better rotations for drums/bloodlusts

Malan · 05/13/08, 11:31 PM

I don't suppose anyone has taken to task creating an addon that would allow you to specify Bloodlust/drum rotations and notify the appropriate people at completion of each buff for the next guy to get started?

I would envision something that can be preset to form a rotation for the 2 buffs, and then notify your group when it goes off if you're the one casting it, and notify the next guy in line, or a 3rd party for bloodlusts who might be swapping you, that its there turn to go.

Right now we macro this stuff but its a pain in the ass if someone misses their macro and throws off the rotations.

◊ Embar · 05/14/08, 12:18 AM

SimpleDrumAnnounce does the announcement in party 2 seconds before Drums of Battle wears off, but I haven't seen one for heroism yet (which would also depend on your raid assist's ability to switch shaman in and out smoothly).

i2av · 05/14/08, 12:28 AM

I've been playing around with some simple candybars and an announce to show current drums and drum cooldowns for your group. Right now it is nothing more than a dirty hack with some slash commands.

spiderella · 05/14/08, 12:38 AM

Our melee group has 4 drums, they all installed DrummerBoy | World of Warcraft Addons | Curse and said it helped a lot. It gives bars for drum duration and drum cooldowns of group members.

Bloodlusts we've never really had a problem with rotating, we always have a designated swapper and just make vent calls /shrug. It would be plausible to use some combination of some other mods (ElkBuffBar, BigWigs Common Aura, CastYeller) to do basically the same job as drummerboy for Bloodlust.

Rieux · 05/14/08, 3:05 AM

I'm not sure how using an addon over a macro will alleviate people messing up rotations. I've used this macro with great success with people in my guild:

#showtooltip Drums of Battle
/cast Drums of Battle
/p Used Drums of Battle: 30s left.
/in 20 /p Drums of Battle: 10s left.
/in 25 /p Drums of Battle: 5s left.
/in 30 /p Drums of Battle expired GO GO

Simple and straightforward; alerts party members on use, 10s, 5s, and expiration. If you have a set group you can simply change the last line of the macro to a specific name to keep a proper rotation going.

Malan · 05/14/08, 9:50 AM

Well my guild doesn't raid with vent so we use all text alerts. The problem is that a few of our guys (mostly the resto shamans) are really bad about paying attention to chat to catch the alerts for their rotation. They can watch a candy-bar just fine, but they practically ignore chat channels while they're healing.

I did not know that there was a macro command that would auto trigger at the end of a timer though, that'll at least help with the drums.

ArethorCM · 05/14/08, 10:30 AM

Pretty much everyone in our raids use a variation of this macro. It's basically the same as Rieux with some minor differences.

#showtooltip Drums of Battle
/use drums of battle
/p I have used Drums of Battle! (30 seconds)
/in 30 /p My Drums of Battle have ended.
/in 110 /p My Drums of Battle will be available in 10 seconds.
/in 120 /p My Drums of Battle are available.

In order for the /in command to work the person using the macro needs to have Big Wigs installed.
You could use something similar for Bloodlust/Heroism.

#showtooltip Bloodlust
/cast Bloodlust
/p Bloodlusted for 40 seconds
/in 40 /p Bloodlust Down
/in 40 /w RaidAssistant Bloodlust down

Basically this does the same thing with party announcing but also would send a tell to the RaidAssistant that it's time to swap shaman. If your individual is quick with swapping, you could even add in an additional line something like "/in 45 /w ShamanName Bloodlust now" the problem here obviously is if the swap doesn't happen soon enough, or if the other shaman has sounds off so doesn't hear the whisper sound.

Malan · 05/14/08, 1:54 PM

Originally Posted by ArethorCM

In order for the /in command to work the person using the macro needs to have Big Wigs installed.
You could use something similar for Bloodlust/Heroism.

Doh. We run with DBM. Is there a way to do that in DBM too?

◊ manly · 05/14/08, 2:07 PM

I recommend using {skull} or {circle} or something similar in the drums macro. It allows for people to visually know what the macro is without even having to read the text.

Ohi · 05/14/08, 2:14 PM

Originally Posted by Malan

Doh. We run with DBM. Is there a way to do that in DBM too?

Actually what they need to have is AceEvent installed somewhere in their mods.. If you are a user of Ace addons, you should already have this embedded in one of your mods.

If you're not sure, you can simply download the library from files.wowace.com.

Zene · 05/14/08, 3:10 PM

Originally Posted by Rieux

#showtooltip Drums of Battle
/cast Drums of Battle
/p Used Drums of Battle: 30s left.
/in 20 /p Drums of Battle: 10s left.
/in 25 /p Drums of Battle: 5s left.
/in 30 /p Drums of Battle expired GO GO

I currently use a similar macro. The one thing I dislike is when someone else in your party spams the macro because their GCD isn't ready for it and you end up seeing something like

Used Drums of Battle: 30s left.
Used Drums of Battle: 30s left.
Used Drums of Battle: 30s left.
Used Drums of Battle: 30s left.
Used Drums of Battle: 30s left.
Used Drums of Battle: 30s left.

then 20s later you see
Drums of Battle: 10s left.
Drums of Battle: 10s left.
Drums of Battle: 10s left.
Drums of Battle: 10s left.
Drums of Battle: 10s left.
Drums of Battle: 10s left.

Which can be annoying if other important info is being said in any communication channel.

I was unaware of those addons and will give those a shot to see how they fare.

Malan · 05/14/08, 3:20 PM

You can wrap the /cast in a macro function that checks to see if its usable before casting, I have one for my bloodlust and drums right now so that I avoid the exact problem you describe.

I'll try out the macro stuff with AceEvents tonight to see if it works, thanks for the heads up.

◊ shorto85 · 05/14/08, 3:39 PM

I've been using an addon I found on Curse gaming called Drummerboy. It announces when you use your drums and when they expire. It also has a bar so you can quickly see how much time is left on whoever currently has drums active as well as bars to see CDs of other party members drums.

DrummerBoy | World of Warcraft Addons | World of Warcraft @ Curse.com

Hamsda · 05/14/08, 3:41 PM

Originally Posted by Malan

You can wrap the /cast in a macro function that checks to see if its usable before casting, I have one for my bloodlust and drums right now so that I avoid the exact problem you describe.

I'll try out the macro stuff with AceEvents tonight to see if it works, thanks for the heads up.

could you post this macro function plz?
i'd love this one for so many things^^

Adian · 05/14/08, 4:35 PM

Dang that is unfortuante we use DBM aswell.

Malan · 05/14/08, 6:23 PM

AceEvents is bundled in the Ace3 'addon' that some addons use Adian, I found it there. I'd wager almost everyone has it installed.

The /in X command worked pretty well, I'll use that for now and see how it works out with the rotations.

Karmen · 05/15/08, 10:17 PM

I've been playing around with RBM and it would seem to do what you are looking for:

RBM Offical Thread

Beska · 05/16/08, 7:03 AM

Originally Posted by Malan

You can wrap the /cast in a macro function that checks to see if its usable before casting, I have one for my bloodlust and drums right now so that I avoid the exact problem you describe.

What is this function?

Squashed · 05/18/08, 12:41 AM

It's possible that it's something like this:

/script local u,m = IsUsableSpell("Bloodlust") if u and not m and GetNumPartyMembers() > 0 then SendChatMessage(" >>> BLOODLUST! <<<","PARTY") end

WoWWiki Link

To be honest, I don't know if the same "/in 30" function is available in script commands, so this may not apply.

Malan · 05/18/08, 6:19 PM

Yah the IsUsable is what I was referring to. It prevents the chat messages from being spammed if you're trying to hit Bloodlust/OtherAbility while stunned/silenced, etc.

Yero · 05/19/08, 7:10 AM

Here is what I use:

#showtooltip Drums of Battle
/stopmacro [nocombat]
/script local u,m = IsUsableItem("Drums of Battle") if u and not m and GetNumPartyMembers() > 0 then SendChatMessage(" >DRUMS<","PARTY") end
/use Drums of Battle
/in 25 /p Drums fade in 5s
/in 30 /p Drums over

Pros:
- only uses Drums, when in Battle
- announces Buff fading to party
- ">DRUMS<" announce only, when useable

Cons:
- /in messages are not connected to IsUsable. They will be triggered and display, when you hit your button/keybind, when Drums are not ready or hit it mutliple times

I will try a few things later today.

This this macro was heavyly inspired by the shaman bloodlust macro.

One Question:
Is there a way to use /-Comandos after a /script commando? If yes , if could work:

/script local u,m = IsUsableItem("Drums of Battle") if not u and  m and GetNumPartyMembers() > 0 then StopMacro()

I am not sure about the red part. I will test that

ishellbulleti · 05/21/08, 6:15 PM

RBM drumwatch does EXACTLY what you want for drums, it does not however do anything for bloodlust.

Go into the plugin options and it has a rotation menu
You can have it send tells to the people, you can even type the actual line you wish to send.

http://files.wowace.com/RBM_DrumWatch/RBM_DrumWatch.zip

Aximous · 05/27/08, 6:53 PM

Originally Posted by Yero

One Question:
Is there a way to use /-Comandos after a /script commando? If yes , if could work:

/script local u,m = IsUsableItem("Drums of Battle") if not u and  m and GetNumPartyMembers() > 0 then StopMacro()

I am not sure about the red part. I will test that

Is there any update about this?

Lambach · 05/27/08, 8:10 PM

When rotating drums into a melee group, who is it generally best to move out? Obviously this depends on the group make up of your melee team, so I guess the best way to look at it woud be a descending order of which class/specs get the most benefit from being in a blood lusted group? Also which members cause the largest dps loss by removing them during a bloodlust?

We used to remove the enhance shaman, but recently have switched to moving out the feral. It also seems that if we have 2 warriors in the group, removing the MS warrior(as long as we kept him in a WF group) would lose the most raid dps.

I'm wondering what other people move out, and if anyone has found the perfect set up for rotating BL into the melee team.

dinesh · 05/28/08, 2:56 PM

I've been using DrummerBoy, linked above, for a couple weeks now. It behaves as expected, and is helpful.

However, there are a few issues:
* It is in a weird strata. Using Alt-Z to remove the entire UI (for screenshots) doesn't even work for it.
* As far as I can tell, there is no way to lock it in place, so I frequently accidentally move it. The method for moving it ("click and drag the area under the main visible bar") is pretty weird, too.
* There is no way to turn the party chat announce on and off. You can modify one, but not both text strings.
* The font it uses annoys me.
* Finally, something unconfirmed: I think it is causing some occasional serious framerate/stuttering issues for me. More testing is needed though.

Don't get me wrong though - it still helps me time my drums when in a group with other drum users. I may install and try RBM at some point as well.