Friday, September 30, 2011

Hunter DPS Pro Tip #2: Information is Power You Need to Know

Take four minutes of your busy in-wow time and visit a target dummy.  Do this if you're a novice.  Do this if you're advanced.  Plow damage on the poor wooden thing.  While you're doing that, look at the things you don't normally look at on your screen.  Check your proc'd buffs.  Watch your timers.  Look at your key-presses.  See if your UI is showing you what you need to see and if it's pushing away the junk you don't need to see.

I bet in those four minutes you will find something you want to change -- and it will improve your play.

It might be getting a mod that alerts you to a proc.  I used to use Power Auras but I fell out of love with it.  I want to know the precise duration for a proc and sometimes even the internal timer for it to be available again.  I like a nice visible progress bar, so I use NeedToKnow.

When I visit a target dummy I am there to add something.  I always end up tweaking something else. Sometimes I remove something.  Too much information can be worse than too little.  Your brain starts filtering out stuff and you fail to notice important things.  Changing colors of UI components can help.  Making small macros.  Moving things around.

JS' Hunter Bar a.k.a Serenity
And there's also the opportunity to try new mods out.  Since I know your time is limited I'll only recommend one addon you may not have heard about: JS' Hunter Bar which is now re-written as Serenity.  It presents a focus bar with color shifting levels, shot availability, stings, CC timers, hunter mark status, and if something targeted needs tranq shotting.  I really have to say that it is quite powerful, well-organized, compact and doesn't tell you more than you need.  I use it in conjunction with a few NeedToKnow timers.

3 comments:

  1. So Serenity & NTK, instead of PowerAuras and... would that basically replace things like Quartz, AZCastBar, OmniCC, etc?

    I love addons but I'm always thinking maybe I could use fewer and get he same or similar effects/benefits. Thanks!

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  2. Serenity could probably do everything for you and is customizable but clean and made for hunters out of the box.

    I like Need to Know. Disclosure: Its author is in my guild, so I like it more. But I like that it does exactly what I want.

    I used to have Quartz and AZCastBar, OmniCC, and Power Auras, but no longer. It's one of the cases where "Less is More".

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  3. Perfect! Just what I was hoping you would say :) Thanks!!

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