What is the difference between BigWigs and DBM?

[yurano]

I feel bad for you guys saying "omg I can't just dump a million addons into WoW? I have to configure BigWigs FUCK THAT I QUIT GIVE ME DBM"

Out of box usability is as important as if not more important than customizability.

[jsz]

It's fully usable out of the box. You don't have to go in and enable warnings and timers for every ability from every boss. They're on by default. Just because its not configured to look and act exactly like DBM right from the get-go doesn't mean it requires hours of setup like a lot of folks seem to be implying.

[Puerto]

Great thread. I love that funky is here commenting and listening to the user-base. While you're here, I'd like to say some words.

I am one of those that wants to be using ONLY BigWigs, and just not both BigWigs and DBM because some timers/features are better in DBM. I'd like to make some examples.

One thing I miss from DBM is the flashing emphasized bar that flash in different colors instead of just one color. I would love that in BigWigs as an option for every bar or/and emphasized bars.
Another one is the typical "warning to switch targets for X" that is often around in DBM. It might not really affect me that much because I am usually aware of things like that. But the majority of the user-base might like it, and maybe missing it from DBM. This example was taken from Tortos, when switching to bats.
Small warnings when you are affected by X stacks of X. If it's > than X, more warnings, etc. This example was taken from Megaera when a tank gets stacks.
One thing that I only had DBM for in a specific boss encounter was The Stone Guard, giving me warning when someone else was affected by Cobalt Mine and I was standing too close. That was really awesome during progress when you had quite alot to focus on. Same with the Wind-Lord when you were standing too close to someone with Bomb. Awesome feature. I want that.
Pre-cast warnings for special boss abilities. No counter, no bars. Just a warning saying it's 5s until X happens. This could be an additional feature for the emphasized function instead of using the counter, or actually using both if you so prefer.

These suggestions might be abit more for the casual player, and I've been raiding hardcore for little more than a year recently. But these might help even the best hardcore raider. And what says that BigWigs should only be used for the hardcore raider? Nothing, really. I want to use it casual as hardcore. This is why I came with these suggestions.

One small thing that annoys me is that all boss encounters are in alphabetic order in BigWigs. I would like the bosses to be in the correct order the way you are facing them, like in DBM. An option for it or just permanent.

A lot of what you mentioned here as to do on a per strat basis. When to taunt or what you attack for example. If DBM really does this, I can see some raiders getting confused if this is the case.

[Tharkkun]

It's fully usable out of the box. You don't have to go in and enable warnings and timers for every ability from every boss. They're on by default. Just because its not configured to look and act exactly like DBM right from the get-go doesn't mean it requires hours of setup like a lot of folks seem to be implying.

After using DBM for years you do need to go configure each individual boss. The warnings are just different enough. For example, Garalon, by default I see the stacks of pheromones display in my chat window incrementing by 3 so we can call the handoff. In bigwigs it shows as a timer that increases. Crush made a tiny bloop sound which didn't catch my attention so I could use a cooldown.

Wind Lord Mel'jarak didn't do a countdown automatically if I was a spear person cc'ing. Mine broke because I was caught off guard.

Yes, it can be changed and it takes a couple minutes per boss but you can't just jump right in after months or years of using DBM.

[jayinjersey]

I agree with everything Tharkkun said.

I decided to try BW instead of DBM on our Jin'rock & TOES runs this week.

The subtle "ding" wasn't enough of an attention getter out of the box like DBM's is...and I can't seem to find the "Beware!" and "Destruction!" sounds I've become accustom too.


I'd LOVE a "DBM Convert" profile that is installed by default ... just so I can jump in with it.


Also (and I realize it isn't a game changer) I started loving the DBM count down numbers for pulls...I haven't been able to figure out where to set that if BWs has it.

[Venara]

Also (and I realize it isn't a game changer) I started loving the DBM count down numbers for pulls...I haven't been able to figure out where to set that if BWs has it.

/pull 10

For a 10 second pull timer ;>

[jayinjersey]

But it don't show the neat new DBM pull numbers...

[Ryme]

But it don't show the neat new DBM pull numbers...

I think they're ripped from the BG and arena timers, BW does show it's own though.

[Deleted]

Do anyone of you know where I can find other sounds than the default BigWigs sounds?

I was watching some streams and they had like a old phone ring sound that really got my attention and they also had a sound like someone saying "Bam!".

Would be nice if you know where to get theese.

[Deleted]

Do anyone of you know where I can find other sounds than the default BigWigs sounds?

I was watching some streams and they had like a old phone ring sound that really got my attention and they also had a sound like someone saying "Bam!".

Would be nice if you know where to get theese.

I'm guessing the BAM! was from Affinitii's stream and that's almost certainly his weakauras making those sounds

[Deleted]

Not all bossmods have to be mirror images of one another.

Personally I like that BigWigs focuses on warnings, not strategy or extreme hand-holding.
That gives us freedom to adopt our tactics to our setup instead of having tactics enforced on us.
I find it more suitable to organized raiding (be it guild raiding or 'traditional' PuG)

Maybe if I was only raiding LFR I'd like a bossmod that blares a horn, prints in size 40 caps and spawns a hand out of my screen to slap me in the face when I stand in something bad.

As it is my idea of a good bossmod is one that mimics the Dungeon Journal:
- Informs me on relevant abilities.
- Is role-aware as possible so I don't get info I don't need.
- Is comprehensive but allows me easy customization.
- Is well coded and doesn't vacuum my cpu cycles.

I don't need the addon to tell me how to deal with abilities, that's what the RL, class lead and my own brain is for.
I just need it to make me more aware of those abilities and timers.

Like I said I think BW fills that niche perfectly fine (organized raiding no matter the difficulty setting).

The moment my boss mod starts "bossing me around" or trying to masquerade as Carbonite... is the time I'm going looking for a new one.

What I'm saying Funky... in your quest to be a "better DBM" don't forget you got users that are happy you're BigWigs.

[funkydude]

As a direct response to some of the suggestions made here, v4.2 (r10768+)

• Added Ra-den module
• Added automatic role updating feature
• Added the ability to have emphasize countdown on by default
• Added the sounds used by DBM to the sound dropdown list
• Added option to change the color/alpha of the bar text shadow

• Changed, emphasize countdown is enabled by default for some boss abilities
• Changed, bosses are now sorted in the GUI by order of encounter, instead of alphabetically
• Changed, made bar styles a bit more efficient
• Changed, fixed errors with world bosses
• Changed, various boss improvements

I'm still planning on separating out the emphasize feature, probably in 4.3

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Could you explain better how the sounds are assigned?
For example:
sound type = event

We don't currently have any specific method for assigning sounds although we try to stay consistent with some of them e.g. Long = casts
The best advice I can give you is if you don't know what sound a specific ability is using, just change them all. The only time this will be an issue is if an ability uses multiple sounds which doesn't happen often.

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Small warnings when you are affected by X stacks of X. If it's > than X, more warnings, etc. This example was taken from Megaera when a tank gets stacks.

We've done this for as long as I can remember, the warnings are only shown to tanks unless you enable them (disable the tank restriction)

One thing that I only had DBM for in a specific boss encounter was The Stone Guard, giving me warning when someone else was affected by Cobalt Mine and I was standing too close. That was really awesome during progress when you had quite alot to focus on. Same with the Wind-Lord when you were standing too close to someone with Bomb. Awesome feature. I want that.

We introduced this in v4.

Pre-cast warnings for special boss abilities. No counter, no bars. Just a warning saying it's 5s until X happens. This could be an additional feature for the emphasized function instead of using the counter, or actually using both if you so prefer.

We use these where appropriate e.g. Amber Monstrosity Explosion

One small thing that annoys me is that all boss encounters are in alphabetic order in BigWigs. I would like the bosses to be in the correct order the way you are facing them, like in DBM. An option for it or just permanent.

Fixed in v4.2

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For example, Garalon, by default I see the stacks of pheromones display in my chat window incrementing by 3 so we can call the handoff. In bigwigs it shows as a timer that increases.

Enable the "Chat Frame messages" option, it's on the main GUI panel "home page".

Crush made a tiny bloop sound which didn't catch my attention so I could use a cooldown.

I suggest emphasizing this.

Wind Lord Mel'jarak didn't do a countdown automatically if I was a spear person cc'ing. Mine broke because I was caught off guard.

I enabled emphasize countdown by default for this in v4.2

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The subtle "ding" wasn't enough of an attention getter out of the box like DBM's is...and I can't seem to find the "Beware!" and "Destruction!" sounds I've become accustom too.

I added the DBM sounds to our sounds dropdown list in v4.2 to make things easier for those swapping over from DBM.

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What I'm saying Funky... in your quest to be a "better DBM" don't forget you got users that are happy you're BigWigs.

Thanks, I still have my lines that I won't cross (bundled pvp timers, telling people what to do, etc)

[Puerto]

Not all bossmods have to be mirror images of one another.

Personally I like that BigWigs focuses on warnings, not strategy or extreme hand-holding.
That gives us freedom to adopt our tactics to our setup instead of having tactics enforced on us.
I find it more suitable to organized raiding (be it guild raiding or 'traditional' PuG)

Maybe if I was only raiding LFR I'd like a bossmod that blares a horn, prints in size 40 caps and spawns a hand out of my screen to slap me in the face when I stand in something bad.

As it is my idea of a good bossmod is one that mimics the Dungeon Journal:
- Informs me on relevant abilities.
- Is role-aware as possible so I don't get info I don't need.
- Is comprehensive but allows me easy customization.
- Is well coded and doesn't vacuum my cpu cycles.

I don't need the addon to tell me how to deal with abilities, that's what the RL, class lead and my own brain is for.
I just need it to make me more aware of those abilities and timers.

Like I said I think BW fills that niche perfectly fine (organized raiding no matter the difficulty setting).

The moment my boss mod starts "bossing me around" or trying to masquerade as Carbonite... is the time I'm going looking for a new one.

What I'm saying Funky... in your quest to be a "better DBM" don't forget you got users that are happy you're BigWigs.

This x16448916461616.

Thanks funky!

[Thezdin]

As a software engineer and aspiring addon developer I can say that I have an intense respect and admiration for the BigWigs project. The attention to resources is something any self respecting raider should be concerned with.

I have used BigWigs for years, and all but force everyone in my guild to use it ever since Heroic Ragnaros where the timers for BigWigs were superior in every way.

On the subject of features/defaults, my only "wish" for BigWigs is to implement some form of "role timers" such that specific abilities the raid leader emphasizes would be "spammed" to particular roles, and hidden/ignored by roles that don't need to worry about that particular mechanic.

[Notos]

I like to monitor resource usage of all my addons, so I was immediately turned off by how bloated DBM seemed to be (this was when I tried it in Wrath on the ONE occasion that it seemed to be updated before BW). Been using BigWigs since BC and it has never steered me wrong. Hell I remember occasions, especially during early Firelands, when I had to call out boss abilities in vent because I was the only one with accurate timers because DBM timers were off.

[funkydude]

The latest version is a minor bump to get some boss fixes out before I start on 4.3. It does however change 2 things:

We now display DBM users in the version check, and more critically, people not using any boss mod.
After several complaints here we've decided to mute the proximity by default. Proximity sound was a remnant from TBC days when proximity was rarely used, but was critical when it was used. Many fights recently involve some sort of spreading but aren't really that critical. If you want sound on proximity simply click the speaker icon. Basically what we've done is set it to muted by default.

Note that this won't affect "special" targeted proximity (when it opens for 1-3 people) e.g. Blade Lord Tayak's Unseen Strike, that will always play a repeating sound.

[Pelf]

Speaking of that... I made a post over at WowAce, but it disappeared for some reason. My proximity mute button is stuck ever since I clicked it during Durumu weeks ago. The frame isn't locked. Any ideas?

[potis]

If i recall correctly BigWigs and the pre-DBM came out around the same time with BigWigs being much more accurate and more frequently updated.

This was before there was insane data mining of everything after WotLK beta therefor both addons had timer problems but BigWigs was generally faster to update the fixes, therefor making it "Better" that was when the pre-DBM which name i dont remember right now, went and changed name to DBM and added a config panel while BigWigs remained at commands while they did the exact same thing, timer bars for bosses.

Average player hears "COMMANDS" and panics, therefor DBM popularity skyrocketed and got more support in quickly to add sound effects etc etc which made it slightly better and different than big wigs for a period but ever since cataclysm they are the same pretty much, i think really..Havent used BW in awhile.

[KillstrikeEL]

I've found that bigwigs is generally more up to date than DBM when new content comes out.

[Aspects]

I'd just use what you prefer, though I personally prefer Bigwigs, Super Emphasize is amazing