Thursday, December 10, 2009

Moving Past Squawk and Awe - Power Auras Classic

EDIT: There is a new version of the export posted below. Please replace your old import with this. I have changed the lunar proc color to be more inline with what Blizzard uses. I tinkered with the FF aura to show out of combat as well, since its typically the first spell cast. I fixed the references for the innervate auras, which should eliminate some of the ghost auras that folks have seen. Standardized font on all of the timers. Each aura will be available individually as well.

Squawk and Awe has been a great mod for Moonkins. A staple of the raiding Moonkin's arsenal. However, Adoriele, the developer, no longer plays WoW. Mass panic struck the Moonkin community when the Eclipse change seemed to break SAA. So I'm going to offer an alternative that is based off of a video I saw not too long ago. I am no longer using SAA, but now I use Power Auras Classic. The following is an export of all of my Moonkin related auras.

I have the following auras:
  • Faerie Fire - This aura displays a little pink symbol to the right of my character if it detects the absence of my Faerie Fire on the target.

  • Nature's Grace - The Nature's Grace aura displays white sidebars around my character for the duration of the buff. I find this useful for both timing Hurricanes and simply as a heads up while casting normal nukes. There is no timer or animation with this aura.

  • Insect Swarm - This aura detects my Insect Swarm on an enemy target and provides a visual marker along with a timer that counts down. This is located towards the bottom left of my character.

  • Moonfire - Much like the Insect Swarm aura, this aura detect my Moonfire on an enemy target. It does adjust to the proper time if you are using the Glyph of Starfire. This aura also provides a timer and is located adjacent to the Insect Swarm aura.

  • Eclipse - There are actually two Eclipse auras, a bluish one for a Lunar Eclipse and an orange one for a Solar Eclipse. They appear as a halo around my characters head and have a timer in the middle counting down till the end of Eclipse.


  • Innervate - My Innervate aura is composed of two auras working together conditionally. The first aura checks the cooldown of Innervate. The second aura checks my mana. If my mana is below 56% and my Innervate is available, a blue arrow appears in the middle of my character telling me that I can (and should) Innervate. If either condition is not met, this aura does not show. It is important to make sure that each aura references the other. In the import, they are auras 1 and 2. If you imported the auras individually, mouse over each aura to find the aura ID and type it in the reference box across from the Exact Name checkbox.



Easy Mass Install

  1. Copy the following code and then open Power Auras in WoW by typing /powa.
  2. Click Import Set.
  3. Paste the code into the box that appears and click Accept.
  4. Congratulations! You're now set up. Right click on any aura in Power Auras to adjust the settings, position, or graphic.

Here's a screenshot of what it looks like with a Lunar Eclipse, Nature's Grace, and both DoTs up (click to enlarge).

24 comments:

lissanna said...

THe S&A author was able to get an update for the addon to make it patch-compatable.

Maestro said...

Yes I am aware of this, however it is unrealistic to expect Adoriele to continue to patch S&A without a subscription to the game. At some point, the project will either need to be taken over or will become defunct.

This offers a viable alternative to S&A with a mod that many people already use, especially to watch debuff stacks (biting cold!)

Bruski said...

Thank you very much.
I knew power auras had the ability to do this, but I'm still learning the addon, and this was very helpful.
/fluffy boomkin hug

Erik said...

Relevart, what about Eclipse cooldown?
Does your script also track this?

Hope so, I think Power Auras is a really nice addon. SAA is great but not the prettiest addon around.

BR Erik/Fangael, Stormreaver-EU

Maestro said...

@ Erik

I was looking into cooldown tracking for Eclipse. My initial answer is yes, it should be possible. I haven't fiddled with it yet. If I find a way, I will post it up here.

@ Sir Nicholai

You're very welcome! =]

Appock said...

Would it be possible for you to post a couple of screen shots with how you've set up PAC? I know you describe it, but how much space on your UI do you have it take up? Thanks for working hard to come up with this. I know PAC isn't necessarily the most user friendly mod to setup (not impossible, just a little more difficult than most), so your work is appreciated!

You make a good point with the likely hood that SAA will eventually be non-working and the community will abandon it.

Figure said...

I, too, would love to see a screenshot! I've gotten terribly spoiled & adjusted to S&A.. to the point where I'm trying to find a shadowpriest addon I can set up similarly (no such luck yet). I've gotten quite fond of how it looks & functions, oddly enough.

Setting up PAC has intimidated me in the past, but if that's the solution to both problems, I may need to go that route again!

Maestro said...

Ok, I added a screenshot of my UI while Power Auras was up and running. I'm not sure if you're asking for a picture tutorial of my settings, but comment back if you are. I'm sure I could take a screenshot of every setup panel and link them here.

Anonymous said...

Can you describe the rest of your addons? Where is the target frame and/or focus frame? Thanks!

Maestro said...

@ Anon - Sure! I use a HUD for targeting. I grew used to MetaHUD and haven't been able to break away from it. My vitals are on the left and the enemies are on the right. I set up Mik Scrolling Combat Text to do announcements right above my range as well as show outgoing damage scrolling along the enemies health bar. Incoming damage scrolls down my health bar. The cast bar you see is Quartz. I use Pitbull UF, but very minimally. If my target had a target, you would see that target located below the cast bar but centered horizontally. My focus frame (if I have a focus) is nestled right by my Shapeshifting bar. If the enemy is casting, their cast bar would be in a mirror location to mine. I show my buffs with Satrina Buff Frames and MetaHUD handles my targets debuffs.

My button mod is Bartender and while there are a lot of buttons there, I almost never click. I put them on there because I like the security blanket. SexyMap is smack dab in the middle of my bottom bar, which I skin with BTex. Chatter is my chat mod.

I use Grid, which is left justified at the center of my screen. Omen and Recount are right justified and centered as well. I show 5 bars on both omen and recount.

All the little numbers are SLData, although currently SLData Zone is bugging out and causing errors.

I think that pretty much covers my functional addons. I skin everything with ButtonFacade so that all icons are similar. Bar styles are all Minimalist. Font is Fritz wherever I can get it.

Anonymous said...

Stellar info, thanks very much. I'm a boomkin/tank combo and I use quartz too -- I installed power auras b/c of quartz eclipse not working anymore. Right now I'm using x-perl and bartender but I'm going back and forth on where to put my target frames -- they always seem to get in way, or I have to look around too much and during visually intensive fights, I don't need the extra distractions. Does metahud or power auras help you with threat for tanking? I mean, I use omen, but I've played with several addons that change color if I'm losing threat but haven't been happy with them -- too much garbage on the screen. Any suggestions?

Maestro said...

Yeah, UI design is tough, because there is so much we'd like to see there.

Wisprunner has a pretty good article on how he designs his UIs, which tend to be highly functional and aesthetically pleasing as well. Check it out here: http://www.themoonkinrepository.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4025

As far as threat monitoring, I saw a video of a warrior who monitored threat through nameplates. It was not nearly as cluttered as I had imagined on his screen and he was able to track threat on multiple targets at once. I personally have not been tanking very much so I haven't looked for this but it was always one of my annoyances when I was feral.

Anonymous said...

Thanks -- that wisprunne article is really good -- more options than I know what to do with! lol I do use threatplates but the title plates jump around so much it's distracting... I'll keep looking and ty for your help!

Anonymous said...

Hey there, Great post. I use Power auras already but really like the concept of your innervate aura. Been looking for it in the text u provided but cant find it, can you copy just the innervate part for me?
Thnx =)

Maestro said...

Yes, I can do that. I'll try to put it up in the main body in individual pieces later today (~5 pm CST)

Maestro said...

Individual auras are now posted for importing. Remember that if your innervate auras are not auraID 1 and 2, you will need to change the references.

Unknown said...

Thanks a lot! It seems, that I didn't know much about the power of Power Auras Classic... You helped me a lot!

barstardstollemysandwhich! said...

ill have to get rid of my iceHUD, but no biggie.

Thankyou very much! ive had power auras for a while, but couldn't get it to wok so i disabled it D:

shame about SAA, it was a brilliant add on...

Maestro said...

lawl at the u/n.

Actually SAA got patched by the author, so if you like that setup, you can definitely grab the latest version from WoWInterface. However, it's unrealistic to expect that to continue so here is an alternative.

No need to get rid of iceHUD. I use metaHUD but the positioning of all of the auras can be edited to fit around/inside iceHUD (which has a greater curvature, iirc). Glad you enjoyed the post!

Unknown said...

This is great, with the addition of the eclipse cooldown timer it will be complete... just used this tonight and it helped me tremendously. Now i have to figure out how to do this for my dk... Thanks again!

Maestro said...

I've got a request in with the current author about the timer (or the ability to manually enter a timer). If you're interested in some auras for your DK, check out http://powerauras.wikispaces.com/ . There should be a link on the left side that will take you to DK exports!

Unknown said...

Hey, This is amazing, i have spent many hours looking for the eclipse holy grail~ THIS IS IT.

No more dot clipping it's just.... perfect..


About the Eclipse CD use an add-on called ECLIPSE, disable all other timers and bars but leave the eclipse CD one, just drag it under the dot icons in power auras, works a charm.

Maestro said...

Thanks for the heads up on that addon to track ICD of Eclipse. I know that the solution in PowerAuras is still in the pipeline and have no estimate as to when it will emerge.

Slyda said...

Rev... Is it possible to have a Powa count another 15 seconds off after each eclipse. Wouldn't have to be a countdown but say something placed on the opposite side of where you place FF. That is up for 15 seconds after your eclipse comes off? You could have both cooldowns in the same spot just one blue and one orange and use the same icon. I remember back in 3.2 smashing my head against using Powa vs S&A when S&A first started having issues. And went back to S&A because of the Internal CD timer. But would we be able to do that?