Addons: Neav UI

This isn’t the first time I’m going to highlight an UI compilation and it certainly won’t be the last time. I love UI compilations as a starting point for my own UI. Most of the time guys who upload decent looking UIs have a) better understanding of addons in general and b) the talent to create good looking UIs.

The problems with UI compilations are obvious though: they might not work out of the box, you might encounter errors the author didn’t experience and last but not least, you’ll have to tweak them too your likings, which is time consuming.

For me, testing UI compilations, adapting them to my play style and having 2-3 different UIs to choose from is something I’m very fond of. If have to stand in TotC 3-4 times a week and stare at the same walls over and over again, at least my UI can offer me some variety. Many elements of my UI I adapt into every compilation, like arrangement of raidframes, actionbars, cooldown tracking and raidframes, that way I feel pretty quickly at home with new UI compilations.

Today we’ll have a look at Neav UI by Neal. Many addons by Neal have been around for a long time, like nBuffs or nMainbar. Finally though he decided to upload his whole UI some months ago. What intrigued me to try out this UI, were the oUF raidframes. I really like Grid. I have a hard time healing without Grid. But the raid frames included in oUF_Neav offer a way to implement grid-like raid debuff tracking in form of a center icon as well as some corner indicators, already configured to show ES, Riptide and Earthliving. Of course that’s not as much information as Grid offers, but it’s a start. And it leaves me the option to save some memory and raid without Grid.

A VoA25 PuG seemed to be a very nice opportunity to test the new Interface. Even if the raid came to an abrupt end after some wipes on Emalon, I had time to tweak the UI to my personal taste and get a feeling for healing without Grid.

Neav UI vs. Koralon

I’ll highlight some defining points of the UI, so you’ll get a basic idea what this compilation is about. For further information, check WoWInterface.

• oUF_Neav: Unit frames are of course one of the core elements of every UI. Player and Target frame as well as the Party look very cool, even if they’re very clearly influenced by the blizzard default frames. Having my player frame in the upper left corner is somewhat irritating for me, so I adapted an idea I’ve seen over at Vranx, which is including oUF_FavHUD, an oUF based HUD. That’s the three thin vertical lines at the right side of my toon, representing my mana, my health and target health from left to right. The values of health and mana to left and to the right of my toon are oUF_FavHUD as well, maybe I’ll edit them out in the future. The interesting thing are of curse the raidframes. They look very slick. The debuff tracking with the center icon seems to be working fine as well as Riptide and Earthshield indicators. The animation of health values rising and dropping is differently animated than with Grid, smoother, but somewhat confusing if you’re used to Grid. I had no problems healing the raid though. On a side note: the castbars are a function of oUF_Neav as well.
• nMainbar: nMainbar is a very pretty modification of the standard actionbars. It offers three actionbars at the bottom of the screen as well as one or two on mouseover at the right side of the screen. There aren’t any menu buttons included (character button, LFG etc.), so you’ll have to keybind them or use an LDB addon like picoButtons. I like the old school look of nMainbar, of course it lacks some flexibility compared to an addon like Dominos. I for example prefer to have the actionbar at the very bottom shown on mouseover only, which isn’t possible. All other bars can be shown on mouseover only or can be changed in alpha value, all this is done through .lua editing. If you prefer to change the looks of the gryphons at the side of your actionbars, SquidMod might be a good idea.
  

  Another SquidMod skin

• nBuff, nMinimap, nTooltip and nNameplates are all very small but good looking addons continuing the overall style of the UI.
• The rest: for a complete list of all addons included, head over to WoWInterface. Also, I accidentally updated Omen, if you install the version included in the compilation, it has matching borders.
• The following addons are seen on the screenshot but not included in the UI compilation: modified dBar (the actionbar on the left side I use for cooldown tracking), Coolline, Filger, DXE, Totemtimers, ShieldsUp.

The verdict: This is one of the best looking UI compilations out there. I absolutely love the colors, the borders and the retro look of the unit frames. The raidframes offer nearly everything a shaman healer needs, though Grid users might miss some functionalities and the manual addition of raid debuffs is somewhat annoying, compared to the always up to date Grid module Gridstatusraiddebuff. If you’re looking for a low memory UI compilation, this might be just the perfect place for you to start.

Comments are welcome, as well as other good UI compilations, which might be worth my attention.