Thanks to everyone who shared their wisdom about cooldown timing yesterday- I’m going to do some simulations and try to determine what will give us the most DPS. Today, I’d like to solicit some more hunter hearth wisdom about addons and configurations.
Most of us have an addon that we use to track procs, cooldowns, buffs, and maybe debuffs. I’d like to hear about how you do it. Personally, I am using a quick and dirty powerauras setup that I plan on overhauling. I’m looking for the following types of info:
- How do you track cooldowns?
- What kind of cooldowns do you track (shots only, internal cooldowns for lock and load or greatness, longer cooldowns like rapid fire or pots)?
- How do you track buffs and debuffs?
- What types of buffs and debuffs do you track (class buffs, boss armor debuffs, hunters mark)?
Like yesterday, feel free to go into as much depth as you want. if you don’t like posting but still want to contribute, my email is outdps@gmail.com.
Euripides
jurgwena
lemli
eidotrope
pherra
femaledwarf
My Hunter Power Aura Exports:
http://www.goodwillgamers.com/vault-45/hunter-power-auras/
I am a MM hunter as main and SV off. I use Roth UI Suite as an overlay and Kharthus’ Hunter Timers for tracking buffs/debuffs, shots, procs etc.
Roth will track all the shots/buffs/pots/ability/item cooldowns via the graphical output in the toolbars. KHT i use for hunter’s mark, serpent sting, L&L, and a few other random things.
For highly mobile fights or the “run out and back in” fights where i risk the chance of loosing my serpent sting KHT is a must, or in the event that i need to use an off norm sting or no sting at all.
I have tried many add ons, full graphical suites, a little of this and that and even a few ill fated home grown things that never preform for me like Roth and KHT.
I use power aura too.
-When Lock and Load proc (with sound).
-When explosive shot is on the target.
-When Serpent sting is on the target with the time remaining.
-When explosive shot is off cooldown and ready to use.
-When black arrow is off cooldown and ready to use.
I should set a sound when my greatness proc but.. it proc so often and I wouldn’t change my rotation anyway, so it’s useless for me.
For MM, I use only Serpent Sting.
Deedâ (Altars of Storm US)
I hate power aura due to pure unnecessary lag during my raids. So i use a combination of OmniCC, SCT, elkano buff bars, and ForteXorcist.
OmniCC for just plain bar CD timers. I use SCT to track when i get procs like LnL Master Tact etc etc.
Elkano or any kind of normal buff frames do, i just personally like Elknaos.
FX, is what i use as visual CD timer, its the addon that Munken uses in his Alagon video. Its wonderful for having to be more raid aware fights.
As a Bm hunter I use EventHorizon for shot rotation and OmniCC for long cooldowns
For the most part, I feel like I’m really cheating because I use the Watcher addon. It lets me set up an ability priority and combines it with cooldown timers to help me maximize everything. It’s insanely helpful, especially back when I was running Ulduar with 3fps.
As a result, I only use Power Auras for two things: Hunter’s Mark and Kill Shot. An annoying red ring pops up around Tchann if HM isn’t up on my target, and a yellow warning triangle appears with my target’s health is under 20%, reminding me I can use Kill Shot.
For good measure, I also have Dotimer running to track other cooldowns, like Intimidation.
Lastly, I use LunarSphere and it includes a countdown timer built in. I mainly use that to hit BW the millisecond it’s ready to go. :)
I also gave up on Power Auras and switched to just OmniCC, MSBT, and ForteXortist.
OmniCC for my bars, for CDs on everything; MSBT for when specific CDs are up and when certain abilities proc; and FX for the awesome ability of showing what mob has what debuff. If you change targets, it will say that you still have a Serpent Sting on your last target, etc. If it is not your Hunter’s Mark, it will change colors. I love the mod to death.
I’m a Marksman Hunter.
I currently use Watcher to track cooldowns, nothing is easier for shot priority.
I use to use powerauras back when i was SV to track LnL and rapid fire buff.
But as MM I now use IceHUD and have moved my rapid Fire up time to an IceHUD bar as opposed to Powerauras.
Anyone use Faceshooter?
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/fileinfo.php?id=13739
I use Karthus’ Hunter Timers to track all my timers like rapid fire and serpent sting.
I use Power Auras more for visual indicators that I’m missing hunter’s mark or serpent sting on the target (I don’t always notice if it falls off). I also use it for my imp steady shot buff just to give me a highly noticeable visible cue.
Lastly, I use OmniCC to make my cooldown timers more obvious and easy to keep an eye on.
I’m an SV hunter. I use NeedtoKnow to track the remaining durations of dots, CCs, Mend Pet, Sniper Training and Lock ‘n Load. I use MSBT to warn me about Lock ‘n Load procs and Kill Shot. For most shots, MD and RF I use Bartender and just move a modified action bar up near my character on the screen to monitor those cooldowns. I keep another bar up to monitor cooldowns on non-dps tools like FD, TS, traps, etc.
I only use the basic Blizz UI, so I track cooldowns by watching the spells on my bar. Customizing scrolling combat text also helps, as that will tell you when you gain/lose buffs.
I don’t track internal cooldowns (eg. trinket procs or LnL), I just hit LnL as it comes up.
I track buffs/debuffs by watching the top right (where they are on default UI) – I know what icons to look for so it’s not too hard.
On the mob, I always make sure I have Hunters Mark and all my DoTs ticking; if there’s a buff on the mob (eg. that I can Tranq off), I’ll watch out for that too.
I don’t like to have my whole screen covered by all kind of this spam…
I used to have ForteXorcist with the nice eyecandy bars to track the CD (But it covered half of the screen so I’ve trashed it.).
I know some Ensidia hardcore hunters like Caleb use the ForteXorcist CD tracking bar to track the cooldowns as the become available. Problem is when 2 or more shots become available at the same time. The bar shows them all together and you really start asking yourself WTF?
I only track LnL, Serpent Sting and Kill Shot with PowerAuras. I don’t like to have all those glyphs slapped in the center of the screen…
I use ViperNotify to remember me to change the aspect once my mana is back on 95%.
I track the CD of the shots using bartender.
How? I have an additional bar with the shots I use. I’ve made it a bit larger then the others, it’s click through, semi transparent and it shows only in combat. I’ve moved the bar about 4-5 cm over my character head so I don’t have to look down on the bar and I can easily track the CD while still controlling what’s going on the screen. I also use OmniCC with it.
I’ve made the auras for Kill shot and Serpent sting small and I’ve moved them just over the respective icons of the additional Bartender bar. When they show up I know my target is less then 20% and I should use Kill Shot or I know my Serpent Sting DoT is on target.
If you really want to you can always add some other auras to track Hunter’s Mark, Scorpid Sting or whatever.
I also use Debuff filter to track the debuffs I can tranquil.
The general key is “Less is better”!
I don’t like the suggesting shots addons like Watcher. It’s a just an algorithm and it can’t predict exactly what you’re gonna do next. Also it kills all the fun of playing with your hunter IMO. Guys raids are not predictable. The situation changes quite often and you have to choose what’s the best action by yourself. It’s you man not your PC to decide!!!
“I also use Debuff filter to track the debuffs I can tranquil.”
I’ve just noticed this mistake. I use Satrina Buff Frames for this not Debuff Filter… :P
Like many others I’m using Powerauras to show me what cd’s are available. Next to that I use OmniCC (on default blizzard actionbars) to give me an indication on the time left on my cd’s, and plan my next shot.
For all buffs and debuffs (mine, my pets, and of my target) I use Satrinas Buff Frame. It has good options for filtering and can show icons, bars and timers. I’ve setup simple buff and debuff icons similar to the default blizzard ones for (de)buffs on me and my pet. On my target: for Hunter’s Mark I let it show any Hunters Mark. The rest of the shots, mainly stings and explosive shot effect I only show my own debuffs. This combined with above mentioned addons for cd’s does the job for me.
I use powerauras also.
All icons appear in the centre of the screen in a line when in combat and the debuff or ability is off cooldown – just under my character.
- Hunters Mark (when not on boss)
- ExPs (when off cooldown)
- Aimed shot (when off cooldown)
- BA (when off cooldown)
- SrS (when not on boss)
Right below these I have countdown times setup that show how long (obviously these don’t appear when the ability is shown above)
- HMs has until expiry
- SrS has until expiry
- BA has until expiry
In addition when LnL procs a bright red aura appears around my character with a sound
When low on mana a blue aura appears (threashold is 10%) and when full on mana a white aura appears (90%)
PwA also provides a sniper count down timer so I can time when I need to stand still to maintain the buff
Right below my castbar is a quartz timer (idea taken from this site) which provides the 2 sec timer for my ExPS to ensure I don’t clip them.
One of the things I’ve been playing with is reducing my “mana full” aura- I almost never viper to full, just in case I end the fight with more mana. I also find that many time, due to the varying rates of regen and mana expenditure, I only need to viper to about 20% and I’ll be able to finish the fight.
Hi there,
i use a combination of several methods mentioned
my ui:
http://i367.photobucket.com/albums/oo115/Garfunkel_the_Hunter/Warcraft/50k.jpg
using Bar4, all bars are bound and semi-blacked out at the bottom, but I keep a dummy bar above my unit frame – my whack-a-mole bar – here I use OmniCC
http://i367.photobucket.com/albums/oo115/Garfunkel_the_Hunter/Warcraft/cd.jpg
also have EBB on the right side, SLDataText for info and tracking, and use Powerauras for LnL,Stings, and aspects – The green “+” in the first shot let’s me know SS is not up, once SS is active, I have a countdown timer that runs with it
i’ve cleaned up my ui a bit since that screenshot, dropped IceHud and Khartus Hunter timers, just wasn’t needed
Happy Hunting everyone
Thanks for the feedback! I find that a lot of people use the “whack-a-mole” bar (excellent term, btw).
From these responses, I decided to try Power Auras, and I gotta say I really like it so far. I use it along with OmniCC. ForteXorcist just took up a lot of room.
I have to say, I don’t think I could bring myself to use a mod like Watcher. I’m pretty sure any skilled player could easily put out more dps than any rotation mod out there.
I use quartz, power auras, omniCC and Dfliter, its kinda overkill but I like the redundency