Customizing WoW

For those of you that use add-ons, customizing them for the roles you perform in a raid really helps.
As most add-ons now a days have profiles this can be done for each toon or even each spec a toon has.
Meh I wish I had screenshots to show, but I will try to explain.


Examples:

DBM (BigWigs, Ect...) - (Raid Leaders are SOL ) Removing or adding timers and notifications for the role you play in a raid will help cut down on a lot of the confusion in a fight. Instead of having 10 timer bars doing countdowns and warnings constantly popping up on your screen, only have the ones that affect you running. If you are tanking, you don't really need to know when something that effects the ranged is going to happen. Such as the Mutated infections on Rotface. The same goes for Ranged DPS during Professor Putricide. You don't need to know when the boss is going to drop Choking Gas, turn it off and the Malleable Goo warnings and times will show up clearer.

Macros - Macros are just small add-ons. They help a lot. Using them will help. I use a lot of macros myself. They range from simple things like spamming vent info to raid to making sure I pop my cds on a rotation while I am DPS-ing. There is so much that can be done with macros that trying to explain it all here would be to much for one post. Look them up for your class or ask around. You may find you like only one or two macros or you may be more like me where darn near everything is macro-ed.

Action bars - Not the spells but the bars themselves. My wife uses Healbot on her druid. Since Healbot is her main mod and she is a healer, it is the center of her focus. It is placed in the bottom center of the screen with the action bars set up around the Add-on in a U shape. Yes she is a mouse clicker so this helps her heal with clicks and then move slightly off of heal bot to access her action bars for her CDs and spells she has to use during a fight... She has found this really helps her be a better healer and will choke me out if I try to get her to change it... lol This is an example of how one person's set-up is better for them rather than using the defaults.



Most add-ons are customizable. Using the defaults will work, but spending some time customizing it to your play style, your role in a raid, and / or even your tastes, will help help you perform better. Do not be daunted by the configurations. There are usually websites that will help you set one up and there are plenty of people online that are willing to help.

If anyone wants help setting up and customizing and of the following mods (all of which I highly recommend), let me know:

Bartender4 (custom action bars)

Shadowed Unit Frames (custom frames for self, target, target of target, etc.)

Grid+Clique (great raid frame replacement, especially for tanks and healers, with Clique being good for fast setup of mouseover macros)

Augmented Virtual Reality (helps with raids tremendously by highlighting key areas to take note of, such as where malleable goo is going to land on Professor Putricide)

PowerAurasClassic (tracks buffs, debuffs, cooldowns, and many other things... highly customizable)

Mik's Scrolling Battle Text (replaces the on-screen battle text with less-cluttered and more informative battle text wherever you choose on your screen, and also tracks power gains, buffs/debuffs, and cooldowns)

Omen3 (threat information, especially important for tanks and dps)

Quartz (casting bar replacement, highly recommended if your class has any spells with a casting time)

RatingBuster (shows you what stats you get out of gear/items, including after taking into account buffs/talents)

TidyPlates+Threat Plates (nameplate addon that gives you more information while looking less obnoxious... especially recommended for tanks)

Titan Panel (small panel on the top and/or bottom of your screen that displays a wide range of information, such as gold on account by character, durability, framerate, latency, bag space, mana regen, and many more bits of information through additional addons)

DeadlyBossMods (tracks key events in raid and dungeon encounters... everyone who raids should have this)