Your User Interface, or UI, is how you interact with the game. A messy screen with too many buttons, meters, and text bars can distract you during difficult boss fights and lead to avoidable deaths. This page explains my personal UI settings, why I arrange my screen the way I do, and how you can optimize your layout to play more efficiently.
My Design Philosophy: Keep the Center Clear
The most important rule for a good UI is to keep the center of your screen clear. This is where your character stands, and you must be able to see ground attacks, boss movements, and environmental hazards immediately.
- Move Unit Frames Down: I move my character portrait and my target’s portrait from the top-left corner to the bottom-center of the screen, right under my character. This allows me to track my health and my target’s health without looking away from the action.
- Scale Down Action Bars: Your action bars do not need to be massive. Once you have memorized your keybinds, you do not need to look at your buttons constantly. Scale your bars down to 80% size and move them to the bottom of the screen.
- Hide Non-Combat Elements: Hide elements that you do not need during a fight, such as the micro-menu, bag bar, and quest tracker. You can set these to only appear when you hover your mouse over them.
Key Interface Addons I Use
To achieve my custom layout, I use several key addons that replace the default game frames:
| Addon Name | What It Replaces | My Specific Settings |
| ElvUI | The entire default interface | Dark skin, thin borders, unified font sizes |
| Details! | Damage and healing meters | Positioned in the bottom-right corner, set to automatically hide during combat |
| Plater | Enemy nameplates above heads | Colored green for standard targets, red for high-priority interrupt targets |
| WeakAuras | Cooldown and buff trackers | Placed directly under my character to track major defensive spells |
Customizing Nameplates for Target Selection
Nameplates are the health bars that appear directly above the heads of enemies. In dungeons and raids, target selection is critical.
- Show Only Castbars: Set your nameplates to show the casting progress of enemies clearly. If an enemy is casting an interruptible spell, the bar should flash brightly to alert you.
- Filter Minor Enemies: Turn off nameplates for minor, low-health minions that do not have important abilities. This cleans up the screen when fighting large groups of enemies.
- Size Scaling: Set the nameplate of your current target to be slightly larger than the others, making it easy to keep track of your focus during chaotic fights.
Need Help with Your Settings?
If you want to import my custom profiles for ElvUI or Plater, or if you need advice on how to clean up your screen for a specific role like healing or tanking, send me an email at info@xmenlegends2.com. Tell me your screen resolution and what class you play, and I will share my personal layout files to help you get started.
A clean interface leads to faster reaction times and fewer mistakes. Take the time to organize your screen, and you will find it much easier to stay alive and perform your best in any group activity. I will see you in the game.