An Addon for everything!

I gave everything a bit of a shuffle a couple weeks ago, mostly because I needed more help watching my Focus (Lich King) target’s cast bar (Defile) and who is being targeted (Me, or someone else in the raid). I switched to Shadowed Unit Frames. But changing my unit frames led me into making other changes.

Because I don’t PVP much these days and very rarely heal so VuhDo isn’t nearly as prominent in this layout as it has been in the past. I’ve also switched back to the default Combat Text because I just like the positioning of the text over the targets so much for AoE.

I thought it might be worth consolidating everything into a single post.

The Interface – Out of Combat

Out of combat, in raid

Out of combat, in raid, with add ons marked

The Interface – In Combat

In combat, in raid

In combat, in raid, with add ons marked

Add ons

Bloody Font | Combat Text
This tiny little mod will replace the default font for combat text with any TTF font file you want to use. I’m using Dafxter at the moment because the characters in the set are smaller than your average character font set and even double size critical hit numbers render quite well. Most fonts, including the default one, look jagged and pixelated on my screen.

Decursive | Raid/Unit Frames
Click to Dispel Magic and Cure Disease on any raid or party member. VuhDo can do this just as well, but I like this function to be separated out. My post about Decursive is here.

Dominos | Action Bars
Every spell bar or button, including my inventory and bags, are positioned and modified using Dominos. I like to leave a couple big button spaces free so I can move in fight specific spells eg Pyschic Scream for Lady Deathwhisper. My Shadowfiend pet bar appears in the gap right in the middle. My post about Dominos is here.

Deus Vox Encounters | Raid Boss Mod
A lot of people use Deadly Boss Mods for raid encounter timers and announcements. I switched to Deus Vox and stuck with it because it uses so many audio cues for the warnings. You can customize every single boss encounter and turn on only the warnings and bars that you need to know about. Deus Vox also comes with its own Proximity/Range finder (see above my mini map) and its own boss health bar (right of the mini map).

Elkano’s Buff Bars | Buff and Debuffs
I have a 4 column buff/debuff bar layout (you can see three of the four columns in these screen captures). From left to right:

1. Special buffs (not displayed) – includes things like Heroism, Power Infusion and Storm Power (if you remember Hodir), basically anything that will change how I cast temporarily goes here. These are scaled up significantly and coloured green.
2. Debuffs – in the screen capture you can see Chill of the Throne. I make sure my debuffs are very prominent and show both the icon and the name in text. They are coloured by the type of debuff (poison is green). They also work as timers which is really handy for watching important debuff countdowns like Blood Queen’s Essence of the Blood Queen and Sindragosa’s Instability stacks. I don’t know how I’d play with the default debuff icons! This is one of the most important parts of my interface.
3. Self Buffs – the tiny little line of self buffs is my readycheck checklist. Should contain at any given time Shadowform, Inner Fire, Vampiric Embrace, Flask of the Frost Wrym and Well Fed. I rarely look at this list once I enter combat but any trinket or gear procs show up here.
4. Buffs from others – occasionally I will scan this list to make sure I’m in range of a totem but otherwise I ignore it during combat.

Lathere’s post about Elkano’s Buff Bars is here.

ForteXorcist | DoT Monitor/Spell Timer
Another game changing mod. ForteXorcist tracks every single one of my active DoTs, across all mobs, during combat. Makes multi-dotting much easier and lets me track what mob has Devouring Plague even when I’m targeting something else. Unfortunately it doesn’t track DoTs on your Focus target. Or at least I can’t figure how to get ForteXorcist to track that. My post about ForteXorcist is here.

gChat | Chat Pane
A little add on that neatens up the Chat window considerably. All the buttons are hidden as is the input bar until you type “/” or hit Enter.

Omen | Threat Meter
The standard Threat Meter. Mine only shows up when I’m in combat.

Quartz | Cast Bar
Measures latency and displays it as part of the cast bar. An essential for any caster. My post about Quartz is here.

Recount | Damage Meter
The standard Damage Meter. I try not to look at it during combat.

SexyMap | Mini Map
Makes my mini map look good, hides all the buttons and things like the calendar and time until you hover your cursor over the map.

Shadow Green Light | Shadow Priest Mod
A mod that calculates whether it’s worth recasting Shadow Word: Pain based on how many debuffs are on your target and how many debuffs are available with your raid composition.

Shadowed Unit Frames | Raid/Unit Frames
Replaces the player, target and focus frames in my user interface. You can use Shadowed Unit Frames to draw frames for party members and raid members too, but I use VuhDo to do that. Sometimes it will display a boss frame, but not consistently for all bosses. I’m thinking about turning this feature off.

Tidy Plates | Name Plates
Replaces the default name plates with something a little prettier. You can download a few different skins if you don’t like the default design.

VuhDo | Raid/Unit Frames
The best healing raid frame add on out there. Even though I rarely heal VuhDo compacts all the important information about what’s going on around me in the raid – who is dead, who is being resurrected, who has DCed, who is a ghost, who has aggro etc – into a small space. It also shows who has been raid marked which is really handy when you’re running a boss mod like Deadly Boss Mods or Deus Vox Encounters so you can quickly identify the raid members with Spores in Festergut, Unchained Magic in Sindragosa, Mind Controlled in Lady Deathwhisper just to name a few. Lathere has written two posts about VuhDo: here and here.

Fine-tuning

My user interface is definitely a work in progress. I’ll always be tinkering.

Eventually I plan to bring my player, target and focus frames down underneath my cast bar. The other thing I’ve noticed is that the Deus Vox bars and warnings really get in the way – they tend to overlap my damage output numbers or get in the way of my target’s name plate.

ForteXorcist stops tracking DoTs on a target if I set that target to my be my Focus. I find it much harder to track DoTs when they’re listed in two different places and in two formats. I wish I could figure out a way to keep ForteXorcist tracking my Focus target.

And finally, I think I need to set up some kind of tool tip add on. My tool tips usually appear in the very bottom right corner of my screen and overlap my menu bars there. I’m not sure where I want my tooltips displayed, but I know that I need a special spot for them and an add on that can put them where they’re meant to go.

Introducing Quartz

Getting maximum DPS out of your casting sequence is about queuing up your next spell as soon as possible. Quartz monitors your latency (the information transfer gap between your computer and the server) and displays this on your cast bar as a red zone. I tend to treat it like this: when your current spell has hit the red zone, start casting your next spell.

I love Quartz and it does everything I want my cast bar to do. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t need some customisation.

Final Result

Quartz Cast Bar while casting Mind Flay

Please note that I’m casting a channeled spell (Mind Flay) in the example. For channeled spells the bar progress animates “down” from right to left so the red zone is at the end of the spell on the left. Most direct damage spells (like Mind Blast, Fireball etc) would be the reverse traveling left to right.

Configuration

It’s very rare that I take my gaze completely off my cast bar during combat. I’ve positioned my cast bar directly under my feet in the center of my screen and stretched it out wide. In Quartz settings this is all done in the “Player” menu (ie the Player Cast Bar).

Quartz will also replace the Mirror, Target and Focus Cast Bars if you enable them. I like to leave everything except my own bar turned off and let the default interface handle the rest.

Most of my changes to Quartz are cosmetic. I’ve dropped off the shaded border, removed the background gradient shading (choosing the Flat option) and even removed the name of the spell from the bar. I’ve kept the spell icon up (this registers in my brain faster than the spell name) and the cast time.

I’ll probably recolor the bar at some stage too.

Some Shadow Priests have suggested customising the background texture of the Quartz bar to show approximately where the 3 Mind Flay ticks occur along the bar. I’ve decided not to do this because my latency is high and fluctuates enough that I think the 3 markers would be misleading.

What’s next?

View/read all the articles in this series.