I'll second what Util said. IMHO with needy list you can dump all those unit frames off your screen there is no longer any need to keep your screen cluttered with 40 ppls hp/mana etc bars that are first too small to read, second there being so many of them it's really impossible to really keep up on who needs what. Needlist puts bars on screen only for ppl that need something, buff/debuff/heal/res etc. It also tailers those needs to your class and custom filters you can set. It's alo great for you FPS in raids vs all those bars.
I have the HP and mana bars off in CTRA. So all I see are the names in the frames and whether or not they have Arcane Intellect/Brilliance. Vertically they take up no more room than a 5-man party, horizontally they take up twice as much space as a 5-man party. In other words, I have the frames scaled down and they don't really clutter my screen. I'll take a look at NeedyList, but if it's duplicating a function I already have in another AddOn...
Speaking as BWL-doing priest i must say that CTRA benefit my class most. What functions i consider to be vital? All of them are some sort of "syncronization" with other players:
1) ready check
- it is very important to know af all are ready at this moment, i cant imagine life of raidleader w/o this feature
2) /ra central screen messages
- someone said that its is not needed and you just may read raid chat. This is absolutely and totally wrong! In a 40-man raid raid chat is spamfest unless you are in a military-dictating-style guild wich punish people for talking. Central text is big enough and easily noticable, very important. **dunno if it is related, but coloring raidleader's name in raidchat is also handy!
3) MT windows.
- thats vital to see assigned tanks and their target!
4) buff/debuff monitoring
- as a priest i configured ctra in a way that it will show "buffs untill debuffed". I see if all are buffed with PWF and if they get magic debuff or disease - i will immediately notice their frame being colored. This visual method is very good
5) Boss modes.
- Why we love boss modes? They are nicely done, up-to-date, they use /ra central screen notifications.
All other features can be made modular/separate addons. And yes, light plain alternative would be just CTRA chat listener with MT windows and ability to display /ra texts
In my guild we have RA users, and RAID users. Those of us who read raid chat have no problem keeping up with warnings/messages, as they are sent to both channels. If you have a guild that can spam raid chat during heavy fighting... well, either you're too pro or you've not gone very far.
The biggest problem with CTRA is that its a huge piece of lag.
an Ace'd CTRaid would rock, but would need TOTAL compatibility with CTRaid in order for it to be popular imo.
ctraid/ctbossmod is already a 100% requirement for my guild to attend *ANY* raid zg or higher.
and ctraid is one of the "laggiest" mods i (have to) use. :(
i just watch my uimem in raids and the mem usage just goes up up up up up up up GC up up up up up up up GC upupupupupGC over & over every couple mins. :|
outside of raids, uimem usage/gc is way more normal.
hmm ClearBlizzard looks interesting but i cant think of any frame i could hide/disable :|
maybe i could disable the party frame since i use minigroup, but why use a mod to do one thing thats already hidden. wonder if it would make that much of a difference.
i'll try it out and see what happens :) thanks for the suggestion.
Regarding all the discussion wether a function is "essential" or not there is one very simple answer, the ONLY thing that is truly essential is some sort of core capable of listening for channel changes and channel commands (the hidden CTRA one).
The whole point is that different classes need different parts of the package. I hate it's frames for example, not because I don't need them as a resto druid, just because I don't find them clear enough.
So a little puny core that fetches the correct channel, switches to it and listens, then able to parse commands and data for other addons. Or thinking about it, maybe it's enough really to fetch and set the channel? When writing the "modules" for it you can just get channel info from the core... Wah, sounds so simple and quick to write :roll:
an Ace'd CTRaid would rock, but would need TOTAL compatibility with CTRaid in order for it to be popular imo.
I'd even say "Total conversion", since those CTRA functionalities are very useful.
Bosses thingies, MTs display, ready check, durability check... stuff like that are mandatory for the raids I do... and I'm not a healer, cause those get even more love.
All of these functions are what make CTRA so much used and loved, and... well, so much bloated.
Yup a smallish core that just parses the CTRAID channel and its messages passing them on to other addons would be so totally awesome. Would be fun to write the 'plugins' for this.
Anyone up to the task? :)
I am seriously considering writing at least the core part, however currently I'm swamped with exams and stuff.. In February things should be more calm for me, on the other hand I've planned to do so many things then that I might not have any free time anyways :roll:
Main needed things:
The boss alerts!,
MT settings.
I'd use it for those two alone! Just pleaasseeee can someone do one?
MT Settings - Xraid
Does this spell alert have like...
'Incomming Shout' for Nefarian and such? '3 seconds before Firemaw Casts Wing Buffet.' for example?
It's worthless then.
1) ready check
- it is very important to know af all are ready at this moment, i cant imagine life of raidleader w/o this feature
2) /ra central screen messages
- someone said that its is not needed and you just may read raid chat. This is absolutely and totally wrong! In a 40-man raid raid chat is spamfest unless you are in a military-dictating-style guild wich punish people for talking. Central text is big enough and easily noticable, very important. **dunno if it is related, but coloring raidleader's name in raidchat is also handy!
3) MT windows.
- thats vital to see assigned tanks and their target!
4) buff/debuff monitoring
- as a priest i configured ctra in a way that it will show "buffs untill debuffed". I see if all are buffed with PWF and if they get magic debuff or disease - i will immediately notice their frame being colored. This visual method is very good
5) Boss modes.
- Why we love boss modes? They are nicely done, up-to-date, they use /ra central screen notifications.
All other features can be made modular/separate addons. And yes, light plain alternative would be just CTRA chat listener with MT windows and ability to display /ra texts
In my guild we have RA users, and RAID users. Those of us who read raid chat have no problem keeping up with warnings/messages, as they are sent to both channels. If you have a guild that can spam raid chat during heavy fighting... well, either you're too pro or you've not gone very far.
The biggest problem with CTRA is that its a huge piece of lag.
I'd love to have an aced CT_Raid with the UI stripped. A small mod that "looks" like CT_Raid to other users, but with most of the crap removed.
ctraid/ctbossmod is already a 100% requirement for my guild to attend *ANY* raid zg or higher.
and ctraid is one of the "laggiest" mods i (have to) use. :(
i just watch my uimem in raids and the mem usage just goes up up up up up up up GC up up up up up up up GC upupupupupGC over & over every couple mins. :|
outside of raids, uimem usage/gc is way more normal.
maybe i could disable the party frame since i use minigroup, but why use a mod to do one thing thats already hidden. wonder if it would make that much of a difference.
i'll try it out and see what happens :) thanks for the suggestion.
The whole point is that different classes need different parts of the package. I hate it's frames for example, not because I don't need them as a resto druid, just because I don't find them clear enough.
So a little puny core that fetches the correct channel, switches to it and listens, then able to parse commands and data for other addons. Or thinking about it, maybe it's enough really to fetch and set the channel? When writing the "modules" for it you can just get channel info from the core... Wah, sounds so simple and quick to write :roll:
I'd even say "Total conversion", since those CTRA functionalities are very useful.
Bosses thingies, MTs display, ready check, durability check... stuff like that are mandatory for the raids I do... and I'm not a healer, cause those get even more love.
All of these functions are what make CTRA so much used and loved, and... well, so much bloated.
Anyone up to the task? :)
Oh well..
A Boss-Announcer
A Ready Check
A MT Tank thingy, hopefully able to integrate with AUF / Xraid