Segment 51: Old Friends Revisited

Let’s look at the pre-Cata add-ons covered in the Emporium once more, quickly, and see what’s still useful. Any dates referenced here will be 2011 unless otherwise stated.

From the top:
Omen3 – Outdated. I’ve personally moved to Skada.
Carbonite – Updated January 25th.
Decursive – Updated March 4th.
Grid – Use Healbot.
Mage Fever – Updated February 14th. Use Curse to get the latest version.
Lorack’s DK Optimizer – Out of date. Use SpellFlash with the DK module.
DeclineDuel – Out of date but still working.
AchievementSnap – Out of date.
DingRecorder – Out of date.
AuctionLite – Updated January 22d.
Advanced Trade Skill Window – Updated February 9th.
Free Refills – Updated March 7th.
InfiniteIgnore – Updated February 21st.
RankWatch – Outdated and obsolete.
EasySerum – Updated for patch 4.0.1 and should still work.
GoGoMount – updated March 9th, and GoGoPet updated for 4.0.1 in October 2010.
Add-on updaters are updated whenever you run them.
Outfitter – Updated January 8th.
_NPCscan – updated January 23rd.
Parrot – updated February 16th.
WetSpot – Obsolete.
SkillScore – obsolete. Use PlayerScore/GearScore instead.
RaidBuffStatus – Updated March 15th.
ArkInventory – updated February 26th
AutoEmote – still works even though it is long out of date.
AutoProfit is out of date, use AutoProfitX2, updated March 4th, instead.
LightHeaded was updated March 9th.
Leveling Guides – possibly no longer needed with Carbonite and Lightheaded. It’s up to you.
HealBot – updated March 6th. I’ve received email that there may be an issue with the slash command for HB, but I have not had time to investigate.
XtoLevel – updated January 25th.
AutoAspect – out of date. Consider SmartBuff as a replacement.
OmniCC – updated in December 2010 for WoW 4.0.3a
ControlFreak – updated January 4th 2009, but amazingly it still works.
Panda – updated March 5th.
Xloot – updated in December 2010 for Wow 4.0.3a
Talented – updated January 7th.

And at that point we started hitting add-ons by class.

Quick tip: Every add-on you have active uses some memory, so for best performance, only enable add-ons you intend to use.

Music for this segment is from Archive.org and is entitled “Nostalgia of Freedom” by Nicolas Panderis

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Segment 50: Add-ons for Shaman

I have been informed that, during the per-class segments, I somehow contrived to miss the shaman. Let’s correct that right now.

The shaman is a hybrid support class, providing DPS via spellcasting or melee, or healing. In addition, the shaman can place totems to provide additional benefits to the party or deal additional damage to enemies.

To help your shaman in his chosen role, I’ve put together a list of some well-regarded add-ons. All of these are available from Curse.com – see the segment notes for direct links.

First, we have SpellFlash: ReSham, a module for the SpellFlash add-on. SpellFlash: ReSham will provide visual cues for appropriate spells or abilities duing combat and out of combat. You can easily disable certain talent trees, and also disable it when out of combat.

TribalEnhancement is a lightweight add-on supporting all shaman specs. It provides totem, buff, debuff, and shield tracking using a “least intrusive” philosopy.

Tyler is a Nub is a simple add-on to remind you to reapply your weapon buffs. It also works for rogue poisons and warlock buffs.

SmartRes2 provides intelligent and co-ordinated party and raid wipe recovery. You’ll want every class who can rez to run this add-on, and then hope you never need it.

Lastly, we have Shaman Friend. This add-on is specifically designed for the shaman and provides lots of useful functions for all shaman specs. There are too many to go over here; take a look at the add-on page, as linked in the segment notes.

Music for this segment is from Jamendo.com and is entitled “Deranged” by Fox.

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Segment 48: Pawn

You’re running 5-mans, trying to gear up so you can level even faster, or run heroics, or raid. You see other people clicking “need” on gear that you think you might want, but you’re not sure if it’s really an “up” for you, and you don’t want to be “that guy.” What do you do? Pawn.

Pawn is an add-on that uses values from Wowhead to quickly compare loot items (or quest reward items) with gear you have equipped, and lets you know if it’s really an “up.” In the case of quest rewards, it will also indicate which item to take to vendor, in the case where none of the items will improve your current outfit.

Pawn can be installed and used immediately without any configuration; or if you’re the hard-core theory-crafting guy who spends days building spreadsheets, reading Elitist Jerks, and who runs Rawr and Atlas Loot, you can customize it for your fine-tuned needs.

Pawn is built to detect your class and optimize gear scores for you; again, you can customize it heavily, but for most players it will be more than adequate as soon as you install it. You can also share your own customizations (called “scales”), and import customizations shared by other players. There’s even a Web site dedicated to sharing them, linked in the segment notes.  And you can set up multiple scales (quite useful for the dual-specced player) and have multiple scores displayed on gear items.

Comparing drops or linked items to your current equipped gear is easy: Just right-click the item’s icon. If you would like to compare items in AtlasLoot, you can set up hotkeys for that purpose (the square brackets are the default, but if you have already bound them to other purposes, you’ll need to choose others).

There’s a pretty comprehensive ReadMe file included with Pawn; it includes almost everything I’ve mentioned here, and more.

One final note, not in the audio segment: the Pawn suggestions for gemming and reforging are also incredibly handy.

You can download Pawn from Curse or install it using Wowmatrix. Other Web sites and add-ons mentioned in this segment are linked in the segment notes at Wowphiles.com.

Music for this segment is from Jamendo.com and is entitled “Pay Attention” by Dead Pawn Company.

If you have a favorite add-on, or you’re looking for an add-on for a specific purpose, please drop me a line via email to AddOns@wowphiles.com or hit me up on Twitter.

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This week I would like to tell you about an add-on that provides information only; it won’t necessarily improve your DPS, HPS, or even your mood, if you’re in a hurry to reach the next experience level. However, XtoLevel is a simple addon that will provides detail about the kills, quests, dungeons, battlegrounds and experience required to gain a level.

After each kill, quest, dungeon or battleground, the exact number required to level of that particular item is displayed on the screen, and optionally in the default chat window. Hunters can see the number of kills required for their pets to gain a level.

An optional small window displaying details about the kills, quests, dungeons, battlegrounds, experience and time remaining to gain a level is also available.

XtoLevel provides data to LDB front-end addons, such as TitanPanel and Fortress.

All of these display features can be configured via the configuration window, which is accessible by either right-clicking the “average” window or by using slash commands.

You can get XtoLevel from WoWinterface or from Curse.

Music for this week’s segment is from Archive.org and is entitled Hot Mittens by the Bucktown 5.

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This week we’re going to look at leveling guides; specificly, Zygor’s Leveling Guide, and an alternative.

Let me start off by saying that I emphatically do NOT recommend Zygor’s Leveling Guide, and I’m not going to give you a link to the official Zygor site. If you still want it after listening to this segment, you can find it easily enough.

Zygor’s Leveling Guide is an in-game guide; that means it’s an add-on. It also is sold, not supported by voluntary donations. That means it’s in blatant violation of Blizzard’s terms of service for add-on developers.

I quote:

1) Add-ons must be free of charge.
All add-ons must be distributed free of charge. Developers may not create “premium” versions of add-ons with additional for-pay features, charge money to download an add-on, charge for services related to the add-on, or otherwise require some form of monetary compensation to download or access an add-on.

“Zygor” wants $80 (currently discounted to $60) for this add-on package. Frankly, that’s just too much even if it didn’t violate the TOS.

Zygor’s guide is technically beautiful; it has cute little animations to show that it’s doing something, it gives you waypoint arrows, and it does help you find the necessary quests for leveling. That said, however, it takes up as much add-on memory as the free alternatives which I will outline here, and tends to get in the way when you really don’t need it.

Enough said about that; here’s how you can get all the same functions without spending any money (although I do encourage you to donate to the add-on authors who accept donations):

1. Download and install Carbonite from the Carbonite add-on home page.
2. Download and install Lightheaded (see my previous review, Segment 25, for details) from WoWinterface or other sources.
3. Open your favorite Web browser (which I sincerely hope is not Internet Explorer) and go to Jame’s Leveling Guides.

Another option is to go to WoW-pro.com and get the WoW-pro leveling add-on.
You will still need Lightheaded and TomTom also.

In order for any leveling guide to be effective, you really need to start using it as soon as you create a new toon; but the Jame’s guides make it somewhat easier to start in the middle (after making a few levels) than Zygor does (another plus for freeware/donationware add-ons).

In conclusion: You can spend money to violate Blizzard’s terms of service, or you can go with free/donation-supported add-ons to do the same thing. It’s up to you. I know which I choose.

Music for this segment is from Freeplaymusic.com and is entitled “Yarn of the Buccaneer,” by Pierre Langer and Scott P. Schreer.

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General leveling tips:

• Obtain bags as soon as you can. There are many quests that have you gathering items, and you need someplace to carry those items.
• …Members of The Gathering can get bags out of the Guild Vault, or whisper Valkillmoar or Leftbank. The rest of you are on your own.
• If you aren’t using a guide, pick up as many quests as possible when you get to a new zone
• … and complete as many as possible before running back to turn them in.
• Avoid dungeon quests unless you have a regular group with whom you’re leveling together.
• Avoid Sven in Duskwood unless you like traveling a lot and getting very little reward for the effort.
• Make a “bank toon” who will stand around in a capital city and handle auctions and banking for you. The mail system works well and your bank toon can make boatloads of gold from gathering profession items.

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This week we’ll look at a very lightweight add-on that adds speed and accuracy to your questing.

LightHeaded is a very simple add-on that displays quest information and comments from Wowhead in-game, eliminating the need to Alt-Tab when you get stuck on a quest. Data is only loaded when you first request it, so you can be sure you’re not using more memory than you need to.

Lightheaded supports TomTom, MapNotes, and Cartographer2 and Cartographer3; by clicking coordinates shown in LightHeaded, you can automatically add a waypoint to your map.

Lightheaded has a few slash-command options as well, which are detailed on the add-on’s WoWinterface page.

As of 28 March 2010, LightHeaded included comments for more than 8200 quests.

All in all, this is a very useful add-on that is essential for finishing quests quickly.

You can get LighHeaded from WoWinterface.

Music for this segment is from FreeplayMusic.com and is entitled “Between the Bookshelves,” by Michael Genato.

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NOTE: AutoProfitX2 is now your best bet for automated vendor trash sales after 4.0.1.

This week we’re going to look at two small add-ons; one just for fun, and one to help you get the junk out of your bags and put some jingles in your pocket. Both of these are considered outdated, but they continue to work and so I continue to use them. Remember to check the “Load out of date add-ons” box in the add-ons window before entering the world.

AutoEmote is a just-for-fun add-on which will automatically issue emotes back to the people who emote to you. It has a built-in cooldown period so it won’t issue an automated response before the cooldown period is over. The cooldown is triggered whenever you type in a /emote or upon an automated response emote. This lets you interact with others via emotes and not have the auto responses interrupting until the cooldown period is over.
It also offers a delayed response function. The delay makes automated responses wait for a few seconds before firing off. This gives the impression that you are typing out the response, instead of an automated one.
When someone emotes to you an emote that isn’t on your auto-response list a default response back is given, which you can set to be whatever you like.

AutoEmote offers a UI interface for users who would like to edit their settings like: the cooldown period, response delay time or emotes; and even add new emotes to their response list.

AutoEmote has not been updated since 2007, but still works and is available from Orgrimmar.org

AutoProfit will sell all your grey items (and any white items you’ve added to the “junk” list) with one click when you visit a vendor. It also has an option to delete all (use with caution), or to delete lowest, which deletes the lowest valued item in your inventory. You can modify the options by entering /autoprofit options in the chat window. Again, this is considered an outdated add-on, but it’s working for me and I really wouldn’t care to do without it!

AutoProfit is available through WoWmatrix, and from GameGuidesOnline.

Music for this segment is from FreePlayMusic.com and is entitled “Mixed Emotions” by Todd Haberman, John Loeffler, and Scott P. Schreer.

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This week I would like to tell you about a mod that will help you keep your bags organized, and also let you check all your various storage spaces on the realm when you are pretty sure you have an item, but can’t remember where you put it.

ArkInventory (or “AI”) as it comes “out of the box” allows you to have one large virtual bag instead of the vanilla WoW default of a bunch of smaller bags. Without any custom configuration on your part, it also allows you to see everything in your alt’s bags, your bank, your alt’s banks, and even the Guild vault. However, in order for this part to work, you will need to log in to each alt once after installing AI and open your bags and bank. At least one toon will need to look in the Guild vault also. AI takes a “snapshot” when you open a bag or bank, so the Guild vault snapshot may not be up-to-date if you haven’t checked the actual vault lately; this is still better than having to travel to a capital city or beg a guildy to look for crispy spider meat, however.

AI also allows for customization of categories, and the creation of rules to further customize your bag display. For complete information, I recommend you download and extract the Local Help Files from the AI home page on Google.

In addition to the direct download from Google, you can get Arkinventory through WoWmatrix, from WoWinterface`, or from Curse.

Music for this segment is from FreeplayMusic.com and is entitled “White Mule Breakdown” by Kelly Weeks.

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That will buff right out.

RaidBuffStatus is an add-on to check, show and report on the complete buff status (including flasks etc) of a party or raid. It shows the information on a dashboard much like XRS. It can report via whispers and to raid chat. In addition it provides a talent spec window which also shows any special abilities such as improved spirit.

However it is quite unlike XRS, Bigbrother and most other buff checking add-ons. It was the first released add-on to intelligently, in an automagic way, know what buffs to check for. For example only if there is a Mage will it check for intellect buff and it does not check the buffs of those not in the same zone. As much as possible is automatic.

add-ons like XRS require lots of initial configuration. RBS works with no configuration out of the box. However RBS now features a Buff Wizard to help new user non-raid leaders to configure only the buffs they need to be displayed.

RBS can do the buffing for you such as your self and party buffs with a quick alt-click.

RBS supports add-ons like Titan using LibDataBroker.

RBS even has a twitter account, so you can keep up with news about the add-on. There are a number of videos available demonstrating the use of RBS, and it is actively maintained.

You can get RaidBuffStatus from WoWinterface or from Curse.

Music for this week’s segment is from FreeplayMusic.com and entitled “Warriors and Knights” by Scott P. Schreer

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SkillScore is a lightweight addon that will let you quickly check a player’s experience in specific raids.

SkillScore is a much more useful indicator of a player’s experience than GearScore, because it doesn’t depend on the luck of the Need or Greed roll. SkillScore will tell you how many times the player has completed ICC 10 and ICC 25, for example.

Similar to GearScore in the abbreviated mouseover display, SkillScore will give you a much more detailed tooltip by pressing . SkillScore caps the score for each raid at 1000.

You can download SkillScore from WoWinterface.

Music for this segment is provided by Freeplaymusic.com and is entitled “Virtuoso” by Akihiro Yamamoto.

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Are you leveling or planning on leveling a new toon? Are you trying to plan ahead and get enough gold to get your riding skill and mount at level 20? Did you take two gathering skills so you can do that? Good plan! Did you take Herbalism and Mining? Not so good, since you can’t detect Herbs and Minerals at the same time!

There’s a solution for you (can I say “There’s an add-on for that?”) – as well as for hunter and druid tracking, and fish and treasure tracking. Unfortunately there is still no free beer tracking, so go AFK and get one out of the fridge when you need to. The add-on is “WetSpot.”

According to the author, spatton, if you are a herbalist and miner, while riding through a zone you can change between tracking for herbs and then tracking for minerals every 5 seconds. Or if you are a hunter in a battleground, you can switch between tracking humanoids, beasts, and hidden every 3 seconds.

You can choose whatever tracking methods you wish to look for – unknown spells will not be available to you. That means non-hunters won’t see the hunter stuff, and non-dwarves won’t be able to see the beer treasure method. If you have not learned the spell yet, the option will be disabled. WetSpot also detects when you are in a city, and will disable itself accordingly. When you exit the city, it will turn itself back on.

The options frame allows you to turn the on-screen bar on or off, and control the tracking methods used and the speed of rotation.

You can get WetSpot through WoWmatrix, or from Curse.

Music for this segment is provided by Freeplaymusic.com and is entitled “Candyflip” by Felix Miklik

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Some time before Patch 2.0.3, way back in the beginning of 2007, Blizzard incorporated the basic concepts of the add-on Scrolling Combat Text into “vanilla WoW.” Newer players probably have no idea that there was a time when you needed the SCT add-on to see combat hits scrolling up from the center of the screen.

While the now-built-in floating combat text is a big improvement, it could be even better. That’s where Parrot comes in.

Parrot allows you to adjust the start and end points of your scrolling combat text, make it scroll in an arc to the left or right, and add text triggered by specific events (such as the Warlock ability “Nightfall”).

This may not seem like a big deal, but try Parrot for a week and you’ll wonder how you ever played without it. The author’s notes list these features:

• Can change fonts
• Multiple scroll animations to choose from
• Choose what events you want to see and where
• Customize how you want to see your info
• Show spell or ability names and icons
• Create as many scroll areas as you want
• Suppress events you don’t want to see
• Create custom triggers

You can get Parrot through WoWmatrix, from WoWinterface, or from Curse.

Music for this segment is provided by Freeplaymusic.com and is entitled “Pirate’s Hook,” by Tillman Sillescu.

(Link for the MP3 to be added here)

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Have you spent hours flying aimlessly around Storm Peaks, trying to find the Time-Lost Protodrake? Wasted days in Sholozar Basin, looking for Loque’nahak? This week’s add-on detects rare mobs for you, alerting you when you get within detection range.

Before installing _NPCScan, you’ll want to clear your game cache. The add-on’s Web page explains how in detail, but the short version is “delete your cache folder.”

When a rare mob is found, _NPScan wil alert you with audio, flashing the screen, and providing an animated targeting button. There’s a “test” button in the add-on’s main interface so you can see what it looks and sounds like before it detects any of the rares.

There are several customization options, also, allowing you to add your own alert sounds, and add or remove NPCs from the detection list. Other options are available, which I won’t go into here; you can find them in the add-on’s menu.

All in all, if you want the rare achievements, or if you are a hunter hoping to tame a rare mob, you want this add-on.

_NPCScan can be installed though WoWmatrix, or downloaded from its own site on Google, or from WoWinterface or Curse.

Music for this segment is provided by Freeplaymusic.com and is entitled “Wild Discovery,” by Simon Brewer.

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Bonus material:
While looking up pictures of NPCScan for this post I stumbled across NPCScan Overlay. _NPCScan.Overlay is an addition to _NPCScan that adds map overlays for rare mob patrols. When you search for a rare in _NPCScan, _NPCScan.Overlay will show where it patrols until you find it. It works similarly to keithgabryelski’s Rare Spawn Overlay, but supports the minimap and has a much smaller download size, along with a few new features.

You can get _NPCScan.Overlay through WoWmatrix or from WoWinterface or Curse. Be sure to keep both add-ons up to date! The easiest way to do that is to use WoWmatrix.

Happy hunting!

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According to the author’s description, Loracks DK Optimizer will help you to optimize health regen, DPS, and threat. I know from my own use of it that my DPS has at least doubled, and my health at the end of each melee is a great deal higher than it was before I installed this addon, so I am confident that it does, indeed, perform “as advertised.”

Loracks DK Optimizer adds a “click-through” window (that is, it won’t get in the way of your mouse when you’re trying to click on something in the field of play) which will suggest, using spell icons, which spell or attack you should use next. The main icon is largish, in the center of a rectangular area, and lesser spells will appear near the corners as smaller icons, to help you remember to cast such things as Death and Decay. The main icon changes according to how much runic power you have available, distance from your target (e.g., melee or ranged), and which aspect you are currently using. Some of the suggestions change so quickly that you have very little time to react, so it’s a good idea to be very familiar with the locations of your hot keys. Of course, that’s probably a good idea anyway.

Loracks DK Optimizer is a lightweight add-on; if you’re playing a Death Knight on a computer with limited memory, this is *the* must-have mod for your DK.

Loracks DK Optimizer is available from Curse and through WoWmatrix (and the comment shown in WoWmatrix is hilarious!).

Music for this segment is provided by Freeplay Music and is entitled Army Angels.

Bonus image

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Mage Fever is a proc and buff notification addon for mages. It was designed to be simple, light on memory, completely stand alone, and easy to use. Developed by a mage for a mage, it is specifically tailored to help make the most of a mage’s damage output and manage their spell rotation. Mage Fever is an addon that is extremely flexible and fit for any mage. Mage Fever is designed to visually stand out when needed, yet invisible when not, through uniquely colored notification frames with background timers which can be placed anywhere on the screen.

Mage Fever keeps the raiding or PvP mage on top of her game. Decisions for spell rotation will be much easier to make with all mage procs being much easier to see. Scorch and Living Bomb debuffs are tracked with timers so you will be able to constantly keep that debuff on your target; you will know whether to cast one more fireball or refresh the living bomb. You will know when you are guaranteed a critical strike due to Fingers of Frost or a free fireball from Brain Freeze.

Mage Fever is suitable for all specs – Fire,Frost, Arcane, or Hybrid, and tracks Clearcasting and Mirror Image in addition to the basic procs and buffs. It also has a unique multi-target Living Bomb tracker.

Download Mage Fever from WoWinterface or Curse.

Music from BeeMP3.com, Rihanna and “Russian Roulette”

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Grid is an essential tool for healers. Anyone who has been in a raid knows that, many times, there is way too much going on during a fight to look at the standard raid array to see who needs healing, who has a HoT on them, who needs a new HoT, and so on. Grid gives you exactly what the name says – a grid of party or raid members, showing their health status. The grid is clickable and allows you as the healer to quickly target the player who needs your attention right now. As with Decursive, Grid can make the second or two difference between a successful fight, and a wipe. One point I would make is that you will almost certainly want to change the default font size for text within the squares of the Grid; it’s easy, and it will make it much easier to read what’s actually printed.

Enhancements:

GridStatusLifebloom shows the Lifebloom counter, colored by the number of stacks on your target.

GridStatusHots shows your other HoT counters, colored by time remaining.

GridIndicatorCornerText allows you to add counters to the corners of your Grid squares.

Keeva has done a very nice tutorial on getting the most out of Grid, including a couple of enhancements. Follow the link below.

Music for this segment was furnished by ArtistDirect.com and is titled “15 to 20″ by The Phenomenal Handclap Band.

Download Grid from Curse or Wowinterface

Enhancements are linked from the tutorial by Keeva.

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I’m sure a lot of you use Power Auras since it has gotten a lot of press from names a lot more reputable than mine. In this post I’ll go over my set up and how to recreate them, hopefully these will inspire you to play around a lot with your own auras and make some cool stuff (and then show them to me of course) =]

So Power Auras is a highly configurable addon that can track pretty much anything that can happen to or be caused by your character (trinket procs, buffs/debuffs, low health, missing buffs, cooldowns, etc) the downside is that you’ll need to do a lot of work on your end to make this addon work to its full potential (out of the box it really doesn’t do much of anything). I won’t go into the simple stuff, instead I’ll talk specifically about the Power Auras I use and why I use them. Here are a few awesome guides to familiarize you with the basics or just get a nice refresher:

Ghadamon’s Guide (MMO-Champion) – A good introduction, as well as how to use some of the more complex functions.
Food Before Flowers (NoStock UI) – Slightly more general, but covers a lot of ground.
Aliena’s Tutorial (Tankspot) – Yet another take, good tips on setting up several basic auras.
Nibuca’s Power Aura Posts (Mystic Chicanery) (part 2) (part 3) – Several posts highlighting the diversity of Power Auras, as well as basics.
Rilgon’s Hunter Auras (Stabilized Effort Scope) – No basics here, awesome hunter specific auras showing off how deep you can really go with the configuration utility.

NOTE: There’s also a bunch of video guides on youtube, so just do a search for “Power Auras” or “Power Auras guide” and you’ll get a bunch of results to comb through.

Alright lets get down to business (to defeat the huns? O_O) here’s a few screenshots showcasing all the auras I use, I couldn’t put them all on one since they are practically never all up at the same time and they end up overlapping each other and making a big mess.

These are some very simplistic auras that show me real basic information. The little red triangles pop up if my target does NOT have a Hunter’s Mark on it (mine or anyone elses). The yellow parentheses tell me if I have the Improved Steady Shot buff. When the green arc at the bottom appears that means my target doesn’t have a Serpent Sting cast by me on it (another hunter may have a sting up, but I don’t care about that in this case). The little red circle in the middle pops up to let me know when my Kill Shot is usable (target under 20%, shot not on cooldown, etc). There isn’t much to say about these auras, they tell me basics so I don’t fuck up on something simple, like forgetting to use my Kill Shots as often as possible or whatever.

Since being in Viper for too long really sucks I have these 2 auras that are a little more complex and combine settings from several auras into one. The smaller set of blue squiggles show up when my mana is at 20% or less and I am NOT in Aspect of the Viper, this lets me know to either use my Mana Injector or to flip into Viper to regain mana. The large squiggles only show when my mana is at like 98% or greater and I AM in Aspect of the Viper, this means to get the fuck out of Viper and back into Dragonhawk so my DPS can stop sucking.

These 2 are long duration buffs that help  me remember that while I’m under the effects of these buffs I should try my best to stand still and pump out as many shots as I can as quickly as possible. The large light blue circle appears to track the duration of my Rapid Fire. The little red mask thing tracks the duration of Bloodlust (both of these are generally never up at the same time, since stacking these isn’t recommended). These are as easy to make as the basic auras, just with the timer function enabled and the duration of the buff plugged in.

This group of auras shows my short duration procs that really change the way I do my DPS. The inner symbol pops up whenever a certain aspect of my Deathbringer’s Will procs (blue = 600 crit, yellow = 600 agi, silver = 12000 AP). The purple symbols appear when my Needle-Encrusted Scorpion procs (temporarily capping my ArPen), this lets me know that I should stop moving, pop Rapid Fire (if its stacked with a DBW proc even more so) if possible, and squeeze out as many Auto/Steady Shots as I can. The big orange circle appears when my 2 piece tier 10 bonus activates, I tried to make this aura big and obvious because its super important that I refresh my Serpent Sting while I’m under the effects of this buff (so my Chimera Shot can continually refresh the 15% damage bonus). The best case scenario would be proccing both the 600 crit rating proc from DBW as well as my 2-piece bonus at the same time so I could constantly refresh a Serpent Sting that deals an extra 15% damage as well as a much higher chance to crit (this is where keeping 2-piece tier 9 is a big deal).

Anyway thats all the auras I use, I hope this was worth reading and helped you guys get into Power Auras if you haven’t before or think of a few new ideas for your already existing auras. If you want it I’ll post up the text files to import my settings into your Power Auras (once I figure out how O_o). I’d love to see any comments about how you use Power Auras, since I definitely wouldn’t pass up a chance to leech ideas off of someone else >:]

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First, you need to know that Carbonite used to be a paid-subscription addon, but when Blizzard announced that paid addons were no longer acceptable, rather than abandon development like so many other addon authors, the Carbonite developers switched to a donation model. You don’t ever have to donate, but if you use Carbonite and appreciate what it does for you, throwing the guys a bone from time to time will encourage them to continue working on this awesome mod.

Carbonite replaces your main map and your mini-map. The Carbonite map gives you Google Earth-style zoom and pan features as well as a waypoint feature.

Carbonite includes a replacement for your Quest Log with built-in quest tracking and a Quest Helper-style guide. It will announce in party chat when you finish a quest requirement. It also gives you a guide and heads-up display to find that elusive mailbox, trainer, flight point, vendor, and other points of interest.

There’s a warehouse function, so you don’t have to switch toons to figure out which one has the boar meat or titanium ore you need; just search the warehouse.

In battlegrounds, knowledge is power, and the extra power you will get from Carbonite might make the difference between victory and defeat. Carbonite also keeps a detailed PvP event log with time stamps.

Carbonite integrates with Gatherer and Atlas Loot to give you herb and ore locations right on your map, and detailed dungeon maps. It also works well with Lightheaded to give you community commentary for quests.

Carbonite can be downloaded from http://www.carboniteaddon.com/ where you will also find demos and detailed descriptions of the various features.

Music for this segment is provided by Amazon.com, and the track is “Dead Sound” by The Raveonettes.

Download the MP3

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