I really like this update right now. I tested my rotation as a Frostfire Mage and have a few things:
The tracked buffs should have an option to desaturate or disappear when not present. I found it hard to really track excess fire/excess frost because even when I had 0 stacks the symbol was front and center in full color. An option to desaturate and reduce opacity when not present would be great.
Utility bar is good, but IMO an option to customize this into multiple bars would be better. I find separating Utility and Defensives would help a lot of average players so they can make important defensives front and center while moving some of their less important situational utility to the side.
We really need the option to change the order of core cooldowns. Maybe have the current implementation as a ‘default’ with an advanced mode that lets us pick and choose the skills to put there?
DEBUFF TRACKING! Frost mage is really dependent on tracking Winters Chill on the target. There’s no good way to do this without an addon. Our rotation 100% relies on knowing my winters chill stacks at basically all times.
We should be able to choose what buffs to track! I dont understand how you’re actually supposed to play frost mage without a weakaura to track icicles. Looking at the character model or buff bar isn’t really viable in combat. The common weakaura that shows 5 slots that fill with color as we gain icicles is basically ubiquitous with frost mage gameplay at this point and could be integrated somehow. Maybe a ‘class specific’ resource bar like FFXIV has? IMO theres really no efficient way to frost without this.
Overall though I think this rules and while this wouldn’t outright replace my addon usage as is without the above it would reduce what I’m using by a good bit. New players will really benefit from this I think.
For Arcane Mage, I noticed that when you receive Arcane Surge from the Time Anomaly talent, it doesn’t go back to showing the cooldown of the Arcane Surge ability when the ability is on cooldown. It works fine with Icy Veins on Frost Mage, but not with Arcane Surge.
Besides that, for the first iteration of the cooldown manager, it looks pretty good. Like other people have said customizing what we track and not track will make this one of the best additions to the game.
Thank you for writing these thorough posts so quickly! We do have plans to allow you to hide or rearrange elements on the new Cooldown Manager in a future patch, however the specifics of how that works are yet to be determined. We are reading and noting all your feedback about feature requests, but can’t speak to much at this time that’s outside the scope of this PTR.
Because elements in the tool can’t be customized, we wanted to share a little philosophy behind what we’ve chosen to include and whether to make something an icon or bar. We want the Cooldown Manager to have all the information you need to play your rotation for a spec - you can just turn it on for a spec you’ve never played and you’re good to go.
But it doesn’t show everything - it aims to clarify and filter information to help you play with intention. There are a lot of buffs and such that WoW specs gain that don’t affect their choices, like short stat buffs or maintenance buffs that tend to stay up through the course of normal play. If a proc causes an ability icon to light up, we generally don’t show an icon for it because the highlight already communicates it’s present. Not showing those makes the information you do care about easier to see.
In particular we’re careful about what shows as bars, because they’re fairly “loud.” For something to be a bar, it needs to be something where knowing when it will end affects your decision making somehow.
One of the reasons feedback about which abilities are shown (or not shown) and where they’re categorized is so valuable is that it helps us find important information we might not be showing or remove extraneous information so you can focus on what matters most. For feedback on bars in particular, it’s helpful to understand your gameplay around when those effects will end.
Interesting clarification! I want to say here again, I have a far easier time tracking spell cooldowns than I do auras/buff durations such as with activated spells like Icy Veins for example. The reasoning is that there are so very many random buffs that appear in the actual buff display frame nowadays. Important and not so important buffs will appear in a huge soup at the top corner of my screen with no real way to filter these for the ones I care about tracking. I hope to be able to eventually select the auras/buffs most personally important to me in the Tracked Buffs and Tracked Bars – bars, so that I can display this information outside of the soup of buffs in the buffs frame in a designated location that is easy to see and read while playing the game. I hope that the Essential Cooldowns and Utility Cooldowns won’t be the one size fits all way to display aura/buff duration information because I really don’t like the cooldown portion part— I just need the aura. Cooldown information for me is very easily tracked by a quick glance down at my action bars. So, I hope there is consideration to make sure these tracking styles can be separated.
Hand picking what players will see is the wrong approach for a feature that should be all about being customizable. You can’t please everyone with what you think should or should not be a bar, there are different needs for different players, builds, or even accessibility constraints. What if the new meta build would be much better if you track a certain buff as a bar and not an icon? What if a spec has too many bars and I prefer a more minimalistic UI while still wanting to track such buffs?
I strongly suggest you let pretty much anything be a bar/icor/whatever and let players pick their preference, but with a default mode with a preset made by WoW devs. This feature does not need to be “WeakAuras 2” but there needs to be more things players can tweak by themselves.
I agree here. Not a fan of getting the TV dinner version of WeakAuras. I’m not necessarily asking for a huge full feature WeakAuras Blizzard Edition, but like you said, player choice and tweaking needs to be the mindset going into the development of this feature 100%.
This is a great list, thank you! Here are some of the updates we’ll make to the Blood setup:
Add Essentials elements for Reaper’s Mark and Soul Reaper.
Add a Tracked Bar for Death and Decay and a Tracked Buff for Coagulating Blood so you can see how strong your next Death Strike will be.
Add a Heart Strike Essential element while you’re San’layn so you can see Vampiric Strike procs.
Look into showing Dancing Rune Weapon’s remaining duration on its Essential element.
Consistency pass for how defensives are shown for all tank specs.
I did want to ask about your Essence of the Blood Queen gameplay. How do you currently track Essence of the Blood Queen, and in what situations do you look at its state to make rotational decisions?
This is amazing, thank you so much for doing such thorough investigations. No changes to share on monks right now, but I’ve shared your notes.
We’ll add Iridescence, good call. The Snapfire issue is a good catch too - thank you. We’ll look into it.
Will look into this, thank you.
Another good catch - we’ll look into it.
We’ll change this.
We’re carefully reading all posts, not just the ones quoted. Thank you to everyone who is giving a close look at the tool for the specs you play - we’re looking forward to more.
I’m just wondering if it will allow me to customize what buffs I can show on my character here:
Such as adding trackers for Frost and Fire Mastery buffs (since it was removed this patch) and other things which aren’t currently tracked in this fashion.
When you reach 50 stacks with light’s deliverance or after using wake of ashes, you have 12 seconds to use Hammer of Light. Having a timer show for this would be really great.
Rebuke shows a 3 second timer even when it did not interrupt anything.
Hammer of Justice shows up next to Light’s Deliverance in edit mode, but it doesn’t actually show there when you use it.
I am literally begging you guys to at least put the kind of framework that kgpanels has (where you have a blank frame that can have artwork in it). If I could post links I would. I know exactly what I’m talking about on what I mean here. (Been designing my own UI art for years now).
(I can’t figure out how to make something similar using the editmode code).
I’m sure I’m not the only one who would like this kind of change.
I love the UI changes that have been made over the years though. I dumped BT4 and Dominoes when I could finally move my own bars in game. Weakauras allows me to do a lot of what kgpanels can’t do, however it’s a pain to import my own stuff on it (doable, just a pain).
I’ve been working on this stuff for almost a decade now (the artwork):
I’m happy to see this in game! On live I’m currently using an action bar in the middle of my screen and BetterBlizzPlates to add more buffs to my Personal Resource Display.
My wishlist:
Modify/filter tracked abilities/buffs
Track debuffs on target (I know my Flame Shock is on the nameplate but if my eyes are already on the CD manager…)
Align abilities to the center instead of right/left to avoid gaps on one side:
Instead of aligned like this:
Glad to see this added to the base UI. My feedback is from a Moonkin perspective that uses WA, ElvUI, & Plater to create a minimalist UI & limit visual noise. I’ll try to visualize a zero Add-on environment. I tested on dummies & in a follower dungeon.
Missing:
Rebirth on Utility, but I’d only want it visible in group combat.
Incapacitating Roar, though interesting that Mighty Bash appears when chosen
Balance of All Things, might be useful for beginners
Extra/Unimportant:
Nature’s Grace: I don’t need to see this, the lack of an Eclipse bar & stack counts on Wrath/Starfire provide this info.
Frenzied Regen: Unless you intend to add this to Fluid Form, I don’t need to see this outside of Bear Form.
Other:
Starlord: I’d rather see this on Tracked Buffs than Tracked Bars
Eclipse: currently set up with 2 bars, 1 for each state & both show during CA/Incarn. Why not just 1 bar that changes based on state & a new colored icon, say greenish, when both are active?
When Owlkin Freny pops, I’d rather see the WoD icon version than the Moonkin Form icon
Bugs:
The Solar Eclipse icon is being used for both Eclipse states.
I track CDS, procs, Eclipse state, & buffs, which is what you’ve got here, but use WAs I created for my needs. Just as important, I track on-use, certain enemy debuffs, & DoTs which CD Manager doesn’t.
On-use: I’d want to add trinkets or cantrip items to the CD Manager, if I used
Debuffs: I think of Waning Twilight as a buff for me & I’d want to know when it’s active
DoTs: Knowing my DoTs are applied is just as important as procs/buffs. The base UI does show DoTs on nameplates, but not in a way I like. I use a whack-a-mole method with Plater for mob groups & WAs for my target. I want to see the DoT icons when not applied & as I apply them the icons disappear, reappear at reduced alpha in refresh window, & then full alpha when not applied.
I have a similar mentality for my CD set-up. If I use Convoke, I want the icon alpha at 0% & then fade back in with 10 secs CD remaining.
I have a Soothe WA set to only display if my target is actually enraged.
I think you get where I’m going with that. Even in combat, I wouldn’t need the CD icons visible full time in CD Manager.
Also, I have 2 action bars visible in combat. #1 has keybinds covering 90% of my abilities with macros. #2 is just for visibility of my Utility CDs so I wouldn’t get much use out of that part of CD Manager. What I do like about your set-up is that the entire icon will go red when out of range.
As a Resto Druid:
On my druid I GREATLY want to see Heart of the Wild duration tracked, both the 45 second one and the call of the elder druid 15 second and keep it loud in Tracked Bars. Currently not tracked at all as Resto. Duel Lifebloom is struggling with being tracked properly as it only shows the most recent timer (and i think is affecting the spell, causing the second lifebloom to rarely cause the first one to drop, as if not specced into it. But it could be a just a visual error). Moving forward I would also love to see the ‘bloom’ period (or whatever you call it), when reapply would cause a bloom proc, to be indicated with a simple notch on the tracked bar. However I would say Lifebloom in Tracked Bars may be undesirable, as the raid and party frames is a better location for this track, but do see the pvp allure. Ursol’s Vortex, Tiger Dash, Cyclone, and Stampeding Roar Duration left would fit nicely in Tracked Bars. (stampeding roar and skull bash: no duration is currently being tracked by Cooldown Tracker as Resto (skull bash isn’t tracked at all))
Essential Cooldowns feels overpopulated as most are already tracked well via properly set up action bars. Maybe spells only show up there if they are on cooldown, if I don’t see it there, I know its up. If I do see it, I get a quick look at how much longer till up. But that still feels redundant.
Some spells might do better in a different track. Example would be Tranquility, convoke/tree(maybe), and Ironbark I feel belong in Utility. These spells rarely affect my moment to moment rotation choices. Really anything with a long cooldown doesn’t need to be in Essential.
In its current form I wouldn’t use Essential because it feels bloated and just clogging my visual space with information I already know.
I do find value in tracked Wild Growth, Grove Guardians, Swiftmend, and Nature’s Swiftness however I think a lot of spells across multiple classes would do well with being included in the visual cue ui (such as when green vines appear around the druid when clearcasting is up etc.) And speaking of visual cue, something to indicate combat gain/drop louder than the crossed swords on the portrait would be welcome by many mostly pvper’s. (I wouldn’t look at a persistent visual cue, some simple quick graphical trigger on combat gain and loss that’s a little louder that the glowing red screen sides[follow up, could put a setting that upgrades the red sides to something louder].)
I would find much greater value with the Cooldown Manager as a whole if it also included a interrupt tracker for the group/raid. While I know the raid version of this would be a lot of screen space, might I suggest the Interrupt tracker window to be interactable in a simple way of expand and shrink with 1 click. Hard Interrupt cooldowns only, keep it simple, think about including battle rez stack counts so classes that don’t have battle rez can at least see the cooldowns for raid/party members that do.
I see great value in the Tracked Buffs bar. Some things should make an appearance. Examples would be Innervate, Ironbark, Barkskin. When cast, the duration does show in Utility, then cooldown remaining once duration is done. However I’d rather see the cooldown timer immediately start in the Utility Bar and the duration to appear in Tracked Buffs. I also see value in adding Trinket Procs and certain Gear Set Procs to the Tracked Buffs bar.
An investigation has not been opened into this or any other issue. I suspect your frustrations likely originate more on Hemet Nesingwary Sr. Jr. than either senior or junior.
I can’t help so I’m trying not to pay too much attention but in the mean time I’ll just enjoy all of this totally real WoW news as we continue our rapid descent into madness.
