Liryn

I'm finally putting some thought into organizing my UI (rather than just grabbing whatever mods seem cool) and I'm drawing on the screenshot threads I see posted here for ideas and inspiration. It's going well so far, but I have a question. A great many of you have (at least) two chat windows visible - one for actual chat, one for the combat log. What I don't really understand is, why do you feel it is necessary to have the combat log visible at all times? Certainly it contains potentially important information, but so do my talent trees and the contents of my bags; if I can hide those away and only open them when necessary, why shouldn't I do the same with the combat log? Given that both my screen space (I hate you small monitor) and my ability to absorb data from flashing lights on screen are limited, what does the combat log do for me that the regular UI (or SCT, or some other mod that doesn't take a huge chunk of screen space) does not? I'm trying to move towards a more minimalist UI that hides the unnecessary, but at the same time I don't want to sweep things under the rug that will help me play my class better.

So, combat log displayers, how do you use your combat log and why?

 

Nite_Moogle

Quick review. SCL helps immensely in this respect since it will show the damage type with color (purple = shadow, blue = frost, etc) whereas SCT will only show white vs yellow damage.

 

bekayoh

It's going to be a little confusing explaining this but I use my main window as a combat log so that I can layer tabs on it and I put it on the right side. I put a tab for party/raid, whispers and custom channels. I pull out a second window for main chat and put this on the left side. This way I depending on what I am doing my second chat box can be used for whatever.

Show me on the paper doll where the devs nerfed you.
http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...s/brelarow.png

 

◊ Asgorath

Agreed. I'm currently using SCL, but might give EavesDrop a go soon.

 

• Maestroquark

It's been especially helpful to me while learning the new content. We take on a boss, and say 5 seconds in I take a huge hit in damage - "what was that?"

A quick scroll up and I can see the name of the ability. From this I try to answer these questions: Was I positioned poorly? Is it melee-centric? Will CoS help me with it?

Those and a bunch of other questions go through my head while I'm still paying attention to the fight, and it might just be the difference between wiping, reviewing, and getting the next attempt or just winning the first attempt.

What are you waiting for, a certain shade of green?

 

Cryect

I use SCL and only show my own logs and the MT's Logs because I want to know why the MT died and this way I can see when heals landed and how big of hits did he take. Example did the MT take two crushing blows back to back for 10k each or did he take 5 normal hits for 4k with no heals for 10 seconds.

I need to do something useless.

 

alienangel

I haven't used SCL so I may be missing the point, but SCT has been able to display the magic school of incoming damage via colors for a long time now - well well before 2.0.

 

Cat Astrophy

I pretty much use HitsMode occasionally to recap fights and Blizzard's "SCT" to track rep/dmg/heals. Don't really need hitsmode but my UI would look kind of strange with a rectangle chunk missing from an otherwise evenly squared interface. I supposed if I need space for another mod or more buttons I'll drop my combat log behind my chat log.

I must be cruel only to be kind;
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.
--William Shakespeare (The Drama King)

 

Andeh

That's actually a pretty good question. I use SCL for my log (until Nurfed gets updated), but now that I think about it, I almost never pay attention to it since I also run SCT. The only time I ever really look at it is to figure out why the hell I died so fast. I guess the main reason I keep it visible is symmetry, to be honest.

 

Renaldo

Sometime, I'm not really paying too much attention while grinding/farming so if I see a "[Multishot] crit you [2024]" then I'd know there's a hunter shootin' at me before it's too late.

 

Twid

I have begun using EavesDrop, and I have to say that when tanking, it is pretty godly for communicating with your healers. I can easily glance at it and see that I've had a ridiculously long dodge/parry streak, and for healers to not get complacent. When I die, I know exactly how long it was between direct heals, and how much damage I took in between. It aligns the damage I take on the left, the damage I do on the right (or threat abilities), and heals in the middle.

The icons really work wonders for drawing my eye to key abilities, such as knowing that I've dodge around 95% of Moroes' gouges, and that the offtank has absolutely no threat to speak of. Then I can say "Ok people, start praying this avoidance streak continues, or dps is going to start kicking the bucket."

 

Lamaros

I use SCT and SCTD, does fine for me. I hide my combat log because I can't read it at the same time as fighting like I can with SCT. If I need to review I just click over to the log and check it out there - no need to have it always showing.

 

Aranan

I have both SCT/D and SCL. I have noticed SCL usually is ignored in favor of the more accessable SCT/D info. If I didn't keep my chat window settings locked (the tabs annoy me when they pop up if my mouse goes near the window), I'd stick SCL behind my main chat window.

Eh, I'll probably give it a shot anyway. That'll free up a bit of room on the bottom of my screen for a threat meter which I'm currently lacking.

 

surrender

I run Eaves-Drop for months now...
In my opinion it's much better then any normal Combat Log or even SCL.

Why?
It's small, clear and very useful.

 

◊ Kyth

I really want to use EavesDrop and keep trying to make it work, but it takes up a lot of screen space (relative to my combat log) and isn't clickable through (like SCT is.)

I use mouse look/move a lot, and don't click anything on the screen that I use in combat, so I don't often have a good idea where the mouse pointer is. Being able to keep my main playfield clear for clicking is key, otherwise I hit a UI element and can't figure out why I'm not moving away from the AE.

 

Liryn

Thanks for the input, everyone. I think I will give EavesDrop a try.

 

diospadre

Symetry.