The bare essentials

[Fuzzyboy]

A.
2.
I don't know what you mean with "party castbars". Perlx shows me what everybody in my party is casting, and no I wouldn't want to be without being able to see that, if that is what you mean.

I agree - it's very useful, which is why I'm looking for an add-on to do that. I've been using pitbull4 so far, which does the same, but i'd really like to keep the add-on clutter to a minimum. There's a big problem however - your party cast bars are only useful when you're grouped with your slaves. This isn't always the case when i BG, so we have one of two options:

1) Learn to live without partycastbars in BG - since PvP requires a lot more attention than non-raid PvE anyway, it should also be possible to live without it in PvE

2) Find an add-on which displays castbars of raidmembers you select. No add-on does that to my knowledge. Vuhdo will display a lot of usefull information in the "private tanks" panel, but unfortunately no castbars.

A.
C.
People who use the default character bars are pretty much saying, "hey, i WANT be worse than my potential allows". It's like being able to choose when you are born whether or not you want to go through life with only 1 eye or 2, and then picking just 1.

Haha, that's the most warped analogy I've been exposed to in a long time. And it's erroneous, because it's based on the assumption that more information/options is better, which is not always the case. I agree that seeing the castbars of the characters you control is very important though, and for arena's, a party-add-on is fine, but I'm really missing something where I can keep an eye on my chars in raids/bg.

[Naysayer]

Haha, that's the most warped analogy I've been exposed to in a long time. And it's erroneous, because it's based on the assumption that more information/options is better, which is not always the case. I agree that seeing the castbars of the characters you control is very important though, and for arena's, a party-add-on is fine, but I'm really missing something where I can keep an eye on my chars in raids/bg.

I don't get it.

You can have the default, ooooooor you can have an addon to configure the default to whatever you want. You can even have less info and clutter by configuring the addon if you like, but being stuck with the default is somehow better? WTF are you smoking?

and with the amount of importance placed on character bars in a game like this, I consider it essential to improve the config or your bars to best suit you over the default. An extreme amount of information is connected to these bars.


you: less--------sense-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------more

make more plz

[Fuzzyboy]

I don't get it.

You can have the default, ooooooor you can have an addon to configure the default to whatever you want. You can even have less info and clutter by configuring the addon if you like, but being stuck with the default is somehow better? WTF are you smoking?

and with the amount of importance placed on character bars in a game like this, I consider it essential to improve the config or your bars to best suit you over the default. An extreme amount of information is connected to these bars.


you: less--------sense-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------more

make more plz

Ok, since your attitude seems so mature, I'll try to explain it.

Pro's of default UI:
- Always works - even after major patches
- Doesn't require customization
- Fast
- Doesn't require updating
- Simple configuration
- Doesn't require you to download anything "extra"

Pro's of add-ons:
- Can be customized
- Added functionality

The defaul UI provides some obvious advantages, so the question you need to ask yourself when installing an add-ons is this: Does the advantage I gain from the added functionality and customization options surpass the advantage I get from the default UI?

So, for example, I'm asking myself - does the advantages of having an action bar add-on surpass the advantages associated with the default actionbars? For me, the answer is no. In fact, I never even look at my action bars, so to me, having action bars that don't need updating or extensive configuration is far more valuable than the functionality added by the add-on.

The next question is: Does the advantages of having a party castbars surpass the advantages associated with the default UI? For me, the answer is yes. The problem is simply that no add-on currently exists to show the castbars of my slaves when in a raid setting (BG for instance) where they may not be grouped.

Now, repeat that question for all your installed add-ons. The point of this post was to get an overview of what add-ons multiboxers consider essential and to get some inspiration from it.

[Naysayer]

Still, I'm very interested in why you find my pros and cons biased? Which in particular do you find biased and why?

because there are no cons to using xpearl instead of the default ui other than visual preferences. It can do everything the default can, and far more. It's like a chef in a kitchen with only eggs, flour, water, or a chef in a kitchen with eggs, flour, water, and 400 more ingredients. Is that analogy to complicated for you as well?


the pro's for the addon should be

-can do anything and everything the default interface can do, but has a billion options to change things if you want to.

the only pro the default ui should have is

-if you've been using the default for 5 years you may need a couple days to figure out and get used to using an addon. Do you really want to lose a few days to get the real ui you've always wanted?

Like i said before, it's an essential addon because of how important the character bar is in this game and it allows you to configure it to your preferences.