The companion to hud-variants.html (which compares shapes at one hard moment, this page holds the shape fixed and walks the escalation ladder). The claim being demonstrated: a rotation HUD is instruments plus one annunciator. The gauges never ask for attention — they are there when the player's scan comes to them. Exactly one element on the whole HUD is allowed to move, and it earns that right from event statistics: Soulburst is random, 2.2/min, and its optimal response is the very next GCD. Everything commoner is a static landmark; everything rarer isn't displayed at all. On this page, as on the real HUD, only one panel animates. Stack, top to bottom: the reaction slot (empty most of the fight) · the soul pool (10 cells) · VM/CS progress (tick at 35) · fury, the thin red rail — red as the resource's identity color, never as an alarm; its cream tick is the cost landmark, the hatched right end is the ≥120 overcap zone, and in the shipped addon it carries its number label.
Default for fresh profiles: the addon does not exist outside combat. Its appearance on the pull is itself the signal that the instrument is live. The existing per-element visibility toggles (combat / out of combat / mounted / pet battle) remain the override for players who want it always up.
VM 12 · 3 souls · fury 55. The commonest state of the fight (~23 s of every ~38 s cycle looks like this). The pool's filled cells sit muted — below the worth gate (souls < 4), nothing is loaded. No motion, no text emphasis. The read, when the player's scan passes through: nothing needs you; keep the cadence.
VM 29 · 4 souls · fury 92. The 4th cell filled at the reap-4 mark and the pool went vivid — the loaded state: the next Reap takes a full bite. One static intensity step on the identity hue; not ember, not cream, nothing moves. Meanwhile the ghost segment (VM + souls, the arithmetic done by the display) closes on the 35 tick — the player sees the dump window coming the way a driver sees a bend: the road curves, nothing beeps.
VM 32 · 5 souls → 37 crosses 35; fury 104 past the cost tick. Two boundary states at once, both caution-grade: a color is different, nothing moves. The ghost past the tick brightens to cream (the next Reap enters meta); the fury fill recolors past its tick (the shipped behavior today). These states recur every cycle — some 60 times a fight — so they may never animate: an alarm that fires every 38 s is wallpaper by the third pull. Once lit, the threshold state latches until the dump resolves it (no flicker as soul travel jitters the sum around 35).
The gallery's hard moment: Soulburst up (8 s buff — but the optimal consumption is the very next GCD, and spending it before meta entry is sim-confirmed) · VM 28 · 9 souls at MoC capacity · RT would overcap · fury 96. The chip lights and pulses — the only animation the HUD owns — and everything else holds its static grade: the 9th cell is ember past the RT mark (don't press RT), the ghost is over the tick (this Reap enters meta). While the chip is lit no other element may escalate; one alarm at a time is the whole discipline. Correct read in one glance: SPEND, then Reap ▸ meta, don't press RT.
The same components at their two grades, side by side — and what changes when a value is exact versus estimated. Salience is scaled to expectancy and window, not to enthusiasm: Voidstep is caused by the player's own Reaper's Toll / Hungering Slash press (expected, ~5.2/min), so its cue confirms rather than interrupts. Soulburst is random with a short window, so it gets everything the HUD is allowed to spend.