A couple changes: SexyCooldown is out, NeedToKnow is in

The other night I made mention of a few changes to my UI. Well here they are…

NeedToKnow

After using SexyCooldown for several weeks, it ended up I just couldn’t justify keeping it. Apart from looking really cool it just wasn’t doing all that much for me. I think it’s a great addon, but it was a bit overkill for my needs.

Instead, I opted to revisit NeedToKnow and found it to be a better fit for me after giving it a second chance. NeedToKnow was actually the first addon I looked at for measuring internal cooldowns, but I liked the fact that SexyCooldown was so easy to set up (and it looks awesome). However, I found myself not paying too much attention to it during boss fights, arena and BGs.

I am pretty much hard-wired for using OmniCC for monitoring cooldowns, so SexyCooldown was reduced to more of a luxury than a necessity for me. I think SexyCooldown is best utilized as an action bar replacement, provided all of your skills have keybinds. When used in that manner, it truly is sexy.

By getting rid of SexyCoolodown, I was able to move my unit frames down a bit, freeing up more space in the center of the screen. Since I’m only using NTK to measure 3 cooldowns, and I know precisely which ones they are, I was able to create a very low profile CD block to the left of my player frame. The module consists of nothing more than 3 colored bars with 3 timers. I also colored the cooldowns so they match the colors of their respective Power Auaras. No stone left unturned I tell ya.

I also replaced my Serpent Sting and Explosive Shot DoT timers with NTK. I had been using SatrinaBuffFrame for this purpose, but NeedToKnow is more practical for this application and a little easier to setup.

Thanks to Kripparian for making this awesome instructional video, and thanks to Mathew McCurley for this post which prompted me to give NTK another look.

Other changes…

• I moved the target cast bar away from the target unit frame and placed it just above my swing timer. This balanced things out a bit and freed up even more space around my character. It’s also the configuration I’ve been using for a few years now. Old habits die hard.
• I reduced some of the combat text spam.
• KgPanels and SatrinaBuffFrame were having a difficult time playing nice together, so I ended up removing the gradient background behind my buff icons. Once I parented the panel to the icons there was a recurring problem with the strata, as it would reset every time at login and cover the buffs. It served no purpose anyway, beyond just adding a little flair and making the buffs a little easier to see.

I think it’s safe to say that I am now officially done with my tinkering and will be planning on uploading this package today. 🙂