Preface:

As DK's we have more than a few cool downs to manage. The best way I've seen to deal with it is classtimer for buffs/debuffs and magicrunes for our actual rune system. Would be interested to see how everyone else is managing with addons and layout. What I am most interested in sparking discussion about here is the different layout of UI's we use as DK's. e.g. How best to organize the information. Please do not just post a link to your UI and a list of addons. Actually explain bit about why you've laid out the information as you have.

About the UI:

I organize my UI this way in order to give myself some semblance of sanity. Default wow UI has frames and information around all the edges of your screen. Couple this with raiding addons like Deadly Boss Mods or Omen and you have to look at 60-70% of your screen all the time, rather than focusing on what is happening situationally while you play. I've tried to keep my UI organized in a vertical column displaying as much information as I can in the mot organized fashion. This way the rest of my screen and attention can be focused on the actual goings on in game.

From my blog:

Personally I like seeing my rune cooldowns in the original picture format instead of a bar, but the default UI leaves much to be desired (I don't use anything default UI). I go for DeathKnight.Info Runes. You can configure it with a nice sword backdrop (that also has bars for RP/HP), or a simple box or no box at all. And the graphics look pretty damn cool when a rune is on cooldown. Classtimers is, in my opinion, a no-brainer.

As for non-class specific UIs, I recently downloaded SpartanUI. Very helpful at keeping the screen clean since everything is now on the bottom (non-widescreen users beware). Unfortunately, it wasn't designed with raiding in mind so I also use ag_unitframes going down the right side of the screen so I can see the entire raid. I have the feeling I'll have to switch back to xperl before long, as it offers a few functionalities that I really liked (specifically party targets, de/buff timers and larger de/buff icons for your spells), but we'll see if I can't hack SpartanUI into doing that.

And in the category of miscellaneous addons, Omen and Recount are in left side of the screen so that the center is totally clear. I find that the more viewing area you have the easier it is to perform well in a raid.

For those really interested, here's a pic. Without my raid frames 'cause I wasn't in a raid at the time.

Well, there's a lot ways to go with the DKs UIs or UIs in general, and you can change it as far as you want.

Here's my UI.

The full UI has been designed by me, with Photoshop and then using kgpanels to insert them to the UI. I use X-perl for frames, and Grid to see the hole raid. To move the buttons i've used bartender3 and simpleminimap to change the map config. I was using Cycircled to change the buttons border, but i didnt work fine. For buffs Simple buffs bars and titan for the upper bar.

It's quite clean as I like, I like seeing all since im tank! xD So, any questions, ill be glad to answer.

anyway, happy Xmas to everyone!

My personal favorite for a DK mod is Runewatch. Convenient graphical display of disease timers, runes, and RP. I position it right under my character, and it has everything I need.

I use quartz to display the debuffs that I can cast on my target displayed above my character panel. The thing I need though is to configure my displays for IBF and other buffs to display separate from the other party/raid buffs.

The problem I have with runewatch is that it seems so compact in its display of information. Mainly, the actual circles displaying the cooldown of the rune are the problem for me. Thats why I opted for the magicrunes bar format.

This is interesting. Could you post a SS of it in action?

A screenshot while I was leveling, not much changed except I moved Omen to the left to see it easier, and specced frost :p



I'm using NeedToKnow to monitor my diseases and Horn uptime

Also using TellMeWhen to inform me when horn is down, when runestrike is available (macroed in most abilities however now), when blood fury/trinket is ready, as frost I also have it tell me when Freezing Fog is on (free howling blast)

I'm in love with Runemaster for my rune management, simple bars that grow up to give an idea when the rune will be available

The rest is just bartender, pitbull etc...

Most of these would be way too cluttered for me. I just use MoveIt - Addons - Curse to move and scale the blizzard default ui components to more logical places. I use it to drag the runes from under the player frame and out into a more central location, scale them to about 200%, and re-arrange them like so:

BFF
BUU

To be honest, once they've been moved, rearranged, and magnified, the blizzard default runes are better than any custom UI i've seen. The rotational spark becomes quite apparent and for whatever reason incur less mental overhead than horizontal cooldown bars etc.

I've taken Magic Runes and used a right to left icon only slide, then put a KGPanel below it to give the same effect of the old Rune Hero.

I stack the icons a bit over each other since if they are all on the end, I know all of my runes are up, but if they aren't on CD, then they usually aren't on top of each other.

I've taken to putting my self/target frames on the bottom 1/3 of my screen and put my Classtimers for my own buffs (Freezing Fog, Horn of Winter, Bone Shield) above my character frame, then my diseases above the target. It keeps them from stacking up too much, as well as giving me a quick refrence point to glance at. I keep my Rune CD between them as well.

I'll try to remember to take a screen cap when I get home this evening. It's a bit hard to explain in words.

I've tried a few different rune mods, including MagicRunes, and am currently using Runica, although I can't seem to get omnicc to display the countdown text that I think it needs. Using NeedtoKnow for disease timers, defensive cooldowns, horn of winter/reflection of torment procs. Also using ForteCooldown.

Base UI taken from Tapestry v14, then modified to suit.

The main thing I wanted to ensure was that all of the core information was visible in one centralised area, while still giving me as much view of the playing field as possible. So far, it's working pretty well, although I may end up going back to Magic Runes, using the icon view option, and modifying the icon images.

What mod changes the mob hp bar (not the actual unit frame but the unit's hp bar in the middle of the screen)? Also what font are you using to display your unitframe hp?

I've tried and used a number of compilations, and most are hardly worth using over the blizzard default UI imo (which says a lot). I used photekUI since early BC; however, it continued to get tweaked further and further from its original design, and by wotlk release I think he just gave up. I'm way too lazy to make my own UI, and so I just like to use what is out there and maybe make some small tweaks but that's it.



I did not make this UI, so I probably shouldn't be the one to break it down and explain the design. All I can really say is that this has been the only UI that I have actually stuck with since I tried it out. I am using Magic Runes and NeedToKnow at the moment, but who knows how long that will last. The one thing anyone should probably notice is the keybindings (which were inspired by PhotekUI), which can be changed around, but I find that setup to be very efficient.

Sympa's UI is something else though. It's different from most I've seen and that alone catches my eye. I might have to try it out.

Get Alekk UI here: alekk ui : WoWInterface Downloads : Generic Compilations

Out of combat, I don't really have a system per se; I just put stuff where I can to maximize space. I really like the SpartanUI that was posted above, though, so I'm going to check that. The basic layout, though, can be described as this, from left to right:

- Chat window - say, yell, trade, general, system messages
- Minimap
- Action bars - 4 rows of 7 (and I'm not even using all of them, so I could probably cut that even further)
- Chat window - personal channels, party, whisper, raid, guild

Above the action bars, at the feet of my character (maybe an inch or two lower) is my unit frame. To the right of that is the mob, and to the right of that is the mob's target. I use xperl UnitFrames.

When I'm battle, the idea is generally to keep my focus on as small a point as possible -- the more I have to shift my gaze around the more likely I am to miss something. So I have MagicRunes at my feet to the left and omen at my feet to the right. I have cooldown timers but don't really use them much; I do keep an eye on my bars from time to time for cooldowns, even though that breaks my focus area. Obviously, my UI has room for improvement.

Oh, and for combat text I use Parrot. Parrot is awesome, especially once I realized that I could make a custom announcement with sound to tell me when I lost Horn of Winter. Highly, highly, highly recommended.

Not to over the top

It is laid out the way it is because I don't want 9million bars telling me things all the time. I don't like really elaborate UI's I try to keep mine simple with the minimized runewatch which I have found to be better than the other rune addons for the built in disease timer. I've always been a fan of pitbull and i just disabled the blizzard runes because I would have double and well I don't like the standard runes either.

most everything else is from my warrior so the layout was already there just had to add in the runewatch and I was good to go. I would prefer a less graphical runewatch with a disease timer more in line with the unit frame look.

-pitbull
-domino's
-squeenix
-omen and recount of course
-satrina buff bars
-grid because i don't like normal frames for some reason

This is exactly not what I am looking for as it does not further the disscussion at all. Please discuss why you've laid out your UI the way you have. Not just posting a list of addons and UI screen shot.

Magic Runes, but simply for the function of moving, resizing and adding timers to the standard rune display. Need to Know for disease monitoring. As others have mentioned here, this info is all focused in one area in close proximity to the unit frames and action bars, below my char. I've not gone for a cropped screen with a background, as in the past I did find that such layouts had a tendancy to cause me to miss things that I needed to know situation wise (where mobs or specific aoe effects were going off or crucial elements in boss fights).

I did try using the bar display from Magic Runes at first, but after a while I got rid of it because I found I knew what the Runes would be roughly doing at a given point in my rotation, and the bars added unessecary clutter.

I use a combination of keybinds and, yes... clicking, hence the large-ish action bars (seperate discussion, but I have never been able to rely totally on keybinds; that's just my playstyle). Dominos provides the action bars and I do like this since it has a very effective way of highlighting the active abilities, which is very helpful for the DK I find.

The rest is mostly carried over from my old Rogue ui without too much hassle, since I'm in the same line of play as a melee dpser (Frost).

My UI is amazingly bad right now. Functional, but barebones.

I used to be super in to my UI and how it looked back when I played my mage at the end of 2007 before I quit, but since returning for Wrath, it feels like an insurmountable task with so many new mods and synergies. I don't even know where to start outside of basics since many of the mods I used to use are no longer being updated and I have no idea what new ones are the best. That mixed with finishing up the semester didn't leave me the time to sit down and work it all out.

I was a big fan of the Ace mod ethos, but that exploded and became the new curse with more mods than I knew what to do with. I guess what I am asking for in short is a good place to start from with functional, easy to set up mods that free up some space and add usability in rune management.

I see mention of magic runes and I will download that and try it out.

Just for laughs here is what I am currently working with

Exactly the kind of thing we are looking for in this thread! Thank you.

Whenever I am making a UI I make two lists. First start with what you don't like a bout your current UI. Take a long hard look at that list and from there make a second of goals you have for what your UI should look like. Looking at your Ui now it seems as if your having the same problem I described. Too much content all over. I'd suggest looking through some of the rune addon's mentioned in this thread for a start to get you back on your feet.

Further to this, grab a blank sheet of paper. Tip it on its side and plan out what you want your UI to look like. Even if its just "Map goes here" and "Omen goes here" type of thing.

I'm using ArkiveUI on my DK at the moment and apart from tweaking the font and dot timer sizes it works very well.

Setup can be a little bit tricky for the non technical minded (But none of them read this forum )

Link: ArkiveUI : WoWInterface Downloads : Generic Compilations

I've tried keeping everything centered just below my character and recently have even turned off Parrot to help keep an eye on what is happening around me (as well as try to reduce lag)

You can see that there are two timers currently for Horn of Winter and Bone Shield. They're actually Elk Buff Bars and Classtimer. For some time I'd used a whitelisted Elk Buff Bar above my character frame with a growth (up) but found that it didn't include Freezing Fog, which was needed for the DW build I was using at the time.

Aside that, the enemy DoT timer is also Classtimer. I originally had my Magic Runes below my unit frame, but have since shrunk my classtimer bars in an attempt to keep my runes near the center of the screen and thus easier to track. Something needs to be done with the bars, but that's for another time.

I keep Recount open usually, and Omen on the opposite corner of the screen. Modified Pitbull raid frames can be seen and overall, 5 groups show down in the paneled area. I used a KGPanel under Magic Runes to emulate the old Rune Hero mod, which I really liked.

Overall I've tried to keep a lot of the important information near the center of the screen just below my character. I do filter out Crypt Fever/Ebon Plague from Classtimers since I know they will always be up on a mob, and just keep FF and BP showing so I can quickly glance to see what might need to be re-applied to the mob.

(Hopefully this didn't go too far into "these are the mods I use" and instead explain why I placed the things that I did and where I did.)

I have found that DK is by far the most complex class I have played and it requires alot from the UI. While raiding as Hunter, Warrior and Shaman I have focused alot on a good looking, and functional UI but this doesn't cut it anymore.

There are so many things which you need to be aware of all the time as a raiding DK that designing a good UI might actually have a bigger effect on your DPS than your talentspec! I'm not kidding here.

I find that things like SCT is just in the way and it has no positive effect on my playing. All elements like this must go.

The things which I think are important to my playing well are clear and focused (as in placed close together): Timers on diseases and temporary self buffs, runes/runic power and cd's on my main actionbar.

While I have never before considered a UI such as Sympa's but I will definitely either give that I try or build my own from a similar design perspective and try that out.

I am actually considering using two different UI's; one for raiding and one for everything else, as I think I will have trouble using such a UI for questing etc for the presumed anti-immersiveness of it.

I hope to see more insigthful comments on this topic and hopefully not any "here is my UI isn't it pretty" responses.

As far as SCT is concerned, just turn the damage threshold high so all you see is the damage from your main abilities. I for one need some sort of feed back.