Not much of a “redo” since it looks more or less the same as version 3.0 except for the smaller button grid and the unit frame change. I went with Pitbull because of its layout flexibility. X-Perl was becoming and eyesore with the plethora of windows that needed to be displayed.
I tried to compress all interface elements to the edges as much as possible, because I dislike having junk stay in the center of my screen. I also wanted any unused elements to fold or fade away when not in use so that I didn’t have a giant black bar of death obscuring precious screen real estate.
Class buffs, auras and oh shit spells are grouped and auto-barred on the top left round buttons so that I could keep all of the paladin blessings off of my bars (giant waste of space). Consumables, food buffs, mage food, tradeskills, quest items and stuff like that are autobarred on the opposite side.
The chat log will fade away after 30 seconds of no activity. The combat log, general chat and trade chat are tabbed. Recount and Omen are docked to the far right. recount visibility is hotkeyed on my G15 and Omen will automatically appear upon enter ring combat.
I like having my bajillion buttons and my combat information displayed, but I also appreciate clean interfaces and to some extent simplicity. So this layout is a compromise…I guess.(Addons listed below)
Button grid
- AutoBar: Automatically categorizes, sorts and displays frequently used items, spells, whatever. For example, I have a food buff button that will display all food items that give a buff upon mouseover. Easily configurable to suit your personal needs.
- XPBarNone : Customizable experience bar (Specifically, the exact height and width. The X-Perl module is limiting). If you are at the level cap, it will display whatever faction you are working on.
- Bartender4: Allows you to completely customize your action bars in almost every sense. Location, size, spacing, number of buttons, keybindings.
- ButtonFacade: Allows you to skin actions bars. Compatible with Autobar and Bartender. Using this mod mainly to get the round buttons.
- eePanels2: Allows you to create background panels to place UI elements on. The transparent gray rectangle under the center button chunk is an eePanel.
- FuBar: The black bar on the bottom with my gold, the time, etc.
- OmniCC: Displays ability cooldowns on all of your buttons.
Unit Frames and combat elements
- Pitbull: My unit frame mod of choice. It’s one of the most customizable ones out there. I liked X-Perl, but it was very limiting in terms of appearance.
- ClassTimer: I use this mod to keep track of any short term self casted/proc’d buffs on my player and target unit frames.
- Quartz: A modular casting bar addon. Allows you to customize the appearance, size, and location of the cast bars.
- MSBT: Scrolling combat text.
Other visible elements
- Prat 3.0: Time stamping, class coloring of names, chat logging, etc. A highly customizable, modular chat mod.
- SexyMap : Lets you change the way the minimap looks and functions (to some degree). It also auto-hides the minimap icons so that they are only visible upon a mouesover.
- Recount: Damage meter.
- Omen: Threat meter.
- PallyPower: Paladin buff manager. Allows you to assign buffs to any other paladin in the group with PallyPower, keeps track of Righteous Fury, etc.
Hidden
- ArkInventory: This is the mod that I use for inventory management, it will automatically sort all of your crap into categories based off of user set preferences. For example, I have a section for healing gear, a section for consumables, and a section for quest items, etc. It also allows for inventory searches. Some people hate it, some like it.
- TipTac: Customizes the location and information shown on the tooltip.
- Outfitter: The gear profiler of my choice.
- Clique: Click casting. Example: I have Cleanse bound to my right mouse button and X-Perl set to highlight all dispellable debuffs. That way, all I have to do is right click on the raid and party portraits to cleanse, versus actually targeting them.
- Cartographer: Does neat map stuff.
- RatingBuster: Displays item levels and converts ratings into percentages for items on the tooltips. I used to manually convert stats in my head, on my everpresent graphing calculator, or on some spreadsheet. This mod makes it easier to evaluate items and stuff.
Raid tools
- BigWigs: Boss mod. DBM or this one, take your pick if your guild hasn’t chosen one for you :P. BigWigs has an option that will flash the screen whenever something important happens to you during a boss encounter (certain debuffs, standing in bad shit, etc). A very useful option, though not a substitute for being attentive!
- oRA2: Supports raid messages, displays main tanks, res monitor, resistance/durability checking, mass invites, zone checks and stuff like that.
- XLoot: Replaces the default loot frame. Borders are color coded according to quality, BoE status is labeled more visibly. XLoot also has a one click option to announce drops to a chat channel of your choice (guild, raid shout, etc), which is handy since I am frequently the ML.
