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Patch 5.4.7: oQueue's current issues to be resolved by Blizzard hotfix
WoW Insider heard from oQueue's creator, Tiny, regarding the issues the incredibly popular addon is facing with the arrival of patch 5.4.7. Essentially, various things changed in the API, the resource Blizzard creates for addon authors, that caused issues for oQueue. There was a change to Battle.net messaging frequency, which is how oQueue runs its "mesh", meaning oQueue had to move communications to a newly created channel. This was fine, and Tiny was able to work around it, changing the channels through which oQueue operates. Then a change was introduced to remove notes from battle.net invitations -- an attempt to remove a way for spammers to advertise their gold and other services. However, this completely broke oQueue's capacity to let people join groups. Fortunately, Tiny tells me, a hotfix is in the works to repair this latest issue. The hotfix also makes another API change which Tiny will release a new version to work around. This hotfix was scheduled for this week, so hopefully our favorite in-game group-finder will be up and running again soon. Keep an eye on oQueue's host site for the latest updates. Update: The hotfix is now live and Tiny is preparing the latest version of oQueue for download. The latest version is available at solidice.com
Addon Spotlight: Macros, macros, macros
Macros. They're great. For certain classes and gameplay elements they're almost required, and for many others they're terribly useful. Macros can do things like create a keybind that fires your damage mitigation cooldowns and uses a healthstone. Perhaps you want to stop casting whenever you hit your interrupt? No problem. They can allow you to use modifiers to cast your abilities on your focus instead of your target, or to use all your damage increasing cooldowns at once. But the macro interface, as one of WoW's older ones, leaves a little to be desired. Therefore, today, we're looking at addons that make macros easier, particularly those that generate more space for their use. As you can see from the above, you don't get much from the default system. So let's get started with one addon whose whole purpose is to give you a bit more room to play with. BindPad BindPad is an addon designed to give you space, both on your action bars and in your macro pane. What it does is really pretty simple, so I'm not going to allot it a ton of space for explanation. Downloading and installing it is really pretty much the only setup that you need, there are no real settings for this addon. Once you have it up and running, type /bindpad or /bp into the chat to open it up and you'll be presented with a window. As an aside, I couldn't get it to generate a button in the macro window, which might be a great addition.
Addon Spotlight: Reforging and gear optimization addons
You all know the score. Siege of Orgrimmar is here, the Timeless Isle has been up for a few weeks, and gear is dropping like rain. But getting that drop you need isn't the end of the road for gearing, no, far from it in fact. Your work is only just beginning. Once you've got your hands on that upgrade (and, of course, actually ascertained that it is an upgrade at all) you will need to enchant it, gem it, reforge it, and consider whether to upgrade it. With the reduced cost of upgrades now, it's a far less significant decision, but nonetheless it is one that you'll have to make. But fear not, friends! There are tools out there that will make your lives considerably easier. Ask Mr Robot What? Olivia, you nincompoop, Ask Mr Robot isn't an addon, it's a website! Silly brits, always mixing everything up. But you're wrong, since January 10th, there has been a great little addon that tags along with the well-known and widely used website. And since 5.4 dropped, it's started bringing the site's robotic advice straight to your characters in-game! So how does it work? It's very, very easy. Head over to askmrrobot.com, and load up your character details. You'll need to choose a region, as well as a server, and type in your name. Pretty easy so far? You'll need to be logged out on the character in question and Mr Robot will pull down all your gear data from the armory. Since you asked so nicely.
oQueue how-to for Flex raiding on demand
So you want to do Flex raiding instead of LFR? Or as well as LFR, you crazy cats? But you don't have a guild or any friends or the time to sit in trade chat forlornly spamming "520 afflock LF Flex /w" for hours on end? You want to be out in the world doing Timeless Isle things rather than stuck in cities? If only there was another way to PuG Flex raids. Well fear not, my friends, oQueue is here to save your bacon. Or any other pork product. Before I get into the oQueue how-to, I am just going to dedicate a moment to openraid. If you're organised enough to be able to say "Yes! I can raid on Monday at 7pm!" then openraid.us or openraid.eu depending on your region should be your weapon of choice. This allows you to sign up for pre-arranged raids, or indeed to set up your own. But if you want to log in, and immediately hop into a queue for a flex raid, without the need for organization or flexibility, oQueue's the way to go. So let's get started.
Addon Spotlight: Reviewing readers' secret addons
A couple of weeks back, I asked, in a discussion topic, for readers to submit their secret addons. I wasn't after addons everyone had heard of, like DBM, Recount, or Bartender, nor indeed addons that most people would have heard of, such as Adibags or TellMeWhen. I was after obscure little addons, maybe addons that didn't do a great deal, but were a huge help, and which their users wouldn't be without. And you wonderful people gave me plenty to be going along with! Side note, though, many of you mentioned that you actually wrote addons yourselves, and that's something I'd absolutely love to do -- feature readers' addons. No matter if they're not on Curse or similar, drop me a line on olivia@wowinsider.com and we'll sort something out. Let's get started! OneClickEnchantScroll Oh my. OCES, as we'll call it from now on, was one addon that immediately caught my eye. It is one of those addons that really does exactly what it says on the tin. I've wanted a way to do this forever, and it's really only a minor efficiency gain, as all it removes is a single click. But man, it's great to remove that one click!
Addon Spotlight: Buffs and the removal thereof
Last time on Addon Spotlight, we took a look at the use of powerful addon Weak Auras to track buffs on yourself, and as promised, we're back with a few other recommendations for you to have a look at. As we mentioned before, but it bears repeating, tracking your buffs is rather important for effective DPS, and for maximising your efficiency as just about every class. There's almost always something to be keeping an eye on, and there are several addons out there to help you with it! We're also going to take a look at something a little different, for your delectation, and that's an addon to help you with stealing other people's buffs! While more class-specific, only really useful for classes with an offensive dispel, it's definitely handy to have in mind. Quoth the Raven We're going to start with my current favorite tracker, outside Weak Auras, and that's Raven. You can see it in action in the video in the header image, on my mage, and I'm showing off both the buff tracker and the debuff tracker. The debuff tracker is the section that stacks up to the right hand side, while the buff trackers sit over to the left of the mage. As you can likely see, there are several different buff tracking elements visible.
What is too much for an addon?
Over the weekend, Blizzard's ever-loquacious Lead Systems Designer, Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street, responded to a question about raid group reshuffling. As you may well be aware, it is not currently possible for players to change around their raid groups while in combat. The player asking the question wondered why, and Ghostcrawler responded as follows: @incoherenc A little concern about a mod that puts the debuff target in slot 1 and lets the dispeller spam slot 1. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) July 2, 2013 So it seems that the main reason to prevent reshuffles is the potential for mods that make the game too easy. As WoW Insider's addon writer, this is something that I consider a lot -- at what point is an addon adding to much? What crosses the line from helpful augmentation into necessary, and what from there into almost-cheating?
Addon Spotlight: Buff monitoring with Weak Auras
Way, way back in the last Addon Spotlight, we talked about addons to monitor your debuffs on your target, and after a lengthy hiatus, we're back to look at buffs. Why is buff monitoring a good idea? Well, think of DoT classes. The way the game works is that when you cast a DoT, it will take a snapshot of your current situation, so, if you have a buff up that increases your intellect for a few seconds, such as a weapon enchant, then that intellect increase will be applied to your DoT. If you refresh that DoT without the intellect proc active, the second DoT will be weaker than the first. The same applies to healing, to general damage, to so many things, so monitoring your buffs is really important. Regardless of what class you play, there will be buffs you want to look out for to make the best of what you're doing. So how do you watch them? With addons, that's how! We're going to take a look at several addons that monitor buffs, and we're going to start with the one I prefer, which is the oddly named Weak Auras. Weak Auras was originally created as an alternative to Power Auras, which, alas, has rather fallen by the wayside of late. Weak Auras is, therefore, the one to look out for. We've talked about it before here at Addon Spotlight, but Weak Auras is just so good at tracking buffs we thought it was worth dedicating an article to that specific role. Setting up Weak Auras seems daunting at first, but I promise you that this is really, really easy. You just need someone to tell you how to do it.
Reader UI of the Week: We've come a long way, baby
A little while back, I put out the call for UIs with a bit of history, a bit of evolution to them. I love seeing how my UI has evolved over the years, starting off with the basic Blizzard UI, until I realised that I could tinker with the overall scale, and then began adding unit frame addons, then action bar addons, castbar addons, and the whole thing got completely out of hand and escalated to the point where I started writing addon and UI columns for WoW Insider! And it's always interesting to see how others' UIs have developed, too. Today, we're delving into the past and present of Alphabot's UI. He's sent over several pictures, of both his current UI and his UIs past. So here, in chronological order, are UI shots one, two, three, four and five, and his current UI out of combat, in combat, and with everything on -- in test mode, so to speak. Let's move into Alphabot's email.
Reader UI of the Week: Remarkably minimal custom-made healing UI
There are several kinds of UI. Lately on Reader UI of the Week, we've looked at several that do specific jobs, that are functional, even those that fulfil particular requirements for specialized players. This week's UI is, instead, one that is supremely focused on form. That is not to say, of course, that Kait neglects the functional elements of the design, indeed, he does an excellent job of integrating the elements he needs to perform his role, whilst still making a supremely pretty UI. Unlike our usual submitters, Kait has sent us a video of his UI in action, which you can see on the header, and watch on his YouTube channel along with videos of his other UIs. Kait has also sent in three pictures, one solo healing, one raid healing, and one of the custom designed talent pane. Let's get into Kait's email.
UI Surgery: Downsizing your UI for a smaller screen or resolution
Sometimes players find themselves in the position where they have to downsize. It happens to us all now and then, for whatever reason, you're heading to someone else's house and need to play on their computer, your monitor explodes and you find yourself using that little one you had in the attic to make your raid happen, your desktop decides enough is enough and you're stuck with a laptop, your good laptop goes back to Asus to be repaired for the third time and you've got to use the little laptop with the lower resolution. And your UI's a mess. We've actually had a few emails about exactly these sorts of issues, asking how to rework or resize a UI for a smaller screen, what's good and what's bad, and what works the best for form and function over both different sizes and on a small screen. Last week's Reader UI of the Week, from Thieren, made an excellent job of this. Thieren plays on a 1280x1024 monitor, and, thanks to her preferred in-game activities, requires both large chat panes and a lot of screen space, something that isn't often available on a smaller monitor, but makes great use of what she has to play with.
Reader UI of the Week: Small screen, big ideas
Everyone has specific goals to achieve with their UI, it's one of the things I particularly like about writing this column, is seeing what people are up against, and how they've worked with their UI to adapt to that. And this week's UI is no exception. While many of us are playing the game with big monitors, with big computers, or with big budgets, there are others who aren't. This week's Reader UI comes to you from a 1280x1024 monitor, and the submitter, Thieren, has had to work around their resolution to create a UI that allows them the maximum of screen space, and visibility, so that they can be at their most effective. As a result, the header image is oddly cropped, but fear not, Thieren sent in several screenshots for us all to look at in environments where size doesn't matter. There's a solo shot, one in a ten-man raid, one in LFR, one solo, in combat and one in a party, out of combat. Let's jump straight into Thieren's email I've largely run with this UI since early Wrath when I sat down to reign in the mess I'd created when I began tinkering with addons during Burning Crusade. There have been alterations, but they're more quality of life stuff and replacing out-of-date addons. The most recent, and the reason for the delay, was moving my SUF bars down from the typical Blizzard position.
Addon Spotlight: DoT trackers
DoT trackers are addons which monitor your DoTs, or Damage over Time effects. If you're playing a class whose damage relies on DoTs, and there are plenty, you should definitely consider using one of these addons. What they do is provide an easy-to-read representation of what DoTs you have on a given target, be it your focus, your target, or any target in the area, depending on your choice of addon. This is important to ensure DoT classes are maximising their DPS, and yes, the Blizzard standard UI does represent them, but the time display is not that clear. To maximise DoT damage, efficient re-casting is key. You should certainly check out guides for your specific class to ensure you're using the right method, whether that's clipping -- replacing a DoT before it's expired -- or allowing something like a mage Living Bomb to explode. It's often useful to be able to start the cast of a DoT to time it with its expiration, and of course, to maintain maximum DoT uptime for the minimum of GCDs and mana, and for all those reasons, you need to track your DoTs. Tidy Plates What the heck? Why am I starting with a nameplate addon? Well, dear reader, I understand your confusion, but for PvP purposes, Tidy Plates, or any similar addon such as the built-in ElvUI nameplates, is a pretty decent way to track your DoTs.
Reader UI of the Week: Custom Creation
I've been sitting on this UI for a while, and I'm really not sure why, as it offers a lot of great elements. Kiebs, the submitter, send in a very short email, simply because he had very, very few addons to share with us, the majority of the work behind his UI is, as we can see from the header image, covered in the design. Kiebs designs his UI elements himself. He covers this in his very, very brief email, which I'll pop in below. Kiebs writes: Here's an artsy one for you. I noticed you don't see many of them, but I like designing UI artwork in photoshop, and I use KGPanels to add them into the game. I then rearrange the bars with bartender and change cast bar etc. This is my PvP Monk so... very few addons, I like to keep it real simple. KGpanels, CoolLine, Bartender, CoolDownCount, Chatter, TidyPlates. (unseen ones as well obviously for PvP, Gladius, Afflicted3 etc..) Also threw in my Mage one that I'm working on at the moment for PvE. Like I said, nothing crazy raid worthy, just some fun! Kiebs also sent in several screenshots, showing off his rather minimal UI.
Addon Spotlight: Skada versus Recount
It turns out that Addon Spotlight hasn't done an exploration of what must be among the top ten most used addons in World of Warcraft for many years. So, of course, we had to put that right. Yes, there are categorically other DPS addons available, such as TinyDPS, but I think it's fair to say that these two are the biggest. So we should examine them, it seems, and wonder why people prefer Skada to Recount and vice versa. As you can see, I've been running with both addons active, in the interest of testing, and what's more, I've been combat logging and uploading the results to World of Logs, in the interest of having the output verified against an independent third party. And the results have been fairly interesting! But let's start with a comparison of some of the elements of the addons that don't relate to their numerical output. First and foremost, before we get on to the heavy stuff, by far the most important question one can ask about any DPS meter, what visual customization does it offer?
Reader UI of the Week: Revynn's Revelations
On flipping through the submissions for Reader UI of the Week, it seems to be the different and unusual UIs that really catch my eye. And there's no doubt at all that this is one of them. A cursory glance at the header image will reveal that, and a deeper look at the rest of Revynn's email will confirm that this is no ordinary UI! Revynn also sent three shots, in combat in a raid, idle in a raid, and idle in a city. Revynn writes: I just finished tweaking my newest layout (who am I kidding - it's never done) so I figured I'd send it in. The overhaul started fairly early in MoP when I got a new video card but didn't really ever come to fruition until I upgraded my monitor a couple weeks ago. With a new monitor came new resolutions and everything I had set up was subsequently thrown out of whack. In reality, the newest version doesn't vary too heavily from the last one that I used throughout a large portion of Cataclysm (and in fact is the end result of something I've been tweaking and iterating since ICC), but it does serve to address a few things that had been bugging me. Most important of those was clutter. On any given fight, I had too much crap going on, too many timers, too many bars and indicators as is often the case when using a boss mod like DBM. Also, the raid frames, while nicely tucked away for a DPS character, were annoyingly out of place while healing. Lastly, my UI had just gotten a little too big for its britches and could use some trimming.
Reader UI of the Week: Shamanistic Simplicity
This week's submission comes from Marsailli of Waypoint, Medivh-US, who plays a red-headed dwarf restoration shaman. She has an elemental off-spec and is an addon junkie! In case readers weren't aware, your friendly columnist also plays a red-headed dwarf restoration shaman, with an elemental off-spec, and is a bit of an addon junkie. This is going to be interesting, for me particularly, as Marsailli's and my UI do almost the same jobs -- the only difference is that I do a lot of PvP, while, as Marsailli states in her email, her main game is PvE. Marsailli sent us a few screenshots, out of combat, solo; out of combat with most elements visible; and in combat as elemental; as well as the resto in combat video you can see in the header. Marsailli writes: I play Marsailli -- resto/elemental dwarf shaman on Medivh in the guild Waypoint. My guild usually pokes fun at me because I've been known to /disableaddons during raid encounters and change my UI more frequently than my socks. There are a few things I know you'll probably discuss, so let me just disclaim this entire interface! I've relied on two primary fonts: Arial Narrow and Friz Quadrata. They're both fonts included in the default interface and I've continued using them. Why? Because they're easy to read and I'm terribly near sighted. I've used Arial Narrow for all of the important info with a Thin Outline turned on to make it easier to read. You'll undoubtedly notice that Quartz does not use Arial Narrow – the reason is that Quartz doesn't offer outlines for fonts. I also like the mix of both fonts as the inclusion of Friz provides some consistency with the default UI pieces I've kept (character pane, chat tabs, and other panels).
Addon Spotlight: Your addon questions
We haven't had an Addon Mailbag in a while, and the questions starting to mount up. The poor undead lady you see in the header is getting quite flustered about having such a full mailbox, so it seemed like a logical time to address the task at hand. If you have a question, do stick it in the comments or send me an email! Let's get started with a very simple question that took me an inordinate amount of time to answer: Chester writes: I loved your article on getting started with weak auras. I have a question though, how do you make the box showing the graphic transparent? I followed your mindbender example but it showed the box as opaque. I would like to see only the graphic show up like in power auras classic. thanks for any help! It took me a really, really long time to find this option, which was, quite frankly, rather annoying given that it's on the front page of the options screen.
Reader UI of the Week: The UI Doctor returns
A couple of weeks back, the UI doctor stopped in to help a user by the name of Luthuvien. After that column, there's been quite a few requests for assistance, so the doctor is returning for today. Just like last time, please do let us know of any ideas you might have to help the submitters out -- last time the commenters were fantastically helpful with addon suggestions and the like, so let's do the same this time! As ever, UI modification is hugely subjective, it's all based on opinion, and mine is no more weighty than anyone else's. Khaldrogo writes: I play a human retribution paladin on the US realm, Azuremyst. His name is Khäldrogo. I'm trying to find the perfect UI, one that is most efficient for a dps for raiding, and has room to improve if I wanted to tank or heal. I like things being very lightweight, non-cpu heavy. But I also love looking at the game's art, so I don't want something that takes over the whole screen. I loved Carbonite's look for the quests on the UI, but I didn't like the Carbonite map. Any way to just have the look for the UI? I've tried xperl, but I didn't like it. I am currently using LUI, but it's very buggy at the moment. I've included the list of addons I use. I'm open to any suggestions.
Reader UI of the Week: What can you do with the standard UI?
I put out a call a while back for UI submissions featuring, as far as possible, elements of the standard UI. I was curious to see what WoW Insider's readers could make with these elements, and as little else as possible. The restrictions were few -- as far as possible, everything had to be a standard UI element, nothing else. Addons were, of course, permitted, but as far as possible they had to be invisible, or modifying the UI in such a way that they remained hidden. I had a fair few submissions, and also had a go at it myself, and thought I should share the outcome of all these good people's hard work! Do let us know what you think, and if you have any suggestions or questions, of course leave a comment. Dezzalee writes: The above shot is my UI. I use the Blizzard standard default UI with a few addons that move stuff. BasicMiniMap: I use it to move the minimap to the lower left hand corner because it is hard for me to see it in the upper right hand corner. I have a wide-screen monitor and OLD eyes and it is just too hard for me to see it anywhere else. I use it to look for herb and mining nodes and fishing nodes.
