A while back I made a post asking for assistance building a functional UI for Rhii. I got a lot of great tips, and the UI that resulted worked for me for a long time. And I became something of an addon fiend, always looking for something that would give me just a little more clarity, convenience, and function. Yes, I regularly trawl Curse for diamonds in the rough.
But my UI’s not working for me anymore.
I’ve switched from playing primarily as an arcane mage to a holy pally, and man does the class/role distinction make a difference in the information I need available to me. I’m going to have to download some new pally stuff, and I’m going to have to get rid of some things too. My computer’s memory is cluttered enough that I really can’t keep separate detailed UIs for both Rhii and Myrhani. I’ve spent most of the day researching UI stuff on various sites (mostly healer focused). NoStockUI and PlusHeal were obvious starting points, after which I headed over to Curse.com and WowInterface.com.
I think I’ve mostly gotten to the bottom of what I want, and what I need to get rid of.
I need to remove the mage-specific items I’ve been running, as I simply don’t play Rhii enough to make them worthwhile. This includes Cryolysis3 (amazing mage buff management, portal management, and class specific click buttons as well as programmable buttons for consumables/professions/what have you), Decursive, and portalFu.
I want to migrate my FuBar plugins over to DataBroker too. I like CurrencyFu, PerformanceFu, LocationFu, NameToggleFu, DurabilityFu, and ProfessionFu. I’d also like something that might be “HearthFu” a simple hearthstone button for FuBar and “BagSpaceFu” that just gives me a basic number of open bag spaces, since I like to hide the bag bar. If I could find FuBar or DataBroker plugins that did this I’d be a happy camper. Fubar2Broker is on my shopping list, with ChocolateBar.
I want to streamline my use of screen space. I’ve got TONS of little boxes cluttering things up. Trying to see what’s going on between a million buff bars and recount and unitframes is not ok when I’m healing. Half the time it’s not great for DPS either. To fix this, I’m gonna try SpartanUI. Moves everything to the bottom and center of the screen, freeing up the right and left sides for long vertical things like my ElkBuffBars and PallyPower.
For raid frames (I know I’m not raiding yet, but I heal battlegrounds these days, so raid frames are important) there seem to be three main configurations. I’ve been using Grid+Clique, but Healbot and VuhDo also seem popular. I’d like to have one addon that does it all compactly, and for that I think I’m going to actually try switching to VuhDo and see how I like it. From the reviews I’ve seen, it seems incredibly flexible and customizeable, a little more graphically eyepleasing than grid, and doesn’t require a second addon to handle click casting. Plus the developer seems to frequent the PlusHeal forums, which means there’s lots of insider information available if I care to dig for it. Seems like a good thing to me. (Note: if you’re the person who recommended VuhDo to me on my very first pally healing post, thank you! Because of that mention I recognized the name when I happened across it and did more research.)
To try and condense the number of action bars I need, does anyone use AutoBar? I’ve heard it might condense all my buffs and things much like Cryolysis did for mage stuff, but not in a class-specific way. If that is, in fact, what it does, then I want it. With my mountain of seals and blessings, it would be a godsend to save some button space. I’ve already individually macro-ed all my regular blessings to cast on shift+greater blessing button, but that still leaves me with three blessings on the action bar… and that doesn’t even touch seals.
Here’s a final question for anyone with a pretty UI: where do you put your DBM warning bars? You know, those things that tell you how long until a tower caps in AV or how long until a new portal opens in VH… When I put them at the top right where they are now, I don’t always notice them, when I put them in the middle they block my view of other important things… need some help on that.
Also, does anyone know if SpartanUI works with SexyMap?
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Rhii,
1) Remember you don't have to dispose of all those Mage addons… just deselect them for Myrhani on the Addon/login page (and vice versa of course)
2) I tried using Spartan for a while, but it really didn't suit me. I didn't like the unit frames, and it was a little buggy… sometimes the party frames would disappear, other times they would fill the center of the screen.
In the end I just kept Bartender and reinstalled x-perl.
With X-perl I have the standard party/raid frames enabled for Gnomeaggedon and for Squidly I have no party frames, just healbot… but I tool am considering trialling VuhDo
I think I will shelve recount… I do like to know what my DPS is looking like for Gnomeaggedon, just for those nights I am not sure about my rhythm, but otherwise it is unnecessary.
I haven't used Autobar, but I do like the way bartender allows me to shrink some buttons and make other larger.. I also have one set that is only visible out of combat.
PS: Healing made you and I a Meanie!
It did, it made us meanies!
I tried SpartanUI last night, and I like it a lot… however, you're right, the unit frames leave a little something to be desired. And it's REALLY throwing me to have my target down at the bottom… years of looking at the top of the screen have thrown me for a big loop there. I think I'll disable the Spartan target frame and set up PitBull for that.
I also tried VuhDo, and while I think I'll play around with it a little bit more, it's way more than I need right now. I think I'm going back to grid + clique for now, until I figure out how to configure VuhDo how I want it. Which might take forever. I don't find it very intuitive.
Auto bar is VERY nice as it does what it says….everything is Auto. Definitely worth a try. I found it to be one of my larger resource hogs so I eventually gave it up.
I've recently switched away from Recount over to Skada Damage Meters. Much lighter footprint.
I still use spartan and I like it.
Yes: it works with sexy map.
I use it with grid and pitbull and a bunch of the other regular mods and it all fits together rather nicely. I disabled the spartan UI player frames and unit frames, if you want to do this you just need to read up on the spartan forums and do something tricky, but it only takes a minute. then you can hide the spartan ui player and unit frames which honestly arent that great, certainly nothing compared to pitbull or similar.
here is a link to my UI as of a few months ago. In this pic I am not yet using pitbull for my player and target frames
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o126/desarius/…
One thing that isn't idea about spartan is the placing of the minimap. I am considering starting from scratch again and building something similar but without the spartanui and putting the map somewhere that makes more sense, so I can have my omen and recount front and center.
Lets see it btw! you know, pics or stfu etc….
I like the minimap where it is in Spartan. I've had it at the bottom right for a long time anyway, so this isn't much of a switch. And it works beautifully with sexymap. I don't like Recount and Omen front and center anyway, I like them where I can see them out of the corner of my eye, so I've got them tucked off to the side and layered on top of each other. Recount only shows out of combat, Omen only shows in combat. I am happy with that arrangement.
Where do you put your grid frames with Spartan now that you've switched back to pitbull? I'm having trouble finding room for them someplace that they don't block my view, yet I can still see them.
I'll put up a screenshot of the progress when I get home, I haven't got any on my laptop right now and my school blocks WoW.
For the hearthstone in a databroker display try "Broker Transit". It will even work with your mages teleports/portals, and other class-spells like Teleport: Moonglade or Astral Recall.
For buffs, blessings etc. try ZOMGBuffs. It has a Pallypower compatible Blessings manager. Can also remind you of missing buffs (auras as well).
thanks, those are both niches I'm missing in my current setup. I'll give those a look!
Don't suppose you know of a databroker version of durabilityfu do you?
get the fubar2broker addon. It will make most all fubar plugin's compatible with broker addons.
also manage your broker plugins with button bin. see it in action here in the to left corner (http://picasaweb.google.com/isheepthings/DKRaidUI… You can display multiple bars in multiple locations, multi row bars, collapse the icons…it does a good job of corralling all those furbar/broker/titan like icons in a small area
I play a mage and a paladin and I love oPie. For my mage it handles all my teleports and portals and for my paladin it handles my auras and seals in separate rings.
Oh also forgot….ANY time you are dealing with UI (not just rebuilding it) you've gotta gotta gotta get a addon manager. They let you enable and disable mods just as you would on the character select screen but you can do it without logging out. Very helpful when testing two addons against each other.
The new I know and use are
Addon Control Pannel and Option House
ACP has a better interface for enabling addons (keeps most in a "tree like" directory structure) and has saved config slots for remembering which you want enabled (think outfitter for addons).
Option House will provide you with a readout on which are bigger resource hogs then others as well as disable/enable functions.