So I’m sure this is a common question asked, and I’m sure it’s a question that makes a person come across as less-skilled and if that’s the case, so be it but I’m just curious what things I could be doing differently. I feel like I miss out on tons of cool boss animations and actually ENJOYING encounters because I’m just waiting for things to come off cooldown. I main Priest and I have since the beginning of BC, and have just come back after a break for a few years. I am pretty decent with Shadow without having to stare at my action bar by just having a good general “feel” for the cooldown times as well as proc animatons, but occasionally it still irritates me to be looking down and checking CDs. As holy or disc… it’s absolutely awful because when I’m not staring at action bars, I’m staring at raid/party frames to see peoples health. I know there is/were addons such as weakauras for things like this, but I prefer to keep my UI as vanilla as possible. And that should be a reasonable decision considering that’s how Blizzard intends the game to be played anyway. So I guess addon suggestions arent really what I’m looking for here. I feel like maybe blizzard should have did some things to their default UI to make this easier, such as making it so when using nameplates only a damaged players nameplate appears, or even making actions on the action bar that are in cooldown have 100% opacity until they come out of cooldown so peripherals could spot these things more easily. So how do you guys actually get to enjoy the visuals of encounters and still be on top of your game?
Yeah a big wall of text is hard to read can you break it down a bit?
Read the first sentence and the last sentence if you’re not feeling all the details.
I use weak auras to track my abilities. This places a cool down timer more central to the screen so I can look at everything.
I then use keybinds so I dont have to worry about looking at my action bars at all.
I know you said you weren’t looking for add on suggestions, but the thing is. Thats what is needed to accomplish what you want.
I had a feeling that was the case. I use keybinds and never have to look at my action bar to know which button to press, so that’s not the issue. It’s just checking to see if something is off CD, because sometimes that split second of clicking a keybind of an ability in CD rather than one that is not can prove to be fatal. I guess I will have to give WeakAuras a try but is that a mod that Blizzard openly supports?
I am not sure what you mean. Its offered on curse/twitch. Any mod there is considered “safe”. As in, not rule breaking.
Okay, because I did used to use TidyPlates years ago and I know they’ve blocked that one for whatever reason. So I guess my concern is when new patches come out and Addons fail, as well as what if they up and decide WeakAuras also provides an unfair advantage one day and decide to block that one too. And if they support the Addon, why would they not just go ahead and add it to the default UI?
Akston is right. If you want to be able to see the info you need and also the fight without just “skimming” minimal bits from one or the other, you need addons.
That said, as a healer, you’re -going- to be distracted by raid frames. That’s just how the role is designed. You can move them front and center (and resize them and such with addons), but you’re still going to be staring at them a lot.
People who type big wall of texts isn’t readable it hurts my eyes too much trying to process it.
It like this also: Hellohowareyoutodayyoudoingfine?
I’m sorry you’re having a hard time reading it, but it is properly punctuated and spelled so not sure what assistance I could offer you at this point other than summer reading classes?
This appears to be still a thing, though not quite up-to-date with 8.1.5 yet;
Well, I guess I’ll have to suck it up and join the Addon wave, although that is disappointing and leaves me wondering why Blizzard would depend on third party software to make their game playable, rather than incorporate it into their default UI.
This is gonna make me sound harsh. That isn’t the intent. No, it isn’t reasonable to think this way because the stock BLizzard UI is absolutely horrific at conveying information you need. Especially as a healer. And as much as you might wanna keep your UI as vanilla as possible, to address some of these issues, you will have to bend to make it so peripheral queues can be something you use for the sake of actually getting what you want.
Never mind.
That didn’t come across as harsh at all, just blunt and I appreciate it.
There are three addons I would recommend to make this easy for you. One is OmniCC. OmniCC makes it so your bars gain cooldown counters, regardless of how long, that are color coded. White counters are over a minute. Yellow are over 30 seconds but under 1 minute. And red is under 5 seconds. Understanding these peripheral queues will make looking at your bars less of a hassle.
Another would be Bartender, as it would allow you to more easily stack action bars toward the middle of your screen without interference. This is important due to the necessary eye travel.
And third would be DBM, if you don’t run it. DBM will make it so warnings and timers and such come to the middle of your screen training your eyes to glance back as often as possible. I can provide screen shots if you like.
Wall of Text refers to needlessly long text posts that are often found without line or paragraph breaks . Walls of text can be found in a wide range of online conversations from spam emails and webcomic dialogue to blog posts and comment sections.
This is what I mean by wall of text. I can read just fine. But no paragraph breaks is eye straining. Which is why I have a hard time reading story books cause it just feels like a massive wall.
I am very familiar with DBM and Bartender. I wasnt always against addons. DBM is a must have and I understand that. Bartender I did always love, but I was just trying to give their default UI a chance this time around ya know? OmniCC I have no experience with but I will give it a try.
Word, I feel. OmniCC is very low maintenance, for what it’s worth.
If you look at Mindbender, which is number 5 on my action bar in the provided screen shot, that’s OmniCC.
Edit: This is also an outdated version of my current UI. I cleaned a couple of things up and shifted some binds. But yes, you get the point.
Ah ok yeah I can see how that would help quite a bit to aid the peripherals lol.