WOW - A few helpful mods for raiding
I had the pleasure of raiding with Juturna during a Kings Army raid in Kara yesterday. At the end of the raid we got to talking about UI mods. I told her I would throw up a post on the GWJ forums regarding some of the mods were using on the raids I've been leading.
You might be able to find something that can help with your raids here. These mods all help with specific things and our raids have really improved since we implemented them.
Good Luck raiding GWJ!
Taken from Kings Army Forums
I wanted to post up some links to a few raid mods that you'll need to install for Kara raiding. There are a ton of options for customizing your user interface but these mods in particular help us work together better as a raid team. If you're raiding take a little time to download & install them.
Mandatory Mods
KLH Threatmeter - This mod allows you to see where you stand on the aggro list of the mobs we fight. Especially handy if you're a DPS class or find that you pull aggro off the tank frequently. The release version right now is 19.18. If you choose to you can download the latest beta (20.1g) instead.
BigWigs Bossmods - This mod shows you cooldown timers for special abilities that the different bosses we fight use. It's especially handy where quick reactions or proper timing are really necessary (Curator, Aran).
Decursive - Allows all classes that can a fast and easy way to dispell and decurse.
**Healers Only**
Healbot - This mod coordinates our healers in one simple user interface. I personally have limited experience with the mod itself (my priest is shadow) but our guild main healers absolutely swear by it. If you're coming to a raid with us in a healing position you need to download and use this mod.
Recommended Mods
The following mods aren't mandatory but you may want to look at them to see if they help you. They provide some useful functionality.
CTRA - The oldest and probably the most prevalent raid assistant, CT Raid Assist alot of functionality in a simple mod. It's included in the CTMod package if you have that but if not this link goes to the standalone mod itself. This mod provides a clean UI of the entire raid and enables you to see the designated Main Tank & Main Assist windows. There is a ton of other functionality for various classes in here.
Natur EnemyCastBar - This mod provides timers for your abilities (including DOTs & HOTs) as well as timers on your various cooldowns and the cooldowns of your party/raid members. In Karazahn it will pop up respawn timers when you begin to clear the mobs that are linked to the next boss. I wouldn't play without this mod - extremely handy.
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries of life disappear and life stands explained. -Mark Twain-
I defenitely agree with these. From my experience KLH is a must I would suggest checking out Deadly Bossmods too and see which you like better. DBM has a lot of cool features including flashing the screen when you get aggro so there is no excuse for not knowing it
I hope I get to raid with you guys soon just got to get that druid leveled. I really miss high level content.
GWJ Alliance
Bonadea - Druid
I've actually found that Omen is a very nice Ace2 replacement for KTM.
http://www.wowace.com/wiki/Omen
Gamer Tag: Rantyr
We make extensive use of X-perl unit frames. They have better MT and raid unit frames than CTRA, and along with a clickcast mod provides better decursing discrimination (e.g. if you want to make sure you decurse the main tanks first) than the decursive mini squares do.
We've had problems with BigWigs recently and have started using Deadly BossMods instead. As a mage the bigger aggro display is also helpful. It means I can get a frost ward up when julianne is casting, or when the skeletal ushers ice tomb the main tank and charge for a dps or healer.
XBL BGG GR
PSN: DudleySmith74
I have some friends that use X-Perl and they have nothing but good things to say about it. I think I'm just stuck on CTRA because I've had it for so long! What types of problems have you experienced with BigWigs? When I decided on a boss mod for the raid I really only had direct experience with BigWigs. It's been great for us so far but I'd be up for other options if it turns out to be buggy.
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries of life disappear and life stands explained. -Mark Twain-
Good topic.
Right now the only required mod for GWJA raiding is KTM Threatmeter. I strongly recommend every download bigwigs or deadly bossmod. It has helped me a lot in understanding and managing the boss fights in Kara.
I have never tried decursive and really should install it, being a priest and all.
I lieu of CTRA, I use ag_unitframes and/or grid, both of which are Ace2 mods.
I've heard good things about Omen but getting this guild to use KTM was hard enough. Changing to Omen would probably be asking too much.
I thought I would try healbot and see how I liked it in tonight's KA raid, but for some reason it came up in my addon screen as incompatible. I'll try again this afternoon and see if I can get it loaded. Then I can report back to the GWJ healers and see what everyone thinks about it.
My only concern is that as my holy priest is my main toon and I'm having such fun with it (call me crazy) that healbot willl make things too easy or too automatic. But, I'll try anything once.
"Shell me, beaches!" - NSMike
Omen is totally interactive with KTM, and Omen tracks multiple mobs.
I use X-Perl and love it. When somebody in my group (I'm trying to figure out the x-perl raid interface, at which point it'll likely do the same for a whole raid) gets slapped with something I can dispel, their pane in my group window is highlighted, making it quick for me to respond with a cleanse.
Helped a ton for taking down the Maiden in particular. Call me the Cleansemaster 5000!
"We are at our best when we work together. We are at our worst when we expend valuable and finite energy and resources destroying one another." - Paleocon, regarding humanity.
I switched from X-Perl to ag_UnitFrames almost 2 months ago. I loved x-perl, but once I started raiding, I wanted something with a smaller footprint & without a few of the pre/post battle problems with party pets.
I use Grid for things like healing and cleansing (dispel, etc.) as it will show who has agro & decursives. I also use a mouse-over macro so that I don't have select just move the mouse pointer to the appropriate character's box and hit the hot-keys necessary (for Sun, this will be Righteous Defense, BoProt, and Cleanse.. for Aes, this will be things like Dispel, Abolish.. etc.).
I also use Clique so that I can shift-r/l-click, ctrl-r/l-click on character boxes in Grid (or raid panels, etc.), especially for healing. So if I see someone's health going down, I shift-click for a mid-heal.. or if it's dropping fast, shift-lclick for a big heal.. on their name in the grid or raid panel. I tend to use grid because it's a nice small grouping so mouse moving and clicks are quick.
I'll have to take a good look at BigWigs/Deadly & Natur for certain!
Omen looks interesting, I may look at adopting that over KTM for our raid.
Concerning Healbot: Without a doubt this mod makes many of the functions that a main healer is responsible for easier. I was a little concerned about implementing this mod on a wide scale until I had some first hand experience with it. Since I've started using it I've really come to admire it for it's efficiency. Here are some highlights:
- It coordinates healing between all the healers who have it installed, thus improving mana efficiency for the long fights (Curator, Prince). When a big heal is going on a raid member the other healers will see it so the other healers won't all waste a large heal on a member that doesn't need it. I can't overemphasize how much this has helped on mana conservation for us. Instead of discussing at length in vent who is responsible for healing who this has enabled all three of our healers to work together to heal the raid and it's completely fluid - easy to coordinate through the simple interface.
- If you have shackle duties (as a priest you usually will in Kara) it gives you a simple way to continue to heal the raid while keeping your shackle target up. This helped me alot on the Moroes fight.
- The interface allows me to not have to constantly switch targets to heal throughout the raid. I can left-click them on the UI for a Flash Heal and right-click them for a Greater Heal. Through the use of modifiers (Shift, Alt, or Ctrl) I have access to other spells and abilities (assist, target, dispell, cleanse, downranked heals, etc.)
- The UI is clean and pretty straightforward so it's allowed me to have a much simpler UI interface for my priest.
I can see the point of view that the mod itself might be viewed as a crutch. Having main healed with my priest in multiple venues with UI mods and without I have experience from both sides of the fence. Could I main heal with out it - absolutely. But I have to say this mod has just made me faster and more efficient. I appreciate the improvements that it's given me and the streamlined approach it has.
When all three of our MH's adopted this mod we instantly saw improvements in our raid healing. DamageMeters immediately showed all three of our healers in the 30% healing done range, which means they were all doing their job amazingly (prior to that it was more in the 50%/30%/20% range so they weren't working together as well).
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries of life disappear and life stands explained. -Mark Twain-