The Updated UI

(click to enlarge)

Building upon my last UI upgrade, I made some changes and moved some items around and have cleaned my UI up a little bit.

First off, I changed all bar textures from "Blizzard" to "Flat" - it just looks cleaner and information is easier to see. Next, I redid the "center" of my UI by rearranging some items.

This is my old "center" UI setup:


From top to bottom, you have Scorchio, Decursive, Quartz Casting Bars, Pitbull Unit Frames, and Bartender bars (under my unit frame).

This is the new "center" UI setup:


From top to bottom, you have Scorchio, Decursive, a Quartz casting bar ON TOP of a Bartender bar, and then Pitbull unit frames.

Firstly, you'll notice the cast bar. Underneath, you'll see icons. I've set it up so my casting bar is directly on top of a bartender bar that holds icons for all of my spells and items that are on cooldowns. I did this because I am usually watching my cast bar to chain spells together and this way I can see directly underneath it which spells are ready to go.

You can also see I moved the cast bar timer up above the bar and the spell name below the bar - a theme I followed throughout the new setup. Looking at my unit frame, you'll notice it's now centered and shows me a little more information. In the old unit frame, it said 80 Mage Gnome. Well, I already know that. So I got rid of it and can clearly see my mana. On the target unit frame, I have moved the name of the enemy I'm targeting up above the unit frame (Here: Dark Rune Guardian). I ran into issues a lot of times because I couldn't see the enemy's full name that I was targeting. In my old shot, all I could see was "Kel'Thuz..." There used to be no way for me to tell the difference between a Dark Rune Guardian or a Dark Rune Watcher without manually targeting the unit. Now I can tab target through a pack and pick the one I want.

Additionally, in my old unit frames, you cna see the "Frostbolt" that Kel'Thuzad was casting. In my current setup, you still can, I just didn't screenshot it. The new casting bar overlays the "Dark Rune Guardian" text and shows the cast time on the far right of the cast bar. Works perfectly and saves space.

Again, you see Decursive and Scorchio right there in the middle of everything as I love using these addons. They provide pertinent information right where I need it.


Another major change I've made is I've switched from the Blizzard provided raid frames to Grid. I used Grid back in the day and recently reinstalled it to minimize screen usage for the party/raid. I don't need to know much about what everyone else in the raid is doing, just if they're in range, and if they're alive. I can see diseases and other stuff I don't really care about, but it's funny to see everyone's life drop as Kolo wipes us out.

Those are the main changes. I removed some other action bars I don't need and next to my Grid you can see an extra chat box I use when master looting our 25 man raids. It just tracks raid warnings and whispers. As it stands now, I really like my main "center" screen. I'd like to move Omen down to mirror grid, but when I have focuses, they show up next to my target, and above them, I get my focus' target to show up.

Let me know if you have any questions in the comments.

Midsummer Fire Festival

This Sunday, the fire festival returns to Azeroth. Last year, I spent a whole day visiting every elder and collecting all the coins I could. Well, apparently I missed an elder. Somehow I missed the elder in Ashenvale for the Flame Warden of Kalimdor achievement. So I just have to visit the one elder in order to achieve The Fires of Azeroth. Additionally, I will then have to dance around a pole wearing the set that I purchased during last year's event. After that, I have to juggle a torch for a mere 40 seconds and I will be the Flame Warden!

After that, all that will be left is to kill Ahune a few dozen times in order to get my Scorched Stone.

New at the Argent Tournament

Blizzard today announced quite a few welcome changes to the Argent Tournament. Firstly, two new mounts for everyone! Woohoo. Granted, I still have a ways to go on my mount collection as the pets come first, but still, more mounts to get me closer to 100. Also a new pet at exalted with the Silver Covenant. Yay!

Also, new dailies for those of us who have earned the Crusader title, a tabard that will port you to the tournament grounds (which will free up my hearthstone once again), and an upgraded squire. You will be able to summon him just once every 8 hours, but he will be able to give you access to your bank, your mailbox, or a vendor. I'll really enjoy the vendor portion of it as I'll be able to go farming for rep grinds and such and be able to vendor items without leaving the grind.

Of course, everything is going to cost a lot of seals, so luckily there will be more dailies and therefore, more seals. I still need to get the five mounts at 100 seals each, the gryphon at 150 seals, and then I can work on getting the new squire for another 150 seals, and of course the new pet for (probably) another 40 seals.

It's been a while since 3.1 came out, but I have yet to miss a day of dailies. My seals are stacking up and I'm almost done with the horde pet trading, but I have a lot of seals to go. Oh, and curse you Marcia for not giving me a strand crawler. I've done your fishing daily EVERY day you've offered it and you still shut me out. Why??

Quick Raid Recap

We entered into Ulduar last week with our ten man group ready to tear things up in preparation for our Thursday run. We quickly cleared Flame Leviathan with one tower up, XT-002, Kolo, and Auriaya within our two hour time limit and had a couple of attempts on Thorim. We were ready on Thursday to head back in when a freak electrical outage meant the loss of our main tank and a healer, so the run was called. Hopefully this week we'll get through those four and have time to work on Vezax and Yogg.

Friday, our twenty five man team formed up and made our way through Kologarn again and up to Auriaya who had given us issues the week before. This week, it took us just two tries to get her down. We had little time left, but moved on to Thorim, and he again gave us issues (though for most people it was their first time there). This week, I think we can do it.

The strange thing is, on this run, I picked up Constructor's Handwraps, quickly enchanted them on the go and used them for the rest of the run. They replaced my TIER 8 gloves...

The problem I'm facing right now as a Frostfire mage is too much hit rating. Maybe I need to give Fireball a chance since the extra hit will allow me to drop Precision and hopefully do more DPS. But as it stands, I'll be using the handwraps over the gauntlets as they add 6 spellpower, 58 crit, some stamina and spirit at the cost of 44 haste and a socket. Perhaps some more theorycrafting needs to be done on specs and gear...

Two Rep Grinds Down

This weekend, I was able to strike two more rep grinds off of my list. First, on Saturday morning, a few of my guildmates and I decided it was time to cross Keepers of Time off of my list. A couple of them needed to get attuned, so we quickly ran normal and heroic Durnholde and then moved on to normal and heroic Black Morass, with the last run capping me out at 999/1000 Exalted. A shame there's no Keepers of Time reputation achievement, but it was my 35th, so I got 35 Exalted Reputations.

Later that day, with little to do, I decided against running battlegrounds and decided to head out to Desolace to work on my Gelkis Clan rep by slaughtering the Magram Centaurs. After an hour or two, I was done. Sitting at 11,999/12,000 honored. With no way to get revered. Oh well. At least the Gelkis know I am truly their friend.

The Flying Carpets!

Well, I figured it would have to wait a few days, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't wait to get the most amazing mount in the game. My very own Magnificent Flying Carpet! I love the thing. Unless I get a rusted or iron-bound proto drake, this is my one and only flying mount.

Raids Last Week

So I didn't post much last week because it was a fairly quiet week. I did my dailies each and every day, but that's about it. On Thursday, I was set to go to Ulduar, but our fearless raid leader invited 11 instead of 10 to the run. It was no problem for me really so I stepped out (to watch the Lakers of course). You would figure though that they'd finally get down Mimiron (either we had enough practice on him or the nerfs that were in the minor patch made him easier or both).

So, as you can see, our progress has been updated. On to Vezax and Yogg this week hopefully.

And wouldn't you know, that luck would carry over into our 25 man raid on Friday. Not only did I get the boots I've been eying for a loooong time, the Sandals of Rash Temperament (oh geez, more hit rating - I have no hit in any socket, so I can't get rid of it right now...), but we also took down Kologarn for our first time ever, but then we went over and took out the Iron Council! At the end, there were just ten of us left standing, but I was one of them and I had my Iron Boot Flask ready and I got But I'm On Your Side. We had a few shots at Auriaya, but that pull is tough and most people were learning the fight having not seen it on 10 man. In addition to the previously mentioned achievement, I also picked up 25 Emblems of Conquest, Epic (from the boots - finally!), and I Choose You, Stormcaller Brundir.

Tailoring

So, after a long, arduous tailoring climb to 400, I'm ready for my Lightweave Embroidery. Auction house? Nope. Other guildmates? Nope. Turns out, it's like enchanting - you have to know how to make the embroidery and then just apply it to your cloak. Well, ok, let's just make some. What? It requires 420? Surely you jest.

Nope, even though you only need 400 tailoring to use Lightwave Embroidery, you need 420 to put it on your cloak. What is this madness? So, back to the auction house to buy more Frostweave Cloth. I've been farming it all weekend (well, the portion of the weekend after I farmed Netherweave, and Runecloth before that). And there's no way I can farm enough in time for my Wednesday raid to hit 420 tailoring. Luckily, Petrina had 40 bolts of Frostweave to send my way and the rest I scavenged from the Auction House. So here I am at 420. And what's this?

Now I can make Spellweave (x2 - I respecced Spellfire Tailoring as any good mage should do), Ebonweave, and Moonshroud! Yay for 4 day cooldowns...so I quickly got my embroidery and then, another added bonus, a Flying Carpet! I quickly withdrew the materials I needed from the Brown Coats' bank (my wonderful banking union) and made my first flying carpet. Hopefully I can reach 425 soon to make the most epic, Magnificent Flying Carpet.

So here I sit at 421, about to make some Moonshroud cloth to go to 422. I had hoped to get the epic carpet by Wednesday, but it'll probably just have to wait until I can do another round of Ebonweave, Spellweave, and Moonshroud as I'd rather use my mats on those than throw-away patterns that I'll just disenchant.