... I figure with Cata, I will find new factions to work on.

There is a theory floating around that with the new guild perks guilds will want to come together more to get things done. I can certainly see potential for hardcores who complete progression and are left with craptastic down time. Even more so benefits for casual guilds who don't feel the need to keep up with the top 10s but still like to get together on nights and feel rewarded for getting something accomplished.

This is where I finally feel like there is some return for completing an achievement. It goes beyond a new tabard or title and becomes something that everyone in the guild can take part in.

Feels somewhat like what an old guild on the server did for raiding points. Even if you didn't get to go to raids often, if you contributed mats for potions, bandages, engineering supplies, etc you got points when went towards your dkp.


Speaking of cleaning up achivements



Why, yes, it took us forever to finish this off. We have always been a few steps behind Blizzard when it came to content. While we were closing out Ulduar, TOC came out and most folks lost interest in older content. It wasn't that we lacked skill or time, but we tend to have a butterfly/squirrel mentality for new things. I am sure we aren't the first or last guild to have this problem. Of course, when Lum was trying to congratulate the guild on completing Yogg, I could clearly be heard on vent saying "About ****ing time!" This was met with much vocal agreement. Damn his mic.


New UI

I look forward to the new guild UI. In particular the professions tab. To be able to see who has what profession and what recipes we have in the guild is extremely attractive. This would have been useful during Wrath as folks were gaining recipes in dungeons and trying to get their BiS items made but obviously a boon when the expansion arrives.

Not sure what to make of the LFGuild tool. I haven't seen screenshots of it yet, but I hope it works out well. The trade spam is getting old.

Now that my non patch day themed post is finished, it's time to pour over the survival guides for my characters. I have too many alts!

Happy patch day :)

Grid and Debuffs

As I am sure you know, there is a lot of crap being thrown around in Ulduar. After some discussion several weeks back, a priest and I thought it would be helpful to see who is taking what damage and when.

Sadly, we were slow to realize that GridStatusDebuffs was an actual mod. However, we found that it added too many things that we didn't want to keep track of.

Instead, we have manually added the debuffs we wanted to track.

List of Debuffs from PlusHeal.com

Not all of them we use, still. Some like Biting Cold would like up Grid like a Christmas tree, though there is some usefulness to be had when you see someone with it for long periods of time.

To set it up, either go in the interface menu or click on the Grid mini map icon. You should see it look like this:



Just left click on the Auras section and this window should appear on the right:



In the debuffs section, just type in the debuff you want to monitor and hit enter.

Grid is customizable as far as how you want to track buffs and debuffs. I already use the corner boxes for my hots and the borders for poisons and curses, so I decided to use the Center Icon for the Boss debuffs.

For that, you will need to go under Grid configuration again, Frames and Center Icon (or whatever you choose to monitor it from). All the debuffs you wish to track just need to be check marked like this:



By using Center Icon, a small graphic of the debuff will display in the center of the Grid box of the player.

There is a little lag time between when the spell is cast and when the icon comes up. However, it does reduce the amount of time it takes for the healer to find the target in the grid, which ends up saving raiders.

Still working through which in the Plusheal list counts as "buffs" and which are "debuffs" so I still have some tweaking to do.

Happy Raiding!

Silly UI stuff

After looking around at some other UI's, I decided it was time for a change of pace. See, I have been running with the standard, old, hot bars the blizz gave us a million years ago. I have tried to have different ones, but it was getting frustrating when the hot bar mods couldn't keep up with the shapeshifting bar. Either the bar would be hiding behind something, completely broken, or not save buttons that each shape provided. I gave up for a couple years.

Recently I DL'd Dominos and I must say it's very nice. Granted it's not the best thing out there maybe, and seems similar to Bartender (which my boyfriend uses) but compared to my life before, it rocks. Making things smaller or larger or move it out of the way entirely was cool. In addition, I finally cleaned up what was on my bars. I think I had Regrowth and Rejuv in the same places since I first got the spells, and with Clique+Grid, there was no reason to keep them there anymore. Same goes for a few other spells I have bound to buttons.

Also, I am not sure why I felt it was necessary to have the group up when I would be staring at grid anyway. In fact, it was so bad that Grid overlaped the party frames and was just more clutter. This is what happens when you are stuck in a rut.

The result is a much more steamlined version of the crap I have on my screen. This may seem silly when you consider that Grid is HUGE and therefore engulfs everything. But, considering everything else I have is small, I end up with a lot of open spaces on my screen which goes a long way to situational awarness.

It's funny, I started this post a couple days ago and finally am getting around to actually posting it. In the meantime, I was reading the WoW forums on how someone feels Grid kills situational awarness.

The problem is not the mods, at least not 100 percent. It's a two part issue. First, Blizzard has decided to heed the call of healers who claimed that healing was boring. They don't call it wack-a-mole for nothing. To combat that issue, there are now a ton of things happening at the same time and in the midst of it all, sometimes the healers are asked to move or switch to critical targets (think Slag Pot, Lazer beams, what have you). This requires a high level of not only situational awareness, but maintaining an eye on raid frames at the same time. This leads to the second issue which is the player. Some healers are just not wired for the level of information saturation Blizz has given us. This requires a lot of work on the part of the player to train themselves to move beyond the boxes and listen or look for other things going on.

Old set up:



Lots of crap on my screen, a defunct NeedtoKnow mod sitting off to the side because I didn't have it configured and Grid overlapping party frames.

New set up:



Still could some work, but it's so much better than it was before.

After watching a video of Healbot set up, I have to admit it looks very attractive. Sadly, I can't give up my Grid+Clique set up. I am sure Healbot could keep up with all my hots and boss debuffs I watch for, but I am not in the mood to relearn a whole new raid frames set up.


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Slightly off topic, it's now summer time for me. I am writing this from work. Now it's not a paying job, but I decided to stay on with this agency after my internship was down for the term. It's quiet now (thankfully) leaving me some time to type. Summer also means more time to play around with the blog, my characters, and getting my house cleaned before the rash of company invades us.