It's my general philosophy in user-interfaces that one wants them to be as simple as possible, with very little clutter hogging screen space. When I see a UI like the one above, I can only conclude that the user was drunk when they designed their set-up, or else they have tunnel-vision, and therefore shouldn't be playing at all. At times I wonder if the reason raid awareness is low is because of poor UI design, and people are simply oblivious to the fact they are standing in fire. A simple rearrangement would save many a wiped raid.
I use a number of add-ons to affect my game, about thirty was my most recent count, though I am constantly deleting and changing the ones I use. However only twelve of them are on my screen at most and that truly are a part of my user-interface. These chosen twelve are all I need to give me all the information I require in almost any situation, while still keeping out of my way and giving me the largest possible viewport in which to see the game. I'll show a screen shot of my UI in battle with the add-ons labeled, then show another outside of battle. Take note that whenever possible, I made bars take on the default Blizzard bar style, and I made fonts into Fritz Quadrata TT, which is the default font that Blizzard uses. This is in an attempt to unify all the mods into a single style to better fit into the game, and not look completely out of place.
Bartender: This is simply a mod to be able to move and custom design all your myriad of abilities and buttons. It's total available number of buttons is much more than Warcraft's default UI allows, so if you're finding putting all your abilities on the few bars you have is becoming a problem, Bartender is a fantastic upgrade. As you can see in my picture, I have faded out the non-essential abilities to be almost transparent except when moused-over, where they will pop up to full alpha again. The alpha setting on all your mods will be a life-saver, and I have reduced almost all my mods to be completely invisible when not in use. You will also notice I have no bag bar anywhere, as I have keybound them all to open with Shift+B. Key binding unimportant utilities will allow for quite a number of actions to no longer require space on-screen, but still remain functional.
Btex: This is the simple dark underlay that binds the entire UI into a single cohesive whole. Without it, the bottom portion of my screen looks very messy and simply not put-together. It doesn't look intentional. There are several skins available in Btex's default package, but also you can download more, or even custom create your own unique skin. The size of the skin is changeable to fit any screen or UI size, and it even comes with a grid overlay to perfectly center your add-ons.
Elkano's Buff Bars: This mod is extremely customizable and can be made to track any buff and debuff you like or even just specific ones. Currently I have it to just check for specific buffs that I look for in a raid as a tank, Gift of the Wild, Greater Blessing of Kings to name a few. That way I have a specific check list of buffs to look for, and if I'm missing one, I immediately know. Cutting down the list of tracking buffs and debuffs makes it take up much less room on your screen, as well as keeps your mind focused on the few buffs that do matter, instead of having to search for it in the mess of infinite buffs. A mage will not care if he has Battle Shout, and so it should not be taking up his space with useless information.
Grid: This is simply the best raid frames mod available. As a tank, you have two concerns in regards to what is happening to your teammates. Who has aggro, and who is dead. This will provide you with both, and much much more. I have mine customized to be very small, so that when I enter Wintergrasp or Alterac Valley, I have enough space for all forty people in my raid without it overlapping my bars, or having to move it. That's just my personal choice. I have the mod set to have a red box around whomever is being attacked in my raid, which instantly provides me with the knowledge of who has aggro, in the event it is not me. It also shows who is low on health, who is being healed, who is low on mana, who is poisoned, cursed, etc. Every scrap of information I could need in a small box that won't eat up space.
Mik Scrolling Battle Text: There are several combat text add-ons out there, even a built-in one, but none of them have the utility and customizability of MSBT. Every scrap of damage coming in and going out is revealed in totally changeable units. Need to know when an ability procs? MSBT does that. Need to cut down on screen clutter from dots and hots? MSBT does that. Every box has its own set information that you can locate anywhere and even change direction. I prefer having incoming damage on the right going down and outgoing damage on the left going up. It provides a small revolving wheel around me that is easily identifiable based on direction. One word of advice, the boxes are set on "jiggle" by default. Turn that off for the sake of keeping all the blood in your eyes.
Omen: The quintessential threat meter. This should be a required mod for everyone in the raid, regardless of position, though tanks will make the most use out of it. Simply put, it will show you your threat on your current target. It's default setting is on a canvas-colored box that frankly is not appealing to the eye, so in an effort to keep a unified look, I made the add-on completely invisible by turning the alpha down to zero and locking it in position, so that only the bars appear when in combat, and are gone when not. Skada is a common replacement for Omen as well as Recount, however one should note that Skada works on a different threat scale than Omen does. Omen uses the tank's threat as the 100% marker, and will take 110% of the tank's threat for a melee class to pull aggro, and 130% of the tank's threat for a ranged class to pull. So even if it seems a class is above the tank on threat, it may not even be close. This is easily verified if you are a ranged with 110% aggro, and move into melee range, you will notice you gain aggro suddenly when before you did not. Another good reason ranged should always remain at range. Skada on the other hand uses 100% threat as the pull amount, so whomever reaches 100% threat is the one with aggro. It is important to know how each add-on works.
Prat: This is simply a chat mod to change the size and functionality of the chat window. The in-game chat is static and can only get to a certain size, this will allow it to not only fit any size you want, but also choose the location of the text box and remove the scroll arrows.
Recount: The best known and most commonly used damage meter, it is primarily used for dps classes to brag to each other and start fights within the raid. However, to a tank, it has many other uses. Besides merely showing your own dps, which should be inconsequential, it will show the reasons for each members death, who is healing the most, if you are being parried, etc. It's a complete combat log without having to read through the in-game's rather terrible combat log.
Sexy Map: I use this add-on primarily to make the map-tied add-on buttons invisible and to make the map smaller and only show relevant information. I use a simple square to take up less space, and I turn off the name of the zone I'm in cause I already know the zone I'm in. I'm in it. Sexy Map can be as elaborate and fancy as you want it to be, but for my uses, simple and out of the way is all I need.
Tidy Plates/Threat Plates: One of the best tanking add-ons I've ever used. This is actually Tidy Plates the main mod, and Threat Plates is a plug-in for it. I use Threat Plates even when I'm not tanking, however, as it looks good and relays the information I need no matter what character. What it does is green border the nameplates of the mobs you have aggro on, and red border what you don't have aggro on. All well and good, that's what the in-game aggro meter does. Except the less aggro you have on a mob, the bigger the nameplate gets! You can make the loose mob's nameplate absolutely huge, which makes it much easier to find and click on in an army of mobs that your overzealous dps is aoe-ing like mad. This has made my click and taunting time go down significantly, and rarely will a mob even have time to turn around before it's back on me. This is the one and only mod I've ever found to show your relative threat on a mob that's not your target. Infinitely useful to a tank, and the nameplates will reverse if you switch to a dps mode, turning big when you don't want to attack and small when it's safe.
Titan Panel: A handy mod that clumps a bunch of handy information at the top of the screen. It has several plug-ins that interact with it, and best of all, will only appear if you mouse over it. Otherwise, it's completely hidden. Great for information you might need but don't need all the time.
X-Perl Unit Frames: I think every player should use some form of unit frames. X-Perl is just my preferred one. The in-game frames are unwieldy and overly fancy, and hence I stumbled across this wonderful add-on. I keep my frame, my target, and my target's target at the bottom of the screen, so that I don't have to keep looking from the top of the screen to the bottom for all my information, it's all located right at the bottom. It also has tons of settings to change every little thing about your UI you can imagine. You can turn off your party view when in a raid, you can track aggro, you can show not only your party member's pets frames but their targets as well. That information may not be relevant, but it's available. I turn off the raid frames they use, as I prefer Grid, and you can set the size of your debuffs to be smaller than your buffs to be easier to spot, and each individual frame has it's own settings. It really is a fantastic add-on.
Overall, the idea here is maximum efficiency with as little space used as possible. There is an option in the Warcraft settings that allow you to lower the UI size as a whole, and I've made everything as small as possible. This created so much extra room at the bottom of the screen, I advise people with larger-sized screens to use this option. It has created so much extra space I could even fit a few more mods there with a little configuring. It also allows quite a large portion of the screen to be free to watch the entire raid. Below I have a shot of my UI outside of battle, free of distractions and with all mods gone to their default invisible mode. I don't suggest copying my exact set-up unless it appeals to you, but the general philosophy of simplification and minimalism should be in any user-interface.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned next entry for: Keeping Up Raid Morale.
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