Addon Spotlight: Power Auras Classic
by Eliah Hecht 
May 25th 2009 at 2:00PM
Power Auras Classic is, as the name might suggest, a powerful mod. It does something that you may not know you had a need for: displaying visuals on your screen based on various conditions. For instance, on my rogue, I have it set to display a big red blood drop in the left-center of the screen whenever I don't have Hunger for Blood up.
It's incredibly flexible, and as is the case with most very flexible mods, it takes some work to get the most out of it. For each aura, you can set the position, size, color, and alpha of the texture you want displayed, what conditions you want it displayed under, how you want it to fade in and out, and probably more options I haven't gotten to playing around with yet.
For those of you scratching your heads right now, "texture" means image (think textures on 3D game objects), and "alpha" refers to the transparency of the image. An image with an alpha of 0 is completely transparent, while one with an alpha of 1 is completely opaque.
Trigger conditions for displaying an aura include: - Presence/absence of a buff on yourself, enemies, or party member s - Presence/absence of a debuff - Power levels (energy, mana, rage) - A skill being usable (i.e. off cooldown, and active for active skills like Overpower) The last one I find especially useful for my Destruction warlock; I have a green dragon show up to the left of my character when my Chaos Bolt is ready to fire, and an orange flame to the right when I can Conflagrate. Throw in a timer bar for Immolate, courtesy of Elkano's BuffBars, and I've got all the information I need right in the middle of my screen.
Of course, since I like information overload, I also have DoTimer cooldown bars for CB and Conflag, but they're not strictly necessary. That's the one feature I miss from PAC, actually - I'd like to be able to show an aura if a skill was going to be usable in 0.5 seconds, for instance, or at least start it fading in at that time. There is apparently some way to make PAC show you countdown timers, but I haven't figured it out yet.
Anyway, if you think it might be helpful to have customizable indicators that light up under certain conditions, PAC is for you. I was intimidated by its complexity when I first looked at it (and I'm somebody who swears by Grid and PitBull, and misses FlexBar like crazy), but it's really not that bad. It's set up to make it easy to do common tasks (like everything should be). Good job to the creator/maintainers for making it about as usable as could be for a low-level display addon like this.
Download Power Auras Classic at WoW Interface
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
peagle May 25th 2009 2:22PM
I love this mod, as a mage I use it to track when Hot Streak is up and when my trinkets proc. One thing I have been trying to set it up to do, is detect whether "Shadow Mastery" is debuffing the target, but it doesn't seem to be working. It correctly reports when scorch is up however, any thoughts?
andy May 25th 2009 2:30PM
make sure you haven't got "cast by me " ticked
alcapawn May 25th 2009 2:23PM
I've been using this for a while with my resto shaman, primarily for tracking the CD on riptide and warning me when I'm low on health or don't have water shield up. It has the power to be VERY in your face and I have yet to die from aoe damage not realizing I'm low on health or going oom not knowing I'm not using WS.
On the tracking cooldowns subject: For riptide I have two poweraura "auras". One with the icon not showing a timer and only showing when the ability is ready. The other is only showing when the ability is NOT available and do show a timer. That gives me a notifier that shows a cooldown when it's down and an icon when it's up. If that was the functionality you were going for. Of course both are set not to show out of combat.
Love this addon. Would recommend it to anyone.
Stages May 25th 2009 2:24PM
So...it's like a mix of Icehud and TellMeWhen?
DavidC May 26th 2009 3:30PM
Much more flexible then TellMeWhen. The fact that I have icons and graphics appearing on the screen for different things is just an example of the flexibility.
For instance, I use icon's for standard cool downs and then hud like graphics for proc's ... so when the lock has BackDraft (destro) up, I get a Orange Hud around my lock ... or if I am AFF spec I get a purple hud when Nightfall proc's.
If I get Silenced, I get the words "Slienced" in big red letters across my character.
Think of PAC as more of a cross between MSBT/SCT and DoT ... just without bars persay :-)
Yyrran May 25th 2009 2:33PM
@peagle - Make sure you have the correct unit set up. Hot Streak tracks the player. Shadow Mastery procs on the target. You need to choose the correct unit.
@ Eliah
While this add-on has a lot of eye candy factor, I find it hard to set up and the special effects used unintuitive. The eye candy is neat, but doesn't match the blizzard buffs I've grown to rely on over the years. It's almost like random new stuff to have to re-learn.
What I use, which uses the standard WOW icons and allows you a much easier install are NeedToKnow or TellMeWhen.
These put either a class-timer bar (NeedToKnow) or an icon (TellMeWhen) up to track these events on different units.
Both seemed to be written by the same guy, and they use the same techniques to show it. So learn one, and you learn both. The best part is - you can track you, your target, your focus, and more; you can target buffs, debuffs, cooldowns, weapon procs, and more.
I got NTK and TMW up and running in minutes and telling me valuable information. From the several YouTube videos out there, I see a LOT of rather long intensive tutorials on PowerAuras. I think that if you were using this already, you'd love the update. I think if you are new to these mods, or just lazy like me, you'd prefer the addons I mentioned.
Check them out:
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info6675-NeedToKnow.html
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info10855-TellMeWhen.html
$0.02
Defoe May 26th 2009 6:19AM
Hello Yyrran,
Thankyou for the heads up on NeedToKnow
There is an element of funtionality that I have been searching for in a mod that seems unclear to me -
I want to know if my target gains a buff that makes me change strategy e.g. if I am targetting a Rogue and they gain Cloak of Shadows, will NTK be able to track that?
It would be particularly useful on effects that dont have an obvious graphic such as if I am attacking a priest and he casts pain suppression on himself, Id like a NTK style bar showing me when it will end.
Will this mod offer that functionality?
If no, do you know a mod that does?
Any help appreciated
Yyrran May 26th 2009 1:05PM
I couldn't find the "reply to" on your post, so i will reply here - Yes there is.
You can set up NTK or TWM to track any cooldown, buff, debuff - OR - lack of buff, debuff, etc. You can also select for it to show whenever it is missing or whenever it is present. This is great if you are a holy paladin and want something tracking your beacons.
@ Defoe
You will click on the small box and select to choose what ability you want to track.
Type in the name of the buff you want to watch.
Then select what it is (buff); then select it's on the target.
That'll do it. If you use NTK it will ask you choose a color for the timer bar. If you use TMW you will get it's actual in-game icon.
The good news is - it will track anything that you tell it to. The bad news is, it's manual; you have to tell these addons what to track; which is why I chose them - I only want to know the things (in a raid, for example) which are important to me.
For PVP, if you want something like this, but have something more automatic, where you don't have to type in these buffs to watch, try Gladius:
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info11447-Gladius.html
doomkin May 25th 2009 2:33PM
This mod is fantastic. I can't express how useful it is.
K May 25th 2009 4:51PM
Here's an idea:
Please, PLEASE, do a column on OPie.
PAC and OPie are both total gamechangers. In a good way.
Angus May 25th 2009 5:13PM
In response to K:
http://www.wow.com/2008/06/29/addon-spotlight-opie/
They did about a year ago.
Abyssis May 25th 2009 2:43PM
I have been using this on my hunter for a while. Its very useful to remind ones self to take off viper, or when Lock and Load has been triggered (something I always missed)
Don May 25th 2009 2:46PM
Great Add-on, but hasn't been updated since patch 3.1 came out, and thus you must tell WoW to "load out-of-date add-ons" in order to get it to show up, which to me is a red flag warning that you probably shouldn't be using it. When will the developer update PAC for 3.1 compatibility? It's been over month now...
Eudeyrn May 25th 2009 7:15PM
Most of the time, the only thing updated is the version in the TOC. You can "update" that yourself by changing a line in the .toc file. A patch doesn't necessarily change any of the APIs an addon relies on to work, so many addon authors don't bother pushing new versions for every patch number.
Kirk Turner May 26th 2009 12:28AM
As has been stated - it does work with 3.1, just the toc file hasn't been updated.
That said I have uploaded a version that also enabled support for dual specs (e.g. you can choose what spec to have the action enabled for - I really didn't need something to remind me that I didn't have Judgements of the Pure up when ret specced) - and as part of that I've updated the toc to be current. You can find the file on the WoW Interface page for Power Auras Classic on the optional files tab (http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info8579-PowerAurasClassic.html#optional).
Just a note - I'm not the maintainer of the project - just made my own changes and figured others might find it useful too.
Agoria May 25th 2009 2:56PM
Does anyone knows links to tutorial for holy pala power auras settings?
Eric May 25th 2009 3:02PM
BRK made a great movie for this prior to his indefinite hiatus. Granted its for hunters but the same basic idea can be applies across any class. Really there isn't any good tutorial since its not class specific or anything. Recommend the movie to get a good idea of what to look at and how to set it up but you have to use your own head for different classes.
http://www.wow.com/2009/02/01/bigredkitty-power-auras/
Faulken S Wulf May 25th 2009 3:04PM
I have one buff and one buff only I'd like to know if I had up on a glance:
Art of War.
It makes a big difference whether I'm going to be popping off an instant Flash of Light or suffer through a cast for Holy Light.
To a lesser extent it'd be nice to know when a Blessing is not on myself and to a less extent-- on someone in the party. (10 minutes goes fast in combat.)
Is this the mod I want or is there something better for my rather narrow needs?
Angus May 25th 2009 5:15PM
When on my paladin in ret spec it automatically lets me know when Art of War is up.
Big symbol on my screen and even tells me how long...
It'll do the job.
Microtonal May 26th 2009 2:04AM
It'll definitely do that. Takes about 30 seconds to set up a simple proc notice like you want for AoW, too, once you familiarize yourself with the addon's interface.
PowA is a great addon. I like to keep my interface fairly clean, so I don't have more than three or four auras per toon, but they make things SO much easier.