Hello, everyone. I would like to ask you about everything you need to know about Simcraft and other useful Add-ons to get tips and information that may help me increase my class performance and see what mistakes im making (low dps for example). Id really appreciate your help.
There are a few addons that are highly recommended to any player who is interested in doing group content.
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Deadly Boss Mods (DBM) or Bigwigs - These addons are “mechanic assist” addons. They provide you with timers and warnings for boss abilities. Which one you choose is up to you.
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GTFO - This is a simple “you’re standing in bad” addon which plays a loud alert when you’re standing in something you shouldn’t be.
Aside from these two, there are addons with a number of other useful functions. My recommendations are as follows:
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HeroRotation - If you’re worried about your dps or making mistakes with your rotation, this addon is perfect for you. It provides you with a simple feed of which abilities to use, based on a calculated “optimization” string embedded in the addon. It works for both dps and tanking specs of all classes.
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Details! or Skada - These are damage meter addons with the simple function of showing where you stand compared to the other members of your party. They can be set to show pretty much any metric, including things like damage taken, interrupts used, and so forth, in addition to the base damage metrics. If you’re looking to see how you stack up against other players, either of these are good choices.
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WeakAuras2 - This addon will allow you to import “auras”, custom scripts that can do any number of things. It is useful to have if you’re planning to get into serious raiding later on.
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TidyPlates - This addon simply allows you to change the appearance of enemy nameplates. It is useful because it makes enemies easier to spot, as it shows the plates for enemies even if they are behind walls, provided they are in-range.
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Pawn - This addon can tell you at a glance whether a new piece of gear is an upgrade or not, and by how much. If you don’t have specific stat points in mind when picking up gear, this can be a very useful tool.
Personally, I do not recommend using Simcraft until you get to max level. As a tool, it is only really useful if you want to be min-maxing your character, which is simply not practical or useful at lower levels. Stick to learning your class first, and worry about the data you can get from Simcraft later.
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Ty! Where do u have to save the files in order for it to work and how can u open them from the game?
The best way to deal with addons is to get the Twitch application for your desktop by going to twitch.tv and clicking on the “Get Desktop” option. Twitch will allow you to select your addons, and automatically downloads the .lua files to the appropriate location in your WoW folder. You will need to make a Twitch account, but that’s free and takes about 30 seconds.
Inside the game, most addons will prompt you to set them up the first time you log in after you download them. Interface-based addons such as damage meters and rotation addons will appear in a default position on your interface, and can be moved around to a location of your choice by simply clicking and dragging them. Addons such as WeakAuras or DBM will only have visual effects on your screen when the correct conditions are met (e.g. “in combat”).
If you want to configure your addons, you can go to the Interface menu and click the “Addons” tab at the top left of the window. This will show you a list of your addons. Selecting an addon will pull up its configuration menu, which will be different for each. The addons I recommended, however, are largely of the “plug-and-play” variety - you can simply download them and start playing without doing any additional configuration.
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Thank u very much! You ve been really helpful. I will use these add ons from now on. For simcraft, I will use it when i hit 120. Glad u are willing to help, have a good day!
Once you get WeakAuras2 you will need to either create some auras or import some that others have created. A great place to find weak aura strings that others have made is https://wago.io/. There’s also https://www.weakauras.online/en but I have never used it so can’t say if it’s any good.
If you’d rather make your own auras, you can check out this guide on Wowhead: https://www.wowhead.com/weakauras-addon-guide.
Hope that helps.
Nice, Elenaltarien. But, what is an aura and how does it work in wow?
At level 76 these things shouldn’t be too important. Just take whatever gear is an item upgrade and you’re good to go. Once your get to max level start worrying about gear optimization.
The simulationcraft add-on is a data gatherer. Execute it. A window pops open with a bunch of text. Switch to an external site like raidbots.com and paste it in. There is also a simulationcraft desktop application but raidbots does the same thing (it actually executes the exact same code on it’s servers) but provides more useful things like a top gear finder.
An aura is what you make in WeakAuras2 and it can make them for many things. Generally they are made to notify you of important information such as a proc you might get, a buff or debuff you’ve received, or abilities being on/off cooldown.
For example, for all of my healers I make auras for each spell that has a cooldown I need to keep track of. I display all of these auras in a row under my character’s feet so I can keep track of all my spell cooldowns without having to constantly look at my action bars at the bottom of my screen.
I do the same thing for my DPS classes, but put the auras in order of their casting priority in my DPS rotation. It helps me learn my rotation and keep up with it.
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Useful info, but Id like to ask something. When u paste this text in the website, what kindof information does it give you? Is it info that is only related to your particular char and what to aim for, or is it info about the class and race in general?
You can try raidbots right now without any addons
Go to raidbots.com
Select your realm and enter your character name and click the button. It gets your armory data using a Blizzard web service.
Chose one of the sim choices
Make some more choices
I recommend clicking the Advanced button and looking at all the buffs, fight styles and stuff.
Then click sim
It will show you various outputs that include how much damage per second you do and other things.
For example, i just ran the stat weights which creates an input string for Pawn
This is the initial report
https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/qUfiB66xxTnhhgEfi4WpmM
And there’s a link to this longer report
https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/qUfiB66xxTnhhgEfi4WpmM/simc
Not sure how long the links are good for
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Nice! I was wondering about that, so i designed a macro that allows me not to worry about CD, but it has a double-edge, cause at the same time there are certain intervals of seconds when I could use a stronger ability but I dont cause I only do what the macro allows me to do (subsequent attacks and such)
When you’re learning the rotation for a character, it’s best not to make inclusive macros like that, as it tends to run you up against situations like you’re describing.
You’re better off learning what abilities you’ll be using commonly, and keeping those separate. It is rarely advantageous to make cast-sequence macros unless there are abilities that you ALWAYS use one after the other.
Personally, I would say you’re better off not macroing abilities together like that at all. Just bind everything to its own action. Macros are best used for things like target simplification, such as mouseover macros used commonly by healers, or the target Misdirection macros used by Hunters.
icy-veins always has a nice list of useful macros for each class and spec in their write up pages. I would recommend taking a look at those and maybe replacing the one you made with something a bit more practical.
castsequence macros trade effectiveness for convenience.
They can be glitchy and often times they can lock you into doing something you didn’t want to do. Or worse, a poorly done one can actually prevent you from taking any action.
Stay away from them.
Read your class forum. Ask people there for good resources on rotation and effective play.
They will probably refer you icy-veins.com or even wowhead.com but some classes have great class specific websites and discord servers like
warcraftpriests.com
altered-time.com (mages)
lockonestopshop.com (warlocks)
They won’t be advertised in the class forums but they will get a lot of mentions.
For macro questions, you’re best starting place is the UI & Macro forum. It has several stickied threads that point to tons of good resources
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You really don’t need any of that nonsense. Especially DBM…mod for brainless people.
Only add on I use is to alter the UI to make it more pleasing to look at and easier to use.
We’re… so proud of you?
The OP asked for recommendations for addons, so they were provided. Just because you don’t play with them does not make them any less useful tools.
As for DBM being for “brainless” people… I guess that makes the W1st Mythic raiding guilds “brainless”? DBM is a tool that makes a certain aspect of the game easier by keeping track of specific data. It does not make those who use it “brainless” or any less good at the game.
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Awesome, Tinker. Let me ask u something. Is there a specific website that does the exact same thing but for PVP?
To the best of my knowledge no such things exist or could really be made.
Raid Bosses (what SimCraft/Raidbots/AskMrRobot is oriented towards) are dumb.
And despite plenty of evidence to the contrary in the GD forum, opponent players are not.
There are guides. Some talents are much stronger than others. Your best bet is to ask in the class forums for advice and then go PVP A LOT.
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I’d recommend Threat Plates over Tidy Plates, solely because it adds a big ol’ yellow exclamation mark over mob plates when you have to kill/loot it for a quest. Insanely useful.
I wouldn’t bother simming your character until you’re max level and gearing up, tbh. The rotation helper add-ons mentioned above will certainly help learning your rotation, but never rely on them because they’re never perfect. Your best bet is to study your build/rotation/etc on Icy Veins or WowHead.
As for Weak Auras, it can be overwhelming at first. I’d head to
http://www.wago.io
and download some user-made Auras that you like. Reverse-engineering them is a great way to learn how to use the add-on.
You can enclose links in “`” to make it a code snippet. That way the reader can copy/paste should they choose.
https://www.wago.io
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