Reader UI of the Week: Building a better PVP UI
by Mathew McCurley 
Aug 30th 2011 at 3:00PM
Here at Reader UI of the Week, we try not to let calls for help go unanswered. After all, what's this great community without the drive to help one another in our ever-helpful, merry band? This week's call for help comes from a "wishes-to-be-unnamed" denizen of the Bloodhoof server who wants to know what makes a good PVP user interface better than the rest. Talking PVP isn't always my specialty, not from lack of participation but because my UI was never tailored specifically for rated Arena play. However, we're talking general PVP today, which I think I can handle with a little bit of help from you. Yes, you.
A year ago -- seriously, I've been doing this for well over a year now -- I sat down with C. Christian Moore (of Blood Sport fame) and his PVP UI that he was using at the time. That UI was a super-solid template for how PVP players should expect to look at information as well as what PVP players should focus their expectations around. Before you read today's basics on the PVP UI, I'd say read over the article from last year to see a shining example, then continue on with today's topic.
Are we good? Are you all ready to go? Excellent.
The call for help beacon has been lit! What say you, Nameless?
Hi,
I'm going to be completely honest here, I need some MAJOR UI help. I see all these shots of such pretty looking UI and then I take a look at mine and I want to cry.
Sorry I don't have a screenshot readily available, but I need advice more then anything.
I am not a raider; PvP is where my heart lies. But I have such a plethora of different addons I can't quite figure out what is good and what isn't.
I use XPerl, and though I love view of your own character and who your targeting, AV is an absolute nightmare. The entire left side of my screen (and I do mean entire) is covered in green bars stating these people's info, and nothing I do is changing that.
All I really need is what you would recommend as 'good' PvP UI to keep things from getting too cluttered and still displaying what I need.
Many thanks,
Nameless.
Thanks for the email, Nameless. If PVP is what lies in your heart and beats resoundingly each time you log in to WoW, so be it. We can help you transform your UI into a better PVP beast.
The basics of the PVP UI
The basics of the PVP UI are not unlike the basics of the raiding or questing UI -- it's all about priorities and successfully crafting a user interface that puts PVP priorities first, especially if you're into PVP more than the average rated Battlegrounder or Arena participant. So, what exactly are the basics of the PVP UI? The basics include unit frames, personal buff/debuff information display, team status management, and screen real estate.
Unit frames
The problem that Nameless is having in Alterac Valley, with the nightmare of unit frames that appear for the entire raid-sized cadre of players attempting to take out their opponents, is a common PVP problem. Alterac Valley is the biggest battleground WoW currently sports, alongside the Isle of Conquest, so seeing a full raid of players is not necessarily an uncommon occurrence.
One of the easier ways to deal with such a large battleground is to disable the more personal unit frames for the 40-on-40 matches and replace the output with something like Grid, which doesn't necessarily give you the pinpoint player detail but replaces it with the basics. If you have a range opacity setting on Grid, you can see who is close to you and in need of assistance or heals. If you're a dispelling class, you can easily have Grid display the debuffs you are capable of removing. Heck, even the built-in Blizzard Raid Frame can do all of this, for the most part, and it's sitting right there in your options right now.
XPerl is a nice addon, but for the larger battlegrounds, you might consider turning it off or tinkering with the settings to have it not show up for 40-man content like Alterac Valley or Isle of Conquest. You'll save a lot of screen space and headache while still being able to get pertinent player information like health and debuffs. One of the running themes of a good PVP-centric user interface is clear information gathering and displaying coupled with open screen space, allowing you to see the battlefield.
Knowing what has been cast on you is a good indication of what is about to happen to you in PVP fights, especially the arena. Easily getting that information is crucial to reaction times and keeping the flow of battle in your favor. There are a few options for checking out what you've got on you that you'd like to get off. Good PVP UIs have clear debuff detection.
Power Auras is a good way to set up a bunch of buff and debuff notifications if you're the kind of person who benefits from Power Auras' customization options. To be fair, if you're already using Power Auras for this, you don't need to be told how robust it is, but for those of you new to the game, it's a treat. While it's a bit difficult to set up the first time, displaying your buffs and debuffs center screen with Power Auras allows you to react faster in PVP, relying on the same principles raiders do during boss fights.
For those of you new to debuff management and personal buffs, you might want to try out TellMeWhen; it's a great addon for people who want a Power Auras-like experience with less setup. TellMeWhen will display buffs and debuffs, cooldowns, enemy cooldowns, and more. You want a solid grasp on what's coming at you during PVP to maximize your strategic potential.
Team status management
Your team is your lifeblood in the PVP world. You may have 1v1 skills that pay the bills, but you're never going at it alone in ranked matches or rated Battlegrounds. You need your buddies to help you out, and in turn, you need to be at the ready to have their backs as well. Good information management is key to keeping your team alive.
Unit frame addons have the ability to display buffs and debuffs on white or black lists, and you should use these to your advantage to only show the biggest debuffs that have the most consequences to your team's success. Roots, snares, incapacitates, stuns, and disables are all important debuffs that you're going to want to know about as soon as they happen. Set up your action bars so that debuffs display prominently on the character's pane, and adjust the icon of displayed debuffs to be larger than the others so that you can quickly glance and get a feel for the situation.
Screen real estate
If you haven't realized by now, the best PVP interfaces are sleek and space-savvy while still retaining the crucial bits of information that experienced PVPers need to know. Screen real estate is a big deal because without actually being able to see the field of play you will not be able to accurately account for line-of-sight issues, AOE abilities, movement-based spells, and more.
Keep addon use to a minimum and push everything to the outer edges if you can. The center of your screen is extremely important, as are the sides. Peripheral vision is crucial in PVP, since you want a good understanding of what is happening all over your field of view, not just for the guy in front of you. Mage popping out from behind the crates in Dalaran Sewers? You won't know if he is being blocked by unit frames.
Start from the bottom of the screen and move upwards. Don't start at the sides of the screen, which is an easy mistake to make. You're going to want to keep as much clear in order to have that battlefield awareness that you will come to rely on as a dedicated PVPer.
So there you have it, Nameless. I hope these tips help you on your quest to design the perfect PVP user interface for you. There are a lot of PVP blogs and sites out there, and I'd recommend stopping by Blood Sport and The Art of War(craft) to see what else people have to say about interface design as well. PVP is just one aspect of WoW and it's community and gameplay, but certainly not anything that doesn't deserve a little UI love now and again.
Interested in getting the most out of your user interface? Come back once a week for more examples of reader UIs. For more details on individual addons, check out Addon Spotlight, or visit Addons 101 for help getting started.
Filed under: Add-Ons, Reader UI of the Week
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Darkfreak Aug 30th 2011 3:56PM
In my opinion, unit frames should be around the middle of the screen, so your eyes have travel less when you want to look at your health. A HUD might be a good idea. For arenas, get gladius. it is invaluable. Also get an addon to track cooldowns. I use doomcooldown_pulse (get it from wowinterface) and omnicc. When I get home i'll post a picture or my UI
Bheema Aug 30th 2011 4:32PM
Whats the addon , that lets u display the entire BG map with allied players visible on it? /map when minimized is still too big
Ayiano Aug 30th 2011 5:44PM
Shift+M by default for the "Tactical Map". Addons like Mapster can modify it slightly by cutting out the frame artwork, leaving only the terrain showing.
Ayiano Aug 30th 2011 5:45PM
Oh, and the Shift+M functionality is built-in to the default UI!
kook Aug 30th 2011 5:48PM
That's part of the default Blizz UI: pressing shift + M will bring it up.
For resizing it to fit your UI, Zonemaphelper is a handy addon tho.
Hensonite Aug 31st 2011 6:46AM
Please don't downvote, but Carbonite does a pretty good job of that: it displays Allies, shows whether they are infight (inserted cross) and remembers the minimap's size and scale for each BG.
Ayiano Aug 30th 2011 5:46PM
Think I'll submit my UI to Reader UI. It's heavily PvP-centric, from a healing standpoint.
Jen Aug 31st 2011 11:33AM
Yes please!
Khirsah Aug 30th 2011 6:19PM
Nameless doesn't really say what his role or class is, but that plays a huge factor in the add-ons you need, and how big they are. For example, as a rogue, I am very centered on only myself and my target, since I can't really help a teammate, anyway. Therefore, my raid frames are smaller. But in arena, I do like to track my teammates buffs so that we can combine for added damage, so my party frames are bigger for arena than my raid frames are for bg's, right?
If Nameless is a healer, he should focus more on raid frames, even at the expense of some of his own peripheral vision, and count on his teammates to back him up, as they should be doing.
+1 for Gladius. The best pvp add-on ever.
Finally, and this is may or may not be necessary for your ui, but just general pvp advice: go to arena junkies and check out some of the macros for your class. They may help open up some action bar space, or just show you a different way of using your abilities that could change the way you decide to track it.
Mega Aug 30th 2011 8:41PM
Ive been trying pvp more and more since i quit raiding awhile back, anyone have some hunter specific add-ons that could recommend?
10191ad Aug 31st 2011 3:07AM
I'd add a suggestion for LoseControl:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/losecontrol.aspx
This helpfully puts a big icon of the debuffed in the middle of the screen whenever you are CC'd with the remaining duration on, reducing those 'what the hell!!?' moments and enabling decisions like 'do I blink the stun or trinket the fear?' to be made fast.
Hensonite Aug 31st 2011 6:51AM
Losecontrol also displays this for target, focus and other objects which you can easily position near those unit frames. There's nothing better than a big icon showing you all CCs on your enemy with their duration left.
perderedeus Aug 31st 2011 9:42AM
Less is more. For PVP or raiding.
If you're using Scrolling Combat Text, ask yourself... do you really need all that information whizzing by on your screen? Are you paying attention to it? All of it, some of it? If only a portion, what are you looking for... and can that be relayed in a more immediate, more noticeable way? Perhaps a Power Aura, or even an audio notification...
Also, unitframes. Do you need your own name displayed on your unitframe? Do you need your current and max mana displayed? Many minimalistic UI setups shrink the mana bar and only display a number, or use the bar only and eschew numeration. It depends on how familiar you are with your character and spells.
And Recount... do you need it up during a fight? Do you look at it, during a scuffle? Why? Hide that stuff. It's a distraction.
kaosgrace Aug 31st 2011 12:01PM
Question on your scrolling combat text suggestion:
The major thing (really, the only thing) I actually look at MSBT for is to see how many targets my Prayer of Healing just actually hit to see if I need to reevaluate my target selection. It's obviously not the ideal way because it's after-the-fact, but it's useful feedback when I'm in panic AoE spam mode and don't have time to look around the room, count out all the members of each group amidst the chaos, and figure out who's in the middle.
I really don't know of any other way to show that information; I understand that there's a Grid extension for it, but I use Pitbull for various other things that Grid can't do the way I want it to. And Vuhdo has a cluster finder that in theory I could use before casting the heal, but I don't like Vuhdo either, and besides, when I tried it, the cluster finder was even slower to operate than my visual range estimate, and less accurate too.
Do you have any suggestions? Other than switching raid frames mods (not happening)?