MOTW #1: GTFO (aka don't stand in the crap)

Welcome to the first "Mod of the Week" (no, not Mark of the Wild...) section, where I will be reviewing various mods as a cheap attempt to do more blog posts an informative and interesting section.

This week's mod is GTFO, billed by its creators as:
"an audible alert when you're standing in something you're not supposed to be standing in. In some cases, you'll be warned before you start taking damage."

Hmm...sounds good, but is it? The slightly embarassing reason I originally downloaded this mod has a long, elaborate and frankly tedious story attached. But that's what blogs are for, right? :) At the start of Cataclysm I had been fiddling around with some of my graphics settings and somehow managed to turn off the setting for ground particle efffects. Note - do not do this! It means that you cannot see any ground AOE textures, thus meaning that all of your well meaning guildies on 5 man runs are reduced to exasperation and soul searching about how you can be so useless as to not avoid such obvious 'crap on the floor'. This setting was responsible for at least 5 wipes on the boss guy with two adds in Shadowfang Keep, I'll have you know, nowt to do with me!

So, with my reputation as a Death Knoob increasing and probably copious amounts of "dear god why did we let her switch to tank" threads in the officers forums, I decided to take the bull by the horns and download this mod. I'm so glad I did because it is excellent! The noises it makes range from a small "plink" (when you stand in one of the fire braziers in Orgrimmar) to a full on submarine siren when you're actually standing in crap you really shouldn't be in. It helps immensely when you are concentrating on numerous other things to be able to hear that you need to move, but if you prefer visuals you can also configure it with Power Auras to show a visual effect too. Healers in the guild have also said that this mod is excellent, again to help them out when they are staring at their bars, plus it is great to help you distinguish from friendly ground AOE heals/DnD and the hurty stuff.

Happily, several heroics after my first initial balls-up, the GM could not believe I was suddenly so shocking (I'm not that bad, folks!) and suggested checking my graphics settings. Now I can see the effects *and* have the benefit of honking sirens to direct me out of danger. I guess the only real bad point about this mod is the possibility for complacency in looking for things if you are too reliant on the siren, a good example being not moving the *boss* out of blue puddles on the Omnitron council encounter. Still, it's very helpful and I highly recommend it for all classes, not just DKs.