Remember how awesome my UI looked after I got it all prettyfied with ElvUI?
Shiny
Well that little dream got dashed all to shit when it was revealed shortly thereafter that there was a “backdoor” in Elv that was a Bad Security Problem. Since the offending code was removed, I did not immediately panic and uninstall it. However, I did start searching for an alternative.
Many of the so-called UI replacements are really just a cobbling together of a bunch of different addons, with someone else’s settings applied. I wanted something like Elv where all the moving parts are mostly dealt with in the same options menu, and dragged around in the same move-screen (it is SO difficult to line things up when you have to move one addon… then lock it… then open another addon to unlock THOSE windows…)
Then I found Supervillain UI and there was no going back. I fully admit that it has less customization than ElvUI, if only because it does not have a community of plugin-writers adding to it. However, what little bit it lacks in customization it makes up in sheer style.
Observe the awesomeness.
It reskins everything. I mean everything. Like the initial login screen everything. And it looks fantastic. The comic theme goes well with the so-called “cartoony” look of WoW.
Ready Check Screen
An example of the comic-themed tooltip.
Me: (sees warlock is out of range) I think we’re missing the warlock.
Thehusband: I don’t think anyone ever misses Chlamydia.
Ok, caveat, if you don’t like comic book style, and you want your UI to look more SRS bzns, you might be unhappy. It might be very labor-intensive or impossible to strip all the details. But really, why would you want to make your UI more boring and less awesome?
The little touches are so cute and giggleworthy. Unfortunately, I don’t have screenies for the BAM and SOCK and BLAMMO sort of things that appear on-screen like in the old Batman and Robin TV show. But they appear. And it’s so much FUN.
Raid frames are perfectly functional out of the box. You can have them horizontal like the default frames or like the defaults in Vuhdo, or in little vertical squares like Grid. I mostly used the vertical squares version until about level 85, and it worked fine. However, I needed a more a healer-specific highly-customizable setup as I neared 90 for raids. The default frames have ambiguous coloring on debuffs and lack of hot timing or customization of hot display. For purposes of DPS, tanking, or low-level healing, it’s completely workable and probably shows 90% of what you need to see.
And with that, let’s talk about what the addon does not handle and what you might need an outside addon for. Mostly these are things beyond the scope of a UI replacement and things that Elv didn’t have either.
Click casting will need to be done through Clique. You can do mouseover macros but I cannot recommend that! See, mouseover works on both frames AND mobs/friendlies in the world. If you’re in group mode, it’s very easy to have your cursor slip and um… end up healing your own jade statue. Clique only works on frames, and you can blacklist certain frames at that.
Supervillain UI doesn’t have boss warnings, but does skin both Bigwigs and DBM (and I think a couple others). It also skins Recount if you’re into that sort of thing.
This is my UI with the dbm warnings and bars and proximity monitor. Boss bars are on the right side, under the map.
The mod reskins the default scrolling text to Awesome Font, but does not otherwise modify the display of scrolling text. Probably I’d use Mik’s, the industry standard, but I have not braved the setup yet.
Player Buff Frames are not very customizable. I’m currently using Raven, but it lacks a consolidated buff bar. Raven can also handle dot and hot timer bars and a cooldown line similar to Coolline. BUT WAIT! Apparently Satrina’s Buff Frames (SBF) is back! I used that back in the day and after Satrina works out the kinks (after being out of game for a few years) I am going to take it for a test drive.
Weak Auras 2 because duh. The default spell icons look horribly out of place in the slick UI, so I downloaded Masque Clean Icons to make them look square and more like the supervillain theme. It goes without saying that I made the fonts in my auras match some of the supervillain fonts for consistency.
A resource tracker. I’m currently looking for an updated one since the one I use is terribly old. I just like having my mana/chi front and center, separate from my unit frame.
Crafting and auction stuff. Pick your poison.
Anyway, if you’re looking for an alternative to Elv, or just for a snazzy new interface, join the dark side and go Supervillain.
