Aloft is a great addon that helps customize nameplates to a great extent. However, it still doesn't solve the problem of nameplate range if you are not melee.
Much more important would be making the movement of nameplates less erratic. They are completely useless for targeting purposes the way they work now, since even if all units are stationary odds are the nameplate you intend to click has moved somewhere else in the split second from you make the decision until you click your mouse (or press your key or whatever).
I'm seconding Aloft. I use it myself to customize my nameplates. But then, I'm one of those people who thinks almost everything about the default UI is clunky.A target of target threat bar doesn't help any when you don't actually have to target people to heal them. I just keep the boss targeted to keep tabs on how far the fight is progressing. You should try mouseover macros. They're quite awesome. And I really do love those popped up "attacking you" type warnings, I can see them from a distance even when I can't see nameplates, and it lets me know there are adds that are on me, and I can shadowmeld or something before they get to me.I, too, wish I could arrange the nameplates in a less... mobile way. It's one of the reasons I prefer healing -- everybody's health bars are all nicely arranged in a grid of my own choosing. When attacking, the nameplates are always moving all over. Why can't I just arrange them in a little grid too?Pre-BC, I used to have a mod that would let me do that -- it basically made a list of all the targets people in my group were attacking, their health bars, and how many people were attacking that target. As a hunter, I was too far away to see nameplates, and tab-targeting until I got the right one (in the days before raid symbols) was such a pain. But then of course, they broke mods like that.
Aloft is a great nameplate replacement, and should really be implemented by default. However, I did have to uninstall it due to performance issues (at the fault of my computer, not the addon).
I never use friendly nameplates, even on my healers. I just use a raid frames add-on instead (Perfect Raid will show when players are within range of your healing spells). The only time I could see friendly nameplates being better is for something like roam PvP where you might be healing someone not in your group.I actually kind of like how the new threat system works, the only problem I have with it is that I cannot see who is taking threat away from me on a mob until they actually do. I mean, I could find that out using a threat mod, but then I would still have to target or focus the mob. Blizzard needs to make this information easier for addon developers to access so they can create the necessary tools. (Such as allowing the use of unitIDs in the new threat functions.)
As a healer, i use enemy nameplate to pvp only to see the castbar of my enemy without selecting them. It's really helpfull. However, as a ranged perspective, if i heal my friend far behind i cant see castbar of me enemy so i cant prevent them from cc me or place a big heal. Also, i think that we must have the choice to activate the castbar plate without the nameplates himself (cause i really only activate it to have the castbar).
Personnally, I use the nameplates for one thing only: Aggro range.With a mob of my level, facing me, its aggro range is just below my nameplate range, which means if I see the nameplate, I should back up a bit to be on the safe side. If it's facing away, then I'm probably OK at nameplate distance, but shouldn't move closer. Using this, I've found it very easy to make my way through a bunch of, say, murlocs without drawing attention to myself.Besides that, they're kinda neat when I get jumped by a ganker I didn't see coming, by allowing me to quickly see which class he is and adjust my response in consequence.
I like the idea of showing my threat on the enemy nameplates. When I'm healing and suddenly see "High Threat!" / "Changing Target" it's helpful, but I would like to preemptively manage my own threat. Fade a bit sooner or slow down on healing or decide not to throw up a shield.As far as knowing who has aggro, I use healbot (though I'm sure there are other mods) that indicates who in the party/raid has aggro. This also let's me be a proactive healer.
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Good call on Aloft, gonna go see if that'll take care of my pet peeve - critter nameplates in instances.
I like how Blizzard brought the threat system into an easy to see form in WotLK. I use the default unit frames, and have all the threat options turned on, and it works very well. If your threat is low enough, there's no change. Once you hit ~75% there will be a yellow border around the mob's frame, with your threat percent right above their name. When you get closer to 100% it turns orange, and it stays that way until you hit 130% (which it still shows as 100%) and pull aggro, and the border turns red. And if you're in a 5 man group, it'll have the appropriate borders on your party frames, so try to keep the tank's border at red, and nobody else go past yellow, and you're all set.About the nameplates, they're ugly and I never use them, so it would be nice if they weren't such an intrusion/eyesore and worked from longer range. I doubt I would use them at that point though.
wow, good info. I had no idea that the frames changed color based on threat. I have noticed that it flashes when I fight solo, but I never really looked at it when in a group.Thanks for the post.