Since I switched to enhancement, there hasn't been an addon more helpful than TotemTimers. In addition to the totem management features, the EnhCD feature has a bar for tracking maelstrom stacks right below the other dps buttons (SS/ES/LL). You can just click the maelstrom bar itself to cast lightning bolt. I haven't seen any other addon that does this.
Dropped YATA (I edited the .lua file to fix the mana tide issue, but every time I zoned the mod would turn itself off - got annoying rather quickly) and picked up TotemManager in its place. I also added ShieldsUp and a few SLDT options (latency and FPS, etc).
I also edited my Elkano BuffBars a tad bit - mainly cosmetic, but also added a target buff bar that appears center screen with certain white listed buffs (hand of protection, hand of freedom, etc - things that need to be purged quickly).
Not much else has changed besides that. I'll get a new upload posted up on the OP later.
Action Bars: Bartender + ButtonFacade (with the Caith skin and my Aquatic skin)
Unitframes: X-Perl (tweaked the border graphics a bit to match the icon skin)
Buff frames: Satrina Buff Frames
Minimap: SimpleMiniMap with MinimapButtonFrame
Tooltip: TipTop
Cast bars: Quartz
Cooldown monitor: Dotimer + Ghost:Pulse
Threatmeter: Omen
Boss Mod: DBM
Chat Frames: Chatter
I've tried to keep buffs and raid frames out of the way here, and the important stuff to the bottom/right of the screen. The minimalistic style is wrecked by the fact that I, for some unfathomable reason, have never been comfortable with any of the available totem managers. Instead I'm using a somewhat chaotic sidebar for clicking (I tend to move stuff around there), and the native totem frame for timers (just noticed the timer isn't in the screenshot, I have it right next to the bag icon, below the tooltip). I've tried to keep the UI "see-through", using a clean frame border texture and some space between every icon.
Some thoughts on why this UI works for me:
No cluttering: Ok, maybe a little cluttering, but not that much. Generally I don't do much healing in raids, which is why I've pushed the raid frames to the corner farthest from my focus area. I'm using small buff icons instead of bars for the same reason; I don't really need quick access to them as Elemental, my Boss Mod will usually notify me of important buffs/debuffs. As for my minimap, I find I'm not really using it for guidance often enough to let it take upp space in my center spot, but if you do use it a lot, it should be down there with the other important stuff.
Fluid/Chaotic totem bar:
I like to be able to see everything I need. Any totems not in the frame are moved there before a fight where they might be useful. The "primary" totems are in the middle of the left column, and the "secondary" ones sort of fan out from there. Example: Since I have HoW in the raid, my primary earth totem is Stoneskin, but I can quickly reach SoE if I for some reason lose HoW. If I have no HoW in the raid, I let Stoneskin swap places with SoE to bring it to my "primary" spot. This approach works great if you memorize the icons themselves, if you usually memorize the icon location it is probably utterly useless.
Cooldown monitor:
For cast rotation I'm using a DanceDanceRevolution approach, basically hitting whatever just came off cooldown. Since Elemental rotation is quite fluid depending on your haste, this works pretty well. Ghost:Pulse popping up smack in the middle tells me what key to hit next, and Dotimer monitors my longer cooldowns.
Important info centered:
The frames I need fast access to are all fairly close together, which means I can see them all without moving my eyes very far. I can more or less keep an eye on my castbar and cooldowns (for spell timing), my health, target castbar (for interrupts etc) at the same time. My boss mod bars also pop up in the lower center. Omen looks a bit off, but to be honest I very rarely find aggro to be an issue these days. I mostly only look at it on the start of a fight where my spiky aggro generation can be dangerous, which is why it's up there near the totems.
Out of combat, the UI becomes slightly more easy on the eyes:
Last edited by Nat500 : 04/28/09 at 10:57 AM.
Reason: Added some additional thoughts
Dropped YATA (I edited the .lua file to fix the mana tide issue, but every time I zoned the mod would turn itself off - got annoying rather quickly) and picked up TotemManager in its place. I also added ShieldsUp and a few SLDT options (latency and FPS, etc).
I also edited my Elkano BuffBars a tad bit - mainly cosmetic, but also added a target buff bar that appears center screen with certain white listed buffs (hand of protection, hand of freedom, etc - things that need to be purged quickly).
Not much else has changed besides that. I'll get a new upload posted up on the OP later.
*** Added this to my OP ***
3.1 UI .rar added to the OP for everyone who sent a PM!
Mine's an evolution of a UI a buddy of mine from my FFXI days published (SPARTAN by Astika/Ceramic). I personally use a lot of the same addons (Pitbull, Quartz, BT4, MSBT). I personally prefer TotemTimers over YATA for the ability to load totem sets and have them assigned to my numpad 1-4, and switch them out before fights as necessary. It also handles Water/Earth Shield and Weapon imbue tracking rather nicely. Others are easily swappable (Chinchilla instead of Simpleminimap, kgPanels instead of eePanels).
....
Would you be willing to post a ss of your addons folder for those of whom would like to use your UI.
I'm a big fan of less is more but there is nothing worse than having to spend hours reconfiguring addons after big patch days (or incrimental patch days that screw with addons) so I tend to take a minimalistic approach to UI set up, but it's ugly.
First off Sixthy, I am in absolute love with your UI.
However, I can not get it installed properly. The steps I have taken are as follows:
1. Back up and remove my own Interface and WTF folders from the WoW directory.
2. Unzip'd your upload.
3. Placed your Interface file in my WoW directory.
4. Placed your Account folder in a fresh WTF folder.
5. Replaced account name, server, and character name with the relevant information in the relevant places.
I have done the above twice in full just to be sure i didn't skip something stupid but as the addons are one big amazingly jumbled mess when i log in, I'm guessing I still did. I even tried opening addon menus to copy an existing profile as is necessary with some UI installs but to no avail.
Anyone see any blatant errors or omissions on my part?
First off Sixthy, I am in absolute love with your UI.
However, I can not get it installed properly. The steps I have taken are as follows:
1. Back up and remove my own Interface and WTF folders from the WoW directory.
2. Unzip'd your upload.
3. Placed your Interface file in my WoW directory.
4. Placed your Account folder in a fresh WTF folder.
5. Replaced account name, server, and character name with the relevant information in the relevant places.
I have done the above twice in full just to be sure i didn't skip something stupid but as the addons are one big amazingly jumbled mess when i log in, I'm guessing I still did. I even tried opening addon menus to copy an existing profile as is necessary with some UI installs but to no avail.
Anyone see any blatant errors or omissions on my part?
It's probably on my end. I'll zip it up again and upload again to see if it helps. Will try to do it tonight before I go to sleep.
I got everything installed correctly; however, for some reason the vehicle maps (the ones used in WG for example to switch to gunner, driver, passenger etc) do not show up; and neither do the wall and building health bars or the cap status bars for eots, terrorkar towers, etc. and I can not for the life of me figure out what mod is killing them off...
Sixthy, I think I know what the problem concerning the adaption of your UI for some of us might be. Now it is just a blind shot, but can it be caused by us playing on EU servers, and you playing on a US server, something with the profiles listing or what not?
Because my problem is that I can not find any of your profiles when going through Pitbull, eePanels and all the other stuff that is cramped up on my screen after having placed your UI collection in my WoW folder. The only stuff that seems somewhat in order is the chatframes and nothing else really. Even the video/screen settings are messed up, because I highly doubt you're playing in 1024x768 and with low video settings?
It's probably on my end. I'll zip it up again and upload again to see if it helps. Will try to do it tonight before I go to sleep.
I'm pretty sure the issue lies with not being able to have access to your config.wtf file. When it's downloaded an Interface and Account folder appear and not the usual WTF and Interface folders.
Hay Nat can u pls give some advice how to tweak the borders of X-perl. Tnx in advance
It's a little off-topic, but anyway:
Edit Xperl_globals.xml, Xperl_Target.xml and XPerl_TargetTarget.xml, find this line: edgeFile="Interface\Tooltip\UI-Tooltip-Border" and change the path to where your border graphics are. I painted my own, but any Tooltip-Border image should work as long as the layout is the same as the one X-perl uses. (You can use XPerl\Images\XPerl_Thinedge as a template, this is how it should look like).
Edit Xperl.lua, find this line: normalEdge = "Interface\\Tooltips\\UI-Tooltip-border" and change the path here as well (note the double slashes).
You may need a BLP converter, I recommend BLP2PNG.
This is a little dirty, and there's probably a better way to do it (if anyone knows one, please do tell), but it does work for me. Please back up your files before you start hacking around, I won't take responsibility if you accidentally wreck your UI
Sixthy, I think I know what the problem concerning the adaption of your UI for some of us might be. Now it is just a blind shot, but can it be caused by us playing on EU servers, and you playing on a US server, something with the profiles listing or what not?
Because my problem is that I can not find any of your profiles when going through Pitbull, eePanels and all the other stuff that is cramped up on my screen after having placed your UI collection in my WoW folder. The only stuff that seems somewhat in order is the chatframes and nothing else really. Even the video/screen settings are messed up, because I highly doubt you're playing in 1024x768 and with low video settings?
No, definitely don't play at that resolution. I've zipped my UI before and haven't had any troubles from anyone installing it. I've been busy this week, both in game and out. I'll try to get a new upload posted shortly to see if it fixes anything.
I'm pretty sure the issue lies with not being able to have access to your config.wtf file. When it's downloaded an Interface and Account folder appear and not the usual WTF and Interface folders.
Is that something that I consciously need to include in the zip, or is that something that I can't do anything about?
No, definitely don't play at that resolution. I've zipped my UI before and haven't had any troubles from anyone installing it. I've been busy this week, both in game and out. I'll try to get a new upload posted shortly to see if it fixes anything.
Is that something that I consciously need to include in the zip, or is that something that I can't do anything about?
It should be in your WTF when you zip it. For whatever reason though the WTF wasnt zipped in your last upload. The account folder was though and that's usually the first folder inside your WTF. The config.wtf is right under the Account folder when you open your WTF so it wouldnt be included in just a zip of your Account folder.
Ok figured out the prob with vehicle seats and capture timers. I had simple mini map reloaded while adding back in some of my own addons that I use in addition to your pack. SMM is broken since 3.1 and does not function properly in many areas. Capture status bars and vehicles are tied to mini map and thus, once I enabled chincilla, it was fixed...sorry to bother you
Ok, the upload is back up and running. If anyone successfully gets this to work please let me know. I personally used a 2nd machine to download the WTF and Interface and everything loaded up fine with the exception of a few mods (recount, BT bars, SLDT, etc - but as far as I know, there's nothing you can do about those mods). All that took was a little bit of dragging around and after that, everything was setup. Took me maybe 10 minutes to get it to 100% match my UI.
If anyone else has trouble let me know.
*** Edit - Thanks Kalah for figuring out that I'm an idiot and instructing me on how to properly upload a UI - will have it up in 20 minutes ***
- Should be up and running now. Thanks again Kalah. Let me know if anyone has troubles this time around.
Still looking for a stand out enhancement UI for the OP - I think I have one in mind for the Elemental (which obviously, an ele / enhance / any random dps UI is going to be functionally similar, but it's nice to have direct class / spec references.
Just thought I would pitch in here. This UI is couple of months old now, but it was the first UI I have made from scratch in a long time. Thats not saying it looks mind blowingly origional heh, Just thought people could take a look and maybe use an idea or two. Or ask questions if you feel the need.