Skada Damage Meters

Before I start my review of Skada, I wanted to thank the support I've been getting from friends and the ladies over at WoW_Ladies on Live Journal. I appreciate it quite a bit and it's my encouragement to try and keep this up. Additionally, I'll be willing evaluate your UI if you send me an email including at least two screenshots of your UI (one in combat and one out would probably be best). I'll be honest in my critique of it, but I will try to offer advice on where I feel you can improve. If you want me to, please send me an email with two screenshots, your name (character name is fine), and what you're trying to do with your UI the way it is and if you're looking for specific things to be changed. Send that to caelys@gmail.com.

What is Skada?

Skada Damage Meters is.. well it's a damage meter, which I hope you managed to figure out on your own. One of the biggest differences between Skada and the ever popular Recount, is it's not a memory hog. In Vault of Archavon, Recount uses around 10-20MiB for all the data it's storing. Skada, by comparison in the same raid setting, uses 1.7MiB. 

How does it work?

Again, I don't claim to know anything about .lua files, but my understanding of damage meters is that it basically converts everything that's going through your combat log and parses it into a more graphical or visual form. 

What makes it different from Recount?

As I said before, it's not a memory hog - which is great for those of us who play on laptops or on a computer that is slightly outdated. Lowering the amount of memory your addons as a whole are using should improve your frame rate and potentially game play (if you play with a very low fps or high latency). 

There are, however, three features to Skada that I think sets it apart from Recount; Absorbs Meters, multiple window capabilities and its Combat Mode Switching.

Power Auras!

Power Auras may be the most versatile addon I've come across. Capable of tracking buffs, debuffs, weapon enchants, procs, combo points, and usable actions (and many more things!), it's incredibly powerful. Depending on the number of auras you're running, it CAN be a little memory intensive, but its versatility and power I feel outweigh that drawback.

What is Power Auras?

Power Auras is an addon that is capable of tracking just about anything you might need to keep track of - all visually. Want to track simple buffs like Hot Streak? It can do that. Want to track debuffs like Unchained Magic on Sindragosa? It can do that. Want to track how many combo points you have (and hate the piddly little dots the default frames and many unit frame addons have)? It can do that. Want to track if one of your buffs, such as Seal of Wisdom falls off? It can do that. Want to track when Riptide comes off cooldown? It can do that. Want to track when Lord Jaraxxus has Nether Power and you should spellsteal it? IT CAN DO THAT. I'm not kidding when I say it's incredibly versatile.

How does it work?

Well, I don't claim to know how the .lua file is set up because I'm not quite THAT nerdy about my addons (yet!). Simply put, you set it up with a specific graphic you want, such as above with skull and cross bones. From there, you set what you want to trigger that graphic showing up - in this case, combo points. If you wanted a specific buff or debuff, you'd simply put in its name and what type of aura it is (buff vs. debuff). From THERE you can change how it actually shows up on the screen (fading in, zooming in, zooming out, spinning, whatever), how it leaves the screen, any animations while it's active, timers, sounds, stacks.. it's almost endless what you can do here. 

Shiny and new!

Well guys, I've decided to try my hand at keeping a blog again, but hopefully this one will actually stick since it's about something I tend to obsess a lot about: my UI in World of Warcraft. Contrary to what the name of this blog is, I am probably going to feature more than three UIs. That is, if I actually stick around long enough to do so. :D But first... an introduction.

My name is Caelys. I play a holy paladin on Stormscale-US. I've been playing World of Warcraft since February of 2005, shortly after it was released. I originally started playing as a warlock and I didn't know what addons were at the time, it was a time of blissful ignorance. I never got to raid much in Vanilla, but I really strove to. It was something I always wanted to do. At some point I made a priest and realized that I loved healing. Loved it. When Burning Crusade hit, I rolled a blood elf paladin (like every other horde player out there) intending to tank with her. She got shelved around 48 while I continued to play my priest as my main. It wasn't until about a year and a half before Wrath of the Lich King hit that I realize just how terrible I was at priest healing. I looked at my paladin, sitting there, gathering dust... and looked at the holy paladins I raided with and decided I wanted to try it. So I did one of the dumbest things I could have done.. I leveled her from 48-70 as holy. I hit like a wet noodle. I wore cloth because healing plate in Vanilla content? LOL. Not happening. But I fell in love with healing on my paladin. So much so that I leveled her in Northrend again as holy. Caelys has been my main now for at least 2-3 years, and as much as I debating switching to my hunter, or my shaman (also a healer)... I always come back to her.

It was in BC that I started playing with addons. I dipped my toes in the water, so-to-speak, and started liking what I could do. I could move things around! I could change heights and widths and scales! Oh my! So I toyed with my UI, and I toyed with it, and tweaked it, and deleted my WTF folder and started all over again more times than I can count. It has gotten to the point now that when I redo my UI (which is either a complete overhaul or some minor tweaking), sometimes I end up redoing it again a few hours later.

So what's the point of this blog? I wanted to make this to review popular addons, new addons, and to showcase some addons I use that may not be quite as well known as the rest. I'll also respond to any questions readers might have about specific addons, or my UI in particular (which I will try to post all its incarnates when I redo it). So, to kick things off, a screenshot of my current UI.

 

The first addon I plan to review in my next post is going to be Power Auras! Hopefully I'll get around to doing it this week. :D