---
title: 'How To Make Your UI Great In World of Warcraft'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=3D5Evvs3F0M'
video_id: '3D5Evvs3F0M'
date: 2026-06-18
duration_sec: 0
---

# How To Make Your UI Great In World of Warcraft

> Source: [How To Make Your UI Great In World of Warcraft](https://youtube.com/watch?v=3D5Evvs3F0M)

## Summary

This video discusses the philosophy of UI design in World of Warcraft, emphasizing that personal preference and functionality matter more than minimalism. The speaker critiques common mistakes like flooding the screen with unnecessary WeakAuras and provides a practical method for improving UI by recording and reviewing gameplay.

### Key Points

- **UI Critique and Personal Preference** [0:00] — The speaker addresses critiques about UI, noting that minimal UIs are often praised but top players like Yips use cluttered setups. UI effectiveness is subjective; what matters is removing irrelevant information.
- **Common Mistake: WeakAuras Packs** [1:13] — A major mistake is downloading WeakAuras packs (e.g., Liquid or Northern Sky) and enabling all settings without disabling unnecessary ones, leading to screen clutter.
- **Practical Example: Lura Boss** [1:44] — On Lura, DPS players who hid raid frames were disadvantaged because peripheral vision of glaives was critical. This shows that UI choices can impact performance on specific bosses.
- **UI Analysis: Buttons and Frames** [2:10] — The speaker analyzes a UI, noting that buttons not needed in combat should be hidden. UI settings can hide these elements during combat for a cleaner experience.
- **VOD Review Method** [2:45] — The speaker recommends recording one pull of a boss, watching it, and identifying UI elements not being used. Remove those, then test again to improve focus.
- **Step-by-Step UI Improvement** [3:18] — After removing unused elements, focus on hard mechanics. Use timeline reminders for mechanics you struggle with, and ensure reminders target actual dangers, not trivial ones.
- **Mental Bandwidth Reduction** [3:52] — Reducing mental bandwidth by removing unnecessary UI elements allows better gameplay. This is a key skill for top players, though harder now without WeakAuras.
- **Timeline Reminders and Tools** [4:06] — Timeline reminders (e.g., MRT Reminders) help with mechanics. The speaker notes that Bart's Patreon tool offers customization, but MRT is free. Personal preference in reminder types (text, icons, bars, circles) is crucial.
- **Customization: Types and Colors** [5:19] — The speaker discusses four reminder types (text, icons, circles, bars) and color-coding bars by mechanic type (e.g., red for raid damage, yellow for healing absorb, orange for silence, blue for dodge). This aids subconscious recognition.

## Transcript

One big critique, by the way, I've been
getting on my videos is that my UI is
[ __ ]
>> Dude, almost everyone's UI is [ __ ]
Also, everyone's UI is [ __ ] from the
perspective of it's not their UI because
like they're used to something else. And
the only UIs people say are really good
are ones that are like super minimal.
That's like the edgy cool thing to have.
But like bro, some of the best players
I've ever seen play this game have like
the most dog [ __ ] Dude, Yips play Yips
is the goat
and plays windowed World of Warcraft not
full screen and because of that
everything's like really bunched
together and looks terrible. Like uh Ben
played with like his And when he tanked,
like had his health bar as like most of
his screen. Like bro, it it just doesn't
matter.
>> [laughter]
>> You know? So, uh different things work
for different people and usually it's
like the only way people say your UI is
good is if it's just like really
minimal, but that just like doesn't
matter. I mean, you definitely don't
want to have like information on your
screen that doesn't matter. That is a
universally bad thing. Like things that
are just plugging up your screen space,
but you're not actually paying attention
to, objectively bad. And any player that
has those that is great would be better
or slightly better without it. But I
would say, and I hope he's going to go
into this in this video talking about
UI, but like also number one biggest
mistake, bro, just downloading what used
to be like the Liquid WeakAuras pack or
the Northern Sky WeakAuras pack and
turning on every single setting or not
disabling things you don't pay attention
to and just flooding your screen with
nonsense that you never actually see
just to like say you have a WeakAuras
pack. So, I mean, he's a he's a mage
with healer frames. So, that right away
most DPS players are going to be like
this kind of stinks. There are some
practical examples of this actually
being bad other than like DPS players
feeling like they don't need to see
their raid frames.
And one of the only bosses where this
actually matters is this tier on Lura. A
lot of our DPS players that didn't have
Battle Rises actually hid their raid
frames or made them extremely small
because anything on on screen where you
could have possibly seen a glaive in
your peripheral vision was important.
So, that made people really rethink
their UIs. As a DPS player, having a UI
having frames like this will objectively
hurt you on Lurra. But, it's one of the
only bosses where that's true. But,
let's see. I mean, this thing in the
front in the middle here is chilling.
The stuff on top of his frames makes
sense. All the stuff that could keep you
alive is like right here. It's this
[ __ ] right? Like, the only critique I
have about his UI as far as it being
clean is he has like a bunch of buttons
here for no reason. Where like you could
Like, this the the point of this
Let me actually use my handy dandy
little pen here. So, this.
The reason this is good
is that you don't need this.
This irrelevant.
All of these are things you do not need
to see in combat. You can even have UI
settings that hide this specifically in
combat. Goated fix your UI tech.
Watch a
locally record one pull of one boss you
do. I know VOD review for a lot of you
is a little extra work and it's cringe,
but if you do care about making your UI
better, this is the goat.
Look, if you don't stream, just record
yourself. Watch one pull
and do one thing exactly. Try to find
something on your UI that you're not
paying attention to at all. Whether it's
an announcement, a reminder, some
buttons over here on the side of your
screen you're never looking at.
And then, try removing that thing and
then pull again. And then, see if you
can do without those things that were
gone. Okay, you can? Sweet. Now, do step
number two. Look at stuff on the fight
that you feel like is hard for you.
Like, what is the mechanic that is the
hardest for you? Is there something on
your UI helping you with that? Oh, this
mechanic is happening and I always
forget to use a defensive here or
something. That's where timeline
reminder will help. Like, there's two
things. Often times, people have
reminders for mechanics that are not
actually dangerous to them, which is
wasting your brain bandwidth, and then
you also don't have enough things to
help you on things that are actually
hard. This is a
It's an unfortunate step,
but it is a real step to becoming a
better player is learning how you can
have all of the things in this game that
can help you help you.
The more you reduce your mental
bandwidth of things you have to pay
attention to via tech or whatever, the
more you can play better. This is an
important skill of anyone who's great at
this game. It's also a lot harder to do
now because weak auras don't exist, so
good luck. When I was looking through
timeline reminders, I noticed a few
things. So, if you guys don't have
timeline reminders, this is the this is
a Patreon walled thing that um this used
to be ran by Liquid, I think, or it was
part of like Liquid's uh subscription or
Bart's subscription. Now, it's
Is there not a publicly non-Patreon
version of this available? Don't other
add-ons have this?
I'm I'm unfamiliar because our guild has
our own personal one that is not this.
Northern Sky Tools doesn't let you set
custom ones. MRT Reminders is free and
works fine. Okay, so MRT has this, but
I'm assuming if people are spending
money on Patreon to get access to this
one, it is I'm assuming this one's
better.
Cuz Bart is supporting it. He's the
developer for it, I believe. Um and I
can link his Patreon down
>> Dude, dude, yeah, you can link his
Patreon. By the way, this is
confirmation that Bart is still alive.
Now, it sounds insane that I have to say
that, but you all keep saying that he's
dead. But clearly he can't be if he
>> Hello, and you can get access to this.
I'm going to get guild access, too, so
that you can like link it to your your
guild and stuff, which is pretty cool.
Basically, this is just like a form of
reminders, and you can probably do some
of this in Wild Utils, but I find that
it's really nice to have it in game
because then you can customize it a lot
easier.
And I noticed that when I clicked on the
anchors, there's four different types of
things that you can do. You can do text,
you can do icons, you can do circles,
and you can do bars.
Um and I found like when I was looking
at the circle Before he even says
anything else, definitely play around
with this because there are certain
things that certain players this is
where personal preference comes into
play. I love bars. Bars are great for
me. Text is great for me. I often watch
Fire Dep's POV.
Everything has to be text because bars
do not work in his brain. Just straight
up. Like him seeing a bar, completely
his brain can't process it. It's bad.
So, there are no bars on his UI. But for
some people, bars are goated. I love
bars, right? Same thing with icons. I
can't do icons. Icons for me are just a
complete waste of space. Text goated,
icons bad, bars good. Text good, circles
fine. For some people, it's completely
flipped, right? This is like actually
the most personal preference thing of
all time. It is very good for you to
acknowledge which one of these you
actually like. Oh, yeah, mystical. I'm
big on color-coded bars. Every bar is a
different color. I visualize ability by
color, not name. Exactly. The best way
to do this is like look at his timers
here. So, these are all blue, right?
But, like a good thing I like to do is
color the bars based on the type of
mechanic it is. If one of these things
is like big raid damage, I'm just going
to make this up. That's going to be a
red bar. It's going to be a red
background instead of a blue. If it's a
healing absorb, we'll always make sure
it's yellow.
If it's a silence, it'll always be
orange. If it's a dodge mechanic,
it'll always be blue.
So, when you're doing a fight,
subconsciously, you're seeing a timer,
but even though you're do you don't have
to like fully parse the ability name,
just now that you've created a color
system in your brain with what certain
things are, you may not remember exactly
what tornadoes do exactly, especially
early on on a boss pull, but you know
that it's something you have to watch
out for because of the color you've
assigned to it. Wait, THT said that's
the colors I used on Vanguard. Is this
going to be a meme where everything is
like a holy-looking shield? Oh, yeah.
Yeah, exactly. So, green always means
raid damage, blue always means
what? Swap to add because there's a
shield or a dodge?
Probably swap to add because there's a
shield. Or, maybe you just made it
Uh yeah, that makes sense.