Will BW3 have Screen Shakes and Flashes? >.>

You can do 1 better:

Raid

Local

Its a possibility for a separate module, its something that will need to be discussed.

I tried DBM and looked at the code, and yes, a LOT is ripped from bigwigs... DBM has a few extra features for bosses like Kael'thas and Naj'entus. Bigwigs resort to text and bars, where DBM goes a step further and adds a bit of GUI.

The only reason I got DBM was for Naj'entus, but I quickly deleted it again after seeing just how insanely bloated the thing is, it does a ton of things that a boss mod simply shouldn't do - instead I coded the Naj'entus HP warning into Bigwigs as plain text.

Ah yea, BigWigs has extra GUI modules for bosses like Loatheb, which I think is a much nicer approach than DBM's bloat.

Another thing is that DBM is not that used, I had 2 in my raid using it besides me, where everyone else uses BigWigs, it makes a difference when it comes to getting good sync data from the raid.

Updating Bigwigs is also a ton easier than DBM, and I can commit my own fixes to it, and don't have to wait for a new DBM releases to appear on Curse.

Summary: BigWigs wins by a long shot, DBM was deleted quickly

I forgot about the weapons HP bar in DBM for Kael. That's not necessary but it's nice to have.

The feature I love the most is the boss whisper feature in DBM. I don't feel like downloading a separate mod to enable it when I already have a boss mod that has it built in. My assumption as a non-coder is that it would not be a herculean task to incorporate that into Bigwigs, so I imagine there must be a non-coding reason for it to not be included.

I think if you ask people what the difference is between the two mods, most people will say timing, bars and the boss whisper feature.

If Bigwigs had the boss whisper feature built in, I think it would eliminate one of DBM's competitive advantage.

The Weapon/Advisor HP panels etc that DBM has would be nice to have in Bigwigs even if they were optional modules, I can understand not wanting to include 'bloat' into Bigwigs but having that info at a glance is a pretty nice thing to have.

I've not really had any problems with Bigwigs other than the Al'ar module, it tends to be pretty buggy and the module resets, often during phase 2 you'll get the Al'ar engaged phase 1 message which will reset the enrage bar so you don't actually know how long you really have till enrage, doesn't seem to affect the Melt Armor bars though.

Have to say I never had this issue.

What got me to switch from BW to DBM was when we were trash farming, and did our initial pull on Gurtogg Bloodboil. There were no timers for the Bloodboil applications in Bigwigs, which just seemed to be a pretty key feature of the fight that was missing from the mod.

I installed DBM to see if it had Bloodboil timers, and sure enough, not only did it include timers, but warnings setup for 3 Bloodboil teams. The next week when we did Naj'entus, and it showed during the bubble anyone that was below 8500 health (and whether or not they had some sort of absorption shield), I was pretty well sold.

It announces Hyjal trash waves, and their composition (Using the crappy bosskillers info, but that was easily modified), and generally functions incredibly well.

What I'd really love to see would be a Boss mod wizard tool. Where you can go through some questionnaire, and say things like When [Boss Name] yells [Emote Text], start a timer for [x] seconds. Then you're able to go to that timer and say whether it repeats indefinitely, or conditionally ends, goes once, etc...

Bigwigs was fine for SSC/TK, save for the Vashj add spawn timers, but since hitting up the t6 content, DBM has just been a much more valuable addon.

You must have had a pretty old version, BigWigs has had that timer since before DBM even made a module. Hyjal timers were out months before DBM's as a 3rd party module, it only recently got added to the core addon. I'm currently working on a counted timer for the blood to make it easier for groups.

As to your box, its a module that has been discussed for BW3. I really don't want to reveal too much in case it gets ripped before we make it.

EDIT: About a 'wizard' you could always macro a custom timer.

Is there a way to accomplish this without it including the character name? For folks with longer character names like myself, it often doesn't leave much room for a bar title. Doing "/bwcb 5:00 Some Longer Title" comes up as something along the lines of [5:00 Noobsauce: Some L...] simply due to space issues.

I think he's referring to the "/pull" command that's available via DBM. It starts a 15 second "/rw" countdown and then in blue "PULL NOW". I use it for fights like Karathress & Maulgar where we're timing a pull with multiple tanks or hunters.

I vastly prefer BigWigs. I encourage my guild to use it, as well. The only functionality anyone has ever complained about missing from DBM was the notification when you send a tell to a raid member that returns the boss being engaged and its current health % (and honestly, I could care less).

Scratch that, I *think* I fixed it in the latest version.

I used DBM for ages and was a stoic supporter of it. However, as my guild's progression sped up, we surpassed where the mod was up to and it was either switch to BigWigs or use nothing. Once I'd set up BigWigs to be comfortable I was blown away at how much better it felt for me. I lauded it's merits and my entire guild switched over to it, never looking back.

Being able to update it easily with WAU is the icing on the cake.

I use mostly Ace Mods, but I really enjoy the screen shakes from DBMs.

Plus DBM likely steals the timers from BWs, so you know they are right .

To be honest though, sometimes I have no idea what BW is trying to tell me. I just see a window with peoples names in them.

Um, the range scanner? People too close?

Its in.

I prefer BW simply because of how fast it is updated, I think the Illidan module had parasite warnings before he was even killed, not exactly the most important warning ever, but it shows just how fast it's updated.

I've used both pretty extensively, and I still prefer DBM. It has all sorts of cool little things that BW doesn't (or didn't the last time I tried it) like PvP timers, built in old-world encounters, status windows (for example) of people under 8.5k health on Na'jentus, etc. Version 3 has a bunch more bells and whistles, such as automatically zooming bars which are about to expire and the ability to move everything. Whether or not the timers are perfect is of little consequence to me, as I've always used them as a rough guide rather than something set in stone.

It does really all come down to personal preferance though. Both do their job well and you can't go wrong with either one.

Thing is, I don't *want* PvP timers in my bossmod. PvP timers are handled (and quite well) by capping. While BigWigs sometimes takes this philosophy to an extreme, there's certainly no reason for PvP timers to be in a boss mod (nor is there any reason for boss timers in a PvP mod, talent sharing in a map mod, map position sharing in a tradeskill mod, etc.)

So yeah... I'll admit I liked the functionality of DBM of having aggro warnings, screen shakes, PvP timers, and all that stuff in one mod as opposed to 5 or 6. But then I tried both BW and DBM side by side in SSC tonight, and DBM wasn't even working, no bars or anything. Don't know what the deal was but I uploaded the new version, messed with all the settings and still nothing. BW however was spot on all night. I may play with DBM some more, but I think my mind is pretty much made up.. BW hasn't really ever let us down and being able to update through the WAU is a huge plus. Plus I really like what I'm hearing about BigWigs3.

The only thing I could think to suggest is a an optional module similar to what DBM has with the screen shake/glow effects on certain events.

Honestly is that even worth the time to produce? If you are raiding and don't have the appropriate monitoring mods already and don't see where you are at, then that wont help to the extent the others would. Raid frames, oRA2 module of Player targets and so forth.

But the ONE thing that BW doesn't have, that I think DBM has is a Shade of Akama mod. Yes the fight is easy, but because we have a few people in our raids who use it I see warnings of 3/6 Channelers dead, 3/6 Sorcerers dead, it tells me when Shade of Akama is coming out without even having to look towards that area when killing the doors off.

I wholeheartedly prefer Bigwigs over DBM And have been using it and converted my whole raid/guild to it for consistency. There are a couple things I prefer in DBM like the GUI on KT with the weapon/advisor HP which is just nice for a raidoverview especially when leading raids and being a DPSr you can't really start changing targets around the room to check Hps etc.

Another thing is the WW timer on Leotheras seems to be wildly inaccurate a lot of the time but it's usually no big problem.