Unbearably HoT

Maybe you’re already a DPS mastermind and a veritable tanking genius. Everything you have is best-in-slot, you raid with the baddest cats on the planet, play on a custom-built machine that runs on Jesus, have committed every rotation to strict muscle memory—how can you possibly get any better? I contend that it’s possible to eke out a little extra damage by consolidating your interface. By stripping down to the bare essentials—without sacrificing looks—you can focus your attention to one portion of the screen and maximize the amount of information you can take in at once. This can improve your reaction time, expand your field-of-vision on the battlefield, enable you to make better decisions about your health before the warning the noise pings, monitor your threat and DPS simultaneously, and help you tighten your buff/debuff rotations on a boss encounter.

My UI hasn’t always been so svelte, and it’s still a work in progress. In the not-so-distant past, Phaelia almost asphyxiated after I e-mailed her a screenshot that happened to include my interface. It was like WoW Ace took a massive dump on my screen—and I wasn’t even using that many mods. Because I didn’t feel like fussing with details and had very little screen with which to work (having played on a laptop for years), I shoved whatever was absolutely necessary into every corner of the screen. Now, however, I’ve narrowed my focus by placing the most important elements just below eye-level. I liken this to my car: in the newest versions of the Honda Civic (circa 2006), the speedometer. fuel gauge, and thermometer are digital readouts set up and back in the dashboard. I thought it was particularly strange at first, but if I want to see how fast I’m going, I barely need to drop my eyes from the road and I’ve got instant information.

The way I see it, your UI should function the same way. You want to create a mostly unobstructed (see: BigWigs and SCT) field-of-vision with important bits like your player/target unit frames toward the bottom middle portions of your screen.

The “X” above is where I don’t want to see any extra crap, and I want my important mods consolidated at the bottom. Because I’m not healing and am generally not concerned with what’s going on my raid frames, I set them up on the lefthand side of my screen in such a fashion that they don’t interfere with “X.” The result is something a little like this:

I like this latest revision for the most part, although I’m starting to think that my unit frames are too bulky and I dislike the way that the buffs are wrapping beneath them. What you see here are my abilities consolidated below the targeting frames. In combat, the casting bar shows up directly beneath them, and all my NTK information will display as timers directly above. Recount is visible here, but I generally don’t have it shown if I’m only tanking. The minimap is still in the corner of the screen, albeit the bottom right, and it’s made to look as seamless as possible with the environment so that it’s not distracting.

Here’s where it gets a little crazy. I’m getting all my raid warnings exactly where I don’t want the information to be, and when coupled with my scrolling combat text, it makes things a little difficult to see. Now, what I’ve found since taking these screenshots are third-party plug-ins for BigWigs that allow you to customize your bar options.

I’ve since shrunk down the bars and moved them closer to my targeting windows. If you’re into it, you can change the textures to match all your other shit on screen (X-Perl, NTK, and Omen, for example).  I also accidentally moved Omen from it’s place to the left of my bag bars and it’s currently obstructing my minimap. Check out how things look out of combat with everything cleaned up a little:

When NeedToKnow timers pop up during combat, they center over my target of target unit frames. I’m thus able to keep my focus on my combo points and check my timers all at the same time, essentially without moving my eye. I’ve also got Recount sitting above my combat log/chat frame so I can figure out whether I’m slacking on damage (or if someone else is) and start pushing the envelope without being a moron.

If you haven’t checked it out already, Karthis from Of Teeth and Claws recently wrote-up a piece about his own UI. If you find any of the elements he uses intriguing, he provides a detailed explanation of each; however, while the heads-up display he’s rocking looks pretty cool, his interface is still a little too cluttered for my tastes. Just remember: do whatever works best for you.