Ghules' UI Warning: lots of images

[Ghules]

Ok Breaking these up from the original post for a little clearer explanation.

There are tons of other mods or plugins that I have running or just kind of doing their thing in the background.

And all the elements on the screen can be turned off or changed independently of each other with a couple of clicks.

If you would like a full listing\links and/or memory usage statistics please just let me know.

This is just my Default Ui.

We were on a 10 man UBRS at the time of this shot

A basic explanation of the layout of my screen.

Raid Frames in the Upper left.Buffs in the Upper right.

Middle Left is my player frame. My Target and my Target's Target will appear Middle right.

Bottom is divided into 3 sections. Lower left is raid/party/channel chat. Lower right is Guild and Whispers.

Bottom Center is just my spells and my buffs/conjurables on their own bar.

Lower Right bar is a mod called Autobar. It autoloads it's buttons with nifty things like potions, bandaids, healthstones, mana gems, etc. It does it intelligently as well. Example if you have 2 healthstones and a health pot in your inventory. Healthstone is showing on the button as it is in my screenshot. If you click the button and use the healthstone the button changes to your Health Pot, because it knows the other healthstone is on cooldown. All this is straight out of the box no configuration necessary. Save some button space if you use a lot of consumables.

Buffs in the Upper right are presented in a reverse progress bar form by Elkano's Buff Bar mod.

My player frame and raid frame are Ag_uf. It has several styles built into one package. So you have lots of options you can switch to if the current one isn't pleasing to the eye. It's defaults are pretty snazzy and it has a very simple editor built into so you can actually change around things without having to be a coder. All that and it has a fairly small memory footprint.

The screen is sandwiched top and bottom between Fubar.

If you use or have used Titan Panel. I highly recommend Fubar. I found a lot of the functionality in Fubar that I was missing in Titan and a *ton* more plugins.

Edited November 4, 2006 by Ghules

[Baracko]

That looks very nice, Ghules! I need to learn more about the "frames" sets... looks like it would be fun to mess with.

The only thing I dont want to have to do is reset everything with each patch... but I guess its the price you pay.

[Ghules]

Rawr Molten Core.

Looks like we got a dog with these giants.

Center Top is my main Tank windows

The purple highlights on the Upper left are the debuffed members of the raid. In the middle right with the floating purple text is Detox mod, with an abbreviated list of the cursed. Detox is similiar to Decursive or the CTRA decurse. It tends to be a bit more memory efficient and is much friendlier when assigning priorities.

Directly under my Detox List is the respawn timers for the trash mobs in MC. This is a timer plugin for Big Wigs boss mod. It has timers built in for trash mobs all the way up through Naxx.

And under the BW Trash Timers are my Target and my Target's Target. The target's debuffs are actually covering up autobar because I'd evidently been wiggling the frames around, heh

Center Left is OCD (cool down bars) I'm a fan of the reverse progress bar, so these follow in the same vein. In this shot it's showing the cooldown of my Icebarrier and trinket. I also have it showing a duplicat numeric cooldown on the the spell buttons itself. 6 seconds on the Trinket and 4 seconds on the Ice Barrier

Middle Far left is Threatmeter.

Edited November 4, 2006 by Ghules

[Martok]

omg! look at all that stuff on the screen!

*head asplode*

[Ghules]

Now here is where I'm exposed as a cheater.

As much harping as I do for CT Raid.....I don't actually use it

I use ORA2 which is basically a slimmer but muchmuchmuch more functional version of CT Raid. It has a lot of improvements over the original ORA as well.

It still supports all regeant, durability, resistance, etc checks. It will actually report back a current CTRA version number if it's interrogated by someone using CTRA and thus keeping your secret safe

For instance in the Middle Left the green bars are the expiration timers for the Arcane Intellect and Arcane Brilliance Buffs. Under that is a Cooldown Monitor for all the raid goodies Soulstones, Battle Rez, etc. Currently the only thing on cooldown in that shot is Bunny's Soulstone.

Both of these are built into Ora2 and completely configurable as to what information you want displayed.

The Main tank windows in the Top Center are also ORA2.

In the shot below the Upper left is just an example of one of the many frame types that come with AG unit frames.

This layout is displaying numerically the current and max health values on the healthbar itself.

May be a bit hard to make out due to the fuzziness inherent in shrinking the image down.

Also an example of two timer mods in action.

Center Right in this shot we have Big Wigs Boss timers. Currently showing the count down for Rag's Aoe knockback and the time left before Rag's submerges

Big Wigs is a great boss mod pack and I highly recommend it if you're looking for an alternative to CT's Boss Mods

Up and to left are Natur's Enemy Cast Bar's showing the same timers. Normally I only use Natur for it's functionality in showing an opposing mobs spell casting or to watch the warlocks banish timers on mobs, so I can start casting just before it breaks, but it is enabled here to show some of it's additional functionality.

Edited November 4, 2006 by Ghules

[Baracko]

I like it! Ive seen many folks use AG or Pearl, and I really like the look. I really want to find something to give me cooldowns on totems and such... maybe this will turn into a new pet project.

Tell me one other thing: Have you lead any groups using those CTRA lookalike mods, and have you had any trouble with it?

[Ghules]

Lead any groups? No.

Assisted? Yes

Setting up tank windows, groups, ready checks, etc. All smooth as butter.

Had no trouble at all with them, which is surprising knowing how much I like to

poke at things, heh

ORA2 has it's own set of commands for durability, resistance, ready checks, etc.

However, it also fully supports CTRA's check functions as well, so you can even use the same commands that you use in CTRA and they will work.

Just to be clear. ORA2 has no built in raid frames like CT does.

All the Raid frames you see in my screenshots are just the standard blizzard raid frames "skinned" with AG Unit frames. However I've always thought CTRA's frames were more than a bit clunky anyway.

Here's the link for ORA2's site on WoWAce.

http://www.wowace.com/wiki/ORA2

It gives a good list of what it can and can't do in comparison to the CTRA package.

It also suggests alternative addons for the functions it doesn't cover on it's own.

I've personally used each of it's suggested alternatives as well

The rest of this post's spam is just my own personal feelings on the alternative addons suggested by ORA2's devs.

Bigwigs for boss warnings/spawn timers. BigWigs is what CTRA boss mods should have been all along. Static timers for events. No spammed warnings, and the ability to block out the spam from others if necessary.

Detox for decursing. Clean little mod with great prioritization features.

XRS as a Raid Status replacement is another good one with some interesting features. It has it's on built in buff checks, that will show you who is missing what buff without having to sort through the whole raid.

It will also tell you who's flagged.

Squishy as an Emergency Monitor.

I'm not going to say Squishy is a bad mod, because it isn't. It's actually quite a slick little piece of code.

However for the "Heal bot" type who just like to see the bar come up in emergency monitor, click the bar and you're done. Squishy is not for you. Your head will probably explode from information overload very quickly while using it.

Now for those of you that like something smart enough to change the priority of the display based on if someone else is already healing the target or if a warrior is taking more sustained dps than that poor half dead rogue <Sorry Rogues >, or people that are out of your healing range, already have a HoT on them, have a shield on them currently, or the debuff from a shield and can't be reshielded yet, all at a glance....then Squishy may be your cup of tea.

Again if blinking Xmas lights tend to give you seizures. Avoid Squishy

http://www.wowace.com/wiki/Squishy

However if you're an information junky and like fast twitch healing, and combat triage, with all the information presented to you, then Squishy will be your new best friend.

and last but not least

SRaidFrames as a replacement for CTRA's raid frames.

I've used this one but not extensively. Mainly due to the fact that all I usually use my raid frames for is easy click targeting for buffing and group composition.

When I have used SRaidFrames I had no issues with it. It's a nifty little addon with some cool features. It has all the features that CTRA's frames have, debuff coloring, mouse over to show how much time is left on a buff, soul stones, dead, and a whole lot more.

Anyone that cares to give these or any mod a try but is worried about mucking up their current setup, just load them up on an alt and invite a few folks to a raid.

I'm always available to help out if I'm online.

If the mod isn't to your liking just pull it out or uncheck it to keep it from loading and your main is none the wiser.

All that aside. Try things and see if you like them, you never know what you may come across.

--Ghules

Edited November 5, 2006 by Ghules

[Scryll]

or if a warrior is taking more sustained dps than that poor half dead rogue <Sorry Rogues >,--Ghules

It's a conspiracy! And I say we're not going to take it anymore! We rogues are organizing! DOWN with the anti-rogue-healing regime!

:starts chanting: "2, 4, 6, 8, you can't be discriminate..."

[Baracko]

RAWR!! After some help from Ghules, I have stolen his setup...

For you healers, Detox makes Decursive look like a small red-headed stepchild. get it!