Need an addon for non-focused castbars
 

Hi,
I'm a healer, and looking for an addon that shows me castbars for particular mobs. For example, in Lich King, all of my targets are players. I select Lich King as focus, and I can see his cast bar using my Quartz.

Now I want a castbar for the Shambling Horror, so I can cast Soothe when it casts Enrage. Is there a mod that will let me show castbars for the mobs I choose, without having to target or focus them?

Thanks.

Only if one of your party or raid members are targeting that particular NPC at the time and the addon polls the group's targets for that information.

In reality, though, this just isn't really feasible or reliable.

Well ... aren't there events for this in the combat log? Like "Mob x starts casting y", etc. even if no one targets the mob?

Shouldn't it be easy to parse the combat log and to show castbars based on this data?

This problem's really the only reason why healers are necessarily bad at interrupts and cc's...

I can see how you wouldn't want to constantly be polling every Unit within 100 yards of you, but couldn't you just put in specific creature and spell names to listen for? Something I could, as a user, add in myself?

It's just that this castbar thing has been bothering me on and off for years. If it doesn't exist, perhaps I'll add it as an Addon idea.

Duugu, sadly not. The combat log only shows events for those actors in the game world that have valid UnitID's in relation to the player.

That is, Player, Target, TargetTarget Focus, FocusTarget, Pet, PetTarget, Party1-4, PartyTarget1-4, PartyPet1-4, Raid1-40, RaidPet1-40, RaidTarget1-40, and you can pretty much slap more "Target" onto anything, but it's not usually useful.

In other words, if they're targetted by your Pet, Party members, Raid members, or if they're you're Focus or are targetted by your focus, you can get cast information for them.

If they're not, there's no combat log events generated for the unit, so you can't get cast info for them.

This is an interesting dilemma; I don't know the technical backgrounds of such things, but a potential work around the problem could be using enemy nameplates, with castbars on those. Also, I believe that particular enrage is included in DBM's timers (although I'm not completely sure). If so, you can use that to time your target change.

that not fully true, there is a combatlog event, what you prolly talk about is needing a "unitid" for using UnitCastingInfo/UnitChannelInfo like functions.

Not sure but I think you only get combatlog-entries for units with a unitid
available.

In most case of interrupts being required, someone in your raid would have it targeted... like your OT.

In cases of needing to re-cc, you'd be looking for your previous target... which I generally just put on focus, but then you can't watch two castbars, only the focus.

Would there be a way to set more than 1 focus?

You get damage and such - but spellcasting/channeling start and end events are only for unitid'd mobs, as far as I'm aware. For others, you just get spellcast succeeded.

what i meant he let it sound like you get combatlog events if someone target a mob but none if nobody does which isnt true.

you get a spellcast start event, tough no spellcast finished/success or so:

i have done a bit of work in this area.

Blizzard provides castbars on nameplates only for the current target (and a couple of addons try to provide castbars on nameplates for arena opponents). just enabling standard enemy nameplates probably won't help in PvE boss encounters, not by itself.

as for the event stream, you get one set of events (the UNIT_SPELLCAST_* events) for units with "permanent" non-target unitids (definitely groupmembers, and perhaps scripted-encounter bosses and arena opponents, haven't tested for that), plus the current target. on top of this, the combat log "indiscriminately" covers everything within "range" (the COMBAT_LOG_EVENT_UNFILTERED event and its endless variety of subtypes), including units with "permanent" unitids (effectively duplicating most of the UNIT_SPELLCAST_* events, with variations in the information supplied).

there is a broad issue, in PvE, with associating combat log events (which contain unit names and unit GUIDs, but not unitids, which in any event can be transient and may/may not exist at any given moment) with specific units in the environment. in PvP, PC unit names (i.e. player names, differentiated by realm) can generally be assumed to be unique (although you will run into the occasional hunter who has a pet named the same as the player, which can confuse "targeting aid" addons). but in PvE, there can often be several attackable NPCs nearby with the same unit name and level, and differentiating them without a target unitid is basically impossible.

Blizzard has recently added "permanent" non-target unitids for bosses in scripted instance encounters (which i have not yet tested), but ambient trash and spawns will not benefit from these unitids.

the only workaround to this i have found are raid target (icon) assignments... but even that only works if you are interested in being able to identify a graphical element like a nameplate. raid target assignments are not reported in the event stream for spell-cast activity, and the Blizzard API requires a unitid...

in short, this is a difficult problem.

AloftCastWarning attempts to solve the problem, within these various limitations, for nameplates. i would be happy to talk about the hoops i had to jump through, just send a PM my way.

AloftCastWarning has not yet been enhanced to incorporate Blizzard's new scripted-encounter boss unitids, but it should be capable of using them (and i should be able to test it solo in low-level dungeons). as well, most instance bosses have unique names. i hope to get to this fairly soon.

hope that helps.

Would it be possible to set more than one Focus?

no, "focus" is like "target", you only get one.

as well, if memory serves, unitids like "party2focus" and "raid12focus" are simply invalid. "focus" is relevant only to the player him/herself.

And I see SOMEBODY here reads "Schlock Mercenary". :)

I've build a little thingi around the combat-log-parsing-idea without any UnitIDs: http://www.wowinterface.com/download...lCastBars.html

It's very basic and not 100% reliable (seems as the combat log sometimes "chokes" cast failure events ... don't know why) but it's working. At least as far as I tested it. :)

Neat - Can't test it on h-LK tonight, but will in an instance or bg later!
:banana: