[Endorra]

The big advantage to having boxes carefully split up is being able to see what's going on since combat spam can be sequestered away from your more useful information. I have a main chat that has very little combat info included so that I can easily focus on /group, /guild/, or /ooc chats, a tells box, and a "spam" box that includes the majority of combat messages.

There are other nice things you can do to ensure immediate awareness. GINA triggers can be set to alert you of certain critical events. Mine notifies me on resists and sounds an alarm tone when charm breaks. I have developed a Pavlovian response to that tone, sometimes allowing me to stun before an angry former pet even reaches me.

I don't recall the formula for critter damage below 40, but creatures level 40 hit for exactly 100. For every level above 40, the vast majority of creatures hit for an additional 4 per level. So level 46 hits for 124 max, level 51 hits for 144 max, and so on. Note that this does not always apply, as there are some creatures over 50 that hit for well above their "calculated" damage. Typically these are named creatures or special types such as the monstrosities in Siren's Grotto. But when you're fighting your typical Krup froglok, for instance, you can tell if it's within the range of Allure by how hard it hits.