Mods and the UI
Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 5:18 pm
I don't mean to advocate one mod over another, but instead that if you have a mod and like it and have tips on setting it up and getting the most out of your UI- share it! Someone else is sure to find something helpful in tweaking their mod/UI. So with that, lemme list out a few I find are my most useful. A lot of my goal is to condense information and UI into useful formats, taking up less screen real estate, so that I can see more of the game and keep focused on my character. Improves situational awareness and reduces dying in fire.
Curse Client - this Free* application isn't a mod, but it manages finding, installing, and updating mods. Super-handy.
Deadly Boss Mods / BigWigs - Either of these serve the same function: give you information about the boss fights so that you know things like, in 10 seconds you need to move or you're gonna die. Having the mod is better than having anyone else call it out over vent, because voice-over-IP builds up inherent lag, for which 1-2 seconds delay is too much for boss fights.
FuBar - Consolidates various data onto bars at top & bottom of the UI, and gives places for other mods (e.g. Guild_Fu) to display data and have their options accessed, rather than having to go through the interface menu or yet another button hanging off the minimap. Personally I turn off the top bar, and just have the bar at the bottom, with GuildFu, PallyPowerInfo, TopScoreFu, AtlasFu, and AllPlayed displaying on it. Quick searches for those will give you descriptions.
Dominos - The default UI action bars are all over the screen, and required scrolling. Forget that! Dominos lets you pack up to 10 bars, 12 buttons each, wherever you want, or into one neat grid, to be scaled down and stripped of borders and padding. All of your spells and abilities in one neat place, and easily able to set the keybinds on any of them. Also lets you move where the xp bar, bags, menu bar, cast bar, and loot window go. I only use 5 or 6 bars, and additionally mine are faded out a bit, and become opaque on mouseover, so that most of the time I still have that increased view.
Elkano's BuffBars - Changes the display of buffs, debuffs, and temporary weapon enchants into a stack of timer bars where you want them, what size, font, time format, etc. You can also create different buff groups and filter what each one displays. So for me, across my characters, there's the stack of general raid buffs, a separate group for debuffs on me, and another group for proc effects like clearcasting, brain freeze, art of war, to make them more easily visible. You can also create a group that filters on your target, to see particular buffs/debuffs. (Though a limitation is, I believe, that it doesn't know from debuffs you applied, for which I got EventHorizon).
EventHorizon - This isn't available on Curse, so it's linked. Requires no configuration, though there is a separate download to augment it with DK abilities. What this mod does is show you your effects on your target, durations/cooldowns, stack counts, and when damage ticks will occur. It does what I mentioned ElkBuffBars doesn't, and shows it visually and very easy to understand at a glance.
ArcHUD puts curving bars around your character in the middle of the screen, to represent health, mana/energy/rage/runepower, the pet's stats, your target, and castbars. For me, I have it only appear when I'm in combat (so it's a sure indicator that something is on me when it lights up), and reduced the other info it shows. But this is still important because you don't need to look away from what you're doing to check your health, mana, or the target. Because anytime you're looking elsewhere, you could be dying in fire.
Ok, that's enough blocks of text from me. Attached: screenshot of UI in demonstration!
Curse Client - this Free* application isn't a mod, but it manages finding, installing, and updating mods. Super-handy.
Deadly Boss Mods / BigWigs - Either of these serve the same function: give you information about the boss fights so that you know things like, in 10 seconds you need to move or you're gonna die. Having the mod is better than having anyone else call it out over vent, because voice-over-IP builds up inherent lag, for which 1-2 seconds delay is too much for boss fights.
FuBar - Consolidates various data onto bars at top & bottom of the UI, and gives places for other mods (e.g. Guild_Fu) to display data and have their options accessed, rather than having to go through the interface menu or yet another button hanging off the minimap. Personally I turn off the top bar, and just have the bar at the bottom, with GuildFu, PallyPowerInfo, TopScoreFu, AtlasFu, and AllPlayed displaying on it. Quick searches for those will give you descriptions.
Dominos - The default UI action bars are all over the screen, and required scrolling. Forget that! Dominos lets you pack up to 10 bars, 12 buttons each, wherever you want, or into one neat grid, to be scaled down and stripped of borders and padding. All of your spells and abilities in one neat place, and easily able to set the keybinds on any of them. Also lets you move where the xp bar, bags, menu bar, cast bar, and loot window go. I only use 5 or 6 bars, and additionally mine are faded out a bit, and become opaque on mouseover, so that most of the time I still have that increased view.
Elkano's BuffBars - Changes the display of buffs, debuffs, and temporary weapon enchants into a stack of timer bars where you want them, what size, font, time format, etc. You can also create different buff groups and filter what each one displays. So for me, across my characters, there's the stack of general raid buffs, a separate group for debuffs on me, and another group for proc effects like clearcasting, brain freeze, art of war, to make them more easily visible. You can also create a group that filters on your target, to see particular buffs/debuffs. (Though a limitation is, I believe, that it doesn't know from debuffs you applied, for which I got EventHorizon).
EventHorizon - This isn't available on Curse, so it's linked. Requires no configuration, though there is a separate download to augment it with DK abilities. What this mod does is show you your effects on your target, durations/cooldowns, stack counts, and when damage ticks will occur. It does what I mentioned ElkBuffBars doesn't, and shows it visually and very easy to understand at a glance.
ArcHUD puts curving bars around your character in the middle of the screen, to represent health, mana/energy/rage/runepower, the pet's stats, your target, and castbars. For me, I have it only appear when I'm in combat (so it's a sure indicator that something is on me when it lights up), and reduced the other info it shows. But this is still important because you don't need to look away from what you're doing to check your health, mana, or the target. Because anytime you're looking elsewhere, you could be dying in fire.
Ok, that's enough blocks of text from me. Attached: screenshot of UI in demonstration!
- wowui.jpg (112.21 KiB) Viewed 340 times
