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Saturday, September 18, 2010

Top 5 UI mods.

This is a post I've been meaning to do for a while now - I haven't gotten around to it because I've been distracted by FFXIV. It is... you must forgive my crude and, frankly vulgar, description here but I can think of nothing more eloquent and accurate than these six words:

It is a roleplayers wet dream.

All vulgarity aside for a moment; I was desperately looking for something to distract myself from the blissful and bountiful world of Eorzea when I stumbled across this article from WoW.com.

A fine read it was, but something had bothered me all the way throughout. In the first paragraph was a sentence that read "Instead, you get a grab bag of... downright crucial addons". None of the three addons the writer listed struck me as particularly crucial, but I shrugged it off. Moments later I felt that joyous spark of a new idea surfacing: "Why don't I write up a list of insanely useful addons?"

My answer to myself instantly was: "But then I would have to write it, and that sounds significantly like work." but it was too late. Now if I don't do it I'll feel guilty... are you happy about that? You oughta be, because if you're not then I'm wasting my time by listing:

The Top 5 UI MODS!

I don't have any streamers or cake... sorry.

Anywho, this list is PURELY from my own personal opinion. It is not the mother of all guides, you will not be punished if you do not use these (not by me, anyway). They are not required in any way. Enjoy!



Recount is an incredibly useful tool, but only in certain circumstances. I've referred to it a few times, usually by telling people NOT to slobber all over it. Recount is mostly useful to Raid Leaders, teachers or mentors and anyone who wants to improve their own performance.

Similarly to Gearscore (*wretch*), most people use it as a measure of their "L33tn3ssz" or e-peen - those people should be banned from using any such mods as they drag the name of such a useful tool so far through the mud that most people can't bear to look at it.

In a nutshell, recount will gather data from you, your group or your whole raid and display it for easy analysis in realtime (nerds like me go apesh*t for words like "realtime"). It can show you how much damage a player has done, how many debuffs they cleared, how many times they stood in the fire, etc.

There are two problems with Recount though: 

First, the only people who should be using recount are the ones who either have a problem with their group, or they're looking for one - but I can guarantee you almost every last dps in the game has it running and watches it like a hawk... and they'll spam it in your guild chat when they end up in the top 3.

Second, using recount in groups and raids can suck a whole lot of resources from your cpu. If you use it on a low end system, you may find yourself disconnect just as an encounter begins - don't use it if this happens.

If you do use it, use it only for yourself. Watch your progress and try to improve... don't use it to show how awesome you are.


#4. Omen

Omen is a little over-hyped. It's not as essential as everyone says but it's certainly useful from time to time. The only exception should be for tanks, who'll get more use out of it than anyone. Healers should never have to worry about getting Omen, either.

Omen monitors threat and displays it in realtime (Awwww yeah!). This is incredibly useful for tanks as they can see when they're about to lose aggro, and occasionally for dps to know when to ease off (to avoid aggro).

The biggest drawback is not being able to monitor threat on multiple targets at once (though no mod I know of can do this comfortably right now). That means group coordination is still a must - it won't (read: can't) be done for you.


#3. Grid

The only reason Grid doesn't place higher in this list is that it serves almost no purpose for pure dps. Here's a list of the roles that it's suited for:
  • Tanks
  • Healers
  • Debuffers
  • Utility DPS
  • Raid/Group Leaders
  • Pet Classes
  • Your Mum
  • My Mum
  • Her Mum
  • Any of the above in PvP (including your Mum)
Gettin' my drift? Good.

Grid will display the HP, status and range of any given player or pet in your group straight off the bat. That alone would make it a godsend but it's also highly configurable. With a little (or a lot) of tweaking you can make Grid show any kind of information you like and look however you want it to.

The Cons: It can be quite confusing to configure - I've been using it for years and still struggle with some of the configurations. Take my word for it: It's worth every last second.



This beautiful little mod is so great that Blizzard are in fact adding their own version as standard with Cataclysm. My guess is we'll still be using Power Auras though, and here's why:

Power Auras (or POWA) can be configured to show anything. It will detect any buffs, debuffs, health state, skill readiness, ANYTHING you want and put an icon on the screen for you. You choose the icon, it's colour, it's animation and it's position and it will save you searching for that information. For example I currently have it set to show (all centre screen):

  • A flashing blue circle to show when Clearcast has procced.
  • A pulsing purple bear paw showing when Gift of the Wild has worn off.
  • Big orange teeth showing me how long I have left on my Savage Roar buff.
  • (On my warrior) A big red arrow showing me when Overpower or Victory Rush are ready to use.
This comes in ahead of Grid because it's useful to everyone. The only downside is that it must be configured from scratch. You must tell it what to show and why - there are no presets (not yet, anyway).



Go and get it! NAO! I'm not even going to tell you what this does.

Alright, I'm lying. I will tell you, but only because I like the sound of my own voice. Deadly Boss Mods (or DBM) does everything your raid or group leader wishes they could do, when they needed to do it.

It warns the user of upcoming attacks and threat. For instance, it will create a timer to show you how long until the next Gun-freezing is due on the Gunship battle in ICC. It'll play warning sounds when something happens that you should know about too - it basically explains bosses for you while you're fighting them.

The only things close to a drawback for this (and I'm reaching) are these:
  • You have to download a separate version of the addon if you want warnings for boss encounters in TBC and Vanilla.
  • Your pc might get a bit choppy while it loads up a set of mods (entering an instance for example).
  • You may become overly dependent on it. That's... That's the best I got.
Why are you still reading?! GOGEDDIT!


That's it for now. I know there are a ton of other useful mods out there - these are just the basics. If you want to see or discuss some other mods (or need us to recommend one for you) say so in the comments below! In fact, say whatever you like... I get lonely down there.

Until next time kiddies,

-Ahzae, Lord of the Trifling GnOmen (c wut I did thar?)

2 comments:

  1. I've accidentally discovered (by forgetting to turn it off for my DK and mage) that Healbot is elegantly useful - in a 'Grid' sort of way.
    who's being hit, everyone's health, range, debuffs needed, buffs missing, etc. Mouse over the bar, and click to deal with buffs and debuffs. It has a reasonable default set up by class, too.

    Might have to try Auras... have tried many pre-set type addons, but none *exactly* do what I want. Sigh. I hate configuring from scratch.

    Now that you've done the combat-related add-ons. How about the generally useful mods - alts and AH and mail and... and... and...

    Ha! Another job for you.

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  2. Hehe, I'd already thought of those other mods. The reason I focussed on these ones first is because they'll have more of an impact on the people you play with - I'll be going through the likes of Auctioneer, Outfitter, Bartender, Quartz, etc etc in the near future :D

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