Zuggy’s WoW User Interface Package

By popular demand I’ve finally put together my full user interface package up for download. If you’re new to World of Warcraft addons or don’t know how to install an addon checkout the short video I’ve included below. It should clear up any confusion.

A brief note for new players, a World of Warcraft addon (aka “mod”) is a small file which enhances your WoW user interface, this could be changing the way a frame looks, adding a different action bar, or any number of other items.

Now, enough of the introduction, let’s get on to the addons.

Download Zuggy’s U.I. Package

Ace3 - This is the foundational addon used for the majority of my addons. It runs lean and mean and is a product of the Ace development team. You need this addon to run virtually all addons and mods from wowace.

AG_Unit Frames - This mod is a lightweight yet highly configurable unit frame addon. It replaces the blizzard default unit frames. You’ve got a new player, target, party, focus, raid, pets, target’s target, target’s target’s target, focus’ target, etc (you get the idea, virtually anything you can think of).

Bulk Mail2 - Now, this mod isn’t exactly needed to get the basic functionality of the user inteface I use. But, since I do a lot of auction house farming It’s incredibly helpful to have this available. Using this you can send multiple mail messages at the same time.

Closet Gnome - This nifty addon allows you to specify a set of gear and equip all the pieces of that set in one click. For example, I have a PvP healing set on my shaman that equips all of my pvp gear instantly.

Grid - While AG Unit frames does have raid frames it’s not ideal. Grid solves this problem, it’s highly configurable frame allows you to fit up to 40 raid frames into it’s box.

OmniCC - Adds textual overlays of your cooldown’s timers on top of your action bars. An absolute MUST HAVE.

OmniCC Options - Options menu for OmniCC.

Open All - Another non-essential addon, this mod allows you to take all the cash or all items from your mailbox in one click. Another awesome addon for auction house farmers.

Proximo - This arena addon brings up a frame with all of your opponents names and HP percentages. This list is populated by simply hovering over the enemies unit frame. Absolutely crucial for serious arena players.

Quartz - This mod replaces the blizzard casting bar. In addition, it adds a customizable target’s casting bar, focus’ casting bar, and many others.

SCT - Replaces the blizzard default floating combat text with this configurable (and signifigantly cleaner) scrolling text mod.

SCT Options - Creates an options / config. menu for SCT.

Download Zuggy’s U.I. Package

Creating the Perfect User Interface

Building the perfect user interface in WoW is no easy task. With an endless of addons, modifications, and scripts, it’s easy to get lost. So, let’s just start with the very basics of user interface building, the stock blizzard view.

When I construct a user interface I do so with a few basic principles in mind.

1. Performance - The blizzard default U.I. can be considered our baseline. As far as FPS performance is going to be concerned the Blizzard U.I. will generally represent the maximum
2. Information - What info do you need to know? What information is the most important (you’ll want this prominently displayed)?
3. Design - Organizing your frames and bars in such a way that your view field isn’t obstructed is absolutely essential

User Interface Performance
In a day where video cards have pushed to 1 GB and having 8 gig of memory can be attained for a couple hundred bucks this might not be as big of an issue for you. Even so, I’m a minimalist, I strive to build my user interface as lean as possible.

For a lean U.I. there’s only one option, library of functions, ace mods are different because they are all built off the same library. Meaning mods use less memory, run leaner, and faster than their counterparts.

Even better, there is a great community of addon developers who are constantly updating mods. Popular mods are updated several times a week with changes, new features, bug fixes, and patch updates.

Ace Mod Downloads

Addon Information
If you’ve browsed through addon repositories at all then you know the immense amount of information available via mods. The vast majority of this information is parsed through blizzard default combat log (even if you don’t use a combat log it’s still stored). Mods are able to gather information that would otherwise buzz right pass you and rebuild it in such a way that it’s easy for you to see and decipher in the heat of combat.

Mods like Natur’s Enemy Cast Bar (NECB) is a great example of this. The mod produces bars and timers for other players (both friend and foe) casts, cooldowns, and other abilities. Allowing you to make faster judgments based off quick information.

The big problem with this mod is it simply does its job too well! By default the amount of bars it can produce is simply too much. Bars are created so quickly it’s difficult to really tell what’s going on. It’s very important to turn off unnecessary options in the mod, for example you really don’t need to see the cool down refresh on a winter’s chill every time a mage casts a frostbolt.

The overall point here is, make sure you take a look at the options in each addon you download. Information is great, but if you don’t filter out to get just what you need then you end up in a situation where you have more information than you can easily handle while still fulfilling your classes primary role.

Design
Designing a great user interface is like art, sometimes the most simplistic creations are the most elegant. Here we have a few basic categories to consider.

1. Unit Frames
2. Action Bars
3. Other Mods

We’ll start with unit frames. Here we kind of go back to how much information you really need. Your role in an arena match will really determine what you need. For instance, the party frames on my rogue are really point less. I basically need to know 2 things about my partner members, their health and their debuffs. So the U.I. on my rogue is literally just a health bar with debuffs below, they are are small and out of my way.

Healers are a bit different, issues like a range checker, buffs, debuffs, health, mana, and casts are all potential attributes you may want to include in your unit frames. Just remember to avoid excess information where possible. I haven’t tried it out in arena yet, but based on my raiding experienced with it, grid could be the ideal unit frame mod for healers, combining lots of information in a very small area.

Action bars are probably the most simplistic aspect of your U.I. Though, you’ve got some options to further reduce the amount of clutter in your U.I. Most action bar mods include options to change size, position, and visibility.

So for example, on my restoration shaman I really don’t need to see most of my action bars. Healing spells and many totems really don’t need to be shown since I have all of my hotkeys memorized. So basically I only show the cool down based items: bloodlust, grounding totem, nature’s swiftness, mana tide, etc.

Since unit frames and action bars are the bread and butter of your U.I. other addons and modules can simply be placed around these. Depending on the type of information these mods provide will determine their position on your screen.

Items like target’s casting bar and focus’ casting bar are very important, as such they are dead center of my screen. Other mods like NECB’s cool down times are located along the outer ring. It’ll be up to you to determine information which is most crucial to your class.

If there’s one thing I cannot stress enough it’s just…keep it simple. If you are struggling to handle multiple addons and mods and a hundred other pieces of information at once you’re probably doing yourself more harm than good.

In my opinion you’re just better off going with a more simplistic approach and allow yourself to make quick decisions based off a greater view field and more simplistic approach to PvP.

Quartz Casting Bar Addon

In this week’s “Addon of the Week” I’m featuring a mod many of you may already be using, but if you’re not you NEED to be. It’s quartz, and it’s a complete replacement to the blizzard default casting bar.
Features
Focus Casting Bar
First off, if you aren’t already taking advantage of focus macros then you need to be. Once you’ve got your various macros and such setup you’re going to want a solid casting bar and unit frame addon to make this functionality even better. Quartz provides this casting bar.

Global Cooldown Bar
This feature is really awesome if you have chosen to hide your action bars. A lot of times you still need to be able to watch that GCD for the upcoming tick.

Swing Timer
The swing timer is absolutely crucial for warriors, especially from a PvE perspective. I don’t know of any other casting bar addon that currently has this functionality, outside of quartz. Use of the swing timer allows you to better time your ‘on next swing’ and special attacks, maximizing DPS.

Additional Casting Bars
In addition to the above features I’ve listed, Quartz has a whole host of bars that you would expect it to have..

• flight, focus, global cooldown, interrupt, latency, mirror, pet, player, range, swing, target, timer, tradeskill merge.

Dependencies
Quartz’s only dependency is Ace2, which is actually one of the reasons why I really like it. If you’ve read some of my previous articles on WoW User Interfaces then you know how much I like to keep everything very lean.

The Ace library of functions is built with this type of design in mind. It’s incredibly memory efficient and designed for speed.

YACL Damage Meter Addon

Now, I know normally I only do one featured addon of the week, but this one just can’t wait. Damage meters are nothing new as far as addons are concerned. From the early days of Damage Meters to SW Stats, Recount, and a dozen others in between I’ve seen them all.

The problem with damage meters has always been their susceptibility to memory leak. Virtually every damage meter I’ve ever used has been a gigantic memory hog, but YACL is changing eveything.

Unlike other damage meter addons like recount and SW Stats which are poorly written parse programs that were designed around the sub-2.4 combat log, YACL has been built from the ground up and designed for the new combat log. Beyond that, it’s built to be lean. It’s incredibly fast and offers the same features seen in other damage meter addons without the memory issues.

Features

• Ability to show data from all fights or just your most recent fight
• Synchronize data with other members in your raid / group
• Damage Mode: Name, Damage, Time, DPS, Max, Crit, Miss, Kils
• Itemized Stats for damage, breaking down ability, damage, max, average, crit, glance, and miss
• Healing Mode: Name, Healing, Time, HPS, Max, Crit, Overheal
• Itemized Stats for healing, breaking down spell, healing, max, average, crit, and overheal
• Incoming damage mode: spell, taken, max, average, crushing, avoidance, dodge, parry, block
• Outgoing damage mode: spell, damage, max, average, crit, glancing, miss, dodge, parry, block
• Percent and Absolute Damage Modes (see items as percentage or a static number value)
• Clean and easy to move frame

All in all one of the best damage meter addons I’ve ever seen built. It’s only been out a few weeks so It’s still building steam on the raid front, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if in another month YACL completely replaces recount, sw stats, and all other damage meters for serious raiders.

Best Unit Frame Addons

No custom user interface is complete without ditching the stock Blizzard unit frames. The blizzard frames are anything but “ideal, they are small, poorly positioned, and offer the user little information, especially for raiders. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of unit frame addons out there to help us out.

1. X-Perl Unit Frame
Perl has basically been around forever, I can remember using the very first versions of this module in AQ40. Overall, it’s just a great unit frame. It comes equipped with all the normal features you’d expect an addon to have; range finder, HoT monitor, raid frames, debuff highlighting, raid target icon, raid tooltip, in-combat indicators, 3D portraits, red and green combat flashes, timers, and configurable colors, just to name a few.

Setup on this mod is extremely fast, out of the box it’s pretty much ready to go and doesn’t require very much customization to get to looking good.
Download X-Perl Unit Frames

2. Pitbull Unit Frame

Pitbull is built on the Ace2 library of functions and as such uses very little memory. As far as features go, Pitbull tops all other addons. If you can dream it, chances are it’s an option in Pitbull.

While this feature has it’s appealing nature, it’s also a big negative for many users. Pitbull will take some time to setup. With so many available options the first couple times you configure the addon could be painful, especially if you are a perfectionist about your U.I. like I am.

Keep in mind, the screenshot above is just one possible U.I. you could create using Pitbull. There infinitely more complex (or simplistic) iterations you could build using the options available in this addon.

Download Pitbull Unit Frames

3. AG Unit Frames
AG unit frames may look suspiciously like Pitbull to you, that’s because it was created using the same scripts. Essentially AG unit frames is a more simplistic version of pitbull. It offers less functionality, but as a result the setup time is pretty quick.

The major draw back for me on this addon was not having a range finder, you may find other quarks you dislike about it, but overall it’s a solid mod that offers a minimalistic feel that’s quick and easy to setup.

Download AG Unit Frames

4. Healbot Unit Frames
Though I haven’t had a chance to personally try out healbot in raids, It looks pretty solid from what I’ve heard and read. Healbot is built with the raid healer in mind and is packed with features to help you including: 20 key mouse combinations to cast any beneficial spell, usable items can be added to combos, macros can be added, target, focus, and assist can be

added, displays aggro, decurisve functions, monitor buffs / debuffs, configurable appearance, raid sync, range checker, etc.

Download Healbot

Additional Unit / Raid Frame Addons
In addition to the above addons I’ve listed you may consider using some of the following.

Proximo
Proximo generates a small box (moveable via alt + dragging) that populates the names of your arena opponents and their current HP percentage. In addition, you can set certain bindings off the frame.

For example, a left click on a player in the frame could cast a sheep, set it as your focus, etc.

Download Proximo

Grid Raid Unit Frame
Grid is an ideal solution if you have a unit frame that doesn’t provide very good raid frames. For me this was the ideal solution, since AG unit frames did not have a range checker.

Grid creates a small frame and fills it with a box for each member of your raid or party. From there each box is broken down into various sections which display various data; debuffs, buffs, aggro, HP, etc. All of which is 100% customizable.

Check out my full write up on grid raid unit frames for more information.

Download Grid

Think you’ve got an awesome unit frame addon that should be added to this list? Post yours below!

Grid - Raid Unit Frames

For this week’s addon of the week, the very first addon of the week and newest feature to ZugGaming, I wanted to take a step away from the arena scene. Now, I’ll be first to admit I’m not the hardcore PvE raider I once was pre-BC, though I still enjoy the occasional 10 and 25 man.

If you’ve raided at all, then you know what a pain finding a good unit frame addon can be, and believe me I’ve looked! Though I think grid just might be the saving grace for all of us.

Unlike other unit frame addons, grid is extremely compact, so compact it takes up only about 1/4th as much screen space as my previous raid frames did. Better than that, it provides me with even more information!

To the right is how grid looks out of the box. This type of raid frame design was so revolutionary when I first saw it I was kind of turned off. Beyond that, it looked confusing at first.

Though with a little customization I was able to get the ideal working design for my shaman to effectively heal during 25 man raids.

Basically the addon creates a small box for each player in your raid, various details within and around each box are associated with the criteria you’ve set. For example, you can see a red line around some of the boxes in my screen shot. These are targets which are out of my healing range.

Each box has 7 subdivisions, left upper corner, right upper corner, left lower corner, left lower corner, center icon, center text, and border. Various colors and icons are assigned to each area to represent data: health, aggro, incoming heals, debuffs, range, death, and numerous others.

The module comes setup pretty nice by default, though you might want to change some of the color scheme, size, background color, and other settings to better work for your needs.

All in all it’s just a great addon. It’s an effective tool to use whether you are raid healer, a tank, or just a DPS, and I highly recommend it.

Get the newest version of grid for patch 2.4 below!

Best User Interface Addons

The following list is my big players for addons, I won’t go much into specific class based addons, though curse.com has plenty to offer you if you so desire to search.

You can also checkout files.wowace.com for additional U.I. modifications.
Proximo
Simple, yet amazing. Proximo allows you or any of your teammates running the mod to scroll over the opposing players with your mouse, these players are then listed on a small frame which you may move to any location of your screen. Once listed you can then target the opposing players via this frame. The mod comes equipped with many other features for assisting, targeting, macros, focus, etc.

Unit Frames
Perl Classic
X-Perl
Pitbull
Ag Unit Frames

Each unit frame mod offers essentially the same thing, a better player, target, target of target, target of target of target, focus, party, and raid frames. You can determine for yourself which design you prefer, though I strongly suggest choosing some mod, as the blizzard UI frames simply do not offer enough information in a format easily visible. Choosing one of these four, or another I haven’t mentioned (there are scores out there) is crucial to setting up your UI for PvP, as it provides you a much cleaner view and allows you to customize the frame for the information you find most urgent.

Natur Enemy Cast Bar
Certainly one of my favorite mods I am currently running. NECB assist you in that every time a spell, skill, buff, debuff, etc. shows up in your combat log it creates a small bar, which you may move around, change the orientation, width, etc, which essentially works as a timer. Example, you can watch a mage’s ice block tick down, when you see your timer at 2 seconds, knowing you have a 2.5 second cast, simply queue your spell and you know right as he breaks out of that block you are going to nail him with another spell. Wondering when that paladin’s bubble is coming back up? NECB handles that also, and virtually all other timers in the game, everything from short duration objects to the longer cool downs as well, it’s a great addition and when customized right is an excellent tool for PvP.

Bongos (now known as Dominos)
Now personally I consider myself a minimalist when it comes to my UI, so I don’t use bongos currently, though I have in the past. Bongos simply lets you change the size, position, and orientation of your action bars quickly and easily. In addition it also removes all the extra art, freeing up more space for your UI canvas. The greatest part about Bongos is how easily it lets you bind your keys. No longer do you need to go through the key bindings menu, simply open the bongos options up, hover over the key, and pressed the desired hotkey, key set! If you want to adjust your bars around this is the perfect mod to do it with.

Ecasting Bar
Ecasting bar, obviously enough, is a better casting bar. It turns off the small default blizzard casting bar and allows you to move, change orientation, width, length, color, etc. of your casting bar, focus casting bar, and target’s casting bar. If you’re a class that doesn’t cast, get it anyway, the benefits of the target’s casting bar and the focus casting bar are crucial and you’ll want those implemented in your UI.

Scrolling Combat Text
Improved version of blizzard’s scrolling combat text. SCT is basically all the import stuff which appears in your combat log, then it’s blown up, color coordinated, and positioned at any location on your screen, divided, and organized in which ever way you choose to customize is. It’s not a huge thing, though the fonts are much clearer than the cheesy version blizzard through in.

Trinket Menu
Adds a small, fully customizable, mobile frame that allows you to quickly swap trinkets. In addition you can also setup queues for your trinkets. Example, after I use my bloodlust brooch I have my renataki trinket swapped in as soon as I leave combat, then again the bloodlust brooch is swapped back in once renataki is on cooldown. Great tool to keep track of your trinkets at all times without having to open up your character menu.

OmniCC
Last, but certainly not least, OmniCC adds timers to your bars over your entire cool down based abilities. Many bar mods now come with this feature built in, but in the event your action bar happens to not, or you are cool and use the blizzard default bars like me, then you certainly want to use OmniCC