It just keeps us going….

in the eyes of the beholder

Hi Dran,

My name is Merder (on the Baelgun server). I really enjoy your blog.

I saw one of your screenshots and I REALLY like the setup you have. Would you mind

sending me a list of the addons that you use? or maybe do a post about your setup. It’s

one of the cleanest looking UI’s I’ve ever seen. I’m a 70 Ally Pally and I have several

addons, but my screen is all bunched up and crowded. I’m always searching for a way

to tone it down a bit.

Thanks

Scott (a.k.a. Merder)

(borrowing this bit from a famous blog)

Hello Merder. It’s great to have had a positive feedback from a reader. Yes, it does feel good!

This is the “3.0 version”, if you can call it that, of my user interface. I’ve been working on it for a long time now, always trying to make the best use of space, and while trying to keep addons visible and functional, also working to make it appealing too.

Breakdown!

I tried to apply some basic self made “rules” aswell as some “hardcore” Interface design concepts.

• Has clean as possible (like you point out)
• No compromise on Information gathering (quality before quantity)
• Force the design to prevent “tunnel-vision” play
• Low on memory (tolerable at least)
• Fast access (I Press before I click)
• Five Pixels of design (1)

With this in mind, building the user interface, was like playing lego’s. Everything had to slide with minimal impact on other Add-ons.

Cowtip on the top left corner of the screen provides useful, quick and easy to see information. It works out of Mouse-over events so a quick nudge on the mouse and I have a little bit of target information.

On the opposite corner I have the mini-map, Simple Map provides more then needed information, customization and adaptability to most user interface’s. It works great for me too, all add-on buttons are hidden except for the tracking Icon and the Omen threat meter (yes, that’s how important it is!!!)

On the Left of Mini-map are my buffs and debuffs, these are stock Ui, with the time option enabled. Below it I have the quest tracker (stock). Another Design major, If it’s not broken don’t fix it!

A look at some cooldown action

Wandering to the Left bottom corner, there’s Prat and the first of two Eepanels2. The panel provides a “darker” background to my chat window, while Prat gives me a (really) never ending custom options (editbox un-docking for instance).

Above it, there’s cooldownTimers2 divided in 2 groups, one for items (left), and one for abilities (right). They are placed that way because I’m less likely to need to see my Hp pot cooldown in favor of my Bloodrage, Revenge or Sweeping strikes cooldown.

Of to the far left there’s the mother of all Instance loving, group snugging wow-fans, Omen2. While providing me with CLEAR threat generation info, it still notifies me (with a quick glimpse of the eyes) of who’s trailing behind me so I can prepare for events properly.

Next to it (Left side) there’s Grid. I use it more on my healer (Niam) the on anyone else. The value of this single add-on to a healer! One click (or mouse-over) and you can pop off a heal, decurse or cleanse, faster and reliably. truly priceless! It still holds it’s end on my warrior, allowing me to see an overall picture of debuffs across the “raid”.

Parrot in Action

Center screen (besides Dranzig) there’s Parrot, Semi-circling to the left are the damage taken, health gained, blocks, parries and dodges. On the right damage inflicted, damage Dodged, blocked or parried (by the mob).

Enter the big guns, Pitbull took me days to configure. There are so MANY options!!! The config consist of left side bars (Me, Focus, Pet) and right side bars (Target, Target’s target and Party). cool things to note: It shows who has just gained Aggro. It shows if a target is CC’ed. It shows health incoming. It shows Buffs, and debuffs of the target. and that’s just a scratch at the surface.

Above my frame, sits the Swing timer and the Cast timer, via Quartz, I can also have one on my target’s frame (also right above it). Shameless Shield Bash abuse ^^

Bartender3 and Cycircled vol skin present me with buttons to mash, and this configuration has alot under the hood. The Three stances change the top bar to the according stance-bar it also changes with Shift modifier for quick use of some abilities. The middle (static) bar, has some “clicable” spells, either high cost or less used. The bottom bar shifts with Alt modifier to present professions and other abilities (like Hearthstone). The little Bar over my Pitbull frame is a “witch stance I’m in” (sometimes it gets confusing) and trinket action (it’s only six buttons across, three for stances, one for weapon swap macro and the two trinkets)

Better view of Pitbull

Finally, to wrap up, there’s fubar with some more information. It goes in order from left to right: Performance, Durability, Topscore, Experience, Mail, Bag space and Local time.

You can say it unfolds or blossoms. With some aspects of it showing themselves only in specific circumstances.

–

(1) The five pixels of design, stand to a concept of Operating systems building. It shows that independently of the users knowledge or capacity, there are always 5 Pixels on your computer screen that you will not miss to click or see! The five pixels are, of course, the four edges of the screen and the pixel immediately under your mouse pointer. These present themselves has a great source for crucial information (take a look at windows or Mac bar, your windows close button, the right-mouse button menu, and so on…)

Yay! 40, now to get my mount….Wait, what?!?

Open for business 10 levels sooner.

Actually I did get my mount at 30 and don’t get me wrong, faster leveling is “always” a good thing. It helps out on most leveling aspects.

Blizzard has implemented several re-design game mechanics to the game.

• Elites being turned to normal mobs
• Experience increase from level 20 on up
• Mounts available at level 30
• Recruit-a-friend with 3x experience for you character up to level 60, plus some more benefits.

These are all great changes, of the top of my head I can come up with “hundreds” of reasons to justify it. Most important, they provide the “new” players with a chance to reach end-game content faster, but at what cost?

Leveling faster can “make” you miss some cool quests and events, old-world content is almost always discarded, there’s no need from players  to “seriously” upgrade your characters with all the Outland gear at such a close grasp.

The last changes Blizz’ Implemented were, from my point of view, not in favor of the new player!

I’m new at World of Warcraft, I’ve been leveling a mage, quest rewards are really cool, and I’ve had some good upgrades from them, gold is  problem though, it seems I never have enough. With all the spells, abilities and cool things I find in the Auction House, there’s hardly enough for the repair bills”

I know of no New player in a server that has close to 40G at level 30, that’s even less likely to happen if you are New to the game. So much to explore and so little time (read: gold) to do it! If you have experience in the game, it’s great. If you have a higher level character, it’s wonderful. There’s just no way around it.

I grabed some gold from double gathering professions, leveling to 30 in a breeze, and getting enough Gold from Herbalism and Skinning to get my mount at level 30 (yes, it is a big difference). But I had help! I never spent a single Gold coin on repairs. Niam, who gracefully grinded for gold in Outlands provided Dranzig with a “starter fund” for gear, repairs and level 19 enchants. In short, without my “sponsor” I wouldn’t have been able to ride at 30, maybe not even at 40, since my first character ever only got is mount at around 45-ish!

I wonder what are other players perspectives on this subject. Care to share your achivements? How soon did you get the Mount gold?

My main is a 70!

have 3 mains (about)! I consider them my Mains and not Alts, because I play them very regularly and with the same “addiction” has I would play a single character.

When I first started playing world of warcraft, “learning” how to play has hard! Don’t get me wrong, I had previous Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) experience before, having played Ultima Online, Lineage II, and a few others. But Warcraft had something different of an appeal to me while leveling. It was either more challenging, or more complex, (or both) but I had a lore-type addition to it. Such so, that after the North-America incident, I really thought about gaming, and how it involves me and my time in front of the computer.

That’s about the same time I started to read a couple of Wow-oriented Blogs, that I discovered an endless amount of Warcraft information spread across the internet. I also read about how questing is a good (best) way to level, and how to do it properly. I gained access to a leveling guide, and following it, got my Horde hunter to close to 60.

Unfortunately, I grew tired of my daily routines, and decided to create an alt, to have the option of gameplay content variety, since the class I would pick would present itself with a new set of challenges and with different tactics on how to take on Mob killing. I liked it so much, soo I had a Mage on is 50’s!

When I changed to Alliance, the “fresh” start, provided the perfect opportunity to maximize my gameplay. Starting out with another hunter, this time a Night-elf, I also created a bank Alt. I had no access to bigger bags, gold, or even friends, so I used the mailbox as a makeshift Infinite Bag of holding.

Niam (paladin) had a better fortune, I mean, Xarlee (hunter) had already made some gold, and Niam was a “Holla fo’ a Dolla!” paladin, and had some funds to start up is career. It was easier then, the  funding and knowledge of how to avoid certain obstacles in my way to 70!

When Dranzig was born, I had very clear goals for him, I wanted to make sure I had the best possible “advantages” early on. I drained (yes, he took me to the cleaners!) my bank, bought and quested for the best gear for level 19 Warrior, got every piece of gear enchanted or enhanced in some way or form. I had decided that I would get my taste of blood on the lvl19 Warsong bracket, grinding on honor for my future weapons, and for the PvP trinket (witch btw, I think is a must for any tank).

What really surprised me tough, was when I dropped the 19th freight-train killing on Warsong, and resumed leveling I was unstoppable. I mean, I know that up to level 23, 24 I would have a major advantage, because of gear, but I was dealing with larger numbers here, by the time I was 22, I took on the Omer’s Revenge quest in Wetlands, and had a run-in with Sarltooth. I never back down from a fight, hold habit I guess, but he is a 29, so that’s a big level difference, I’m wearing 16-19 level gear. He didn’t even knew what went trough him….

Now I’m level 39, I’m still wearing the same gear, I’ve upgraded my weapons, but that’s it! Nothing more, and I still kick some monumental tush on Mobs much higher then me. I wonder if I had a 70, with access to top tier professions (Enchanting comes to mind, of course) If would still find it challenging?

Are you like that? Do you know players like that?

Are you challenged to your best every time you play, or do you slack of, because it’s just a farm session?

For me, I bet when I have these three stooges in some serious action, I will most likely have another character to “have fun” with, but knowing myself, I bet he quickly will become another addendum to my class choices to bring to a raid character instead of my ” relax and have fun” character!

Fireball this….

Has promised. A quick introduction to tanking, group analysis and situation awareness.

There you are, proud leader of a recently created group, all ready to tackle the next challenge in your wow-life, and guide your fellow adventurers into a pit of darkness and evil. (well, that painted a dark picture in the corner of your mind, didn’t it?)

Honestly, there’s little to be scared of, even for the first time runner, baby-raider, casual pugger, or random invite with a little bit of preparation, or even the simple understanding of what is your class and what is your job in-game will increase your chance of success (it WILL help to read-up on encounters, even if just to know what’s coming). That said, let’s move on with the show.

How you face any instance depends, first and foremost, of the group you have. What classes are the other four members? Do you have Crowd-control (CC) available? Can CC be used without crippling the group? What sort of Tank do you have? What type of healer is available? Is Damage-per-second (Dps) enough? There’s about a million more questions like these a group leader could ask himself, even before the run starts. Asking them and providing a positive answer, in my opinion,  are synonyms of a solid leadership (Auz?).

Let’s look at a fictional, although typical, situation while pugging. Our group is composed of:

• Frost Mage
• BM Hunter
• Fury Warrior
• Enhancement Shaman
• Holy Priest

I will try to give the tank point of view and leadership.

Let’s assume, that all members are level 38 and that all understand their class and their role inside the group. They have tons of Dps, two solid crowd controllers, a panic mode healer, a solid healer, and a decent tank.

On your basic pull, there shouldn’t be any worries at all! let the warrior go for the mob and get a solid aggro base before unleashing hell, it won’t cause any problems.

But if everything was perfect there would be no need for this post (^^).

Line of sight pull

Casters are usually the most troublesome, why? well, because they just sit there and burn your little tush without even a shred of remorse. The way to tilt the tables to your side is the Line-of-Sight (LoS) mechanic. If you are out of the line of sight of said mob, it will run towards you, until is sees you, to restart casting.

On the above picture you can see our group (crosses), taking on a 3-man pull (circles). Melee and range is purple, casters are orange and Tank is red. We are going to turn a simple fight into an easier one.

The warrior shoots the caster mob and gets initial aggro from all three. he immediately runs into a the “shelter” position away from the group (marked with the dash arrow). Because the caster mob can’t see the tank it will run towards him to restart casting. we’re bringing melee down first so has soon has the mage see’s the caster mob, he will sheep it!

Apply a solid aggro base on both melee mobs and move in for the Kill,caster is now your only target and will fall very fast to the hands of your merciless Dps.

You can even, with this group, apply more crowd control (or protection from runaways) by having the hunter set a trap in the passage way to other mobs. This will freeze a runaway mob, or crowd control a second one on the way to the tank.

Kill order is a import notion to acquire. Here we have CC’d mobs, the Sheep’d mob is a healer and not a damage dealer, If no CC has present this would be your first target.

Avoid working in crowded areas, if possible, always pull into a previously cleared room, you do not what to have another 3 mobs (or more) running around hitting everyone. Keep the situation under control and if needed “drag” the mobs into other places (example the caster got sheep’d close to you)

NEVER turn you back to the enemy! Attacks from behind can’t be dodged, blocked or parried!!

ALWAYS try to keep your tanked mobs with their backs turned to your group! Attacks from behind can’t be dodged, blocked or parried!!

Check on your companions mana, take a break or carry on laying down the law. Knowing when to take a short snack brake is a good thing (also a good time to ask how things are going)

-Dranzig

Scarlet run Part.2

picture: Wowhead.com

I did two runs already on Scarlet Monastery. On the first one, a Dps heavy group (2 hunters, Resto druid, pally tank. and me) did ok, but we only went to Library and Graveyard.

Plan was, we would clear those two (easier) wing of the monastery, get a feel for the group and then, move on to armory and Cathedral if we had time and if the group has holding well in the instance.

After the Library run, we had a drop from one of the hunters (had to leave), went to summoning stone and started scouting LFG for a replacement, but in about an half-hour there was nothing to be found! Everyone was either just getting ready to “park” the character on Inn’s across Azeroth or doing other Runs (PvP, Gnomereggan, ….)

With a bit of discontent on my part (I was really excited) we call it quits for the day, and moved on. I still went to finish some quests in Arathi Highlands, got some Raptor meat and Raptor Eggs and then also logged out!

The next day, I went to Stormwind (seasonal herbs), to get some consumables ready (anticipating a possible run trough Sm again) made some Healing potions, some Mana potions, got Agility and protection Elixirs, roasted the raptor meat and made some omelets from the Eggs. I was as ready as possible, logged to LFG and went out questing!

A couple minutes into questing I get into a group with 2 priests (one shadow and one holy) a retribution Paladin and a rogue. They asked If I could tank Sm Library for them.

/p [Dranzig]: Sure, it won’t be a problem!

All set, buffed and with a full stomach we all blaze trough Library, and even Doan, wasn’t a problem. Everyone did their thing, a couple of panic moments, with some body pull’s, but nothing a quick (almost always cooled) taunt couldn’t handle.

I focused on multi-mob tanking as best I could, trying to get enough starting threat on the Skull Mob, then switching targets to Cross, apply one sunder and cleave it. Trick here is get both cross (main cleave hit) and Skull (collateral damage/second hit) and then switch back to skull and keep pounding. Positioning is everything!

A problem young tanks may encounter on Library, is the frequent encounters with caster mobs (healers or fire mages), even more since, they are almost always “linked” to groups of mobs and the safe pull, can turn into a wipe, even for the most prepared. (I’ll post little how-to soon)

We did very well on Library and decided to go to Armory. At this point we lost the Rogue (oh, man, it’s yesterday all over again!). we grabbed a hunter, summoned, and went into the Armory. Without the rogue (for sap) we had bigger pulls (hunter couldn’t trap very well, and with mutual accord, we decided that either we would lose dps, and mind control one mob, or I would try to hold all mobs). Nothing to serious happened, most groups where a breeze, with the healer mobs marked as Skull, and a Shield Bash or Chastise always ready for the interrupt.

Funny enough, both priests were really paying attention, and on dual healers they would wait for the Bash before the Chastise, and if bash was on cooldown (used recently) they would immediately chastise. Go priests!!!

Finally we got to Herod, I charged him and started to get a good threat base while everyone got positioned (for the summoned mobs at the Kill), paladin stayed at melee with me while the hunter and priests stood at the stairs – half way down-. when the mobs spawned, everyone came to center, and the paladin consecrated, the hunter did multi-shot and freezing trap (amazing) and a priest holy nova them to nothing!

we check loot, and voilá, I had a treat waiting for me in the form of a berserker Helm (wanted list, yay!!!).

Now it was already a bit late and we decided we wouldn’t tackle on cathedral, but we arranged to meet again the next day to try it out! let’s see if we can get more phat loot, from Mograine and Whitemane (squichie friends).

here’s a little “rub my ego” screenshoot!

Ego rubbing