I've made some changes to my addon setup and it's working well enough for me that I thought I'd share it (no screenshots, sorry) and see if anyone can help me with my last nagging issue.

I think I've tried most of the various addons folks suggested and ended up drawing a few conclusions:

* For me, cooldown/dot timer bars just don't work. I just can't parse the information quickly enough to take action (rules out NeedToKnow).

* Animations around my character just aren't close enough to where my eye is focused and end up being too hard for me to see when the action is heavy (rules out PowerAuras)

* My scrolling combat text is too busy to try to embed important information in there (SCT/Mik's).

I've arrived at a combination of two addons:

* TellMeWhen

* Quartz

For TellMeWhen, I use two rows of four buttons -- one row above the other. I place both rows right next to the boss, so I can keep his casting bar and target in sight while I'm looking at the buttons. This whole mess is placed at the top of my screen so that I have a mostly clear view of general action around me. Each of my TMW rows has four buttons, organized in pairs (each pair corresponds to a single ability):

* Explosive Shot - top row button shows when it is off cooldown. Bottom row button shows when it is *on* cooldown (with countdown timer).

* Aimed Shot - top row button shows when it is off cooldown. Bottom row button when it is on cooldown (with timer)

* Serpent Sting - top row button shows when the target doesn't have _my_ sting on it. Bottom row shows when it does (with timer).

* Hunter's Mark - top row button shows when target doesn't have _any_ mark on it. Bottom row shows when it does (with timer).

Basically, I then play "whack a mole" against the buttons of the top row, prioritizing from left to right. When no buttons on the top row are showing, I cast a steady shot. The countdown timers on the bottom row allow me to be a little smart about this, slightly delaying for higher priority things coming off cooldown imminently and to pre-position my fingers appropriately. With this setup, I've found that I don't need LnL notification -- since ES stays off cooldown, the LnL is obvious. I need only insert the short delay before casting the next ES and I'm golden.

Below my TMW buttons, I put a Steady Shot cast bar (from Quartz). This let's me properly time the next ability after the SS.

The only thing missing from this wonderful setup (which I've really beginning to love and am using on my Feral Druid and my Shadow Priest as well) is a GCD timer. Quartz supposedly has one, but I can't get it to work (e.g., I never see a spark). Does anyone either:

a. Know the magic sauce for getting the Quartz GCD timer to work
or
b. Have a better solution for a (movable) cast bar + GCD timer
?

I'm fairly certain that is ag_UnitFrames.

Wrong

That is pitbull that im using

Thanks mate.

I've never seen it configured like that before but will take a stab at it. Did you use a premade profile for the pitbull settings?

Current UI:

here's the one I'm using atm:



I was using a UI designed to fit all the stuff on the bottom of the screen, but I felt that most of my skills could be keybinded and hidden, so I'm trying this out. There are 3 bars hidden with all skills not shown there keybinded, and I just keep 2 bars to show the CDs on main skills. This provides me with more free space to follow combats. The location of my Unitframes is also done to meet that standard, to allow me to move while having both my hp and the enemies closer. It is intended for PvE purposes though, just to be clear.

To make it a bit nicer I have changed the default font and nearly all bars are the same texture, Healbot.

In between the UnitFrames is where Quartz's cast bar appears with the target's debuff scrolling up. As survival that lets you see when Aimed shot is gonna wear off (meaning the CD is finished), when Explosive is up while doing L&L rotations, and when serpent and mark are gonna wear off the target. And all this info is close enough to the bars as for you to also quickly glance at the cooldown of explosive shot.

Quick list of addons:

1. Improved Error Frame
2. AG_Unitframes
3. Bartender 4
4. Cartographer2 + Gatherer
5. ClosetGnome
6. CooldownCount
7. Deadly Boss Mods
8. eePanels2
9. ElkBuffBars
10. EQCompare
11. FeignResistBell
12. FuBar (with Ammo, Bag, Clock, Durability, Money, Performance, PetInfo)
13. Grid2
14. Omen
15. OneBag3 + OneBank 3
16. oRa2
17. Prat 3
18. Proximo
19. Quartz
20. RangeDisplay
21. RatingBuster
22. Recount
23. SCT
24. Squeenix
25. Talented
26. TinyTip
27. ViperNotify
28. XRS

This is what it looks like OOC.

I copied the Lock n Load MFer from someone who posted above, I liked it .


Major addons visible:

1. Dominos
2. Prat
3. Recount
4. Chinchilla
5. Xperl
6. Quartz
7. Classtimers
8. KHT Hunter Timers
9. MSBT
10. Buffalo
11. KGPanels

Here is the complete list of mods if anyone is interested. Be warned there are a lot of mods, and there are some lingering in there that I don't use anymore.

I'm not sure if I'm happy with Xperl unit frames, I could make them a lot nicer with Pitbull. It's not as minimalistic as it could be, but it does the job.

I wanted to work Grid into the bottom panels somewhere, but it didn't look good when I was in a party or soloing, so I just use XPerl raid frames. They just sit below my unit frame.

Out of combat:



In combat:



Addons:

k hunter timers - serpent sting timer
bartender4 - action bars, including the explosive and aimed that appear in combat only and aren't clickable
omniCC - cooldown timers
mike's scrolling battle text - lock and load trigger (with sound), most everything else turned off to cut spam
track-o-matique - auto track
range display - range in case I need for sniper training
recount - for the dips

I like things as clean as possible without losing functionality, and I am pretty happy with this. My bags and options bar are on mouse-over along the right side of the screen for easy access.

edit: wrong add-on name

Somethings i plan on changing, like target buffs and target's target buffs.

Mods.
xPerl
Grid for Raid Frames (been too lazy to configure past the default configuration)
Elkano's Buff Bars (one of my Favorite Mods)
Bartender4 (Action Bars)
eCastingBar
SCT (prob getting rid of it, not really that useful in raids)
Power Auras (in this screen shot around the bottom of my character, Power Auras showing that Serpent Sting is not applied to my target.) Also have a different aura that procs with Lock and Load also showing duration left of the buff above my character's head.)
Ghost Pulse, Showing that the cooldown for Explosive Shot is up.
RangeDisplay (Displaying my estimated range from my target, location is above my character's head)

@Mineria: which addon is providing the blocking/bacground at te bottom of your UI?