Shadowed

Note! Mod has been released, see Paladin Buffer : WoWInterface Downloads : Beta-version AddOns


Tried out Pally Power, hate the interface for blessings as well as not being that well designed (both code and interface) and it leaks global variables like a sieve. So, I'm going to make my own. I want to get a good idea of what people use in Pally Power to help with designing both the interface and the feature set, since it's a lot harder to add communication code than it is to remove it once the mods released.

Free assignments: Pug raids and parties are the only time I can see this being useful, but people don't seem to have issues giving a Paladin assist, and worse case it could be made to work if they had main assist. As for parties, as long as they are a Paladin they should be able to set it, doing fancy permissions doesn't make that much sense.

Symbol counts: If they are out of symbols they will realize that quickly enough anyway (And what Paladin doesn't carry symbols on purpose?)

Buffing frame: Do people use the mouse over window to see when to buff. An option to buff once x% of the class is there as well as a little indicator showing how many are out of range/offline/dead sounds more helpful.

Is showing both greater and single blessing times needed, in fact is a different button/binding/click combo for greater vs single blessings necessary, it's all done smartly out of combat so just knowing that you need to click the button to rebuff people sounds more useful.

Blessing interface: When you have more than 4 Paladins and can cover every single Blessing in the raid, do you try and spread out the assignments? As in, is it really necessary to show that 2 Paladins can do Kings, when 2 other Paladins can cover Improved Wisdom/Might, and a 5th can cover Sanctuary

Smart assignments: Come 3.1, it'll be a lot easier to identify specs without having to actually inspect everyone would there be interest in a smart assignment feature where if you don't have enough Paladins to cover greater blessings, it will automatically assign singles as well.

The "smart" assignments from Pally Power would still be added, but they would be called something like quick assignments as they aren't that smart.

 

Russta

I'm really glad someone else has a strong dislike for Pally Power as well. I wish you God speed in getting this created.

Anyway, one thing I'd like to see is the ability to set templates for the Paladins in my raid. We're always all the same spec so Pally Power's instructions never change yet I have to set them every time. If I could save a custom blessing template for a raid with two Paladins in and one with three, that'd be awesome. I have something like the way Talented's templates work in my mind as a general guide.

With regards to symbol counts, you could make it so that your mod is load-on-demand and, when it does, a line of text is displayed in chat to tell you how many symbols you're currently carrying. Alternatively, if the mod is going to be constant, just have it show that line of text again as the party is converted into a raid.

Another option I'd like to see is to be able to make the mod completely disappear if that's what I want to do. Also, to have it invisible unless I mouse over it's area (though that's more cosmetic and less practical).

 

Shadowed

Templates I'll think about, but a quick assignment seems like it will cover what is needed short of single blessings, and those you can't really template anyway as easily.

How many symbols you're carrying is shown on the actual blessing icon in most interfaces, I mean for other people not yourself.

Probably not going to have it disappear unless you mouse over it, but it will have the option to only be enabled inside an instance, as well as auto hiding in combat.

 

Kamna

Have you taken a look at ZOMGBuffs? It does a lot of what you're requesting.

 

Andris

My understanding is that PallyPower won't take assignments from other raid members that don't have assist -- maybe you could change it so that there's at least an option to take assignments?

ZOMGBuffs, as the previous poster mentions, is great; it's what I'm currently using on all my toons. It's pretty smart about blessings, although I've had a few times recently where it hasn't picked up talent changes between our different Holy Paladins when I'm not assist.

ZOMGBuffs will also auto-buy symbols to your preferred level when you get to a vendor, and has an overview of what buffs everyone has if you're the kind who likes to check not only that you put wisdom on the locks, but that they got AI from that forgetful mage. I really recommend it for pretty much any class; it will prompt you when your buffs are about to run out, including most self-buffs. (It doesn't cover seals for some reason.)

 

Shadowed

This isn't a request, I'm making this.

ZOMGBuffs does far more than I want and it still does some silly things like sending a message with your total symbols every single time it changes, meaning if rebuff 11 classes it will send 11 messages reflecting the change from 100 -> 89.

 

• Chicken

Until patch 3.0.8 it used to be possible to buff people with those even in-combat, the mouse over window did not disappear if you moved your mouse into it from the general class button. That was incredibly useful in cases where you had to do a single blessing on one specific individual, especially back when single blessings lasted 5 minutes since you frequently had to rebuff mid-fight then. It's the feature I definitely miss most at the moment.

So in short, I don't use those now as they lost some of their functionality, but they were very useful when they still worked completely.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

Psychosomatic

It already does this. The "Free Assign" checkbox in the lower left corner of the options window, when checked, will allow other raid members to modify your assignment regardless of their raid leader/assist status.



Anyway, apart from code cleanup and the player windows being fixed, there is nothing about Pally Power that I would want changed. The one exception might be removing the "one-button-blessing" feature; I much prefer having precision control over what the addon does via left/right clicking, versus using one button for everything and hoping that the code does what I want it to do.

I also don't see why people are complaining about setting up the assignments; it takes all of 15-20 seconds to go through and set Pally Power up. For those that don't know, shift + left clicking on a player's assignment will change said assignment for all classes. It seems to me many of the complaints people are having in this thread come less from the addon itself, and more from lack of knowledge of how to use it.

 

Shadowed

That's what I wanted to know, thanks. But it sounds odd that it wouldn't work anymore, will have to play with the secure stuff and see if it's really not possible anymore.

Just because an addon works doesn't mean it cannot be done better, if the only criteria that people used before making another mod was "Does anyone have something like this that works?" you would have a lot less options to choose from.

 

SeanDamnit

I like everything you mention in the OP, and have a few more suggestions:

1. Add a functionality to minimize the interface so it can easily be brought up with a click of a button, but would be hidden when you don't need it. Pally Power is just an eyesore...

2. If possible, have it integrate with Pally Power. The toughest thing about replacing a standard add on is getting everyone else in the world on board, and I'd rather not deal with the raid using ZOMGBuffs, PallyPower, AND this and have none of them know what the other is doing.

Card carrying member of the Inapropriately in Love with Hilary Duff Society.

"Yeah, well, if we could all get what we want I would be eating dinner out of Hilary Duff's skull right now" - Salabesh

 

Shadowed

It'll hide in combat, and I can add a key binding to toggle expended blessing interface or simplified (one button with the lowest time on it/etc) so you only have a small square shown out of combat most of the time. As for being able to do single blessings from mousing over pop out frames, that can be added in without much issue but probably not in the first release.

The code for sending/receiving PallyPower syncs is in but I have to test actually sending them, since ZOMGBuffs supported syncing with PallyPower I'm not going to worry about that.

 

Tuesasinus

I really liked the way PallyPower used to work. You had the mouseover window that popped up and from there you could right click single target buffs or just left click greater blessings.

PallyPower also doesn't work very well in combat.

I'd like to see a Seal Timer.

I felt the auto buff utility for PallyPower was never useful.

I'd also like a more minimal friendly addon with PallyPower's function.

I have to say I feel the best addons are ones that right when you download you don't have to change anything unless you want to. The best addons also have the most flexibility but are not too complex.

I'm not sure how popular this idea would be, but maybe having a bar slightly over or under the minimap with the timer for all buffs on all classes would be neat as well and when left clicked opened up a larger version of it with the option to buff and change buffs. Since I use a square style minimap this would look really nice in my UI.

Good luck buddy.

 

Shadowed

A lot of the combat limitations are simply due to Blizzard restrictions, most of the buffing can be done in combat but you can't use a single key binding to buff everyone. It will not do seal timers, especially now that they are 30 minutes it won't even do Righteous Fury.

It won't let you configure through the buff timers frames because it would basically require duplicating the configuration twice. Ultimately my goal once 3.1 comes around is to have the assignment logic be smart enough that it will handle assigning everything including single buffs based on spec so that you barely have to even use it. The actual blessing frame isn't finished yet, but it will likely work fine with any kind of UI regardless of where you want to place it.


For Warlock pets, do they get anything out of Blessing of Might, or only Wisdom and Kings?


[edit] Ugh posted early, fixed.

 

• frmorrison

Sounds useful. Every pet in-game except for the Imp would like to have Blessing of Might.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

Villeraz

Just a note to consider on the topic of pets:

Greater Blessings cast on Felhunters, Succubi, and Imps will also be applied to warlocks. Those cast on Felguards, Voidwalkers, and hunter pets will also be applied to warriors. I believe that those cast on ghouls will also be applied to rogues (can someone confirm?). This also works in reverse, in that blessings cast on those classes will also apply to those pets. That means that the paladin assigned to blessing wisdom on warlocks cannot use greater blessings to also apply might to a felhunter; one will overwrite the other.

One problem with PallyPower is that it doesn't try to create this distinction between the pet types, and thus its automatic buffing is rather hit and miss with a mix of pet types. It could be better to have the mod recognize pets as members of the appropriate class, perhaps.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...s/villeraz.png

 

Shadowed

Hunter pets are considered Warriors, Death Knights are Rogues and Warlocks are Paladins the only Warlock pet that isn't is the Imp which is a Mage.

I just tested with a Warlock using a Felhunter and myself in a group, any Greater Blessing applied to the Warlock was applied to the Felhunter or visa verse but casting them on myself didn't apply them to the Felhunter despite it being classified as a pet, so I'll assume that it's linked by the pets owner not the pets class.

I would make rather not have to do pet assignments, Hunters and Death Knights both want Kings/Might as will their pets, but Warlocks I'm not sure of I would think they want Kings/Wisdom except for possibly the Felguard? Since a Greater Blessing on the pet overwrites the owners buffs, I won't add pet assignments but you will be able to set singles for them which should be more than enough.

 

Kuthumii

His point was, a lot of the complaints are not the fault of PP, they are on the fault of the user not knowing how to use it correctly or how they want to, even when the feature is present.

If you could correct some of PP current problems, clean up the code, and reduce its memory usage; that would be an addon I would replace PP with.

What I would like?

-Seal timer similar to the RF window.
-Class windows like PP that display both Greater/regular blessing times
-Color coding to tell me if I need to click.
PP currently makes the class window gray if someone is missing the assigned buff, green if everyone is buffed as assigned, blue if I need to throw a regular blessing, and red if everyone is missing assigned buffs.
-Hide the entire interface until I mouse over it.
-Easier in combat buffing. (I can't get PP to always do the regular blessing on right click during combat, very annoying)
-Something to make buffing hunter pets less annoying. (Killing all hunters, as great as it sounds, isn't an option)

What I'd like to see go?

-Smart buffing. I see no use for it. Your quick buff idea might be more useful.
-PP telling me how many people are missing a buff. I already know someone is missing a buff by the window color, no need to repeat the info.

I don't see the need for more windows showing OOR people, dead people, or offline people. If I really want to know that I have other ways to see it and it doesn't affect my buffing. If someone is dead, they aren't getting buffed. Same for offline people. If you are OOR and come into range, the window can simple change color to let me know to I need to buff.

 

Malleus

The symbol count isn't there for the benefit of the raider. It's there for the benefit of the RL/Paladin class leader who is setting up the buffs, so he can be sure everyone has sufficient symbols before the raid begins.

 

Shadowed

I suppose, but they'll still realize quickly and be able to ask someone else for it, I'm keeping the code in so I can add it later if needed but I don't see it being very important.

Seal and Righteous Fury timers will not happen in this mod, I'll probably do a separate one later on that does both of those but it's not going to be included in this by default.

I'm not a fan of the color coding in Pally Power. Blue for someone needing a lesser blessing isn't that intuitive especially when you're showing red for greater, it probably is going to do something more consistent say, no color for it's fine, yellow for people needing blessings but being out of range, red if they need any type of blessing and the actual frame will indicate if you're supposed to be using a greater or a single. You will have to click the frame in the end so it might as well be used to indicate buff status and only use colors to get you to look at it.

Right now the frame is going to look roughly like,

The smart buff "main" frame will show "# buffs missing" and is based off how many classes and single blessings are missing, it will show the lowest greater buff left on the bottom left, and the lowest single buff on the bottom right, the buffs missing would be on the top left, on the top right some sort of indicator showing that assignments are done.

Each class frame will show the a colored class name with a prefix for the assignment so "[K] Druids" for Kings on Druids, N for none and so on. greater timers on the bottom right and single timers on the bottom left same as the smart frames.

If a buff is missing it will show the frame as red, if buffs are missing but they are out of range it will be yellow. Eventually do the pop out frames on each class to show you the specific status of each person of that class and let you cast on that person specifically but for now just the above.

Unfortunately the limitations on buffing in combat are mostly Blizzard limitations, while I can make it so you can cast Greater Blessings I cannot do singles automatically since those aren't a static list of people (And I can't make a list of, cast Blessing Z on B -> Blessing Y on A in combat)

You can do this in combat:

• Buff classes in combat through a class window (Providing the person who set it on doesn't leave in the middle)
• Buff players with single blessings in combat through a new window that pops out when you mouse over there class
• Make all of the class frames show in combat if you mouse over the main buffing frame

You cannot do this in combat:

• Automatically buff classes with a single button or key press
• Automatically buff players with a single button or key press, however if only one player in a class is assigned a single buff then it would work for being able to right click that players class and buff them, but that isn't intuitive or obvious

 

Shadowed

Hopefully I'll have a working beta by Monday or Tuesday, but here's mostly what the assignment interfaces look like. For single assignments, it automatically assigns the person with the highest rank buff available if say you only have one Paladin available it will only let you assign them one single blessing. Also the assignments done in the screenshot we're using the quick assign option.

Unlike Pally Power you will have to push assignments out, mostly this is because I don't want to be sending out communications data 30 times when you're changing every blessing. As was mentioned in the previous posts, you won't be able to assign pets greater blessings they will just get what there owner has, which is why you can assign Warlocks Greater Blessing of Might.

Attached Thumbnails

   

 

wighti

One major feature that's lacking in PP - make it so that I can hide it untill your cursors moves on it.

For those that just *love* the simple and clean UI's.

 

• frmorrison

You are correct. Yes, Ghouls and Rogues are the same with greater blessings, which is likely because Ghouls have an energy bar like Rogues.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

Silmemir

I would like it to have more options to change the font/texture (ie work with Shared Media). Pally Power only has about 7 texture options, for example, which means that I have to use a different one to the rest of my UI, and since at the moment you can't hide the buffing boxes on mouseover, it just looks terrible. I really liked the screenshots you put up, thought they look a lot fresher and cleaner than how PP is.

One other thing I hate about PP is that typing /pp config shows up the entire buff allocation window rather than just the options/config menu which seems more intuitive. The options menu should be more easy to access.

Thanks for doing this, it's a great idea!

 

Shadowed

That's something I plan to do, but I need to play with secure frames which I haven't so it'll come later, as for the pop out frames on mouse over for classes that will come with 3.1 since it'll be a lot easier to do then.

It's not going to have the same amount of options (If any) to change how the buff frame looks, right now you can set how many columns to use, show the entire frame, show class frames, hide in combat and scale. But special settings such as texture, font, etc isn't something I plan on. I might make it so they can be reskinned through Lua files but thats not a priority right now.
It's currently setup so /pb config is the actual configuration, /pb assign is the assignment interface.
Want to release this either tonight or tomorrow just need a raid to test it in, if you don't want to wait you can grab it off of my SVN at shadowed-wow - Revision 1145: /trunk/PaladinBuffer everything seems to work fine but no guarantees.

Also this will be trying a different way of doing range detection, because the Greater Blessings are visible range (Give or take a few yards) it will do two range checks, one is to make sure at least one person of the class is within 40 yards, and another to make sure that everyone of that class is within visible range. Meaning it will let you rebuff Warriors as long as 1 is within 40 yards to cast it on, and the rest are within visible range. If it turns out that it doesn't work that well I'll change it to force everyone to be within 40 yards.

 

Feya

Thank god someone is attempting this. Pally Power is the worst implemented mod that is basically required due to a lack of competitors. Its obvious the designer has no concern for screen real-estate when doing an interface.

There is so much wasted space and frustration with this mod, I will be more then willing to test out whatever you need if it works better then the PP implementation ;p

Down with PP!