The Creamy GUI Center: Sick on the 4th edition
Each week Matthew Porter contributes The Creamy GUI Center, a column aimed at helping you enhance your WoW experience by offering an in depth guide to addons, macros and other tools we use to play WoW, along with commentary on issues that affect how we all play.
Howdy addon and UI fanatics. To our American readers I hope you all had a great and safe 4th of July. Mine was spent on the couch with a bottle of Nyquil and jug of Gatorade as I've come down with a dreadful summer cold. My day was spent re-watching the Die Hard and Harry Potter DVDs while clouded in a sneezing and Nyquil haze. Right as John McClane is about to finally get Voldemort (as I remember it), I suddenly sat up and exclaimed "oh crap, this week's column!" For those of you coming here to read my review of MazzleUI as I mentioned last week, I apologize. As with my 4th of July plans, so too did my plans for this week's article take an unexpected turn due to my cold. The review of MazzleUI will have to wait till next week, as under my current condition I don't feel I could do it justice. After using it for a few days the MazzleUI compilation demands I be at my best so I can fully articulate what this UI package has to offer. So instead, I'm present you a week in review of addon and interface news.
Agro Control
This week's BigRedKitty showed the ins and outs of KLH Threat Meter. A good read for any class, he breaks down the threat report tables and shows you how to maximize your abilities while not endangering your party or raid. For FuBar users, here's a great plugin that will incorporate KTM information into your FuBar and scrolling combat text messages.
Mike Schramm gave us an overview of Omen, an up and coming threat meter that offers an alternative to KTM. While still in beta, this looks to be the next evolution of threat tracking addons, and Omen can even eavesdrop on party members using KTM. Competition breeds innovation, so the more threat addons out there the merrier.
Health and Mana Bars Abound
David Bowers gives a look at Aloft, an addon that lets you customize your name plates. With many features and options, practically anyone can find a use.
Another Addon Spotlight by David Bowers shows off Pitbull, a unit frames addon that can show so much information you won't know what to do with it all. You might feel like there's too much info to handle, but Pitbull lets the user pick and choose what information to show and how to show it.
Both of these addons will be featured in depth here at The Creamy GUI Center in the future, but David does a great job giving an overview of each.
Even More Macros
I got a lot of great feedback about my macro article a few weeks back. Since then, here at WoW Insider we've added features for every class. While many of them are just starting and gaining momentum, some have covered macros for their respective classes. Here's a rundown.
Krystalle Voecks at Encrypted Text gives examples of Rogue macros and advice of when and how to use them
David Bowers of Shifting Perspective shows how to unleash the beast with shapeshifting macros for Druids. Save hotbar space by writing smart macros that do double (or even triple) duty.
Daniel Howell of BigRedKitty hits the mark with two guides showing basic and advanced Hunter macros.
All of these articles feature great comments offering more handy macros by you the reader that go beyond the author's examples. I encourage everyone to check out each class's coverage here at WoW Insider, even if you don't play that particular class you can learn ways to incorporate the knowledge shared to fit your class and play style.
Back to my couch
Well my last dose of Nyquil is kicking in so I better end this before I become even more incoherent. I apologize again for this interruption in my normal coverage of usability matters. I thank you all for your understanding, and also for making my column a success over the past month. As previously promised, I'll be continuing my look at compilations with MazzleUI. See you next week!
