Power Auras Classic: an arcane mage setup

5th November 2010

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an introduction on the World of Warcraft addon Power Auras Classic, an addon that allows a lot of customization in the visual display of auras and effects centered on your character. I also wanted to talk about a “real world” example of the addon in use; hence, I talked about Talá’s discipline priest setup after that, and this week I’ll be talking about Eilonwyn’s arcane mage setup.

The purpose of these followup posts is not just to showcase what I’ve done with POWA, but also to try and give you an idea of how to work with POWA to set up your own UI. My visual preferences might not be the same as yours, but that’s exactly the wonderfulness of using POWA: it’s your call. It’s your decision. Try a setting out in a raid, in BGs, anywhere–and tweak it as you go to make it better.

I will be sharing my export files, though, in case you’d like a starting point for your own POWA setup. :)

Important note: the samples I have up here are based on Eilonwyn’s pre-patch auras, so yes, you will see Icy Veins as a cooldown for my Arcane setup. However, the POWA export file I’m sharing has been updated for patch 4.0.

An arcane mage setup

Eilonwyn was my first 80, and I’ve been raiding with her longer than with Talá; hence her POWA setup is much more “mature” than Talá’s. That was pretty much the reason why I’ve decided to end with Eilonwyn’s setup! You will see a lot of similarities between her setups and Talá’s, as when I had reworked Eilonwyn’s old setup, I also redid hers. I’ll just briefly pass through the similarities, and move on to the more advanced auras I have for Eil.

As a recap, here are her auras:

All systems go!

Now, don’t be scared. That’s what it looks like when everything is up, but in reality that doesn’t always happen. In the above screenshot, that’s how it looks like when I have four stacks of Arcane Blast, a Missile Barrage proc, all types of equipment procs (I track spellpower and haste procs together respectively, or else the screen would be very confusing), all my cooldowns are on, my Mirror Images are up (images not shown here), a nice druid has given me an Innervate, a nice disc priest has given me Power Infusion, a disc priest has also shielded me (or one of my wards is up!) and I have procced Incanter’s Absorption.

Of course, priesty bubbles can’t proc IA anymore. And Power Infusion does not work with Arcane Power up. So this sort of color menagerie won’t be happening together anytime soon. ;) (Blizz is getting in the way of my disc priest/arcane mage love relationship.)

Waiting for my cooldowns to come

I also use Power Auras to give me quick feedback on whether my cooldowns are available, and if needed, when they will be available. The different between Talá’s setup and this is that this shows up when my cooldowns are unavailable, and when they’ll be back up. The timers above them indicate the time left.

The similarities

You’ve seen the similar rings I’ve used before, although this time, I also have rings around my feet.

Along the top would be my clicky cooldowns, and along the bottom are equipment procs. Yellow rings are for haste, red rings for spellpower gains–this way, I can quickly gauge if I’m hitting harder or faster, or both. The pink ring is for Quad Core (4pc T10 proc), and the orange ring below is for Cultivated Power (the proc from Muradin’s Spyglass, which stacks up to 10–stack number is shown in the middle!).

All the rings are using similar textures (texture #16), but the bottom rings are flipped over:

Yay for texture reuse!

Arcane rotation procs and notifications

For Arcane mages, one of the most important things to look out for is the number of Arcane Blast debuff stacks you have built up, as you need to control your mana usage and your damage output.

I could have used the Stacks tab to just show me the number of stacks, but Arcane Blast stacks are like no other stack in-game, and I’m just not as good with boring numbers. A separate effect for each stack would be AWESOME! So: below is a series of images outlining my auras for my rotation: Arcane Blast debuff at one stack, at three stacks, at four stacks, Missile Barrage proc at four stacks, Missile Barrage proc at two stacks, Missile Barrage proc at no stacks.

The above effect is done by carefully overlaying each aura setting so that it “builds up” to a VERY EXCITING OMG PEW PEW time when all the SHINY LIGHTS are, er, lit. It also tells me that the more bright blue on my screen, the more I’m in danger of depleting my mana, since my spells are hitting harder but costlier. (And, yes, it’s more fun during burn phases when ALL THE SPARKLY LIGHTS ARE LIT!)

Click the image below to see the settings for all four Arcane Blast states (it’s huge!). This is where you can see the “magic” of the Stacks field in the Activation tab shines.

Cooldown availability

Cooldown availability is handled slightly different here, by the use of the My Spell Cooldown activation setting. When my clicky cooldowns are unavailable, these icons show up with a timer; otherwise, they’re hidden from view.

Optimum mana gem time

Lastly, I wanted to be sure that I clicked my mana gem as early as possible to have it available again in the fight later on–but it’s also important not to waste any extra mana gains by clicking too early! This is one example of where a “cascading aura rule” works really well.

First off: I want to hit my mana gem at 80% mana and below. Of course, I could just have a notification for 80% mana…but what if my mana gem isn’t available yet? I didn’t want it cluttering my screen then.

(Click to enlarge.)

The above is an example of how to go about doing something like this. In the POWA string and above, the 80% mana indicator is visible, but I actually have it way down (almost invisible) in practice. (I’ve yet to find out how to actually completely hide it.)

Above, you can see the “31” in the text box just below the name of the action/item. The 80% mana aura needs to be activated before the mana gem action is also activated. In this way, you can have two very different activation rules for one aura.

Eilonwyn’s POWA string

(To import this string, follow the instructions over at my introduction post!)

As promised, here is Eilonwyn’s POWA string! There are two files/strings, as I’ve organized them by proc and by cooldowns.

A warning, though: unless you play on a 13″ screen like me, likely the auras will be slightly off in placement! The auras are almost always relative to the center of the screen, so different screen sizes and makeups will mean different positions. It should not vary too greatly but you may need to go in and update them!

Additionally, due to the use of the Action Usable setting for my mana gem, your Mana Sapphire needs to be on your action bar somewhere. I know that sounds like a no-brainer–of course your mana gem is on your action bar!–but I actually have a macro for my mana gem which doesn’t trigger this aura :)

Power Auras – Eilonwyn’s setup

Other interesting POWA setups

It’s always interesting to see what other setups mages have, and I’ve compiled a small list of places you can visit to read up more about POWA for pewpewing:

Good luck and have fun! Let me know what you think in the comments.

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