***Addon only for Druids, Mages, and Priests. Paladins not supported. For Classic Vanilla and Classic TBC only***
Purpose
Typically in a 40 man raid druid/priest/mage buffing responsibilities are divided up by class or raid leaders. For example there may be 4 priests each assigned to buff 2 groups. This addon allows you to keep track of which groups and their respective classes you are supposed to be buffing and informs you if there is anyone who currently is in need of a buff. You can cast those needed buffs by clicking the buff icons in the Raid Buff Tracker UI. Once the player has their needed buffs they will disappear from the UI, which helps keep the UI small so it doesn't take up much space.
Often times a player will not be aware of the fact that someone they are responsible for buffing is in need of a buff, which results in players either going without buffs for a period of time or having to repeatedly ask in chat for buffs. It is also annoying for the buffer to have to keep track of who they are supposed to be buffing and if they currently need buffs. This addon makes things easier, everyone knows who they are supposed to buff and who currently needs what buffs at all times. The addon can be used in a 5 man group/party as well as in solo play.
How to Use
Click the options Icon to open up the addon options. Select the buff you want from the drop down box. Select the raid groups that you want to buff (likely assigned by your raid leader or class lead) and select the classes within those groups that you want to buff. Also select whether you want to show the buff when it expires or sooner (up to 10 minutes before expiration) so you can rebuff in advance. I refer to this as the pre-expiration feature.
Once that is done every one in the selected group, who is of the selected class, and does not currently have the buff will appear in the addon UI. If you only select groups but no classes, then no one will show up in the UI. You must select groups and classes. Simply click the buff icon to automatically cast the buff (if in range). You can also hit the group buff icon next to the players group to buff everyone in the group with the group buff (again assuming in range).
Once a player in a group has all needed buffs as specified by your buff settings, they will disappear from the UI, reappearing when they need the buff again. The "Tank" class is anyone who is designated as a "Main Tank" in the raid group. You would use this if you only wanted to cast for example Thorns buff on tanks as opposed to all warriors.
Other Things to Know
- Right clicking the "Raid Buffs" name in the UI brings up a menu where you can lock the window in place, close the window, or bring up the help page. The help page can also be brought up from the options page.
- The addon automatically refreshes every second or so.
- The addon cannot be refreshed in combat, but you can still cast buffs with the addon the UI just wont refresh until after combat.
- If a player has a lower rank of one of the single target buffs than what you can buff they will show up in the UI for you to buff them.
- If a players buff will expire within the pre-expiration setting you set, and that buff is a group buff, then the group buff button will appear next to their name instead of the typical single target buff. This is because you cannot rebuff someone who has a group buff with a single target buff.
- Left click a player name to target that player. Right click the "Raid Buffs" title text for more options like locking the UI window in place.
- If a players name is red it means they are dead.
- If a players name is black it means they are disconnected.
- If a players name is greyed out it means they are more than 40 yards away from you. Typically group buffs have a range of 40 yards and single target buffs 30 yards. So its possible a players name will not be greyed out but are still out of range of your single target buff. You can disable this by going into settings and unchecking "Show Out of Range".
- For druids Gift of the Wild buff the addon uses an orange version of the icon as normally Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild icons look exactly the same.
- After installing the addon you may need to restart wow to load the custom icons.
- The pre-expiration feature is dependent on a third party library: LibClassicDurations which comes embedded in the addon so you shouldn't have to acquire it.
- If you have the Cenarion 3 piece set bonus which increases the duration of your thorns by 5 minutes, then you should check the "Cenarion Bonus" check box in settings (for thorns) to take into account the fact that your thorns last 15 minutes instead of 10. This only matters for the pre-expiration feature.
Group Buffs
When the addon is refreshed, it creates the group buff icon/button and sets the buttons cast target to an in range member of that group. If no group members are in range it will assign the cast target to a random player in the group, so in that case if you click the button it wont work. Once a player in the group comes in range they will become the cast target and it should work.
Slash Commands
/rbt or /raidbuff
/rbt toggle - Toggle the Raid Buff Tracker window on or off
/rbt options - Toggle the options window on or off
/rbt reset - Reset the window position
/rbt help - Show this help pag
Known Issues
- If you have the cenarion set bonus for thorns then the pre-expiration feature will not work for the 2 or 4 minute setting. If the pre-expiration setting is set to either of these times then the thorns buff will actually appear for rebuffing at 5 minutes. If its set to 10 or 8 minutes it should work fine. This is due to a library which is out of my control and is not worth the time to implement a laborious workaround.
- If you reload your UI the expiration times for buffs (assuming you are using the pre-expiration feature) may be messed up and buffs may not show up for rebuffing until they wear off. Again there is nothing that can be done about this that would not require a great deal of effort.
- If you are very far away from another player for too long the expiration time on the buffs could get out of synch, for example being behind by 30 seconds. Again this is only an issue if using the pre-expiration feature.
- Sometimes with the pre-expiration feature you may rebuff someone but it still shows them as needing the buff. This is again a problem with the library. The library keeps track of the time left on buff and when a rebuff happens it should reset that timer to 30 mins or an hour but it sometimes fails to do this and so the time left is still seen as being the same. If you buff them again it may work, but of course you may not want to waste reagents on that.
As you can see pretty much all of the issues that I am aware of center around the pre-expiration feature and more specifically the library it relies on. It should work correctly most of the time but just know under certain circumstances there can be issues.