Totally Raiding Inc.

Hey everyone, we're back! As part of a series of posts detailing your new Wrath Raiding Experience (tm?), we have a few addon requirements for TRI. The officers have all discussed these at great length, and feel that these mods are both hugely beneficial to individuals and the raid as a whole, as well as lightweight enough to be viable for anyone's system. Your officers will be more than willing to assist you with any issues you have with finding, installing, and troubleshooting these addons, but they are required.You will not be allowed in the raid without these addons.

oRA2:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/ora2.aspx
Tank frames, as well as allowing your officers to spy on you!

BigWigs:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/big-wigs.aspx
Timers and warnings for all the various forms of fuckery a boss can throw at you.

UnitFrames (only one of these is required):
PitBull: http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/pit-bull.aspx
XPerl: http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/xperl.aspx
Grid: http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/grid.aspx
ag_unitframes: http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/ag_unitframes.aspx
oUF: http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info9994-oUF.html
Make everything shiny! Also makes getting rid of debuffs easier, see incoming heals from other healers, etc.

Omen:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/omen-threat-meter.aspx
Allows the hunters and rogues to see who they can kill by misdirecting at inopportune times!

Ventrilo:
http://www.ventrilo.com/download.php
Not a WoW addon, but given the abundance of speedy communication necessary while also stabbinating something, this is a must have. Also lets you listen to the inane babble and wonderful accents of your officers.

1. Are those the only acceptable unit frames? I have a pretty highly customized UI but I use perl classic instead of any of those you've listed. Is it missing something major? Always interested in mod updates, but don't particularly care to spend time trying on my own when I could be grinding endless fire elementals for eternals (okay, maybe that last part was a lie).

2. Most of these make plenty of sense, but I would like to ask why Deadly Boss Mods isn't included? It has always seemed more accurate than BigWigs to me when I've been wavering back and forth between them and tends to be more efficient (on my system, anyway). Is it just a "uniformity" issue where Bigwigs communicates with others using it? In that case, no problem. I can switch easily enough.

3. What "spying" functionality from oRA2 is needed? As a tank, I have just rolled with Main Assist and some trickery through perl, quartz and others, and it does everything I need to do. It may also do everything you need it to do- hard to say without some elaboration. Reason I ask is that I've had some issues with oRA in the past resulting in some major performance degradation. I'm not entirely sure why- my computer doesn't like Postmaster either, for example, and used to lag down to 2 frames per second when it would give "mail delivered to X" spam which caused no ill effects at all on a computer 3' away. Haven't tried either since my most recent rebuild- and am not opposed to doing so- just voicing concerns from the past in case it acts up again (which it shouldn't, I think most of the issues I had in the past were due to threading issues with a kinda obsolete processor).

Not trying to be contrary, I'm mostly just asking: There are other mods that do a lot of these things, what all is needed that makes these the "required" choices and is a substitute acceptable?

Here's what I know, and this is by no means definitive and an official TRI Management response.

1. No, actually I use sRaidFrames. Whatever allows you to show on your screen health bars for the whole raid, and whatever works for your class/role.

2. We've found that DBM drops the ball more often than BigWigs. Issues such as counters not happening, and so on. DBM just isn't reliable enough.

3. It allows the raid officers to check things across the raid - like durability (/ora durability), resistance (/ora resist), version compatibility (/ora version) as well as other item and reagent checks. So, not so much 'spying' but just making sure we're all on the same page.

[Edit: cleaned up for typos]

Good points. I'd not thought of that kinda thing in a while. Leading 10-mans is much easier than 40 mans! I do remember checking for FR back in MC though.

On another note: What are the FR requirements for Sapphiron on 25-man? I assume we'll all want at least the three crafted pieces (MT excluded), correct?

No frost resist required. We'll probably make some for the tanks but it's honestly not needed.

I guess this is a "difference with 25-man" thing, then. In 10-man the frost was a really, really low % of my damage intake and 100% of everyone else's. I've not read much on the 25-man strat yet. Cool, cool.

((

I can see the Bigwigs/Omen/Vent needs, but are the others needed for everyone? I've only been using CTmod since it was released and don't want to change my UI. Will any of these force me to do that?

))

ORA2 will not force you to change your UI -- you can turn off all visual elements of ORA2 and have it just hide in the background doing its thing.

A unit frames addon will change your UI, though, as that's what it's for -- displaying more information about your raid (e.g. showing all buffs, and showing incoming heals on everyone.) It's more vital for healers than it is for everyone else, though I can't really imagine playing with only the default Blizzard unit frames after all this time with PitBull and Grid.

Am I correct in assuming that a rogue has no need for UnitFrames? I have all 5 parties on screen anyway so I can tell at a glance who's up and who's debuffed, but that's just for my own interest since the only "buff" I have to offer is TotT.

((
CTmod does my unit frames I guess, as I don't use default. I just wanna know if its compatable as I have all my UI setups customized for every alt with that one mod.
))