Raid target debuff tracking (a.k.a. "The pDebuffList Thread")

♦ Praetorian · 05/30/07, 5:26 PM

I know there are a bunch of mods out there that track your own DoTs/debuffs on a target, and are commonly used by warlocks cycling DoTs, mages keeping scorch up, warriors making sure sunder/demo/etc. don't drop off, and so forth.

However, as a shaman and a raid leader, I don't have any personal debuffs to maintain, but I would like a handy and simple all-in-one solution to tracking the major debuffs on a target -- demo, TC, CoE/CoS/CoR, sunder, Faerie Fire -- letting me know when they're on, and when/whether they fall off. Is there a mod out there that's well-suited to this goal without also flooding me with lots of extraneous information?

pDebuffList:

http://www.wowace.com/files/pDebuffList/pDebuffList.zip

Antiarc · 05/30/07, 5:28 PM

I've never seen one, but it shouldn't be too hard to implement, actually. Are you talking about your own target, or an arbitrary target? If you do your own target or a /focus, it's pretty trivial. An arbitrary target is a bit rougher, but not impossible. The target of a specific raid unit would as easy as your own target, I'd think.

♦ Praetorian · 05/30/07, 5:31 PM

My own target or /focus would be fine. Basically as a raid leader I want to make sure all the crucial debuffs are up at a given time without squinting at the rows of debuff icons under my target frame. If we're doing Morogrim or Gruul or Mag or whatever, I want to know that he always has Demo/CoW on him and to be able to say "Dammit, reapply Demo" the second it ceases to be on there, without having to look for the debuff icon in the middle of all the DoTs on him. And so forth.

It seems like this should be much easier as a result of the 2.1 debuff functionality.

subscience · 05/30/07, 5:32 PM

Debuff Filter? I'm not sure if this can create duplicate containers with different filters, but it does allow filtering on your Focus.

Antiarc · 05/30/07, 5:33 PM

Using Ace libs, I could probably hack something up that would do this really quickly. Now that time-remaining on debuffs information is available to the client without having to track cast times/talents/etc etc etc, it should be pretty trivial to set up a DOT timer-style candybar list for this. If you don't find anything, say so and I'll hack it up when I get bored.

♦ Praetorian · 05/30/07, 5:37 PM

Yeah, moreso than filtering, my ideal vision of what such an addon would do and look like would be a box with a bunch of candybars or an icon/text to indicate that the debuff is missing, visible when I am a) in combat; b) in a raid group; c) not in a battleground. Throw in a config menu allowing me to check/uncheck the debuffs I care about (CoW/CoS/CoE/CoR/Sunder/Expose/TClap/Demo/FF/???), and call it a day. Also maybe an option for a text warning when a flagged debuff drops off.

I was honestly expecting something like this to exist already.

♦ Praetorian · 05/30/07, 5:53 PM

This mod is in the ballpark of what I had in mind: http://www.wowace.com/forums/index.php?topic=6052.0

Except that is class-specific, making it too narrow in some ways and too broad in others.

Fendryl · 05/30/07, 5:55 PM

It might be worth getting the guy working on ClassTimers to consider adding a "Custom" class instead of having it assume you only want to watch the debuffs associated with your class.

You could probably even adjust the ones contained in bars/General.lua for the ones you want to track.

Quigon · 05/30/07, 5:56 PM

The problem with sunder and demo are that there is no indication in the combat log when they are successfully reapplied. We have an internal mod that tracks these debuffs and shares the info, but it was a royal pain in the ass the right up. Doesn't the default GUI do this now? And there is some debuff filter mod out there that sorts on top of this.

Fendryl · 05/30/07, 6:05 PM

According to the 2.1 changes (emphasis mine):

* UPDATED - name, rank, icon, count, debuffType, duration, timeLeft = UnitDebuff("target", i); -- Now returns duration and timeLeft for debuffs you can cast (those with times come first in the list

I don't think a shaman can get the time remaining on a non-shaman debuff. You'd need something to maintain a data sync from all the classes I think.

♦ Praetorian · 05/30/07, 6:09 PM

That's a pain if so, though knowing "is it on or not" without duration would be better than nothing, for sure.

Kalman · 05/30/07, 6:29 PM

Originally Posted by Praetorian

That's a pain if so, though knowing "is it on or not" without duration would be better than nothing, for sure.

Just for knowing "Is it on", DebuffFilter will suit your needs. Can monitor target or focus (or both) with configurable debuff lists for each.

For timers, you're going to need something that syncs amongst all raid members, and afaik it doesn't exist yet, although it would certainly be a lot easier to write now with the getTime aspect added in 2.1; rather than tracking bars, each raid member simply getTimes all available times, and then syncs time remaining, with a display mod oriented around choosing the debuffs you wish to track.

chase · 05/30/07, 6:29 PM

Originally Posted by Praetorian

That's a pain if so, though knowing "is it on or not" without duration would be better than nothing, for sure.

Well than debuff filter should work for you.

edit: I'm slow.

Northerner · 05/30/07, 7:42 PM

It's been said (twice even) but I'll echo that DebuffFilter will suit your needs. I use it for exactly that purpose in a position off to the side and magnified somewhat. Although designed as a filter it also works great as a supplementary filtered window.

There is definitely room for a dedicated mod that does nothing else and also adds some other functionality (Quartz style estimated timers would be nice) but this does the trick. Apologies for the excess redundancy of the post.

♦ Praetorian · 05/30/07, 8:14 PM

I'll have to investigate it. My understanding was that all it did was filter your debuff display to show specific ones, which is something, but still a clunky and seemingly requires more of my attention than I'd like to devote when I'm looking to get a piece of info right away. I'm more concerned with which debuffs AREN'T on the target than which are, is the main point. If Demo/TC/Sunder/CoE/CoS/CoR/FF are on the boss, I don't want to have to peer at a window to count them all and make sure. If Demo/TC/Sunder/CoE/CoS/CoR are on the boss, but FF is not, I want to know that immediately at a glance, since that's really what matters.