Addon Spotlight: OPie (UPDATED)
Ladies and gentlemen, I rarely get very excited about new addons, but OPie has revolutionized my UI in a way that absolutely fits with my clutter-free mindset. Ultimately, as I test addons, only a few end up being a permanent part of my gameplay. I can't necessarily promise OPie will stay, but it's looking like such an innovative mod that I may just come to rely on it.
We've discussed both Totemus and Necrosis here at Addon Spotlight, and praised the way they wrap things into a neat little package. OPie does the same thing, but to an extent that not only are your spells hidden until you need them, but they can be easily integrated with a minimalist play-style.
What OPie does is take spells, items, trade-skills and macros and creates virtual rings for them to reside in. By assigning a keybinding, one can simply press a button and have a quick menu (a ring) appear on the screen, which will cast a spell, use an item or a macro based on where the mouse is hovering in relation to the ring.
I have been testing this on my shaman, putting all of my healing spells in a ring bound to "Shift-H". When I press the key combination, my spells appear on the screen, and I know through practice that Lesser Healing Wave is the top most spell. By quickly pressing Shift+H, then swiping my cursor from the center of my screen and up and letting go of the keys, I begin to cast my heal. That may sound like a lot, but I promise it is significantly faster and easier than clicking on my action bar or on Healbot (which I only use in groups anymore.) Now, you may say "Sean, stop being a moron and just bind Lesser Healing Wave to a key." A valid point, but here's why I love OPie's system. If I move my mouse to the right instead of up, I cast Healing Wave, and to the left will cast Chain Heal. Three spells with one simple keystroke and a choice of subtle mouse movements. I have different keybindings for each school of totems, my weapon buffs, heals and consumables. (As well as the built in raid-target marking ring, profession ring and trinkets ring.)
This is especially nice on my shaman and warlock, who have massive amounts of spells, many of which aren't used on a regular basis. I have yet to test this on my paladin, but I'd imagine his wide array of seals and blessings will fit nicely into these rings, rather than filling up numerous action bars.
I will admit that getting used to the interface, and the way to interact with the addon took some getting used it. Right off the get-go I was skeptical about OPie, but once you get the hang of it, you realize how intuitive and easy it is.
Here is the description from the OPie homepage:
"OPie is a radial action-binding addon for World of Warcraft. The addon allows you to bind groups of infrequently used actions to a ring that appears when you trigger it using a hot key / mouse binding.
Consider some of the common items taking up action bar space:
Potions, Health stones, Mana gems
Damage-aborbing shields (when was the last time you used Frost Ward?)
Shape shifts and stances; along with your mount.
Foods: biscuits, stat buffs, arena water, underspore pods?
Leatherworking drums.
Your once-in-a-blue-moon-on-a-Thursday cooldowns.
Download OPie, group those into rings (/rk), bind rings to mouse buttons (/opie), enjoy uncluttered combat in style."
That just about sums up the OPie way of thinking. I did find that I needed to unbind certain keybindings that I had been using on my actionbars before OPie would be able to use them. I also found that once in a while the custom ring interface would have an error and become unresponsive. However, I have not had any problems using the rings in combat, which is when things absolutely need to function correctly. You can create character- or class-specific rings and share the rings you create with other OPie users.
OPie comes with pre-built rings for each class and some universal rings. These include professions, trinkets and a ring for ClosetGnome if you're using it. Some class specific rings include aspects for hunters, teleports and portals for mages, shapeshifting for druids and demons for warlocks. There is also a raid marking ring, which streamlines your target marking, which has pushed LuckyCharms2 out of my UI.
I absolutely recommend this addon to anyone wanting to try a new way of handling secondary abilities. Give it a test drive for a few days and let me know your reaction. I believe this one will be a "love it" or "hate it" thing. Dimissed!
In my excitement, I neglected to mention a very important detail. I wanted to give credit and my thanks to Cairenn over at WoWInterface.com for featuring this addon and thereby introducing it to me.
I also want to reiterate the fact that you don't actually have to move your mouse, its all about positioning. I mention subtle mouse movements to illustrate the idea that OPie reacts differently to where your mouse ends up in relation to the ring, so if your mouse is centered, you need to move in the direction your chosen spell is in.
Are you an addon-addict? Is your User Interface a living work of art? Welcome home, my friends! Every week, Addon Spotlight profiles a different addon, brings you mod-related news and dishes out free addon advice. See out what's been said and done in the addon community by checking out past features or our addon and UI directory.
