My horde priest, Lizzy, is the level 60 I play most often (though frequently, time limitations mean I'll end up playing alts for a half an hour here or there), but the interfaces of all my characters are mirrored off the needs of this one priest. I try to keep things simple -- which makes patch day a lot easier. So if you're curious as to what all is cluttering my screen, keep reading!

Gypsymod: If you wonder why my screen looks different than yours, it's probably Gypsymod. Gypsy changes the player frames around yourself and your party members -- giving, in my opinion, a much clearer view of everyone's stats than the default interface provides. The streamlined two-row button-bar at the bottom of the screen is also from Gypsy. I find it to be a very clean look that shows everything I need to see. (You'll note it moves the lag meter, usually on that bottom bar, up next to the mini-map.) If you feel you need the function buttons (the ones you can click on to see your character information, social information, etc) you can have those displayed as well, but I usually access these by hotkeys and didn't think I needed any extra buttons. The two columns of buttons on the far right are nothing other than the default interface (if you hit escape and then bring up interface options, you can bring up as many as four new button bars on the screen). My only complaint? From version to version, Gypsymod seems to have fits with the pet bar, which is slightly annoying for an occasionally mind-controlling priest, and probably much more annoying for a hunter or warlock.

CT Mod: I find CT to be a nice collection of mods, providing a wide array of little things I find useful. In the upper-left on my screen, there's a small DPS meter that keeps statistics on the damage (or healing) done by all my spells, along with crit and resist percentages. (Handy data, though I don't always access it.) To the right of that, there's a small window showing my HP and MP regened per tick. I also have CT configured to give me warnings when buffs expire (you can see one in my chat window on the lower left) in case I'm not paying attention to the icons in the upper right.

CT Raid Assist: CT Raid Assist makes raiding a lot easier, even since the default raid interface has been improved. Raid Assist's windows, showing everyone's health and mana, have the (in my opinion) large benefit of remembering their positioning on the screen -- with the default UI I have to re-position windows every time I join a raid. Also, I have Raid Assist configured to show certain buffs -- so I can tell at-a-glance who in the raid has the my fortitude and spirit buffs.

Decursive: Everyone loves to hate this one -- but no one can deny that it makes life much easier when you're dealing with lots of debuffs that need to be removed. I have the macro /decursive hotkeyed to shift-5, and hitting shift-5 will scan my party for anyone with a disease or magic effect, and then cast the appropriate spell to get rid of it. Of course, for the many patches that break decursive, I have dispel magic and cure disease right next to it (bound to shift-3 and shift-4, respectively).

WhisperCast: Since I usually only run 5, 10, and 20-player instances, I've never gotten into the habit of using WhisperCast much (in smaller instances, it's easier to pay attention to the buffs on all the players in your care). WhisperCast is a handy mod that allows people to whisper you for buffs. The players and the needed buffs are placed in a queue, and then when you hit your WhisperCast macro, it will cause you to cast the buff wanted by the player at the top of the queue. What I dislike about WhisperCast is that it seems to go off occasionally on random conversation, which is a bit of an irritation.

Tags: addon, addons, azeroth, mod, mods, warcraft, world of warcraft, WorldOfWarcraft, wow

Filed under: Add-Ons, Features, AddOn Spotlight