Addon Spotlight: Planning my day around Daily To-Dos
by Mathew McCurley 
Apr 14th 2011 at 9:00AM
Daily quests are the bane of my existence. You're going to say, "But Mat, aren't dailies great ways to make easy gold or are usually quick enough to only really take a short amount of time a day?" Yes, good reader, both of these things are true. Dailies are not the bane of my existence because they are bad, but rather because I am "that guy." Who is "that guy," you ask? You know him -- he comes in many forms.
That guy has every Argent Tournament mount ... on multiple characters. That guy has done the Pebble daily enough that he should have a pet Therazane. That guy collects Tol Barad commendations for the fun of it, just to provide the Baradin Wardens and Hellscream's Reach quartermasters with a commendation stimulus program. Quartermaster Brazie and Pogg support their respective families on that guy's diligence.
Now, I've talked about daily addons before. Most notably, one of my personal favorite daily addons is Daily Grind, allowing me to speedily grab all of my dailies with just a mouse click. For convenience's sake, this is one of those addons that just makes life dandy.
This next addon, however, lends itself to the organizational aspects of doing dailies that people like me get a kick out of.
First, as usual, a story. Many people know that I recently switched my once-alt-now-mainish warrior over to the Alliance to raid with Matticus and Lodur's wonderful group of people (except key hunters.) When I had originally made the warrior, my friends called me crazy that I wanted to get some of the Argent Tournament mounts, including some of the fliers, for the fresh warrior. What can I say? I am a sucker for hippogryphs.
Anyway, the Argent Tournament is probably the biggest slog you can get yourself into in WoW at the moment, possibly of all time. There are lots of parts of the grind that are odd and unnecessarily gated, as well as just being generally annoying because we did the tournament for so long. Getting those seals was all that my brain could comprehend, so that's what the plan was.
Upon moving to the Alliance, the one thing that was completely out of my mind was the fact that my Argent Tournament progress would be wiped. And wiped it was. So, here I am, thankful that I am an engineer (best profession) to quickly port daily over to those accursed grounds, Tirion locked ever in welcoming his guests to the events of the day. Jaina and Varian arrive. The Val'kyr attack. Thrall assures his gracious host that Garrosh will contain himself. It's like Groundhog Day, except no one is redeemable in this time paradox.
Daily To-Dos
What I like so much about Daily To-Dos is that it reminds me that I need to get off my butt and do these dailies. My warrior needs their tournament titles back, dammit. Also, since I'm reworking on my guild reputation, the Tol Barad dailies are an excellent place to grab some quest reputation and work on commendations for the next poor sap alt that has
to do this grind again. Believe you me, I plan for the future!My favorite feature of Daily To-Dos is the you can track just the factions that you want, and then blacklist the dailies you do not want that specific faction to track. There's a reset button that you can hit just in case you blacklist the wrong quest. Plus, profession dailies are also featured, including the jewelcrafting, fishing, and cooking dailies. Tol Barad is also featured, which makes me very happy.
Currently the addon also tracks whether you have done your daily heroic dungeon, and I'd like to see a counter tick down in patch 4.1 after the daily dungeon is changed to a "7 anytime" system. To open up the configuration window, either right-click on the minimap button or type /dtd into your favorite chat box.
If you're like me, Mr. Dailies, you'll enjoy Daily To-Dos. Think of it like your own personal reminder-bot and checklist, making sure that you're staying on top of all of your dailies. Dailies feel like a job sometimes, what with a checklist and all -- but to be fair, when do you ever get to go to work in full plate armor and slay creatures or fight in an epic tournament in the frozen wastes of a forgotten land?
Unless you're Tirion Fordring, of course. He never gets to leave ...
Download Daily To-Dos at [Curse].
Maaaaaaailbag!
Hey Mat,I got you covered. I'm a fan of Raeli's Spell Announcer, which should do what you are talking about. I did an Addon Spotlight on Raeli's back in January 2011.
I've seen a lot of people announcing in /say or /party when they have dispelled and/or interrupted a spell, which spell, and (in the case of dispels), from which party member. I'm not sure if the ability to do this comes from an addon or a macro, but I simply cannot work out how to do this on my resto shaman. I would like the simple function of "Dispelled ____ from ____" in /s, but a) I cannot find an addon to do this, and b) I'm no good with macros.
Can you help at all? Thanks!
- Tivo
Raeli's Spell Announcer, among other spell announcing addons, has become incredibly important these days, as Cataclysm has shifted a lot of the work on controlling a fight to the DPS. It's very interesting to watch the shift in responsibility. Also, once the patch 4.1 "interrupts never miss" change gets implemented, you can be damn sure new fights will require some pretty keen interrupting.
are there any addons that make prospecting/milling easier? something where you would put the ores/herbs into a slot and it would do it for you... if not someone needs to write that. it would save me loads of timeThis is my favorite email of all time, for obvious reasons. You're looking for a great addon called Panda, which will allow one-click prospecting and milling as long as the resources are in your bag. There is no real way to do it automatically unless you use nefarious means, which I would not recommend doing if you value playing World of Warcraft on the official servers. Panda is also great for gem cutting, disenchanting, and food.
Addons are what we do on Addon Spotlight. If you're new to mods, Addons 101 will walk you through the basics; see what other players are doing at Reader UI of the Week. If there's a mod you think Addon Spotlight should take a look at, email mat@wowinsider.com.
Filed under: Add-Ons, AddOn Spotlight
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Nephiande Apr 14th 2011 9:17AM
Daily to-dos. In a video game. What peculiar creatures we are.
I'm not throwing dirt, I do my dailies just like everyone else, but still... it looks kinda weird written down like this doesn't it?
Kerevin Apr 14th 2011 12:17PM
It's definitely weird, especially when it becomes so... normal. For me, my daily routine starts like this now: Wake up, shower, start breakfast, check to see if Alliance has Tol Barad and if we do, hammer out the dailies. If not, I just watch a half hour TV show. Either way, after that's all done I head into the office. In another age it'd be bizarre behavior but it fits well with my schedule and honestly helps keep the game fun (and gets me up in time for work for that matter).
dubzero81 Apr 14th 2011 4:05PM
Great addon spotlight! I'm very lazy when it comes to doing dailies, so I'm gonna check this one out and hopefully it will give me a bit of motivation to actually do them!
Sally Bowls Apr 14th 2011 9:32AM
I have downloaded panda but yet tried it.
However, if you have auctioneer, the automill/autodisenchant is nice; whenever something is added to your bags you get a "do you want to mill it" (unless it is something you have ignored) You still have to do your mandated one click per 5 ore/herbs but nothing extra
Rimar Apr 14th 2011 6:16PM
The problem with what you are talking about is it all STOPPED with cata mats.
For instance, my maxxed enchanter no longer gets the question "would you like to DE xxxx"...
Yet when I get wrath or lower gear in my game mail, the question does come up.
Dulce Apr 14th 2011 12:54PM
Best thing to do with Panda is turn on autoloot. Then all you have to do is one click. I tried auctioneer, the automill/autodisenchant but hated the fact that if you decline to break down an item it automaticly adds it to a blacklist. Panda's only problem is if you have a stack that isn't in a multiple of 5 you have to move that stack lower then the full stacks in your bag because otherwise it will get stuck and tell you that you don't have enough to mill.
It's an easy workaround expescially for how well it works in general. Also, Tekkub is an awesome addon makers who makes lots of useful little gizmos to make your life easier.
Mal Apr 14th 2011 12:46PM
I've updated auctioneer again and again but for some reason the disenchant/mill etc option never comes up for Cataclysm items.
Sally Bowls Apr 15th 2011 8:37PM
It depends on how you updated auctioneer. They have done a horrendous job of version management. The version available on curse is pretty old.
If you go to their website, download the zip and manually update it, then you will have a later version.
http://auctioneeraddon.com/dl/ has had a release of 5.10 and a 5.11 preview while my curse client has been showing 5.9 for ages.
5.10 will certainly prospect elementium and obsidium and mill cinderbloom, stormvine, whiptail, et al.
Moobs Apr 14th 2011 9:51AM
I tend not to read these articles but today a friend sent this one to me and said this is you!
He is totatally correct, I can see a few new addons will be making it to my list when I get home from work today!
Mal Apr 14th 2011 10:05AM
When I faction changed some of my characters I saw I that I still had the Argent Tournament Tabard on the one who used to be a Crusader. It still worked too.
Also, this addon looks great.
Sinthar Apr 14th 2011 11:13AM
A question for the author (genuine question!)
You said you grind for the future when doing your TB dailys, planning to get commendations for your next alt - fair enough and no problems. But when you get your next alt - your article all but says you will be grinding out something (mount or pet I would surmise from your article) and probably a bit of gear also. Now when you grind for those you get the rep from the quest hand ins as well as the token. In my (admittedly limited) experience with those dailys - the rep is not the limiting factor - ie you get to exaulted before you have enough tokens to buy the items you want. So my question is - do you do the dailys for fun, or have i miscalculated the rep gain, or misunderstood in some other way?
Im guessing you do them for fun tbh (again from the article's tone), and thats great - as long as everyones having fun tis worthwhile and good.
And lastly - about the AT grind - did your warrior not buy the shirt that ports you there?
Good luck with the grinds and I hope the mounts fit nicely in your collections :)
Dulce Apr 14th 2011 12:54PM
I wanted to share my new favorite addons. Both are in the category of things you don't need but once you try them you won't want to go back.
First up is MiniLoot (http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info19598-MiniLoot.html)
What it does is get rid of loot spam, first it uses icons instead of spelling it out, second is by using a delay. The delay is set to 2 seconds as default from the time you last looted, thus if you loot 15 times you will only get one message showing what you looted with a total for each item. It also condenses the rep and exp amounts. I love it and wonder how I ever could go back.
Next up is Glance (http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info19660-Glance.html)
It's TitanBar but updated, it's lacking the amount of plugins you can get but the ones it does have look and work much better then they do in Titan. For example the money total is more accurate, the xp display is streamlined and for the profession info if you hover over it, it displays where you should be gathering for whatever your profession is.
Silversol Apr 14th 2011 1:01PM
I once mixed up my grocery list and dailies list. Apparently you can't just steal confectioners sugar from stores and I can't buy Honey Nut Cheerios, Smokehouse Almonds, or Mountain Dew in Azeroth.
Needless to say, that was a confusing day.
Kylindra Apr 14th 2011 1:58PM
I use the addon Armory to manage my huge stable of alts. It's great for knowing exactly what items I have on which character, what skills they have and which recipes they need/know, etc. However, it's a big memory drain. Is there a lightweight alternative to this monster?
Neirin Apr 14th 2011 4:18PM
Altoholic is the standard, but it uses up a fair chunk of memory as well. It does seem to be a trend among alt-handling addons. Perhaps it has something to do with the large amount and variety of info that has to be stored within the addon?
Scratch-N-Sniff Apr 14th 2011 2:19PM
Supposedly there's an Enchantrix update that solves this issue. But I just use a macro to mill so I haven't bothered to hunt down the update. It's not available on Curse to my knowledge.
Scratch-N-Sniff Apr 14th 2011 2:24PM
Wtb edit button.
This comment was directed @Mal regarding the auctioneer automill.
Scorfula Apr 14th 2011 2:23PM
Spell announcers can be kind of annoying in my opinion. Sure it's nice to let me know that your sheep broke, or that you sheeped something in the first place...But please configure it so it doesn't spam say every time you interrupt a fireball. It can be kind of like 'hey look at me! Look at me! I can interrupt! Hey look! Look! LOOK! LOOK AT ME GOOD BOY!'
I don't really know why I need to know if you interrupted something anyway, if it was something important, I can tell. You're not having my cookies.
Sleutel Apr 14th 2011 6:57PM
Speaking personally, in a raid situation, I absolutely want every single interrupter to have an addon that announces their interrupts in /say. I myself use Interrupted and recommend it to everybody I run with (and have, in fact, converted a couple of other people in my guild to using it).
More on the subject in response to the article:
"Also, once the patch 4.1 'interrupts never miss' change gets implemented, you can be damn sure new fights will require some pretty keen interrupting."
The current fights *already* require some pretty keen interrupting. 5/12 of the current tier involves important or essential interrupts; two out of three endbosses require them. That's the problem, especially in 10-man (which is what I run these days). The interrupt miss mechanic change isn't to allow for interrupt-heavy fights in future tiers--it's to remove the handicap that 10-man raids currently suffer in terms of having enough players with short-CD interrupts.
For example, my raid generally has three players with unmissable interrupts: a Rogue, a DK, and a Mage. On Nefarian ph2, that means we can interrupt 2/3 of the casts every time. The third pillar only has a guaranteed interrupt for every other cast, which means that we roll the dice that the Resto Shaman on that pillar won't miss his Wind Shear when the Mage's Counterspell is on CD.
Sleutel Apr 14th 2011 7:38PM
Correction: 6/12 (Omnitron, Maloriak, Nefarian, Halfus, Ascendant Council, Cho'gall).