One of the most interesting addons to hit the scene in the last while doesn’t do anything to help you become more efficient by measuring your performance, organizing your inventory, or visualizing your raid’s health. All it does is make your minimap look different. Well, not just different, but f!#@ing sexy. So much so that they named it SexyMap. Now, I realize that WoW Insider highlighted SexyMap a short time ago, but after you install it, you might notice that there’s really not much there for Druids. Several generic skins, several great skins for Mages, Warlocks, Paladins, even a Rogue skin, but nothing for the citizens of Moonglade. *weep* [ed. latest edition includes this preset, so this has been remedied!]

Luckily, SexyMap was built with customization in mind. Every one of the default skins is recreatable — in-game — with the configuration window. I’m going to take you step-by-step through creating my Druid preset, Emerald Portal.

First, you’ll want to actually download SexyMap from Curse or your favorite addon site. Also, if you want to experiment a little more, download TexBrowser, which allows you to see all the different textures you can use with SexyMap.

Once installed and in game, right-click on the mini-map to open the options for SexyMap. There’s a lot of options, but I’ll only go over a few of them that are necessary for you to achieve the same preset described here. By default, the zone text is displayed and we’ll want to remove that from marring our SexyMap, unless, of course, we hover our mouse over it. In the options, click on Zone Button from the left menu and click on On hover from the options for Show zone text… That’s really the only thing we need to change before we begin work on the minimap design.

Now for the fun part. Click on Borders from the left menu of the SexyMap options. You’ll probably see the options for default SexyMap. Click Clear & Start Over. Don’t worry. That default preset is called Blue Rune Circles and you can go back to it later if you really want.

SexyMap allows you to create a lot of different shapes of maps. We are going to stick with a circle, but there’s an option to have a circle with a faded edge. This will help give our design an integrated look. Where it says Minimap shape, select Faded Circle (Large) from the dropdown.

Every piece that goes into a SexyMap preset is called a “border”. This can be rather misleading as many of the parts aren’t really borders, but that’s what SexyMap calls them, so that’s what we’re going to call them. You can create a new border layer by entering a name in the Create new border textbox and clicking the Okay button that appears or pressing Enter. Let’s start by creating one called Background Leaves. Type that in the textbox and click Okay. It’s important to note that it doesn’t matter at all what you name these layers. They don’t even have to be unique. They are only to help you organize your layers.

Now, I’m going to go step-by-step and explain all the options and setup for the first border layer of this preset. This may seem rather involved and I’m going to present and explain a lot of material that isn’t completely necessary if you aren’t interested in tweaking the preset. But even if you decide to skip to the bottom and start setting up the layers on your own, you may find the following information a useful reference if you need it.

The border layer Background Leaves should now be listed in the bottom under Borders in the bottom. Click on the Background Leaves border in the list to the left and you’ll see its Entry Options in the right window. Here are all the options for an individual border layer. This is also where you can delete a layer if you no longer want it by clicking the Delete button. But we aren’t going to do that, so scroll down.

Next is the Texture Path options. If you have installed TexBrowser, you can click on the Open TexBrowser button to open TexBrowser in another window. TexBrowser isn’t that complex. You basically can browse through all the textures in the game and it will tell you the path you must use to that texture. While you can use any texture, some are completely unsuitable. I’d suggest sticking to the Particles, Spells, Textures, and XTextures. For now, just type Spells\TreantLeaves.blp in the Texture path textbox and click the Okay button that appears at the end of the textbox. This entry is not case-sensitive. You can type all lowercase, uppercase or mixed case, but it must match one of the textures in the game.

Scrolling down, Texture options is the next section. Click on the white square next to Texture tint. This brings up the Color Picker which should be familar from the Blizzard options. For this border layer, leave the color white and slide the opacity slider to about 50%. Click Okay to close the window.

The Layer dropdown determines which strata the border layers sit on. The order goes from 1 to 5, with 1 being on the bottom. Like layers of a cake, if you place something on the 1. Background all of the other layers will sit on top of it. Er, except you usually don’t have a background layer of a cake so maybe that wasn’t the best analogy. These leaves will sit under the map, so select 1. Background for Layer.

Blend Mode determines how the border layer interacts with the rest of the map. Add Blend usually makes all the colored portions of the map multiplied lighter against all layers beneath it. Alpha Key and Blend seem pretty similar in that they simply let the border layer’s opacity show what’s beneath it without making it lighter like Add Blend. Disable and Mod Blend aren’t really used in this preset and I haven’t found a good use for them. The best way to understand how the Blend Mode works is to experiment with it and see how it causes the layers to interact.

For this preset, select Blend for the Blend Mode.

The next section controls the rotation of the border layer and its layout on the minimap. If you chose to click Disable Rotation, it disables all of the rotation options and enlarges the texture for some inexplicable reason. For that inexplicable reason, I don’t recommend using that option, but rather to leave the rotation at 0 if you don’t want to use rotation.

One cool option, which I’m not using here but I’ll cover for sake of completeness, is the ability to base the rotation on the orientation of the player. In the Match player rotation box you can choose Do not match player rotation, Normal rotation, or Reverse Rotation. Normal rotation causes the texture to rotate left (counter-clockwise) when your player turns left and clockwise when your player turns right. Reverse rotation rotates left when the players turns right and vise versa. The Do not match player rotation option allows you to base the rotation on the next options below and by default isn’t selected.

If you aren’t basing the rotation on player rotation, you can either set its rotation speed or you can simply rotate the texture a set fixed rotation. Rotation Speed determines the speed with which the texture spins on its center axis. Positive values spin clockwise, negative values spin counter-clockwise. You can set the speed with the slider, or by typing in the numeric value below the slider in the textbox and pressing enter. Static Rotation rotates the layer, but doesn’t set it spin in a continual motion.

For the Background Leaves layer, enter 231 for the rotation of the leaves, or whatever other rotation looks best to you.

Lastly, we have the scale of the layer and its horizontal and vertical placement. Use 1.58 for the scale of the layer and leave the Horizontal nudge and Vertical nudge both at 0.

The first border layer is complete. Your minimap should look similar to the image to the right.

Now is a good time to save your preset. Click on the Preset tab and give your preset a name such as Emerald Portal in the Save current settings as preset… textbox. By typing the same preset name later you can save your changes into the same preset or you can branch off different versions if you want. After you’ve saved your preset, you can select it from the list of presets.

Now that you understand how to create one border layer, you should be able to recreate the rest of the border layers described below. For my version of this preset, I’ve used twelve border layers. I’m not sure how well some computers might handle this. If you need, I recommend stripping down the Nature Rune layers, removing the Glare layer and even maybe the Map Inner Glow and Map Outer Glow layers. This should lower the layers down to four layers. The nice thing about SexyMap is that you can choose and experiment as much as you want to create something that looks sexy to you.

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Bringing SexyMap to Druids

For those of you unfamiliar with the Nostromo SpeedPad, it’s a computer peripheral that rests under your left hand and mimics the key commands of the keyboard. The keys themselves are laid out as follows:

• 14 keys in 3 rows (the last of which only has 4 keys)
• A rectangular thumb button
• A circular thumb button
• A clickable scroll wheel
• An analog directional pad

The 14 base keys are where you map your primary abilities. The four fingers of your left hand rest on the middle row of keys (6-9), and there’s a home row marker on key 8 so that you can quickly find your hand position without having to look at the pad. The Nostromo SpeedPad works by mimicking key presses from your keyboard. So your first step is to configure your gamepad so that each of its keys corresponds to a key on your keyboard.

What You Will Need:

• Bartender4 (via Curse.com)
• Belkin Nostromo N52 TE (via Amazon.com)
• Paper and pencil

Quick Links

• Configuring the Nostromo N52te
• Laying out Action Bars with Bartender4
• Key Binding with Bartender4
• Pagination with Bartender4
• Planning Your Macros
• Sample Role-Based Layouts
• Key Binding Character and Camera Movement
• Key Binding Shapeshifts
• Macro Help: Mouseover Healing
• Macro Help: Heal Self
• Macro Help: Form-Specific Abilities

Configuring the Nostromo N52te

Install the drivers and software that came with the Belkin Nostromo SpeedPad. If prompted to restart your computer, be sure to do so. Now we’ll want to map the keys on your Nostromo to keys on your keyboard. I have my keys mapped in the following way:

You can, of course, map your keys however you want, but avoid using keys that are bound to common interface functions you’ve grown accustomed to using (such as C for the Character screen). I’ve bound my thumb key to ALT since that’s the “alternate” key I like to use in my macros (since it has the fewest number of characters) and my red thumb button to "jump" for interrupting spells or just hopping around to annoy people. Note that in my configuration, I use F1-F4 for shapeshifting, but I’ve never used the keys to target group members as is the default configuration.

Laying out Action Bars with Bartender4

By default, Bartender starts with several bars enabled and displayed in the center of your screen. We’ll want to start by hiding all but two of these. To do this:

1. Open the Bartender4 configuration by typing /bt.
2. Click on Bar 3 in the lefthand pane.
3. Uncheck the Enabled checkbox to hide this bar.
4. Repeat steps 1 and 2 for bars 4-10 if necessary.

Because each action bar within Bartender4 is limited to only 12 keys, we’ll have to use two bars to simulate the key layout of our Nostromo.* We’ll set up the first bar as 5 columns by 2 rows and place a second bar below it that’s 1 column by 3 rows so that it looks like this:

* Note: There are multiple configurations that can work, but this layout is one that will give you the most flexibility when it comes to activating automatic paging based on shapeshifts.

To configure bars 1 and 2 to resemble the layout shown above:

1. Open the Bartender4 configuration by typing /bt.
2. Uncheck the Lock checkbox at the top of the dialog box.
3. Click on Bar 1 in the lefthand pane.
4. Set the Buttons slider to 10.
5. Set the Rows slider to 2.
6. Click and drag Bar 1 into position, leaving enough room to position a second bar beneath it.
7. Click on Bar 2 in the lefthand pane.
8. Set the Buttons slider to 5.
9. Set the Rows slider to 1.
10. Click and drag Bar 2 into position beneath Bar 1.
11. Check the Lock checkbox at the top of the dialog box.
12. Optional: Check the Button Grid option for Bar 1 and Bar 2 so that you can easily see which buttons are unfilled.
13. Close the Bartender4 configuration by clicking on the Close button.

Key Binding with Bartender4

Now that our action bars resemble the key layout above, we can bind the keys of our Nostromo to their corresponding action bar buttons within Bartender4. To do so:

1. Type in /kb. This will put you into Key Binding Mode.
2. Mouseover each key on your action bars and press the key on your Nostromo you want to associate with it. For the sake of symmetry, I like to bind the fifth button on Bar 2 to a key on the side of my mouse. I generally map this key to emergency ability such as Barkskin.
3. Exit Key Binding Mode by clicking the OK button.

Pagination with Bartender4

Druids have many abilities that are form-specific, making stance-specific pagination (automatic bar swapping when you shapeshift) especially helpful. I recommend paginating your action bars as follows:

1. Open the Bartender4 configuration by typing /bt.
2. Click on Bar 1 in the lefhand pane.
3. Click on the State Configuration tab in the righthand pane.
4. Ensure the Enabled checkbox is checked.
5. Under Bear Form, set the paging dropdown to Page 3.
6. Under Cat Form and Cat Form Prowl, set the paging dropdown to Page 5.
7. Under Tree of Life and Moonkin Form, set the paging dropdown to Don’t Page.
8. Click on Bar 2 in the lefthand pane.
9. Click on the State Configuration tab in the righthand pane.
10. Ensure the Enabled checkbox is checked.
11. Under Bear Form, set the paging dropdown to Page 4.
12. Under Cat Form and Cat Form Prowl, set the paging dropdown to Page 6.
13. Under Tree of Life and Moonkin Form, set the paging dropdown to Don’t Page.
14. Close the Bartender4 configuration by clicking on the Close button.

Planning Your Macros

Since your default action bars will be those available to you when in caster form, you’ll want to map all those abilities you want to have easily accessible to buttons 1-14. Note that how you lay them out will probably depend upon the spec you play primarily. A Restoration Druid will probably reserve her home row of keys (6-10) for healing spells while a Moonkin will probably use those keys for her Balance spells. Because we’re limited to only 14 keys for the spells and abilities that are available from caster form, we’ll want to create macros that “pair” abilities based on the use of an alternate key such as Shift, Ctrl, or Alt (whichever key you’ve bound to the thumb key under Configuring the Nostromo SpeedPad). To do this in an intuitive way, I like to categorize my spells and abilities based on what function they perform and what they require:

I will often create a macro that combines two skills within the same category, with the less frequently used (or sometimes the one that feels more powerful) version set up as the alternate ability of the more commonly used one. Such a macro looks like this:

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:alt] Ability2; Ability1

The above macro will activate Ability1 by default and Ability2 when pressed and the alt key is held down. The #showtooltip line will automatically display the appropriate tooltip for the ability that will be activated (and icon if you chose the icon when creating the macro). Example pairings that I like to use include:

Obviously, many of the above pairings are spec-dependent since a Restoration Druid won’t have access to Starfall, Typhoon, or Insect Swarm (in which case, she might instead pair Moonfire with Faerie Fire), and a Balance Druid won’t have access to Wild Growth, Swiftmend, or Nature’s Swiftness. Ferals tend to have fewer abilities available to them within a given form, so it isn’t as important to pair them up like this. However, by doing so, a Feral frees herself to keybind abilities that will shift her out of form when necessary. It can be helpful while soloing to have heals readily accessible, especially when you have “heal self by default” enabled. (Note, however, that a Bear might not want to risk accidentally popping out while tanking.) These are just to give you some ideas of how you might choose to set up paired abilities.

Sample Role-Based Layouts

Caster Form

Caster (Basic) Caster (Alternate)

Row Column Base Ability + ALT   1 1 Innervate Self Innervate Target   1 2 Entangling Roots Nature’s Grasp   1 3 Cyclone Hibernate   1 4 Remove Curse Abolish Poison   1 5 Shapeshift: Tree of Life /cancelform   2 1 Lifebloom Activate Trinket   2 2 Rejuvenation Swiftmend   2 3 Regrowth Nourish *   2 4 Wild Growth Tranquility   2 5 Healing Touch NS + Healing Touch   3 1 Moonfire Faerie Fire   3 2 Wrath Starfire   3 3 Hurricane     3 4 Mark of the Wild Gift of the Wild   3 5 Barkskin Shadowmeld

Cat Form

This layout assumes level 75+ for Savage Roar and Maim (but was created on my level 62 Feral Druid, hence the icons):

Cat (Basic) Cat (Alternate)

Row Column Base Ability + ALT   1 1 Prowl     1 2 Tiger’s Fury     1 3 Cower Nature’s Grasp   1 4 Feral Charge – Cat Dash   1 5 Shapeshift: Dire Bear Form /cancelform   2 1 Ravage   2 2 Rake     2 3 Mangle – Cat     2 4 Shred     2 5 Rip     3 1 Feral Faerie Fire     3 2 Savage Roar     3 3 Maim (nostealth)*, Pounce (stealth)   3 4 Regrowth Self Rejuvenation Self   3 5 Barkskin Survival Instincts

Bear Form

I tried to match abilities between Cat Form and Dire Bear Form to make the learning curve between the two a little less steep. For example, the Bear Form stun, Bash, is mapped to the same key as Pounce/Maim for Cat Form, and Barkskin/Survival Instinct remains the same. This layout assumes level 51+ for Berserk (but was created on my level 62 Feral Druid, hence the icons):

Bear (Basic) Bear (Alternate)

Row Column Base Ability + ALT   1 1 Growl Challenging Roar   1 2 Enrage     1 3 Frenzied Regeneration Nature’s Grasp   1 4 Feral Charge – Bear     1 5 Shapeshift: Cat Form /cancelform   2 1 Maul     2 2 Swipe     2 3 Mangle – Bear     2 4 Berserk     2 5 —     3 1 Feral Faerie Fire     3 2 Demoralizing Roar     3 3 Bash     3 4 Regrowth Self Rejuvenation Self   3 5 Barkskin Survival Instincts

And to help you plan your own custom layout(s), I’ve created a printable template in Acrobat Reader.

Key Binding Character and Camera Movement

Movement — including strafing — is important in many PvE encounters and especially in PvP content. To facilitate this, I keybind my Nostromo like this:

• Analog Down: down arrow key, back up
• Analog Right: F2, strafe right
• Analog Left: F3, strafe left
• Analog Up: up arrow key, move forward
• Round Thumb button: spacebar, jump

Then I use the in-game key bindings (Escape> Key Bindings > Movement Keys) menu to bind F2 and F3 to strafing.

Note: you may find the analog directional pad to have a non-intuitive orientation (where the up/forward key feels like it should instead be right/strafe right). If this is the case, feel free to shift your directional bindings clockwise one position.

To maneuver the camera, I hold down the right mouse button, and to turn without strafing, I hold down the right and left mouse buttons and move the mouse left or right.

Key Binding Shapeshifts

Even pairing up abilities as described above, you may find yourself short on space when it comes to being able to map your different forms. Over time, I’ve settled on using the scroll wheel for shapeshifting. I use "scroll down" for Dire Bear Form and "scroll up" for Cat Form. I then reserve key 5 for my spec-specific form — either Tree of Life or Moonkin Form. This macro won’t shift you out of the specified form unless you hold down ALT:

#showtooltip Tree of Life
/cast [nomod,nostance:5] Tree of Life
/cancelform [mod:alt]

Because my bars are set up to switch to another page when I’m in a Feral form, I use key 5 to switch between the two forms. In other words, if I shapeshift into Dire Bear Form, key 5 is set up to let me switch into Cat Form and will shift me back into Bear if I’m in Cat Form. The Bear to Cat version of this macro looks like this:

#showtooltip
/cast [nomod,stance:1] Cat Form;
/cancelform [mod:alt]

And the Cat to Bear version of this macro looks like this:

#showtooltip
/cast [nomod,stance:3] Dire Bear Form;
/cancelform [mod:alt]

Macro Help: Mouseover Healing

Mouseover techniques are worth mentioning here because of their potential when paired with a gamepad like the Nostromo SpeedPad. By setting all of your heals (and decurses) up as mouseover macros, you can heal raidmates and groupmates by simply sliding your mouse over their unitframe and pressing the corresponding key on your gamepad, all without ever having to click to target. This is a particularly great technique when paired with the Grid addon and is often used in lieu of a mouse-based healing addon like Clique. I personally prefer this technique to Clique-based healing as the number of our heals increase. This also gives you increased visual feedback on what heal you’ve selected rather than requiring you to memorize which of the 5+ buttons on your mouse perform which function. A simple mouseover healing macro looks like this:

/cast [target=mouseover] Rejuvenation

And when we pair it with an alternate ability, it will look like this:

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:alt, target=mouseover] Swiftmend; [target=mouseover] Rejuvenation

If we want to get really fancy (and we do), we can build a macro like this:

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:alt,target=mouseover,exists,help][mod:alt,target=target,help][mod:alt,target=player] Swiftmend; [target=mouseover,exists,help][target=target,help][target=player] Rejuvenation

The above macro will do the following:

1. If ALT is not pressed and the target under your mouse is one you can help, it will cast Rejuvenation on her.
2. If ALT is not pressed and the target under your mouse is one you cannot help but your current target is one you can, it will cast Rejuvenation on your current target.
3. If ALT is not pressed and both the target under your mouse and your current target are ones you cannot help, it will cast Rejuvenation on you. (This is particularly helpful for healing on the run via insta-cast HoTs in PvP!)
4. If ALT is pressed and the target under your mouse is one you can help, it will cast Swiftmend on her.
5. If ALT is pressed and the target under your mouse is one you cannot help but your current target is one you can, it will cast Swiftmend on your current target.
6. If ALT is pressed and both the target under your mouse and your current target are ones you cannot help, it will cast Swiftmend on you.

It’s a long macro, so it helps to cut-and-paste into notepad, make modifications for applicable spells, then paste it into the macro creation window. You can do something similar for other paired heals like Wild Growth and Tranquility or for Remove Curse and Abolish Poison.

Note: While you could opt to use the interface option for “Heal Self by Default”, this option won’t attempt to heal you should you have someone harmful targeted. The above parameters are necessary to achieve the PvP-friendly behavior described above.

Macro Help: Heal Self

A Feral or Balance Druid might find these macros useful, whether for soloing or PvPing. They’ll shift you out and cast the heal spell on yourself:

#showtooltip
/cast [target=player] Rejuvenation

Macro Help: Form-Specific Abilities

Because Druids have so many form-specific abilities, it’s easy to run out of character-specific macro slots. Save on macro space by building one macro that performs an action based on your current form then map that macro to the same position in either form! For example:

#showtooltip
/cast [stance:3] Feral Charge – Cat
/cast [stance:1] Feral Charge – Bear

You might be wondering why you would want to make such a simple macro when you could just as easily drag the two different abilities to your paginated action bar, but you can add alternate abilities onto this macro like so:

#showtooltip
/cast [stance:3,mod:alt] Dash; [stance:3] Feral Charge – Cat
/cast [stance:1] Feral Charge – Bear

I like to call the above macro my "Go!" macro. For your reference, the Druid forms/stances are:

1. Bear / Dire Bear
2. Aquatic Form
3. Cat
4. Cheetah
5. Tree of Life/Moonkin

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The Belkin Nostromo N52 TE

I’d like to share my take on Grid with a more detailed look at how — and why — I have mine set up the way that I do. Step by step and addon by recommended addon, here’s a Resto Druid’s comprehensive guide to customizing Grid. Please note that you should have first gone through Marcie’s article on Grid for information about resizing, borders, and text. This guide is intended to help you get the most of the Druid-specific features available in Grid.

General Configuration Tips

You can configure Grid in one of four ways. In order of decreasing difficult/annoyance:

• Command-line

  This method requires you to familiarize yourself with a lot of … well … commands. I can see how learning a few key commands might be useful for adjusting your Grid for a special encounter, but I wouldn’t want to make all my changes this way!

• Minimap Icon

  If you’re one of those archaic people whose minimap looks like it has a case of the measles with 20+ minimap icons displayed, you can right click on Grid’s config icon (looks like this ) to configure the addon through a series of cascading menus.

• FuBar Icon

  Similar to the Minimap Icon above but appears on your FuBar instead.

• GUI Configuration

  The makers of Grid have also created a UI screen that can be accessed via /grid config. This is the method I’m going to assume you’re using for any configuration instructions.

Addon: Grid Dynamic Layout

Restoration Druids are often asked to "roll" Lifebloom stacks on one or more tanks for the duration of an encounter. If you organize your raid frames by name, group, or — in this age of Druid, Paladin, and soon-to-be Death Knight tanks — it can be harried to move your cursor across a few inches of screen real estate. Imagine if instead you could have all your tanks grouped together within a half inch of each other, all in a column. Grid Dynamic Layout does just that:

A beautiful thing: Lifebloom rolling on 4 Tanks

Once installed, you can switch to using Dynamic Layout as your preferred layout by going to Layout > Raid Layout and selecting Dynamic Layout. You can then access GDL’s configuration under Layout > Dynamic Layout. GDL seems to do a good job of determining who is a tank, healer, ranged DPS, or melee DPS, basing its decisions on stances and auras assumed by each raid member. However, it is sometimes necessary to override their categorizations (I often find this to be true for Elemental/Enhancement Shamans) by adding names to the "Forced" lists, separated by commas. This is also useful for fights where "tanks" are atypical classes like a Mage for the Maulgar fight. By adding the Mage’s name to my "Forced Tanks" list, I ensure that he is more visible than he would be if lumped in with the ranged DPS.

The "Defaulted DPS warriors" list is an interesting setting that allows you to specify Warrior who will default to melee DPS but automatically be moved to the tanks group should they have need to swap into Defensive Stance.

Monitoring Thorns

Display showing Thorns missing on Beefshanks

Keeping Thorns on tanks can be a tedious task with its 10-minute duration (which should have been increased along with Paladin Blessings) and the fact that it can’t be cast when in Tree of Life form. I’ve configured Grid to display a corner indicator for those raid members who have Thorns cast on them. Since all the tanks are grouped together via the Grid Dynamic Layout above, I can tell at a glance if I need to refresh the buff. To set this up yourself:

1. Select Status > Auras.
2. Under the Add New Buff textbox, enter "Thorns" and press Enter.
3. Select Frame > [Position] (ex. "Bottom Right Corner").
4. Uncheck everything under the Statuses section.
5. Check Buff: Thorns.

If you want to adjust the color of the indicator (I use white), it’s available under Status > Auras > Buff Filters. You’ll also find a Class Filters option but, given the fact that tanks come in three or more flavors, this option isn’t especially helpful.

Addon: GridStatusHoTs

Enlarged unitframe example with all HoTs running

With the GridStatusHoTs addon you can easily keep track of your own Rejuvenation and Regrowth effects … while simultaneously being aware of those raid members who have a Rejuvenation or Regrowth on them from you or someone else. The advantage of this is that you can easily see who in your raid is eligible for a Swiftmend, regardless of whether of not you’ve been the one to give them the HoT. At the same time, by separating your own indicators, you can keep track of when you need to refresh a particular HoT.

I reserve the top left corner for Regrowth and bottom left corner for Rejuvenation because the default WoW cursor is oriented such that it partially obscures the bottom and right sides of the health bars when you move your cursor over them, making these two positions the most visible.

To configure the position of these two indicators:

1. Select Frame > [Position] (ex. "Top Left Corner").
2. Uncheck everything under the Statuses section.
3. Check Buff: My Regrowth.

You can change the options for this indicator under Status > My HoTs > Buff: My Regrowth. I use a bright green that fades to a dark green for Regrowth and a bright pink that fades to a dark pink for Rejuvenation since these are the colors I intuitively associate with each spell. I reduced the Threshold to Activate Color 2 to 2 seconds and the Threshold to Activate Color 3 to 1 second since Rejuvenation and Regrowth are spells you don’t want to refresh before they elapse. Make sure the Enable option is checked.

To create a "universal" Swiftmend-able HoT indicator:

1. Select Frame > [Position] (ex. "Top Right Corner").
2. Uncheck everything under the Statuses section.
3. Check Buff: Regrowth and Buff: Rejuvenation.

You can adjust this indicator through Status > Auras > Buff: Rejuvenation and Status > Auras > Buff: Regrowth. I like to use yellow for these two since it complements the pink and green of the other two.

Addon: GridStatusLifebloom

Rather than a simple Yes/No indicator, GridStatusLifebloom provides you with a countdown of the time remaining on your Lifebloom as well as a color-based indicator of the number of stacks you have running. You’ll want to set it up as a line of text (which is why using an addon that gives you a second or third row of text in addition to the line with raidmates’ names is so helpful). To set up GridStatusLifebloom:

1. Select Status > Lifebloom > Lifebloom Stack.
2. Specify Color, Color 2, and Color 3. I prefer Red, Yellow, Green like a stoplight.
3. Set Priority to 90 or higher.
4. Make sure that Enable is checked.
5. Select Status > Lifebloom > Lifebloom Duration.
6. Adjust your Global Cooldown Duration to whatever is appropriate given your level of spell haste (I’m guessing that this determines when the countdown starts).
7. Select Frame > Center Text 2.
8. Uncheck everything under the Statuses section.
9. Check Lifebloom Duration.
10. Set Priority to 89 or lower.

Monitoring Heals with GridStatusIncomingHeals

Enlarged unitframe with an incoming Healing Touch

GridStatusIncomingHeals is an addon whose core functionality has since been incorporated into the main Grid addon that utilizes the IncomingHealsLib library to "color" raidmates’ health bars based on the amount of healing they are expected to receive from spells currently in the process of being cast. This is an exceptionally helpful tool for reducing your total overhealing, especially if you utilize a lot of Regrowth (which you should). Recommended configuration:

1. Select Status > Incoming Heals.
2. Check Ignore Self.
3. Select Frame > Healing Bar.
4. Check Incoming Heals under the Statuses section.

By choosing the Ignore Self option, Grid won’t display your own incoming heals, giving you a better idea of who is healing your currently selected target so that you can cancel your spell if you think someone else will hit them first.

Note: To view heals from other players, they must also have the IncomingHealsLib installed and active. This library is widely used by many addons such as Pitbull and Ag Unitframes. To view the raidmates who don’t currently have it installed you can click the "Show HealComm Users" button under Status > Incoming Heals dialog.

Addon: GridStatusMissingBuffs

Don’t be that guy. The one who never refreshes his group buffs after a wipe or rebuffs people who have been resurrected. With GridStatusMissingBuffs, you can add a visual cue to your unitframes when someone is missing Mark of the Wild. I prefer to set mine up as a border, second in priority to the aggro indicator. To do this:

1. Select Status > Missing Buffs > Mark of the Wild.
2. Set Color. Normally, I’d be inclined to use pink because that’s the color of the spell icon, but it would make it difficult to see when Rejuvenation were active so I’m using a bright blue.
3. Set the Priority to a value lower than that of the aggro indicator (Status > Aggro Alert).
4. Select Status > Missing Buffs > Mark of the Wild > Show.
5. Toggle the setting for When in Combat to you personal preference.
6. Select Frame > Border.
7. Check Missing Buff: Mark of the Wild.

Decursing and Removing Poisons

Because we all know the Mages aren’t going to take time out from Pew, Pewing, it’s important that we can see an indication of when raidmates are poisoned or cursed. One option is to display an icon in the center of your raid frame representing the debuff. The disadvantage of this is that it can obscure other important information like Lifebloom counters or make it more difficult to see the target’s health bar. Instead, we can configure the border of the frame (currently being used for Mark of the Wild and an Aggro Indicator) to light up when the person needs a decurse. To do this:

1. Select Status > Auras > Debuff: Curses.
2. Set the Color to your preference (I use green for poisons and pink for curses).
3. Ensure that the Priority is higher than the priority used to display Missing Buff: Mark of the Wild as well as the Aggro Alert (tanks get cursed, too).
4. Select Frame > Border.
5. Check Debuff: Curses and Debuff: Poisons under the Statuses section.

Another plugin that you might find handy for this purpose is GridStatusRaidDebuff which adds a status and indicator for the debuffs cast by many common raid mobs.

Raising the Dead

As a Druid, it’s important to quickly take note of who has died during an encounter so that you can bring them back as expediently as possible. While the default configuration dims out dead players, you may want an indicator that’s more pronounced. To change the color of a frame to red for dead players:

1. Select Status > Death Warning.
2. Set the Color to your preference (by default, it’s gray; let’s change it to red).
3. Select Frame > Frame Alpha.
4. Check Death Warning is checked under the Statuses section.

You don’t need to worry about changing the Priority for this option as someone who is dead can have neither aggro nor buffs/debuffs.

Using Grid in Groups

After using Grid to heal your raids, you may never want to go back to using another set of unitframes, even while running 5-man instances. Luckily, Grid can be configured as a group unitframe, too:

1. Select Layout.
2. Under the Show Grid drop down list, select Grouped.

Grid will now be displayed when you are in a Group or Raid. Selecting Raid will hide Grid in groups but show it in raids only. Note that you may need to adjust the settings of your non-Grid unitframes (ex. Pitbull, X-Perl, Ag_Unitframes) to hide the group window if you plan to use Grid exclusively.

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Grid: Thinking within the Box(es)

Gararf of Sylvanas (EU)

Spirit Guide is An unconventional mana regeneration calculator that cleans up previously shady aspects of the relationship between mana regeneration and many complex factors such as item procs and talents.

What does Spirit Guide do and why doesn’t it give me my actual mana regen when I put in all my stats?
Spirit Guide calculates predicted mana regen over the course of a fight and uses it to give advice on the value of Spirit compared to Intellect. This is different than your “mana regen” in your character sheet for a number of reasons: first of all, the mana regen shown in your character tab is an idyllic situation where you gain 100% of your Spirit-based mana regeneration all of the time, whereas in combat this isn’t the case. Spirit Guide calculates the benefit from items and talents, uses your mana pool as “bonus mana” and spreads it out over the course of the fight. In this way, it allows you to calculate the value of Intellect as affected by fight duration.

Once installed, the addon is accessible by typing /sg or by using the minimap button that it adds. You can see a screenshot of the addon at right. Many of the options will likely seem familiar from the JavaScript-based Mana Regen Calculator, but there are a few additional things to take note of:

• In addition to the Intensity/Meditation/Arcane Meditation classes, Spirit Guide can also be used by Hunters, Paladins, Shamans, and Warlocks.
• To automatically populate several fields from the data in your character sheet, press the button labeled Get My Stats at the top of the screen. This does not include stats like % Time in 5SR or Cast Frequency but does include things like talents and item bonuses.
• Class options such as mana regeneration affecting talents can be toggled on and off under the Class Options screen. This is a great way to determine how a potential respec is likely to affect your effective mana regen.
• Item Based MP5 is the total pure MP5 you receive from items. This is not something currently included in the Mana Regen Calculator.

Once you have your stats, talents, and item effects entered into Spirit Guide, click the Calculate button. You should see a screen similar to the one shown below:

Most of the data shown above should be familiar to anyone who has used the Mana Regen Calculator. Note that it doesn’t include the optimization data with recommendations of how you could more efficiently leverage Intellect and Spirit to maximize your regeneration/itemization point. This sort of analysis was deemed to be less relevant within the game, but you can still use the Mana Regen Calculator to find this information.

» Download Spirit Guide from Curse.com

About the Author: Gararf is a Restoration-specced Tauren Druid and a member of the Euro Krem guild on the European Sylvanas server. As this is his first addon, he’s learned a lot in the process of building Spirit Guide. We look forward to the (hopefully Druid-themed) addons he will create in the future!

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Featured Addon: Spirit Guide

• The additional Spirit you expect to have once you’ve activated Innervate. This might be from triggering your [Bangle of Endless Blessings] or from using an addon such as Evocation 2, but remember to consider the Spirit that’s lost from a weapon you replace if performing a weapon swap..
• How much mana you anticipate spending throughout the course of your Innervate. So if you expect to cast 10 more Lifebloom during the 20 seconds you are under Innervate, you would enter a value of 2200 (in caster form).

I’ve been using this addon since Nebelmond first created it, and it has made a tremendous difference to my playstyle. I normally don’t think to use Innervate on trash mobs, but having this notification reminds me to do so and means I can keep going while the other healers are running out of juice in places like The Eye. It’s also been responsible for less downtime during Heroics. All in all, I think this addon may quickly become one of the “must haves” for a Resto Druid! Thank you, Nebelmond!

• Download Innervator from WoWAce.com
• Visit the Innervator Forums Post at WoWAce.com

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Innervator

Okay, this is a little ridiculous.

While preparing for an upcoming article on an exciting new addon, I decided I’d go ahead and run WoWAceUpdater since it’s been a few weeks since I last did so. “Updating 74 addons … ” Wait, what? How many addons do I have, anyway? I double click on the shortcut to my addons folder (this shortcut is probably one of the early warning signs of addon addition). Excluding the Blizzard_* addons that come with the game, I have 115 addons installed.

…

Maybe this has something to do with the fact that it takes me a minute or more to log into the game or recognize a disconnection. But what can I do? I need all my beautiful, shiny bells and whistles! Don’t I? Well let’s see …

DeadlyBossMods: Yeah, I have to have that. My guild says so. Otherwise I might explode on top of someone in Gruul’s Lair and laugh because they don’t have Barkskin to keep them alive… er… I mean, apologize profusely and promise to be more careful in the future. So DBM stays. But do I really need DBM_Hyjal? DBM_TheEye? I know I’m not going to be needing DBM_BlackTemple. /sigh /delete Unfortunately, I think the author of DBM was smart enough to make these addons not actually take up memory if you aren’t in the relevant zones so I probably haven’t really helped my cause. I do feel a little better about the number of addons in my folder, though.

Atlasloot: The addon for those of us who like to look at items we can only see otherwise by hanging around in Shattrath. I don’t think I need the addons for “Old Instances”, “World Loot”, or “Outdoor Raids.” /delete

ArkInventory: It’s a memory hog, to be sure. But once you’ve actually played with ArkInventory, you’d rather play without your right arm than having to manage your inventory using the default interface. (Gah, individual BAGS?!) It stays.

Minimalist: Tell me I’m not the only who sees the irony here. I don’t actually remember what this addon does (always a good sign). A little GoogleFu and I discover … that there are a lot of pages on the Interwebs with the words “Warcraft”, “addon”, and “Minimalist.” So I give in and go find the page on WoWAce.com. Ah, this is the addon that automatically declines duels for me, automatically repairs my gear. It does a few other things, but I discover that these are functions that are handled by other addons. /delete

Proximo: I haven’t PvPed this season. I can always download this again later. Ditto for StinkyQueue (helps to queue you and your groupmates for Battlegrounds simultaneously). /delete and /delete

InFlight: This estimates the total time it’s going to take you to reach your final destination. I probably can live without this. /delete

So I’m down to 97 non-Blizzard addons. That’s a little better, but I’m feeling like Spring Cleaning so let’s see what else I can lose:

• Aloft: Makes nameplates pretty. It’s painful since I’m such a fan of aesthetics tweaks, but /delete.
• Autobar: Love it. Can’t do without it. Mr. Phae actually keeps a pair of vertical bars with all his consumables on it (you should see his Windows desktop). I sneakily installed Autobar once, and he either decided not to say anything or didn’t notice. I feel better, though. It stays.
• Bartender3: Best. Buttons. Ever. Makes using and tweaking my Nostromo a breeze.
• !BugGrabber and BugSack: For someone who runs as many addons as I do, these two are practically essential since they hide the errors that pop up when a particular addon is using outdated code.
• Bulkmail: This addon used to allow you to send 20 or so items to people through the mail system. With Patch 2.3, it’s superfluous so /delete.
• Cartographer: Lets me stalk Valenna (and other guildmates who have it installed), even when we aren’t grouped. Also records the locations of mining nodes, fishing pools, and herbs. I couldn’t play either of my gathering alts without it.
• Omnibus: An in-game notepad of sorts, I originally intended to use this to help me record ideas — or whole text excerpts — for my blog while raiding. But I generally just have my laptop open and write there, so this addon isn’t really needed. /delete
• ClosetGnome: I switched over to Outfitter a while ago so I can get rid of this. /delete
• DontBugMe: Hides AFK and DND messages after the first time you receive them. Nice idea, but nonessential. /delete
• FishingBuddy OutfitFrame: I don’t use FB anymore, so this can go. /delete

So after about an hour of work, I’m down to just 79 non-Blizzard addons. Not minimalist by any means, and I couldn’t really bring myself to delete any of the real memory hogs: Pitbull (unitframes), ArkInventory, or Recount (damage/healing meters), but I am loading into the game at least a little bit faster. Might it be time for you to do some Spring cleaning?

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Hello. My name is Phaelia, and I’m an addon addict.

DoTimer is written by Asheyla and was originally conceived as a tool for Warlocks needing to monitor the status of their damage over time spells. It has since grown into a fully-featured set of addons for monitoring several types of timed events such as DoTs, cooldowns, and — of course — heals over time.

Tracking Heals over Time

Type in “/dot” to bring up the DoTimer Main Menu. This is where you will configure the basic settings associated with your DoTs and HoTs. A few of the features of note:

• Show Only Focus/Sort Focus
  The Show Only Focus option toggles only displaying timers for your current focus target. This is especially helpful in a 25-man raid when you are rolling one or more HoTs on a tank but also assisting with raid healing via Lifebloom and can help ensure you don’t lose track of what — or, in this case — who is most important. For encounters where you are rolling Lifebloom on multiple tanks, you might instead use the Sort Focus option which will preferentially display the HoTs currently running on your focus target in the first position of your timers.
• On Yourself
  By default, HoTs are not shown when cast on yourself. You will probably want to turn this on.
• Colors
  By default, all timers use the same color scheme. However, you can set the color states (beginning, half, and end) associated with individual spells to improve your ability to recognize, at a glance, the difference between your Lifebloom timer and Rejuvenation timer.
• Hidden Types
  This allows you to toggle the display of either HoTs or DoTs depending upon your current usage.
• Hidden Timers
  If you notice a timer appear in your HoT timer that you don’t want to see in the future, enter its name here and press Enter. You can allow it to display again by typing its name and pressing Esc. This option is useful for hiding timers for on-use effects of trinkets since you may already be accustomed to monitoring those timers through your buffs window and want as few distractions from your Lifebloom queues as possible.

Tracking Cooldowns

In addition to allowing you to track your DoTs and HoTs, DoTimer also includes a utility for monitoring the status of various cooldowns. This allows you to determine at a glance how long it will be before you can use Innervate, Nature’s Swiftness, or Rebirth again. Equally as useful, it allows you to announce cooldowns to your raid simply by clicking upon them. So if a raid leader asks for a “Battle Rez check” before a boss encounter, you can click your Rebirth cooldown timer to announce, “My cooldown for Rebirth will complete in 10:23.” To open the Cooldowns configuration, type “/cd”. A couple of features to note here are:

• Integrated
  If you prefer, you can opt to have your cooldowns displayed alongside your HoT/DoT timers. If you do go with this option, you will probably want to exclude many of them from displaying via the Hidden Timers option.
• Play Sounds
  More useful than the corresponding setting for HoTs/DoTs, a sound when Innervate and/or Nature’s Swiftness could be helpful.

One final thing to keep in mind. UI addons that you will reference when healing should be positioned as close to your raid frames as possible. The less time your eyes have to spend speeding across your screen (and back), the quicker your reaction time will inevitably be.

• Download DoTimer from Curse.com

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DoTimer

From the author’s description on Curse.com:

This addon searches your bags for best Spirit main/offhand or two-hand and wand. If you gain Innervate or Evocation, this addon switches to the found gear and switches back [when] the buff ends.

Evocation2 eliminates the need to build a macro to switch to a Spirit weapon when casting Innervate (or having to remember to switch back to your original weapons). And it’s so unobtrusive I had forgotten that I’d installed it until one of our Ferals gave me her Innervate. I heard the weapon swap sound and looked down to see that my weapon had changed automatically. I gasped in delight as I automatically switched back once the buff expired. That’s right — it works when you receive someone else’s Innervate, too! Every Druid, Priest, and Mage should have this installed, particularly if they regularly request Innervate.

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Evocation2

Hey there!
Having the usual?

FreeRefills is an addon developed and maintained by Kyahx, but despite its name, it doesn’t actually give you items for free. Rather, it automatically purchases prespecified items to ensure you have a certain quantity on hand whenever you visit a vendor who has said items for sale. FreeRefills uses a simple, command-line interface that won’t overwhelm you:

• /freerefills add [item link] #

  Use this command to specify items to automatically purchase. Shift+click on the item to generate an item link and replace the “#” symbol with the quantity you wish to keep in stock. (Ex. /freerefills add [Wild Quillvine] 60)

• /freerefills del [item link]

  Removes an item from the list to automatically purchase. (Ex. /freerefills del [Simple Wood])

• /freerefills list

  Displays a list of all items currently being tracked and the quantity that should be automatically purchased.

• /freerefills clear

  Removes all items from the list to automatically purchase.

• /freerefills overstock

  Toggle option to purchase quantities that would result in a greater number on hand that what is specified if the item is sold in stacks of 5 or more. Off by default.

• /freerefills bank

  Toggle the option to automatically move prespecified items from the bank to your inventory when banking.

Here are a few of the items you might consider setting up to restock:

• Flintweed Seed x 20 and Maple Seed x 20 (Why?)
• Wild Quillvine x 60
• Simple Wood x 10 and Flint and Tinder x 1 (if you’re a cook)
• Purified Draenic Water x 40

Of course, this list can be customized to whatever tradeskills you have. Alchemists might want to keep a certain number of different types of vials automatically on hand. Fishermen might want to keep a stack of Bright Baubles. Similarly, different classes can have differing uses for this addon, such as keeping a quiver stocked with arrows or repurchasing poison components. However you use it, FreeRefills can remove a lot of the everyday tedium of restocking before or after a raid.

This St. Patty’s Day, why not celebrate your arboreal nature with a Resto4Life Tree Shirt? Now through March 12, U.S. residents can save 17% on all orders $25 or more with code MARCH39 (Canadian residents can use code CADMARCH39).

FreeRefills

Latency Indicator

Good	Bad

For those unfamiliar with the concept of “latency,” it is defined as “the time it takes for a package or packet of data to move across a network connection.” In simpler terms, latency is a measure of the time it takes for the Blizzard world server to recognize that you have executed a command on your machine — or in this case, for your desktop machine to recognize that Blizzard’s world server considers one of your actions (spellcasting) to be complete. For those of you who still remember the default UI, you may remember the colored bar that represents your current latency, shown at right. A “good” latency number would be around 30 ms while a bad latency number might be 700 ms. Because latency is a factor inherent to the MMO model, spellcasters can lose precious fractions of a second — sometimes several seconds over the course of a fight — on non-instant abilities. This loss is unfortunate and unnecessary.

The Quartz casting bar includes a fluctuating, red portion that indicates the estimated time that would be lost due to latency for the spell being cast. The wider the band of red, the more time that would be wasted were you to allow the spell to complete. Once the casting bar spark (the cursor which indicates your progress through the cast time) reaches this red area, it’s safe to switch to another spell, assuming the spell to which you are switching is a macro which includes the /stopcasting command. Such a spell macro might look like this:

#showtooltip Regrowth

/stopcasting

/cast Regrowth

The /stopcasting command shown above is a client-side command that, when triggered, tells your client to stop doing whatever its doing in preparation for performing another action, in this case, casting Regrowth. The downside of this method is that it may take some getting used to if you are accustomed to frantically spamming heal buttons when things get rough. Doing so with /stopcasting will repeatedly reset your casting, so you will have to learn to better intuit the global cooldown or be selective with which spells you wish to set up this way, especially while you are adapting to the change. Note that using /stopcasting and Quartz in this way is more helpful when casting Regrowth than the lengthier Healing Touch as the potential gain from optimizing for latency increases as the casting time of a spell decreases (with the exception of instants).

Sample Casting Bar through Quartz

Swing Timer

Omen of Clarity users, rejoice! (You’re still out there somewhere, right?) Unlike the other casting classes, the druid clearcasting state is reliant upon melee procs. Unfortunately, spellcasting resets the swing timer, resulting in decreased melee DPS if you cast in the middle of your swing (resetting the time it takes for your swing to complete). You can avoid losing melee DPS by casting as close to the beginning of your swing timer as possible. I understand this technique is also particularly useful to enhancement shamans whose melee DPS is supplemented by Stormstrike and insta-cast shocks. Quartz includes a handy, silver swing timer that demonstrates where you are in the course of your swing, helping you pinpoint the most efficient time to begin casting your mana-free spell.

Quartz Swing Timer

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Quartz