Totem Talk: Basic Power Auras for enhancement
by Rich Maloy 
Jun 5th 2010 at 4:00PM
Rich Maloy developed a location-aware, augmented-reality GuinnessAura application for his DROID that would automatically guide him to the nearest bar with perfectly poured pints while simultaneous putting 10 yard radius red warning rings in virtual space around the attractive women in said bar. His girlfriend declared it a little too close to a "do everything and go everywhere this app tells you to" and subsequently broke it. Thankfully Rich has an innate sense for well poured pints--and only that, baby, I swear.
In an ongoing effort to spend my extremely limited time doing things that aren't critically important, I undertook some UI tweaking. Granted, everyone that watches Big Crits is subject to my UI, so I do try to keep it clean enough for the show but functional enough to play and raid lead. I wanted to replace the memory-hog Shock and Awe with the lighter and more configurable Power Auras. Surprisingly it wasn't that difficult, and so after just over an hour I had auras set up for Maelstrom Weapon, Lightning Shield, and Water Shield.
To get Shock and Awe setup to display MW counts, shield status, and other enhancement-specific items is very easy: open the options panel and enable the ones you want. I wrote about Shock and Awe a few months back, wherein my poor choice of font was quickly noted. The plus side of SaA is its ease of use and quick setup, the downside is the limited customization and massive amounts of memory.
Besides, it's well established that using the SaA priority system is a net dps loss for experienced enhancement players. Once you learn your enhancement rotation the priority window is nothing but a distraction. I wasn't using the priority system in SaA. I was only using the bars for MW, wolves, and shields so I could replace it with something better.
After the break we'll dive in to a basic enhancement shaman Power Auras setup as well as some good suggestions from the WoW Twitter crew for more information on shaman UIs and PA setups.
The Goal
With a proper Power Aura setup I could ditch SaA and clean up my UI a bit. I turned to twitter and asked the good people out there for ideas. @Novytech suggested checking out the "Ultimate Shaman UI" by Shamtasticle on MMO-Champions's Shaman forums, which makes heavy use of Power Auras in its customization. I'm not one for out-of-the-box UIs but I did check it out for some ideas on what can be done with PA.
Another good suggestion came from @philski95 who pointed me to the Power Aura Tutorial video on YouTube and that was a perfect prep to give me just enough enough to be dangerous -- mostly to myself. This is an especially a great video for us because it made by an enhancement shaman. After a quick Horde Wintergrasp loss -- a rarity on Sen'Jin -- I popped over to the always-scenic and never-crowded Thunder Bluff to start the setup.
My end goal was to have PA show me as I accumulated stacks of MW, then make it blatantly obvious when I reached 5 stacks. I also wanted to show that I had a shield active (Lightning Shield in PvE, Water Shield in PvP), warn me when the shield was running low, and be bright red when there were no charges left.
Maelstrom Weapon
For Maelstrom Weapon I use 5 different auras, each with a different image. The first four images turn on as stacks accumulate then disappear at the 5th proc. Then a 5th image then appears and spins rapidly so I clearly know I've got 5 stacks and can pop off a Lightning Bolt. This was easy to setup even with my minimal knowledge and I had it running in short order. The shields took a little more tweaking. Check the gallery for pics on the setup.
Shields up!
Because I use different shields for PvE and PvP, I knew that whatever I did for one I could just copy over to the other and tweak some settings. I wanted to show a count of how many orbs were left -- for that you use the Stacks tab. I also wanted the aura to turn red when I'm low or out of orbs. To create this required three separate auras: 1) full orbs down to 1 orb, 2) 1 or 2 orbs left overlapping the first aura, and 3) no shield up warning.
The first item is easy using a basic aura configuration and setting the stacks on the main tab to >=0. The second is also easy to configure, I simply copied the first aura, changed the color to bright red and set the "stacks" to "<=2". However, the third aura was giving me problems; I couldn't get it to appear when there were no orbs up. The solution was right in front of me: the "Invert" option does exactly that, it turns an aura on when the buff is missing.
Next, I wanted to be sure I only used these Lightning Shield auras for PvE. I toyed with different conditional options and eventually settled on using my spec as the key differentiators. These three auras will only be active when I'm in spec 1.
Finally satisfied with the results I made copies of the three auras, changed Lightning Shield to Water Shield, and changed from spec 1 to spec 2 (my PvP spec) and I was done for the night. I celebrated a successful first foray into Power Auras with a Guinness.
Check out the gallery below for a screen-by-screen view of the 11 auras I created. I've also pasted the string into this Google doc. I'm sure I'll continue to tweak my UI and dive deeper into Power Auras and I'll keep you apprised of the results.
Do you use PA or SaA? What are your favorite PA customizations for enhancement? Share the love with your fellow enhancers!
May all your hits be crits!
Show your totemic mastery by reading Totem Talk, whether reading Mike Sacco's Elemental edition, Joe Perez's coverage of Restoration or Rich Maloy's Enhancement edition, we have you covered.Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Mike Jun 5th 2010 4:09PM
I'd like to recommend using Icehud to show MW count (it shows them just like Combo Points), and/or using EventAlert to show a popup when the count reaches 5. Very simple to set up, very convenient.
Cyanea Jun 5th 2010 4:12PM
Word of warning when it comes to PowerAuras. I LOVE that addon beyond all measure, but it's finicky. One of it's favorite errors is to not show certain auras, even when all the conditions are met. When it's doing that, just /reloadui. If I'm setting up multiple Auras, I'll do a reload when I've got each one set up, just to be safe.
EnigmaEngine Jun 5th 2010 4:41PM
Trying to Focus someone when you have Power Auras can be a Adventure!
EnigmaEngine Jun 5th 2010 4:44PM
Cursed 'n' why have you forsaken me? I thought we meant something to each other. Why have you done this to me?!
BigBadGooz Jun 5th 2010 4:21PM
/yawn still no ele shammy totem talk
Scien Jun 5th 2010 4:24PM
Would it be possible to create an aura that appears when the optimal timing for feral spirit comes about? Like, modifier heroism, trinkets blah blah blah, and you get a big icon on your screen to bring out your wolves?
BigBadGooz Jun 5th 2010 4:38PM
You could castsequence it to a macro / cast spirit wolves /cast spirit wolves or you could just click 2 buttons and know when to do it yourself
icepyro Jun 5th 2010 4:51PM
You could, but that's a lot of work. You can make auras that only show when the condition is met as well as if another aura would show. It's one of the unlabeled text boxes on the right. So you would have to set up auras on all the conditions and then chain them together. Also note I said "would" show. It doesn't have to be on, you can have it set to off and the main one still trigger properly.
Yangli Jun 5th 2010 4:59PM
This can be done, but you need more than one aura. You need one for every buff, and set them all up to only activate when the others are up. (Meaning if you have four buffs, and you don't want anything to show up as long as not ALL of them are up, you create four auras and enter the IDs of the respective other three in the combine checks line.)
Phantom Jun 5th 2010 5:48PM
I use eventalert and modified it to show me when hero is up and when my trinkets proc
theRaptor Jun 6th 2010 3:03AM
Been a while since I played enhance but don't your wolves need to be out before heroism pops to get the effect? Or is that only for elementals?
I know on shadow priests you need to get your tentacle monster out before heroism.
Decent guilds will do a 3 count for heroism.
Edge Jun 6th 2010 2:20PM
Wolves first then Heroism. Wolves get buffed by Heroism directly.
Asmor Jun 5th 2010 6:11PM
I'd do the shields differently, personally. Specifically, I don't want anything showing when a shield is up. That way things only show when there's info I need to know.
Also, you don't need to have two separate auras for the shields. On my enh shaman I just have an aura for "Shield", and it catches whether I have Lightning Shield or Water Shield up. Only downside is that if I put up the wrong shield for whatever reason I may not realize it.
Yangli Jun 5th 2010 4:40PM
Haha, this is funny. :) I'm leveling an enhancement Shammy, and only yesterday I set up Power Auras for Maelstrom Weapon and Shields. Guess what? I used the very same images for the weapon, that you do, only more colourful. (But then, the five-parts-circle seems to be made for exactly that.)
For the shields I used the Aura that looks like attention-sparks over your head. I set it up three times in different colours: turquoise when the stacks are 3 or more, yellow for 2 and red for 1 stack. If no shield is up, it simply disappears. This way I don't need to have more than three auras, cause I simply type lightning shield/water shield for buff name.
Yangli Jun 5th 2010 4:45PM
Just checked the other images and realised you're also using the same aura for the shields, that I do. Get out of my head! oO
curzen Jun 5th 2010 4:46PM
As a slightly different yet effective approach I use Satrina Buff Frames. Apart from the standard Buff/Debuff display for various units I made "bars" showing a single buff and that without border, icon etc. It's essentially a biggish number close to the center of the screen showing MW charges and another for Shield charges.
warder808 Jun 5th 2010 4:49PM
Having an aura up to let you know you have a shield on is redundant in your case. You have 2 other auras letting you know that the aura is close to ending and when it is gone. The aura showing your shield is up may clutter your interface.
Edge Jun 5th 2010 4:56PM
I honestly don't know how I could ever monitor my priorities, I don't honestly get how it is possible unless you just keep all these timing numbers running in your head. I basically feel like I need SAA priorities or I will be worse off. Am I doing something wrong? Is there a better way to remember all these things?
Snackwell Jun 5th 2010 4:58PM
This post needs more drama.
Deathknighty Jun 5th 2010 7:11PM
BigBadGooz is bored that there's no ele shammy stuff, and warder808 thinks that the shield setup in the article may be inefficient! Who performed the murder?
DUH! DUH! DUUUUUH!!!!