The Queue: I'm sick of pandas
by Alex Ziebart 
Jan 6th 2009 at 2:00PM
I'm bored of hearing about Pandas and Pandaren, so I am declaring today 'pandas aren't real' day. If you think about pandas at any point throughout the day, you must throw yourself out of a window. No, I'm not going to defenestrate myself for writing this, because I made the holiday so I make the rules. However, I will not think about pandas starting.... now!
Kevin Gass asked...
Is there a way (be it a mod or not) to alert me whenever a cooldown is done. For example, as a Shaman whenever Maelstrom is ready, a bright and noticeable pop up says it's ready. I would love something to tell me whenever Ghost Wolf and Shamanistic Rage are ready. I would use them more often! Thanks in advance!
I'm guessing you mean Feral Spirit and not Ghost Wolf, right? Well, either way, you're definitely going to need to look to mods if you want alerts that really pop out at you. Some things will show up in the Scrolling Combat Text in the basic UI, but that's sort of a clunky use of it and not everything shows up there.
There are a ton of mods that will do this for you, all depending on how you want it to look. If you want the cooldown on your action bar to be easier to notice, use the very simple mod called Cooldowns. It adds a big yellow countdown timer on your buttons. If you want something more than that, or something more customizable, you may want to go with ClassTimer or TellMeWhen. Another alternative is a more robust combat text mod, like ScrollingCombatText.
Maelstrom may be a problem since it's a stacking buff, so I don't know how well that works in these mods currently, but I bet our readers would know a bit more. Readers?
Frostfire asked...
Question about WI itself, where did "Ready Check" go? I was using it as a great guide to Naxx 10 and 25, but it disappeared before finishing every quarter. Thought it might be a holiday break at first, but now I'm missing it. It's a very helpful article and I was wondering what happened to it.
It didn't go away or anything, Jennie Lees has just been pretty busy with other things lately. Allison Robert (who covered Ask a Beta Tester with me pretty often awhile back) is going to be filling in for her, so it'll be back real soon.
Eternauta asked...
When will Blizz get rid of weapon skills? They are annoying!
They're pretty annoying, yeah, but I don't think they'll go anywhere. Leveling them is lame, but they're a fairly big part of how the combat system works. I think we'd see a change to make leveling them easier before we see them disappear entirely, if we see any changes at all.
K asked...
No matter how many times I turn it off, my pet just LOVES to cower regardless. Is there any way to stop this for serious?
Yeah, this is a known bug. You need to drag Cower onto your action bar, and turn off autocast there. If you just turn it off in your spellbook, it'll turn itself back on.
Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW Insider crew is here with The Queue, our daily Q&A column! Leave your questions in the comments and we'll do our best to answer 'em!Filed under: The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
Dystle Jan 6th 2009 2:07PM
there is a mod called Maelstrom Maestro that plays a configurable audio file when youve stacked maelstrom weapon 5 times.
takanimo Jan 6th 2009 2:13PM
on my shammy, the blizz sct'll tell me when maelstrom's ready..
whenever i stack one it pops up and when i've stacked it 5 times it pops up
or at least i think it's the blizz sct.
takanimo Jan 6th 2009 2:16PM
sorry, meant to say:
Whenever I stack one it says [Maelstrom Weapon] and when it stacks 5, it pops up [Maelstrom Ready!]
Banister Jan 6th 2009 3:00PM
Get ShockandAwe its a mod written by Levva who does a lot theorycrafting on enhance shaman. Here's a link to her FAQ on MMO Champion.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=28143.0
Fuseitana Jan 6th 2009 3:30PM
There is only ONE addon for EnhShammies - ShockAndAwe. It does everything the questioner asked for and more. Get it!!!
TotemBox is necessary for all shammies.
Thrashnak Jan 6th 2009 5:35PM
For Enhancement Shaman, Shock and Awe is the addon every Enhancement Shaman should have. Not only does it have an audible sound when MW is up, but it has a "Priority" box that displays what spell/ability is highest priority to use based off what has been determined the optimal rotation: Lightning Bolt if full MW is up > Storm Strike > Earth Shock > Lava Lash.
e.g. if you don't have 5 MW and SS is on CD, it will display ES. If MW procs, it will display LB. If MW isn't procced, and both SS and ES are on CD, then it will display LL.
Fireflash38 Jan 6th 2009 7:29PM
The best Mod IMO for any on proc abilities such as Maelstrom Weapon, Hot Streak, Frostbite, Rime, Brain Freeze, Killing Machine etc, would definitely be Power Auras.
Extremely customizable, and easy to configure. You can set it up so that whenever MW hits 5 stacks it will pop up a texture (color can be set, as well as position, and transparency), with the time left on the Buff. It is an essential part of getting a working HUD, where you can tell immediately what abilities you have ready without diverting attention from your surroundings.
Angus Jan 6th 2009 7:38PM
I'd like to thank all the people that recommended "Shock and Awe"
Saved me having to look up the link.
It really is that good. After the 3.0 my shaman went up a good 200-300DPS after I installed that add on. It made that much of a difference.
Mike Stortz Jan 6th 2009 2:09PM
Is there a way to prevent looting while in combat? When I fight multiple mobs, right-clicking the second mob to attack it is sometimes interpreted as trying to loot the first; not what I want.
Cyrus Jan 6th 2009 2:47PM
"When I fight multiple mobs, right-clicking the second mob to attack it is sometimes interpreted as trying to loot the first; not what I want."
You could select a mob to attack by left-clicking and then start auto-attacking by an icon on your castbar, or use the tab key to switch from mob to mob instead of clicking. Alternately, and this is the way I do it, play with enemy health bars enabled. Hit the V or shift-V keys to toggle them on and off. It's easy to see when you're hovering over them because the health bar lights up, so you only click on what you want to click on.
All of those options have a problem with a lot of potential targets - using the Tab key might require cycling through them until you get the target you want, and if there are a lot of mobs on the screen health bars and mobs might get pushed around the screen too quickly to be useful - but nothing's perfect, and they're the only ways I can think of off the top of my head.
Daniel Jan 6th 2009 3:26PM
I also have this problem. One option that I have used from time to time is to go to the standard UI and turn the option on to automatically loot the corpse. Since many mobs only drop an item or two (or none at all) this makes the mob quickly go dead and you don't have to worry about clicking it by accident again. The only down side to this is that you need bag space because you will pick up a lot of trash.
Grubba Jan 6th 2009 4:59PM
@Cyrus
"Alternately, and this is the way I do it, play with enemy health bars enabled. Hit the V or shift-V keys to toggle them on and off."
It's just V to toggle them on and off. Shift+V toggles the visible health bars of friendly targets.
Ohnoto Jan 6th 2009 2:14PM
I use OmniCC for my cooldown timers. Can be found at:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/omni-cc.aspx
I know there isnt a Screenshot of it on there, but all it does is show a countdown number, fixed inside the action bar square of the ability.
JPN Jan 6th 2009 2:27PM
I like this on my rogue, it has big numbers you can easily configure with different sizes and colors depending on time remaining.
Person Jan 6th 2009 6:00PM
yep, OmniCC is great. It blends in perfectly (I kind of forget I have it, it just does what it should) and uses different sizes and colors to let you know whether the timer has a long time to go or not much to go.
datone Jan 6th 2009 2:13PM
I use Miks Scrolling Combat Text (you can get from curse.com) for this very reason It will give you this huge bold lettering letting you know when Maelstrom has stacked 5x it will also display when your cooldowns are ready.
RuellofMagtheridon Jan 6th 2009 3:18PM
I use msbt as a prot warrior and it's great for Sword and Board as well.
jbodar Jan 6th 2009 7:37PM
MSBT is great, but I believe I had to add a custom trigger for Sword N Board. Works well though, esp. once you give it a trigger sound.
Wyred Jan 7th 2009 5:04AM
I'll vote for MSBT as well, great for pretty much any class with CD's or abilities like revenge/riposte (so that's all classes), gives low mana/health warnings and very configurable with a little bit of time and effort
Pudie Jan 6th 2009 2:13PM
I think PowerAuras can pop up a visual when Malestorm hits 5 stacks too.