Addon Spotlight: Loot addons 2
by Mathew McCurley 
Dec 15th 2011 at 5:00PM
There's a whole lotta loot going around these days, if you haven't noticed. New loot, loot that looks like tentacles, armor pieces, armor set pieces, transmogrification gear, upgrade gear, heroic gear, Raid Finder loot ... you name it, it's dropping. As players complete the Dragon Soul raid on every difficulty, they are learning what a nightmare loot can be in a raiding environment. Let's make loot a bit more manageable, yes?
Loot addons are a fun category of addon to talk about because they don't really clog up your screen or add much to the user interface in a notable way -- well, until you open up a chest full of loot and you get to clicking.
teksLoot
Yes, teksLoot still works. Sure, it hasn't been updated in almost a year. It's still one of my favorite addons, dammit. I'll be using teksLoot until it horribly falls apart in my hands, reduced to a small mound of dust at my feet ... clinging to the last, hopeless rolls I will make in the Raid Finder for that cool sword off of Madness of Deathwing.
Since Teksloot hasn't been updated in a long time, I wouldn't classify it as reliable, per se, but it still works just as well as it did at the beginning of the year. I love the fact that you can see how many people rolled need, greed, or disenchant for an item, which is awesome for assessing your chances at loot in the Raid Finder. You can easily move the loot window around the screen by typing /teksloot and moving the bar. Right-click the bar when finished to hide it and set the location as the starting point for all loot roll bars.
For an addon that takes care of the actual rolling bars for loot that drops, you can't go wrong with teksLoot. Well, until the inevitable day when the duct tape, twine, bubblegum, and Krazy Glue that is holding it together decides to not hold it together any more.
Download teksLoot at [Curse].
I guess you could always download XLoot, the addon that teksLoot is based off of. Why didn't I think of that earlier?! Oh, no ...
Download XLoot Group (requires XLoot) at [Curse].
GreedBeacon
While on my daily forum browsing spree, I came upon a discussion that piqued my interest. One sad fellow had just finished a Raid Finder dungeon and was distraught with having to scroll up and down through the chat box window in order to find group and raid chat that was obscured or pushed out of relevancy by roll numbers being published into his chat. We've all dealt with the roll spam in dungeons and raids, and it's time that this menace was curbed.
Almost minutes later, an email from an Addon Spotlight fan hit my inbox and filled my heart with joy, glee, and probably internal bleeding because my body is so broken. Can your heart bleed internally? Maybe it could bleed incorrectly? Anyway, here's that email:
Hi there Mat!How fortuitous!
Long time reader of your column, immensely enjoy it. I was wondering if you could give me some help with finding an addon. I can't seem to find it for the life of me. Since 4.3 I've been busy in the raid finder. When we kill bosses a long line of spam is shown in my chatlog: I see 25 people roll need, greed or pass on items. Some bosses drop like 5 items so you can imagine all the lines that show up. Do you know of an addon that can summarize who gets what loot so I don't have to scroll like mad through my chatlog?
Cheers for the help!
Regards,
Pleb (Aggramar EU)
Enter GreedBeacon, a simple addon that monitors loot rolls to block the huge roll spam that happens after everyone selects their preferred rolling option. GreedBeacon goes a step further and adds a link in chat that you can click to get the detailed version of the roll list. Now you can choose to see what people rolled versus having it shoved in your face, especially after that awful death knight wins both two-handed swords off Deathwing at the same time. You can't even dual wield, buddy! You can't dual wield.
Download GreedBeacon at [WoWInterface].
So there you go -- two great loot addons that can help you survive in Raid Finder, never miss a roll, and hopefully see who has rolled need on what so you can plan your ultimate loot takeover of the rest of the instance.
Shall we answer some Addon Spotlight mailbag questions?
Mat,I personally have not used TurningTest in a long time due to the fact that my BG experience these days is on the fairly nonexistent side of things. However, if there are any modders or addon authors out there who want to update this project, I'd take a look. Anything to keep AFKers and botters out of our PvP, right?
love your column and have used it to go from stock wow to good and better.
I've used an addon for about two years called TTLM, Turing Test Leech Monitor, great for knocking leechers and AFK'ers from battlegrounds. Unfortunately it needs updating and really might not be worth putting in the spotlight. If you could someone find it in your heart to publicize this one, I would appreciate it. On guild runs through AV, we've managed to turn BGs around by AFK reporting 10-15 people, when their botting simply took them to a hiding spot or somewhere where they would not be attacked for the first 10 mins.
Mat, I am hoping you can help me out. I used to have an addon back in the day that would show me where loot came from. For example if one of my buddies linked me a piece of loot off of someone at the bottom of the loot box it would tell me where it came from. For life of me I cannot think of what the name of it is. Do you happen to know or know of an addon that does this? Thank you for all the hard work you do for us!I may not be remembering correctly, but I am pretty sure that AtlasLoot can do this. Commenters, friends, allies, do you remember the name of this addon if it is not AtlasLoot? For a long time, I've been wondering if I should go back and update a bunch of these addons that I used to use for tooltips and mob information, but just haven't let myself do it. Honestly, I don't see enough creatures these days other than raid bosses to care what they drop.
Nehalem from Kargath-US
However, this email is all about the reverse direction, adding mob information to an item's tooltip. Give AtlasLoot a try. If that doesn't work, I am certain the commenters will have an answer. Thanks in advance, guys.
Hey Mat, I was wondering if there was a good addon that easily let you see both the % of health remaining on targets as well as the numeric amount? I used TidyPlates for a while but I ended up returning to default. My goal is to know when to switch to Backstab when a target is under 35% health or when I can SW:D twice in a row on a target when their health is under 25%. I would be content even if there was just a tab above my target's health similar to the threat tab that was for % of health. Let me know if there's anything you can think of! ThanksUnit and target frame addons such as Pitbull, Shadowed Unit Frames, and Stuf all have the configuration options available to put the boss' health percentage and numerical health in their target frame. Head into the options, find "Target" bars or frames, and set the display of health to both percentage and amount. If you want something that goes above the creature, I'm not entirely sure. Personally, I've found addons like TidyPlates do not do so much for me as a DPSer in raiding because threat isn't really an issue anymore. On the Spine or Madness of Deathwing fights, I could see using TidyPlates as a DPSer to see which adds need to die the fastest, but they die fast enough that you're probably not going to get to see the mob hit 35% in order to start the backstabbing -- unless the commenters have a better idea. They usually have very good ones!
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)
mazca13 Dec 15th 2011 5:15PM
To answer the last question, I found an addon called, aptly enough, Target Health Percent, was perfect. I'm personally happy with the default frames and never really got on with complicated replacements - Target Health Percent simply makes a little borderless rectangle, which you can scale to the size of your choice and put anywhere, that simply displays the health percentage of your target. I tend to pop it over the target frame next to the threat number. You can also make the little window turn from black to red at specific health percentages, if you have an ability that makes it relevant.
radiationcowboy Dec 15th 2011 10:46PM
you could setup a Power Aura to light up when your target is at or below 25%.
or as Mat said try a different UF addon. I use Stuf UF and have both Percent and Current/Max HP showing.
Loww Dec 16th 2011 2:50AM
In my ui, i love to have some redundancy of information so I use Target Health Percent, Candy Stripe Health, and Power Auras for my executing needs.
http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/targethealthpercent
http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/candystripehealth
Curokk Dec 15th 2011 5:18PM
Just an FYI for DBM users out there, I just found out you can check all your raid members raid lockouts. Useful for those BH runs where you get the troll joining the raid w/ the boss already downed.
I'm sure some people already knew about this but figured I'd post it anyway as it saved me long wait today!
potatoe Dec 15th 2011 8:05PM
Holy Cow that's awessome!
P.S. http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/healthpercent is the addon I use to see BOTH the health in numbers AND the percentage of am ob that I have targeted.
Martin Dec 16th 2011 1:34AM
For those interested, the command is /dbm lockout and requires assist or RL.
Bapo Dec 15th 2011 5:21PM
For the loot role thing, rather than getting an addon, and you just want it to go away, you can always go into your interface menu, and turn off Detailed Loot Info. It's in the "display" chunk of things.
DaSandman Dec 15th 2011 5:31PM
I too hate the roll spam, but havent turned off detailed loot info as if I roll Need on something I'd like to see what I rolled and who won it (even though its never me in LFR!).
So I think I'll try out teksLoot and/or GreedBeacon to remove the spam but still let me see the information if/when I need to.
Nehalem Dec 15th 2011 5:22PM
Thanks for posting my question, Mat. A few days after I wrote you I remembered what the addon is called...Lootdb. Sadly it has not been updated for quite some time. I've been looking but so far have found nothing like it. Thanks again for posting my question though. Maybe a reader will know of the addon and know of a replacement for it. Here's hoping.
HiMyNameIsBen Dec 15th 2011 6:20PM
I believe Altoholic includes this feature. I currently have the "source" listed in item tooltips, and can't think of another addon I use that would be adding this info.
Drbenru Dec 15th 2011 8:36PM
I personally use http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/inspect-equip InspectEquip. It gives you a very nice list next to the inspect window and also adds source information to tooltips.
Becca Dec 15th 2011 5:30PM
Fyi, you can turn off seeing all of the rolls, and just see who won an item, in the default UI.
Go to interface, display, and uncheck "detailed loot information."
Task Dec 15th 2011 5:32PM
@Mat McCurley
I may have an answer regarding the AtlasLoot question. There is an addon called Informant, which tells you where the loot was originally from.
Informant is a part of the Auctioneer Suite addon, along with Enchantrix and a few others bundled in.
I'll double check where it belongs too but most likely Auctioneer.
Hope that helps,
Task
bushkanaka86 Dec 15th 2011 6:31PM
I am not sure if Informant does quite what he is looking for. I don't have access to my game to double check what it does but I don't remember it ever saying whick mobs it came off of. Quoting from the description of Auctioneer from Curse:
"Informant displays additional information about items in their tooltips: buy price; sell price; item level; what quests, classes or professions use the item; the value of the item produced by a recipe; etc. Informant can also tell you what vendors sell a given item."
So while it tells you what it can be used for and which vendors (if any) sell that item, it doesn't mention anything origin of loot.
WastedFire Dec 15th 2011 5:33PM
I used to use both tekloot and greed beacon, tekloot though while showing the number of rolls doesn't show who rolled what on the icon box like a few other loot addons I have had in the past.
Recently though I found hfLootRoll, and have use that to replace both addons. Not only does it give nice clean roll bars but displays how many and who rolled on each item. Also will post who won the item at the end of the bar at the end of the roll. Which you can then set how fast it fades out or if it even will fade out after the rolling is done.
dk Dec 15th 2011 6:08PM
Thanks for the article, now how about some aoe looting?
Angus Dec 15th 2011 7:26PM
You can, in fact, have your heart bleed internally. Happens when a valve is malformed. Usually as a birth defect. This is hopefully caught soon after birth and will be with the child for their entire life.
It causes all sorts of horrible issues and needs to be curtailed with medicine to try and keep the swelling down. Most times surgery will be required to replace the valve, and these surgeries have to be repeated whenever the child grows too big for the replacement valve.
Now you know.
I need an add on that will let me ignore people that don't say anything in party chat. These guys have learned not to talk while managing to be horrible in a random dungeon. (Resto Shaman in ilevel 360+ gear being outhealed by the similarly geared shadow priest who also had more dispells)
I'd like this guy never to heal my poor warrior again.
Berna Dec 16th 2011 5:25AM
I thought you could just type /Ignore <Name>?
MrJak Dec 16th 2011 6:56AM
Does "/ignore %t" work?
Katherine Dec 16th 2011 12:38PM
Won't you run out of space on your ignore list pretty quick?