Your UI, or User Interface, is the graphical organization of your charater frames, raid frames, and your bars/buffs/minimap; pretty much everything. I'm very A.D.D. with my UI, and it changed almost weekly until I found one that I have stuck with for a while.
If you go to www.wowinterface.com, there is an entire subcategory of downloadable UIs. My personal preference is to keep it minimalistic. I hide all my bars (even buffs like fort and inner fire, until I mouse over them), and keep things neat.
The current UI that I am using is called QuseUI, and it's available for download on www.wowinterface.com.
Another great resource if you're just starting off designing your UI is the Elitist Jerks SubForum - User Interface and Addons. Not only is there an extensive thread listing hundreds of downloadable UIs, but there is a UI help center, a thread dedicated to the art of interface design, and a WHAT'S THAT MOD??? thread if you're looking for something in particular to enhance your gaming experience.
If/when you decide to download a UI, installation is very easy. All you have to do is download the UI. Then, extract either the .rar or the .zip file to your desktop. One of two things should happen: One folder appears, with 2-3 folders inside. The first folder should be the title of the UI, and inside, the folders will be labeled Interface, WTF, and sometimes there is a folder labeled Fonts. Alternatively, the folders inside the original folder will appear on your desktop alone.
Open the WTF folder. Open the Account folder. Inside the Account folder, there should be one folder. Rename this folder, in all caps, your account name. Open this folder that is now labeled your account name. There should be two folders within this folder. Saved Variables is one of them, leave Saved Variables alone. Rename the other folder your realm name. If you realm name has two words, as mine does, make sure to add the space. Ex: 'Dark Iron'.
Open this (the realm) folder. There should be one folder inside this one. Rename this folder with your character's name.
At this point you can close all open folders, and open World of Warcraft. When you first log in, things are going to be all over the place. Don't panic!
Check back to the page where you downloaded the UI. Sometimes, if you're lucky, the author will post a command to align all of the addons as you saw in the picture.
If you're not so lucky, there should be a list of addons on the page. Open each individual addon in game. For example, if you see pitbull on the list of addons, type /pitbull in game. The pitbull options menu should come up. Select 'Profiles' on the left side of the menu, and go to the Copy From drop down menu. There should be a profile with a title that corresponds with the UI that you downloaded. Select this.
Rinse and repeat for all visible addons.
I hope this has helped some people with UI troubles. I'm pretty experienced with downloading/adjusting UI's, so if anyone has any questions, or maybe wants a few more available websites for downloaded, just contact me and I'll help ya out :)
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
3.2
I'm a little upset about this, I'll admit.
The background downloader for the 3.2 patch appeared yesterday, and the feelings of tension in my guild certainly will not improve with this news. One of our main goals for Ulduar was to really push server firsts and to just GET to Algalon. I'm not really sure if we are going to reach this point. My friend Adam suggested an ETA of 2-3 weeks. With Firefighter and Knock, Knock, Knock still on the plate, with little to no real attempts put in, I'm worried that some of the people in my guild will crack under the pressure, especially with the summer crunch closing in. People are dropping left and right, 'I have camp', 'Vacation!', 'I just can't make it'. All the usual, and unfortunately legitimate excuses are being thrown at the officers. Raiding has become more of a chore.
Luckily, last week I was able to escape to the east coast shore for a bit of beach time with my boyfriend. It was very relaxing, and we were both eager for the break in raiding. Now that we are back, we are excited about the mass influx of applications on our forums. Including Bellwether (!), a good resto druid friend of mine, whom I am excited to get into some raids.
In other, ten man news, Algalon hits like a freaking truck. He has a one second, dual-wielding swing timer, that makes me want to cry everytime our tank gets two shot. A basic healing strat, should you be curious, is to have two healers on the alternating tanks. One who is consistently spamming quick, small heals, and another who is consistently spamming large, slower-casting heals. I.e. a Disc priest spamming flash heal with a paladin spamming holy light. Then you want to have one healer healing the raid (focusing on the hunter killing the stars). You need either a holy priest or a resto druid. Unfortunately, Algalon is not a fight that you can complete without a specific comp. There is, however, a little wiggle room.
Our healer comp for the past three weeks has been two priests and a resto sham. Very less than ideal. However, it is do-able.
Have one of your priests spec as such: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbuhhVRIoffktbxxcc
This priest and the resto shaman will be healing the tanks. The priest will be spamming greater heal (should have around 400 haste), and the shaman spamming lesser healing wave. The rotation for the priest will be Shield > Penance > Greater Heal. Spam greater heal until the penance CD comes up, and the same with the Weakened Soul debuff/PW:S.
I CONSTANTLY forget to use Power Infusion. I've made a macro, so that every time Power Infusion is off cooldown and I try and use Penance, Power Infusion is activated as well.
/stopcast
/cast [target={YOURCHARNAME}] power infusion
/cast penance
You can use this macro to cast penance normally, as well.
Thanks for reading, you can contact me via email, or in-game. I am Bellezza, Bellzilla, Bellerina, Bellebelle, and Sashafierce on Dark Iron :)
The background downloader for the 3.2 patch appeared yesterday, and the feelings of tension in my guild certainly will not improve with this news. One of our main goals for Ulduar was to really push server firsts and to just GET to Algalon. I'm not really sure if we are going to reach this point. My friend Adam suggested an ETA of 2-3 weeks. With Firefighter and Knock, Knock, Knock still on the plate, with little to no real attempts put in, I'm worried that some of the people in my guild will crack under the pressure, especially with the summer crunch closing in. People are dropping left and right, 'I have camp', 'Vacation!', 'I just can't make it'. All the usual, and unfortunately legitimate excuses are being thrown at the officers. Raiding has become more of a chore.
Luckily, last week I was able to escape to the east coast shore for a bit of beach time with my boyfriend. It was very relaxing, and we were both eager for the break in raiding. Now that we are back, we are excited about the mass influx of applications on our forums. Including Bellwether (!), a good resto druid friend of mine, whom I am excited to get into some raids.
In other, ten man news, Algalon hits like a freaking truck. He has a one second, dual-wielding swing timer, that makes me want to cry everytime our tank gets two shot. A basic healing strat, should you be curious, is to have two healers on the alternating tanks. One who is consistently spamming quick, small heals, and another who is consistently spamming large, slower-casting heals. I.e. a Disc priest spamming flash heal with a paladin spamming holy light. Then you want to have one healer healing the raid (focusing on the hunter killing the stars). You need either a holy priest or a resto druid. Unfortunately, Algalon is not a fight that you can complete without a specific comp. There is, however, a little wiggle room.
Our healer comp for the past three weeks has been two priests and a resto sham. Very less than ideal. However, it is do-able.
Have one of your priests spec as such: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbuhhVRIoffktbxxcc
This priest and the resto shaman will be healing the tanks. The priest will be spamming greater heal (should have around 400 haste), and the shaman spamming lesser healing wave. The rotation for the priest will be Shield > Penance > Greater Heal. Spam greater heal until the penance CD comes up, and the same with the Weakened Soul debuff/PW:S.
I CONSTANTLY forget to use Power Infusion. I've made a macro, so that every time Power Infusion is off cooldown and I try and use Penance, Power Infusion is activated as well.
/stopcast
/cast [target={YOURCHARNAME}] power infusion
/cast penance
You can use this macro to cast penance normally, as well.
Thanks for reading, you can contact me via email, or in-game. I am Bellezza, Bellzilla, Bellerina, Bellebelle, and Sashafierce on Dark Iron :)
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
A Little Bit of Everything?
Well then, have you forgotten about me yet? Because with everything that's been going on in the past few months, I'm afraid I'd certainly forgotten about this blog. I was waiting on an Arathi Basin queue with a few guildies when I received a tell from Ashbrielle, a hunter, asking whether I was going to update my blog anytime soon. So now, a few days later, I'm back (?) and I come with updates!
My priest, Bellezza, made it to 80 within the first few days of the expansion. Bellerina the drudru followed, with shaman Bellzilla bringing up the rear. They are all specced for healing, and I had a blast learning the different classes.
After Wrath hit, I was recruited into Vigilant, the top Alliance side guild on my server (Dark Iron if you'd forgotten). We rushed through all the content, even getting the server first Sartharion kill along with the Obsidian Slayer title. While we farmed content and worked on raid achievements, I worked on professions, leveling jewelcrafting, cooking, and fishing. I started reading up a lot more on priests and healing, theorycrafting and UI modifications for the most efficient output. All to prepare for what?
ULDUAR!
Yes folks, Ulduar hit us like a brick in the face. The first two days of Ulduar were exceedingly painful. Glitches galore, ranging from bugged boss mechanics to server crashes, blue bar of death and constant disconnects. We were able, however, to brute force most of it, getting the first Alliance side Yogg-Saron kill in both 25 man and 10 man. Three weeks have passed and we remain the lone slayers of this decidedly disgusting, yet really fun boss.
After downing 'ole Yoggy, we immediately went to work on some of the hard-mode encounters. So far we've downed 'medium' mode Iron Council with some considerable attempts on Thorim, Hodir, and Freya. The Keepers, however, were impossible to kill on hard-mode for about a week, so hopefully we'll be able to make some better progress this week.
Boss encounters aside, there have been some really cool changes to the priest class that I'd like to talk about.
This spec is what I would recommend for a holy priest: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbuZfxx0f0qih0euAo:0NfzV0
Some things to think about:
Normally I wouldn't pick up Healing Focus, mostly because this and Concentration aura no longer stack. However, something to keep in mind is that Ulduar is HUGE. You're going to be spreading out a lot, and oftentimes you won't be in range of a holy paladin. (My guild also doesn't have one at the moment, so it's near crucial for me. Damn you for leaving, Bosque!)
It's all cookie cutter, until we get to the new Holy Concentration, which, despite previous gripes, I actually rather enjoy. Granted, it's made holy priests just like all of the other healing classes in the sense that without the old clearcasting mechanic, there is no need to work in the five second rule, and you can just keep casting. The new mechanic works just as improved mana regeneration. Also, it procs off of EVERY crit. Not just a select few. This coupled with my spirit greatness deck results in around 1600 MP5, which is super useful. If this procs while you are running a tad short on mana, I would recommend not casting for the duration if you can, to get some mana back, only healing with SoL procs and at the direst of need.
Serendipity is probably my favorite reworked spell. Three flash heals/binding heals will reduce the cast time of your next greater heal OR PRAYER OF HEALING (!!!) by 12%. This is HUGE for raid healing. HUGE. With considerable haste, this can drop the cast time to around a second and a half. With the tier 8 two set bonus, which increases the crit chance of Prayer of Healing by 10%, you're guaranteed at least a 30k+ heal, especially now that Prayer of Healing can be cast on other parties. I've found this useful in fights like Ignis, XT, and especially Mimiron. Be cautious, however. Even though the cast time is shorter, the mana dump is not. It's definitely costly, so use at your disgression.
Empowered Renew is another really cool talent. It works roughly like a shaman's riptide, with an initial heal followed by a hot. The initial heal, for me, hits for around 1k with 2k+ ticks. It can also crit, which procs the new Holy Concentration, which definitely works for me!
However, with buffs to certain talents also comes nerfs to other aspects of the class. For example, spirit as a stat for priests took a fairly massive nerf. The amount of OOC regen that you used to gain from spirit for a hit, making intellect a more useful mana regen stat to aim for. This doesn't mean spirit is useful. For Ulduar raiding I would recommend around 900 of each stat, not forgetting haste of course.
To compensate for this, I'm using Flasks of Pure Mojo, which is pure mana regen, and sometimes even Flasks of Distilled Wisdom, the old-school intellect flask.
~~
I hope this has been helpful, and I hope to update my blog as I find more time with summer on it's way ^_^
Thanks!
My priest, Bellezza, made it to 80 within the first few days of the expansion. Bellerina the drudru followed, with shaman Bellzilla bringing up the rear. They are all specced for healing, and I had a blast learning the different classes.
After Wrath hit, I was recruited into Vigilant, the top Alliance side guild on my server (Dark Iron if you'd forgotten). We rushed through all the content, even getting the server first Sartharion kill along with the Obsidian Slayer title. While we farmed content and worked on raid achievements, I worked on professions, leveling jewelcrafting, cooking, and fishing. I started reading up a lot more on priests and healing, theorycrafting and UI modifications for the most efficient output. All to prepare for what?
ULDUAR!
Yes folks, Ulduar hit us like a brick in the face. The first two days of Ulduar were exceedingly painful. Glitches galore, ranging from bugged boss mechanics to server crashes, blue bar of death and constant disconnects. We were able, however, to brute force most of it, getting the first Alliance side Yogg-Saron kill in both 25 man and 10 man. Three weeks have passed and we remain the lone slayers of this decidedly disgusting, yet really fun boss.
After downing 'ole Yoggy, we immediately went to work on some of the hard-mode encounters. So far we've downed 'medium' mode Iron Council with some considerable attempts on Thorim, Hodir, and Freya. The Keepers, however, were impossible to kill on hard-mode for about a week, so hopefully we'll be able to make some better progress this week.
Boss encounters aside, there have been some really cool changes to the priest class that I'd like to talk about.
This spec is what I would recommend for a holy priest: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbuZfxx0f0qih0euAo:0NfzV0
Some things to think about:
Normally I wouldn't pick up Healing Focus, mostly because this and Concentration aura no longer stack. However, something to keep in mind is that Ulduar is HUGE. You're going to be spreading out a lot, and oftentimes you won't be in range of a holy paladin. (My guild also doesn't have one at the moment, so it's near crucial for me. Damn you for leaving, Bosque!)
It's all cookie cutter, until we get to the new Holy Concentration, which, despite previous gripes, I actually rather enjoy. Granted, it's made holy priests just like all of the other healing classes in the sense that without the old clearcasting mechanic, there is no need to work in the five second rule, and you can just keep casting. The new mechanic works just as improved mana regeneration. Also, it procs off of EVERY crit. Not just a select few. This coupled with my spirit greatness deck results in around 1600 MP5, which is super useful. If this procs while you are running a tad short on mana, I would recommend not casting for the duration if you can, to get some mana back, only healing with SoL procs and at the direst of need.
Serendipity is probably my favorite reworked spell. Three flash heals/binding heals will reduce the cast time of your next greater heal OR PRAYER OF HEALING (!!!) by 12%. This is HUGE for raid healing. HUGE. With considerable haste, this can drop the cast time to around a second and a half. With the tier 8 two set bonus, which increases the crit chance of Prayer of Healing by 10%, you're guaranteed at least a 30k+ heal, especially now that Prayer of Healing can be cast on other parties. I've found this useful in fights like Ignis, XT, and especially Mimiron. Be cautious, however. Even though the cast time is shorter, the mana dump is not. It's definitely costly, so use at your disgression.
Empowered Renew is another really cool talent. It works roughly like a shaman's riptide, with an initial heal followed by a hot. The initial heal, for me, hits for around 1k with 2k+ ticks. It can also crit, which procs the new Holy Concentration, which definitely works for me!
However, with buffs to certain talents also comes nerfs to other aspects of the class. For example, spirit as a stat for priests took a fairly massive nerf. The amount of OOC regen that you used to gain from spirit for a hit, making intellect a more useful mana regen stat to aim for. This doesn't mean spirit is useful. For Ulduar raiding I would recommend around 900 of each stat, not forgetting haste of course.
To compensate for this, I'm using Flasks of Pure Mojo, which is pure mana regen, and sometimes even Flasks of Distilled Wisdom, the old-school intellect flask.
~~
I hope this has been helpful, and I hope to update my blog as I find more time with summer on it's way ^_^
Thanks!
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