Addon Spotlight: PallyPower
by Sean Forsgren 
Jul 13th 2008 at 5:00PM
Today I thought we'd look at an addon that many guilds require their paladins to use. To be honest, I'd never really understood why until I transitioned to 25-man content. Coordinating blessings with one other paladin (our Karazhan runs rarely had more than two paladins.) was never complicated, but when you've got three or more paladins, it can get messy and can waste valuable raid time.As my guild continues its efforts in The Eye and Serpent Shrine Cavern, I've found myself somewhat frustrated by paladins who don't use this one. Granted, I was that guy until recently, thinking that because ZOMG Buffs played nice with buff assignments via PallyPower, that I was good to go. Now suddenly I'm taking a more active role in buff assignments and realize that like Omen, Healbot and logging for WWS, the more players using a utility, the better.First and foremost, PallyPower is a buff assignment addon, one that happens to facilitate easy coordination between paladins buffing the same group. I've yet to prefer it over ZOMG Buffs during solo play, but that's another story for another day.
Once installed, PallyPower is set with no blessings assigned, so let's start getting familiar with how to assign blessings. Perhaps the first thing you'll notice is a red dot on your screen, this is the anchor for your buff grid. Once in a group, this grid will display information regarding buff status in your raid. Click this little button, once it's green, you'll be able to move it around the screen to place it where you want. Right-clicking will open the Buff Assignment interface.
This is where you can begin assigning buffs to each class, plus pets. You can left-click to cycle through your available buffs, use the scroll wheel on your mouse to cycle a bit faster and right-click to clear a buff assignment. You do this in the grid below each class's respective icon. You can also shift-mouse scroll or shift-left click to cycle through buffs for all classes simultaneously. Some other important pieces of information to notice are found on the left side of your Blessing Assignment interface.
You'll notice blessings icons under each paladin's name, these are the blessings that the paladin has available, the number denotes the rank of the blessing. You'll also notice that PallyPower displays how many Symbol of Kings each paladin has. Hopefully you're beginning to see the utility for this type of mod for raid leaders and paladin class leaders alike. Finally, note the checkbox for Free Assignments. This feature allows another person to assign blessings for you. This is a surefire way to make sure your raid is getting the blessings they should, per the raid leadership's direction. This doesn't have to be a paladin, a player flagged as the raid leader or assistant raid leader can do this if they have PallyPower installed.
To assign a single buff to a particular player, you click their name, found under their class icon, select yourself (or another paladin) and assign the blessing. This is important when you've got members of the same class fulfilling different roles. (Resto Druids and Boomkin may want different buffs for example)
Clicking the options buttons on the Buff Assignment interface will bring up a menu with a few more options, some of which are of particular note. This is where you Tankadins can select a Righteous Fury buff. You can also select Smart Buffs here, which will skip over certain buffs for individual classes. (I've yet to have a mage ask for Might or a rogue ask for Wisdom.) You can also change the keybinding for quick buffing here. Normally, a single key will cast regular blessings, while holding shift+your assigned key will cast greater blessings.
Once you're all set up and in a group, you'll notice some frames have appeared around the little red (or green if it's not locked) dot. These frames show the buff for each class and how long until their buffs expire. If you hover over any one class frame, each member of that class will pop up on the left side, showing individual buff durations, their range status (red is out of range) and whether or not they're dead. Left clicking will rebuff with Greater Blessings, while Right-clicking will buff with 10-minute Blessings. This works on both the class frames and the individual player frames, as well as in combat. There is a lot of information available, as well as ways to interact with this addon.
There is a great guide in the Ace Wiki, as well as a fairly comprehensive PallyPower video guide I found on YouTube. Between the resources available, you should be showing up for raid night ready to go, and hopefully avoiding blessing drama. (I swear most non-paladins have NO idea how Greater Blessings work.)
There are, however, a few features I would love to see in a future version. An on-screen warning for expiring buffs would be great, as well as mouse-wheel buffing. Support for Blessing of Sacrifice and Blessing of Freedom, like ZOMG Buffs, and support for Auras as well.
That's it paladins, a great tool for handing out buffs. Try it out, check out the guides and don't be the one paladin in your raid without PallyPower, honestly it annoys the hell out of the rest of us. Dismissed.
Are you an addon-addict? Is your User Interface a living work of art? Welcome home, my friends! Every week, Addon Spotlight profiles a different addon, brings you mod-related news and dishes out free addon advice. See out what's been said and done in the addon community by checking out past features or our addon and UI directory.Filed under: Paladin, Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Add-Ons, Raiding, AddOn Spotlight, Buffs, Battlegrounds
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Nick S Jul 13th 2008 5:08PM
paladins who use this addon make me happy.
seriously, if your guild is raiding without this, you're missing out on a way to remove a lot of the annoyance of doling out buffs.
well... there'll still be the rogue who wants might instead of salv on leo...
Argent Jul 13th 2008 5:31PM
once the put in the 'free assignment' checkbox, my wishes were all done. :)
i see zero virtue in tacking BoF/BoSac/BoP onto PP, btw. it really doesn't seem very practical at all to put the one-person-situational buffs into a matrix designed to cover the entire raid.
basically, if you wanna throw those around (and do it via mousewheel), just use a click-cast and raidUI combo (like the ever-popular clique+grid combo.) once those buffs have run their course, use PP to rebuff the 10/30 min buff you just stripped off.
not terribly excited about an aura reminder/setting, but an on-screen reminder that buffs have 5, 3 or 1 min left wouldn't be half bad.
PP is fantastic doing what it does. the last thing it needs to do is walk down the path of excessive featuritis that makes it more bloated and less useful.
Ais Jul 13th 2008 5:52PM
Ehh, healbot?
Any serious high-end raider wont use that crap.
Snuzzle Jul 13th 2008 7:25PM
And what, might I ask, is wrong with healbot? I've tried Grid, and can't stand it. I prefer Healbot. It heals, cleanses, and I can even set it up to pop a BoP/LoH/DI on someone with a single mouse click. What's not to love?
Ais Jul 14th 2008 6:08AM
Instant health is the answer.
Ghadz Jul 13th 2008 5:52PM
I loathe this addon. Despite the number of paladins that swear by it, and how helpful it is to them, I've yet to see a raid go by where everyone had their proper buffs, and rebuffed in a timely manner.
When asking the paladins why their buffs were askew, it was always something wrong with pally power. Then they'd proceed to mess with PP for time on end, instead of hitting "P" and manually clicking a buff.
Pally Power sucks balls.
Jon Jul 13th 2008 6:41PM
Pally power sucks balls? Perhaps you can write something better then! PP has been very helpful in my guild's 10 and 25 man raids and we've never had a problem. Perhaps the problem is not PP, but the people you are raiding with.
PeeWee Jul 13th 2008 7:09PM
PEBCAK
Procyon Jul 13th 2008 8:32PM
Then you sir are raiding with terrible pallies. When used properly you can see who has there blessings and when they are going to run out. If your pally buddies are smart and on top of PP....no one should be missing a buff or have the wrong one.
Khanmora Jul 13th 2008 8:36PM
I also don't like this addon, but for another reason, it's a whole lotta extra for just the one little part that I actually use. The timers are great, but you can't keybind any of the buffing. I dumped it within two weeks of picking it up.
Beaverius Jul 13th 2008 9:00PM
While I wouldn't go so far as to say that PallyPower sucks balls, i do have to agree that I've seen all kinds of messed up buffs due PallyPower.
I should add, though, that PallyPower is not the problem, it's the retards using it. From what I gather, you assign a certain buff for certain class(es) to a specific person. This is normally fine but it gets really annoying and old asking for the correct pally buffs. For example, if you have 2 dps warriors and a prot warrior all getting salv everytime, and the pally have to remind to tell the tank to take off the salv he just gave... Or the whole giving all the priests Wisdom when, if forced to choose, a shadowpriest will always take salv as their first priority pally buff, so you have to constantly ask to be salved.
I dont' blame the mod for the stupidity of the people using it, but I do feel it's automization (if that is even a real word) brings out the stupid..
Argent Jul 13th 2008 10:11PM
sigh. as noted before, the fault then isn't PP, it's the retards you have playing the class.
PP will let you set up 30 min buffs for the class and 10 min buffs for your fury warr, feral tank, ret pally or enh shaman. it will allow OTHERS to set that up for you if they have the free assignment box ticked OR are an assist/raid leader (ido this all the time, btw -- i take a few mins before each raid to set up all our buffs.)
after all is said and done, you just click the PP buff button over and over and there you go. to apply the 10 min buffs, you RIGHT-click the button, to apply the the 30s, you LEFT-click.
PP *WILL NOT* prevent you from having lazy paladins who don't pay attention to their buff timers, but perhaps it can instill in them a sense of responsability so that they can take care of these things before it's too late.
Ravenblight Jul 13th 2008 11:06PM
The only issue i have ever seen with PP in raids is for people who whine when they dont get every buff they want.
It's easy straight forward Addon. I highly recommend it to all paladins.
arcady0 Jul 13th 2008 11:35PM
That just means you need new paladins.
I use pallypower and have never had an issue with it once I learned how to use it.
I have had major issues with pallys that don't use the addon. Almost every PUG I do with another pally - if they don't have the addon the entire PUG is barking down BOTH their and my throat asking for buffs. My buffs are always up, their's never are...
And I am tired of getting blamed for it by my PUGs.
On the other hand, when I PUG with a pally that has it, the first thing I see on getting in range is a buff popping up on me, and nobody ever has a buff go down.
There was a video on how to use pallypower posted a few months back on maintankadin. I'll see if I can track down the URL.
Daddywarbuck of Farstriders Jul 17th 2008 2:29PM
Pally Power *is* useful. But it also suffers SERIOUS design flaws. I'd love to see a second generation replacement that also works with pally powers communication structure for now.
There, unfortunately, is not a replacement. Here are the serious design issues with pally power that cause wipes, deaths, etc.
There is no way to set exceptions to the blessings. This needs to happen because druids both tank, heal and dps, warriors both tank and dps and pallys both tank and dps (pally healers don't really need salv). This means a druid tank and a druid healer who needs salv (mass heals are aggro bombs), will have a annoying, often error prone blessing problem. Or druid tanks will get salvation put on them. Or any other problems that do not show up in the UI.
Pets as their own category is *retarded*. Warlock pets, at least the succubus, also get blessed. The succubus is a warlock, so say you put might on your pets...whoops, down goes the warlock without her salv. Just show pets as the class they are, or show them as another number.
Drifter Jul 13th 2008 5:57PM
As a paladin, I prefer ZOMGBuffs over PallyPower.
Something ZOMGBuffs does out of the box better than PallyPower is being able to manage (and even assign) 10m blessings to members of the raid which are exceptions to the 30m Greater Blessing. There is always someone who needs/wants something different. :)
Culhag Jul 13th 2008 6:11PM
PallyPower can manage 10mn blessings very easily.
Just clic on the name of someone to define a 10mn blessing on him.
arcady0 Jul 13th 2008 11:50PM
As the poster who also replied to you stated (why can't I click reply to them?), PallyPower allows for assigning of individual blessings as well.
In fact, I have one buff that I use for paladins and another set on myself as maintank. I've always done that, and when I get a combination of paladins, ret, holy, etc, I can even further tailor it if needed. As paladins with this addon are frustratingly rare in PUGs, I find myself having to do that, as the other pallys keep failing to keep their buffs up, meaning I have to make sure I'm the one assigning the most important buff needed for PUG survival to each person in the PUG...
Depherios Jul 14th 2008 12:31PM
ZOMGBuffs is definitely better, auto scans Talents to auto assign 30 min buffs based on templates and other really nice options, Much cleaner interface, and it also functions as a smartbuff type addon. Makes PP seem clunky and old in comparison.
Moroberin Jul 13th 2008 5:56PM
As a former Paladin class officer, I never really had any trouble with coordinating buffs without this add on.
Make one do Might/Wisdom(Might for Hunters)
Make another do kings
Make another Light/Salv(Wisdom instead of salv for hunters)
If you have a forth, you can split up the light/salv role.