A great mod for tanking, and a great mod for healing/DPSing too!
Hey everyone, I'm new here to TankSpot :P Just thought I'd drop a post about a really awesome mod which always helps me be aware of who mobs (particularly large groups) are focused on.
It's called TidyPlates. I had to dig through a YouTube video's comment section to find out what it was called, and it was totally worth it.
You know the bland nameplates WoW gives us as default? Well, this mod makes them fancy and customizable. Its most notable feature, one that proves invaluable to me (and probably will for you), is that it can change the size, opacity, and color of the nameplates depending on whether the mob is attacking you, targeted by you, etc. This allows you to easily spot a loose mob and taunt it off of another party/raid member. Conveniently, whenever nameplates are overlapping (for very very large pulls), clicking on a loose mob's oversized nameplate will select said loose mob regardless of how many mobs are overlapping.
It's second most notable feature (but no less valuable) is the option showing a yellow threat bar (called "Threat Tug-Of-War" which displays a bar which, when the mob is tanked by you, will extend to the right and turn yellow. When said mob is not tanked by you, the bar will extend to the left and be blue. The more (or less, depending on how fail you are. Just kidding) threat you have (or don't have), the farther the bar will extend. Just a note, you must target the mob (or mouseover it) to see this bar...I'm not sure why but I'm sure it has to do with some game mechanic that doesn't let you track your threat across multiple targets without actually targetting them.
The mod has other threat-related widgets that can be attached to each individual nameplate, but they overlap and can become hard to decipher.
Now this mod is also very useful as a DPS/healing mod, because you can invert the settings to have the plates change in size/color/etc when a loose mob targets you. There are two "themes" -- Tanking and DPSing. The primary theme is your first spec, while the second is your secondary spec--consequently you should set the themes according to your specs. They will change automatically when you switch specs.
I certainly hope you at least try this mod out. Sorry if I dragged on, I wanted to give a nonproselytized-yet-meaningful preview of what this mod has to offer, but I got carried away. Anyway...it definitely works for me, and I'd recommend it to any tank in a heartbeat. Go for it!
