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Addon Spotlight: Necrosis LdC
Sean is diving, sunning himself and trying to drink all the cervezas in Cozumel this week, so don't feel bad if he doesn't respond to emails and comments. He'll be back in action next week, fresh and ready to re-join the Addon Army's battle for the perfect User Interface!Poor, poor Warlocks, how you must lament your role as the misunderstood badboys (and girls) of World of Warcraft. Sure, the SL/SL thing seems to work out for you, and Destro locks just can't seem to crit for less than 5k anymore, but if only people knew how hard it is to keep track of so many damned spells. Truth be told, I love my Warlock, even if he's still terrorizing Azeroth in the forty-ish bracket. However, even by the time I got my Felsteed, I was wondering what to do with all the spells and abilities, I was rarely using some of them and wasn't happy with so many full actionbars. Around the same time, I was beginning to take notice that many Warlocks were saying the oddest things when summoning demons and their mounts. I wondered if there was a group of players taking part in a new "forget leet speak, let's just use grammatically questionable English" movement. I asked one about the random blurbs, and she was kind enough to point me in the direction of Necrosis LdC.Okay, it was actually Necrosis back then (I need to level my lock...), but the idea has survived the test of time. Necrosis LdC is a circular menu addon that wraps all of your spells and abilities into collapsible menus much like Totemus. (To be fair, Necrosis actually started the whole circular menu thing, the Godfather of Sphere Mods so to say.) It will also manage your Soul Shards, warn you about different procs (Backlash, Shadow Trance), things you can do to your target (Enslave, Banish) or not do (target is immune to fear), and will show you a spell timer to track your DoTs, Soulstone cooldowns and more.There's more, check in after the requisite break for some tips on using Necrosis LdC.
Bringing addons into the default UI
We've written about Totemus before here on WoW Insider-- even though it does a lot more than just time your totems as a Shaman, that's mainly what I used it for. Not only did it provide me with a visual representation of what my current totem situation was like, it also gave me a heads up whenever my totems were failing, reminding me to put them down again. But of course since that's mostly what I used it for, I may not have a need for it after patch 2.4-- along with the other UI changes, Blizzard is going to be putting a totem timer into the default UI.It's not the first time they've "stolen" addon functionality, and it definitely won't be the last. And while a few reports are coming in from the PTR, it remains to be seen whether this change will actually replace more complicated addons (my guess is no, considering how simple Blizzard's timer looks).But expect more of this in the patches to come-- everyone heard that Blizzard wants to implement a threatmeter into the default UI, and a "DamageMeters" type of tool would likely be appropriate for the default UI as well. Blizzard has always had the luxury of a great and hardworking addon community, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them start taking advantage of that luxury more often.
Back in the Day: A week of EBay, Karazhan and class QQ
What was going on in World of Warcraft this time last year? Back in the Day looks into the past of WoW Insider and brings back posts notable, controversial and sometimes humorous reflecting the state of the game one year ago this week.For the week of January 27 - February 2, 2007:The big news in the third week of TBC was E-bay's announcement: they de-listed all the gold sellers. Not that that stopped the black market for in-game gold sold for real life cash, but just today Blizzard struck another blow in the unending battle: they used the U.S. courts to shut out a major player in the gold selling industry from doing business on the Blizzard servers. The dance continues.On the official forums, there was a mixture of apprehension about how classes were falling into their new roles and speculation about the nature of the post-60 raid game. One article addressed both these issues when it brought together the concerns of the community about Karazhan. Complaints included trash mobs in the zone being too difficult, bosses being too tough on melee classes, Nightbane's fear unfair to Horde and itemization out of line with the difficulty of the encounter.Nowadays, the trash has been nerfed repeatedly, some bosses are still tough on melee classes, all Priests have Fear Ward, but a nerfed version making the Nightbane encounter difficult for both factions and the debate rages on whether itemization is good or not, but really, it depends on your class (hint: don't get a Priest started on the subject.)
Everything we know about 2.2, 2.3, and the next expansion
EU Forum MVP Schwick has posted a very nice and very thorough listing of everything we know about patch 2.2, 2.3, and the next expansion. As far as I know, there's nothing really new here, but it's a terrifically indepth listing of every rumor, hint, and suspicion that we've heard so far.Some of the exciting ideas still coming are new emotes, a tanking Pally revamp, a new stealth animation for Rogues, and totem timers for Shamans (currently, I use Totemus, and that suits me just fine). Also on the to-do list includes VOIP, guild banks and housing, and speculations for the next expansion include Northrend (I've got my money on this one, because the Scourge have it coming), "Beyond Outland," and the Emerald Dream.I'm sure we'll learn more eventually (expect big things at Blizzcon, I foresee), but until then, this roundup is as comprehensive as it gets. Thanks to Schwick for compiling this all together for us.
AddOn Spotlight: Totemus
TOTEMS! Yes, I'm the quintessential WoW Switcher. Vlambaard is sitting on a shelf, gathering dust, decked out in Judgement gear with his Herald of Woe. In his place, Wyahld has leveled like a madman, busting out totems and frostshocks all over the place. In my eternal quest for better living in the World (of Warcraft), I came across Totemus, a UI mod for shaman in the spirit of Necrosis. As you can see in the illustration above, Totemus is essentially a big round button, with some little round buttons surrounding it. Let's break it down, so you can see how it'll be of use to you. It's pretty darn configurable, so I'll just reference my installation, and let you rock your own from there.
