The only thing I have to say in regards to deets' post is that decently-sized hotkeys are handy for determining range and time left on cooldown. Sure, you can use cooldown, but I prefer leaving that space uncluttered and keeping the cooldown/range info on my hotkeys themselves. I know my hotkey setup like the back of my hand, of course, so I can get range/cooldown info just by looking at one spot. Of course, that's just a minor thing and really boils down to personal preference as well as what class you play.

On another note, I'm a big fan of Party Target Frames, just because I like to be able to see who the other DPSers in my group are focusing on and what their target's HP is. It's great to keep track of multiple enemies and killstea-I mean, assist in bursting down someone without even needing to ask over on vent.

Deets, your comment about minimap buttons made me smile. I currently have an issue with mines. Whenever I align them around my minimap ( Move anything ), they seem to be randomly be moved when I log on another toon after. The minimap is at the same place and the icons as well on every toon which is the default top right corner. I just can't get used to play with it at the bottom.

I have read many post telling about visor, but I just can't find any information about the mod and how to use it. I installed it and it seemed to be a very complex mod, which I'm not very found of. I recently switched to aguf and installed Squeenix.

I like maintaining lists. So, unless you think this is particularly dumb or out of place, if I may try to fit this in as "read page 2 omg":

What's that addon? (Ace2 addons/versions preferred) - http://www.wowace.com/files
* Square minimap - Squeenix (it has options, try them)
* What are those buff bars (those blue ones in EVERY SINGLE SCREENSHOT?) - ElkBuffBar
* Action Bars - besides DiscordAB, people are using Bongo or Bartender2.
* Unit frames - Odds are good it's AGUF (or AG UnitFrames, same difference)
* Damage meters - That pretty one that isn't DM? - SW Stats (or SWStats)
* Black bars at the top/bottom - CT_Viewport or OSkin
* Slick looking black gradient over common frames (bags, questlog...) - OSkin
* Consumables - Autobar was ressurrected/continued and is now Ace2 and very slick, if you haven't checked it in awhile
* How'd you get those rounded buttons? - cyCircled is currently beta-ish, but worked fine, there are <insert addon>_circled mods too.
* Raid frames - agUF has a slash command - /aguf config OR the other common one is PerfectRaid (the single, long series of health bars all in one column). OzRaid, and RDX, also make showings.

Well for warriors at least, you are usually looking at around 6 non-global cooldowns: Overpower/Revenge (shared cooldown), Taunt, Shield Block or WW, Shield Bash/Pummel, and Shield Slam/MS/BT. Sometimes Intercept and the 30-minute timers and rarely Berserker Rage and/or Death Wish.

So I really found it saved a ton of screen space when I hotkeyed everything, removed all bars and buttons, and had skills only appear while they were on cooldown in the place of my regular bars.

However I made one really large button that showed what stance I was in, and another somewhat large Heroic Strike button to show if HS was queued or not. It also helped to have trinket buttons to remind me what trinkets I was wearing and to show what cooldowns were like on the trinkets.

I have to agree with a lot of what Deets said. Obviously healer classes tend to have more cluttered UIs, but they can still look to the melees for ideas on how to simplify. I've been steadily trying to hide more and more of my action bars since everything is hotkeyed. The problem I'm having is that for most of my abilities, I use a 6 slot, 3 page Nurfed bar. I'm constantly moving up or down to access various abilities. I like this setup because it lets me minimize the total number of keybinds I use (I have small hands, and hate having to use ctrl or shift for combat abilities). I've wanted to just out and hide this bar completely for some time, but the problem is that if its hidden, how will I know what page I'm on? :(

Oh yeah, and I've never understood why so many people in the old thread like their minimap bottom center. Honestly, how often do you use your map while raiding? Bottom center should be reserved for absolutely crucial information like cooldowns.

Edit: I highly recommend checking out a mod like CooldownTimerBars for those who are trying to hide most of their bars. If everything is cooled down, you won't see anything. If something is on CD, then you'll see a bar showing how much time is left.

I use that myself -- if everyone in my party is within range for dispel magic, then I know my PoH will hit them all. Very handy for fights like Huhuran or the post-Huhuran trash for tclap/meteor combos. I still used Nurfed and I like the big numbers for cooldowns. I hardly have to glance to see it.

dios - how do buffs/debuffs show on your target in that setup? I'd like to see an in combat shot of that pls.

The overall goal of my own UI is that I want to be lazy, not have to mess with many mods, and I want my eyes to have as few places to look for any information that i need quick in combat. I know my UI isnt pretty, but the 12% of my screen that i care about is very functional.


For the purposes of combat, i can use approximately the middle 1/9th of my screen and work combat just fine (i'm not a healer). The other 88% of my screen is pretty and fluffy, and makes the game more pleasant for sure, and provides me with non-time sensitive info, but I dont see why i should make my eyes travel all over the place when I can instead cram all relevant info into the smallest amt possible. It just seems more efficient.

example - what information relevant to combat am i missing in the following screenshot (the little one is 12% the size of the full one by pixel count).



(original sized, including fubar'd buff bars that shouldnt be there here: http://www.discofiend.com/imgs/fullscreen_sized.jpg )

In the one pic i can see:

- my health (4243/4243)
- my combo points (0, would show in middle above the "la" in plague hound in a big yellow number)
- my energy (41)
- mob and my positioning and orientation
- mob health (35%)
- mob name (Frenzied Plaguehound)
- mob level (57 non elite)
- mob debuffs (the little rupture icon under the ou in plaguhound - this is important for monitoring thunderfury and sunder stacks)
- the self buffs that i care about managing in combat (SnD, 12 seconds left)
- my available cooldowns (bladeflurry isnt up, all the rest are)
- SCT type spam

To me this is what makes combat manageable - quick access to relevant info, all keys bound so that it's really a rarity to need to look out of the box (healthpots/healthstones/resist stones are good examples of the occasional outsiders).

edit: Target of Target would also be nice to have "in the box", though i usually know what it's targetting, and tipbuddy will tell me if i'm the target.

I've redone my ui about 20 times improving on it every time and getting it more and more to my liking but one thing that i STILL havent figured out is how to manage all of my consumables in an orderly minimalistic fashion... before it wasn't much of a problem but now that im 13 bosses through naxx the amount of different consumables that I regularly use is quite staggering

Just a list for reference
Mana Jade
Mana Citrine
Mana Ruby
Healthstone
Whipper Root Tuber
NDB's
Dark runes
Limited Invuln
Major healing
Major mana
combat mana
greater mana
Dreamless sleep
Greater Dreamless Sleep
Nature Protection
Greater Shadow Prot
Greater Frost Prot
Greater Fire Prot
Heavy Runecloth bandaids
Evocation (i know its not a consumble but it should be treated as one)

I don't think its realistic to bind everything and need to have them visible because alot of the time when you need them YOU NEED THEM (limited invul, nature pots on thaddius etc).

Thankfully i can manage applying elixirs and other duration based consumables simply out of my bags or else i would be having nightmares.

I generally have a set of bars placed vertically along the sides with any consumables I may need. I'll swap comsunables on the bars according to the encounter. This may not be the most eloquent solution, but it saves space nonetheless with just a bit of preparation.

'On my warrior, I have a big Battle Shout button set up in middle of the screen, just off center. Bongos makes it visible if I have >= 10 rage and don't have the BS buff. It's hidden otherwise (actual real hidden, not Discord "fully transparent but still clickable" hidden). It serves more as a "you don't have BS up, dumbass" indicator than anything else - I have BS bound to a key combo, so I just use that to cast it. It makes worlds of difference in ensuring that I don't let the buff lapse.'

I love bongos dearly and have always, always, always wanted to be able to do something like this. Spent a little time fiddling around with Flexbar to achieve the same purpose, but it just looks fantastically complicated. So is it any easier to pull off with Bongos? Could you similarly configure buttons to show, for e.g., when execute or MS/BT/SS is up? Thanks for any help.

That top left button had better be Vis'kag. :angry:

Sure. The execution itself is fairly simple. I don't have access to my stuff here at work, but it basically goes like this:

Go to Scripts
Select a bar. Make it a bar that's always visible for best results.

Type in the event name that you want your script to fire on. For example, my Battleshout script runs on PLAYER_AURAS_CHANGED. The body of the script basically goes like
You'd do something similar, but you'd want to make it execute on UNIT_HEALTH and then test UnitHealth("target"). If <20%, then show the bar, else hide it. Salt to taste.

If you need to figure out what frame names are, Visor is a great tool for doing so in game.

It's not totally straightforward, but it lets you do basically anything you want in response to events. Since it's scripted, you can get as complex as you like.

Give AGUF a shot, Kalman. They have really, really grown on me.

Extremely old shot, but some elements still hold true for my current, more minimalistic, UI.

Elements I don't see a lot:
a) No minimap clutter. I rarely will use those buttons and can more quickly type the mod cmd in the rare occasion I do need to configure.
b) LARGE health deficits on Target / Group frames. If I could only have one element on a unitframe, it would be large health deficits. It is the only UI element that makes a difference in my being top 1-2 effective healer, always.
c) Consumables and weapon / trinket menus (timers) in center screen for easy / fast access.

Personal opinions:
a) Group sorted raidframes. I'm almost always in an MT/OT group, and my focus is primarily on that group (again, always top effective healing). I only need to focus on other players when it's announced / visible another group's healer is down. That group isn't going to see strict attention otherwise. Shamans are typically spamming chain heals on their emergency monitor. Warriors are always on the MT windows, and I setup PT windows for Mages on AoE heavy trash.
b) I have visible button bars for range / CD purpose, and I swap a lot of ranks / spells on said buttons. Example, I typically will change which and what rank heals are on my defensive bar. And I will place MC / shackle on more accessible buttons (binds) on encounters I play that role.

Really like your post deets, as it contains many thoughts I had while creating my own UI (except the Minimap-thingy, which I don't bother) and came up with this: http://img145.imageshack.us/my.php?image=jixuino6.jpg

My basic thougt was that I wanted all the combat-important stuff at one point on the screen, in a way that displays the information as cleanly as possible, that I don't need to look for it all over the screen or have to deciffre nice looking, but hard-to-read things. (Nurfed HuD as a great example for a mod I'd never use) Less relevant information, or things I am not in pressure to consider (for instance how many poison I have left in my inventory, do I have PW:F, what is raid/group status) are on different, less important places, such as included in fubar (party members are in the black frame on top of the screen)

So well, what is important in combat:
1. My Life/Energy
2. Opponents Life/Mana/Target
3. Cooldowns
4. Buffs/Debuffs
5. what is that boss in front of me going to do next (read: BossMod)

While my solution surely is not perfect, I'm nevertheless quite proud of it: Click me!


Points 1 to 3 are solved in a classic way, with player/targetframe centered on the screen, above bars for my abilities and consumables. (Hotkeys aren't shown as I, like most other wow players, know them by heart and don't need this information. You may notice that some of the rogue key abilites such as SS, SnD, and things like bags, mounting, professions, pick pocket, etc are missing, that's simply because of they've no cooldown and thus don't need a precious bar slot (and place on my screen). In my opinion an advanced wowplayer should not consider an action bar(or at least his main action bars) as a place to put the skills one you're going to use, but a place which purpose it is to display the cooldown of the abilities.

Buff bars have a different problem I solved in a probably unique way (what's the reason I'm posting this) : while you need to be aware what buffs and debuffs are on you, there is much useless information that requires space on your UI (it's not really important that your PW:F lasts for another 23 minutes). I solved this problem with a modified version of Elkanos buff bars, which only shows buffs with a duration shorter than 32 seconds, debuffs, and poison with fewer than 10 charges (and colors the most important Slice & Dice differently). The long duration buffs are stored in another frame on a less important place (top left) and jump into the center of the screen as soon as they are going to fade. The length of the bar also doesn't simulate the percentage of the buff which run off (4 sec left of 16sec AR would result in a quarter filled). A full bar means the buff lasts for another 30s (or more), a half full bar for 15s, etc, so the 4sec left would result in only a tiny fragment (12%) of solid bar. In addition, the buffs are sorted after the bufftime remaining. This allows me to quickly realise which buff will fade first, how long the longer duration buffs will last, etc. A thing I'd like to add but never managed (my programming skills are quite limited) is to display not only buffs, but also fading cooldowns on abilities. BigWigs (not shown on the screen) would display its bars right over the buff bar.

While my UI is not really focussed on looking nice by using memory-heavy frames and graphics it still look quite clean, whereas the blackened parts of the UI help my poor system to increase performance a tiny bit (and thus to maintain all the UI-Plugins).

I use AG UF, and haven't really found any better way to show my target's buffs/debuffs than having them extend out the right side of the bar. It's stupid and I don't like it but don't really know of a better way to handle them. I do use DebuffFilter to keep track of Sunder, Clap, and Demo; those are displayed just above the target frame. I suppose I could turn off the buff/debuff list for my target entirely and not care at all during raids, but that gets annoying when I want to check out what buffs people have or even if a mob has debuffs aside from the ones I can apply. Anyone have any better methods?

Overall I think AGUF is really lacking, but DAB is just so damn memory intensive I can't really justify it for the few complaints I have about AG.

Antiarc: can Bongos do other things, maybe like make the Battle Shout button blink? I have Discord set up to do that. Damn two minute buffs.

I used to use TipBuddy, and would hide debuffs/buffs on all frames and have them shown on tooltip. If I wanted to know what buffs/debuffs something had, I'd mouseover it. I haven't found a way I liked better than that.

I guess so, but you're going to be writing more code than would it'd take to make worth it, I guess. You'd just have to set the alpha according to the result of a math.sin() function where the input is time-since-blink start. Call it from OnUpdate and you have a winner.

I don't know if Bongos gets time parameters passed to it, but there are ways around that if you want it badly enough.

double post! delete me :(

What the, it edited both my posts?

I don't have a damn idea what you're talking about so no I don't want it badly enough.

Can't you integrate the name of your target into your unitframe and just put the buffs on top of the UF?

e.g.