Satrina Buff Frames

Sorry for the lack of posts since Thursday; I had work and then an epic bout of lazy hit me. And then I worked again today and got the most laughably counterfeit $20s handed to me. I seriously wanted to ask him, "Seriously? This was really the best you could do?" and laugh him out of the store. Sadly, this didn't happen. Then I wiped on the Lich King for a few hours. A screenshot is going to be included below for how to properly wipe your raid with Defile.

What is Satrina Buff Frames?

Satrina Buff Frames (SBF) is an alternative buff frame to the default ones that are generally located next to your minimap. SBF allows you to customize how your buffs look based on a number of factors: size, location, border (should you have Button Facade installed), bars, timers, stack counts, etc. 

How does it work?

Generally speaking, it's allowing you to unlock your buff bars and move them as you see fit. The other aspects of your buff bars that are being manipulated are done via the .lua file and it overwrites the default game information. (At least, that's how I think it works...)

What about them makes them different from the default buff frames?

Well besides the obvious moving them around part, there's a lot of different options that you can mess around with. While I don't personally use the bar aspect of it much, you can set it up to show bar timers (similar to Elkano's Buff Bars, or if you don't use that, DoTimer) instead of the standard icon. This can be especially nice if you're watching a specific buff or debuff, such as Necrotic Plague on the Lich King or Unchained Magic on Sindragosa. 

Additionally, you can change the icon size (based on pixels) to be itty bitty or gigantically, ridonkulously huge. The way I actually have mine set up is that my buffs are about half the size of my debuffs, if not smaller. I do this since generally speaking my debuffs are something I need to pay attention to more than my buffs. (I would mention Unchained Magic again or Emerald Vigor, but seriously - I mention those debuffs more than any other ones.. Damn them for being good examples of important debuffs to watch!) 

Finally, one of the more interesting aspects of SBF is that you can actually set up more than the default buff and debuff frames and set up filters. For a period of time, I had a separate bar entirely for my auras that didn't have a timer (any paladin aura, trueshot aura, moonkin aura, etc.). I was able to filter those buffs out from my regular buff bar into a separate bar entirely. (Ask me how to do this now, and I'll probably fiddle around for about 10 minutes before giving up. This is what happens when I redo my UI 20 times in 3 months.)

What are the drawbacks?

Well, it's hard to immediately call out drawbacks to what is generally a pretty simple addon. Setting up filters and additional bars can be a pain in the tucchus, like I said above. I did it once, but I'm not sure you could convince me it's possible anymore. I know I've had a few guildies ask me how to properly set it up so auras are set at max time (Global Options -> check "Auras have max time") or how to properly get them sorted based on time length. For the most part, I found it pretty easy and straight forward to set up after toying with it for maybe 5-15 minutes. 

Should I get it?

Well it depends entirely on if you hate the default frames at all. Blizz has made some great changes with the default frame, making a lot of them condensed visually into that little box now. SBF doesn't have that, which means it takes up a little more real estate on your screen than the default ones might use. However, SBF offers a lot of features that the default frames don't. I can't really break it down based on what aspect of the game you play (PvE vs. PvP) or even necessarily how your computer runs while raiding (though it's going to be a better idea to keep as few addons as possible in the case that you run worse than average) - because it's a buff frame addon, it's really based more on personal preference. Do I use it? Yes. Do I love it? Absolutely. Do I recommend it? Totally. Do you need to get it? Maybe. There are other options out there (Elkano's Buff Bars are the popular alternative) but I would definitely suggest giving Satrina's Buff Frames a try.

Addon next to be reviewed? TipTac!

As promised - how to wipe your raid using only Defile on the Lich King.