arena controller

Playing arenas is a new challenge. It's similar to doing a pull in an instance except it's different because you don't know what mobs are coming in that pull, and they're not so... repetitive.
As with most instances the key to "winning" is proper communication and people doing their jobs well.

Today's setup is designed to give you a big open screen space to see around you while still giving you all the information you need to keep on top of every mob.

We start by using ElkBuffBars to move our buff / debuffs to the top corners of our screen. Pitbull party, player, focus, and target frames line the left of your screen. With debuff highlighting built in to Pitbull you can quickly see when a friendly player is in need of help. Along the top is Control Arena, a newer arena target frame AddOn that let's you see all of your opponents and what they're casting. It also shows when they're crowd controlled so you know who to avoid easily.



RicoMiniMap, EePanels2 and Bongos 2 round out the layout.

When I'm doing arenas one of the most frustrating things is actually the part before the arena begins. Buffing. Enter ZOMG buffs.
ZOMG buffs puts a single "action bar" button that's movable on your screen. Simply assign buffs to every class and at the start of each arena start smacking that button until it's all clear. Done.
If you hover over the button it shows a display of everyone in your group / raid and what buffs they currently have.

The final pieces for our setup are AZCast only showing my target's cast bar right in the middle of the screen (which you could add focus right below it to watch a healer or other) and ControlFreak which simply watches your focus target for crowd control. I recommend using a macro any time you have a crowd control that's used a lot in arenas.
Something like :

/stopcasting
/clearfocus [mod:alt] [target=focus,dead] [target=focus,noexists]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]
/stopmacro [target=focus,noharm]
/cast [target=focus] Polymorph
/p CCing %f !


This macro allows you to set a target (healer, etc.) and for the rest of the match cast your crowd control on your focus without changing your current target. You can of course change Polymorph to whatever cc you'd like and can change your focus by simple holding alt while you click this. If you set ChatMod's highlighting function to watch for "CCing" it'll give you a nice warning before the cc lands so you don't break it right away. =)

ControlFreak watches your focus frame and gives you an audible warning whenever your cc breaks and can even be clicked to recast as well.

A last minute idea I had after putting this together was to add in MobHealth to get an educated guess to your opponents total health on their frames.

Powered-Up Pally

Ok, for most healing isn't exactly... fun. Yes, raiding may be fun for you, your guild may be fun, but healing is not very fun. As a healer you get blamed for a lot of things.

Bad healing: blame the healer.
Bad tanking: blame the healer.
Bad DPS: blame the healer.



I don't know why people put up with it really but, in the name of sanity, we go to some extremes to do the best possible job we can.
AddOns have ranged from functional to rediculous for healers. Ideal AddOns for a healer should make the job of healing 25 people easier without adding confusion. Surprisingly some AddOns create more work for a healer by adding so many more visual queues that you don't know which area of your screen to stare at during a boss fight.
In my opinion most healers could be very functional if only they had a simple easy to read layout. In the spirit of simplicity I give you "healer in-a-box".

Raid RX likes to call raid healing "X-Treme Whack-a-Mole". This layout gives you a nice tight box to jam those moles in to. Whack away!



We started out with Pitbull. I really like Pitbull for healers because it has a few features that make your life easier.
1) Visual Heal. This module shows incoming heals on each players bar so you know which low health player has something incoming and which doesn't.
2) Range Check. This module shows when a player is in range so you can either move closer to a certain player/group or focus your heals on people in your range.
3) Threat Bar. If you install the threat library (same library that Omen uses) each player's frame can show their threat on their current target. This gives you a good idea when certain DPS'ers are about to get aggro and need healing.

Next we used *Bongos 3 for action bar duty, NQuestLog and, Combuctor for a clear sortable bag. Then we threw a simple EePanel 2 frame around the raid/party area to make it stand out. Elkano's Buff Frames, Mappy and, Chatter round out the clean look.




As always I hope this has given you some ideas and ways to get started converting your eyesore layout in to something that actually helps you be a better player!
Good luck and BBQ!

*If using Bongos 3 please be aware that it's best to start with a clean slate. In most cases your spells will be all over the place since it creates virtual bars. If you don't want to have to clear your action bars and create all new keybindings try Bongos 2 or Bartender 3.