Is WeakAuras the best add-on ever written?

[Deleted]

Of course there is. It's limited by your memory.
Anyway i don't think you can call a custom function with an another custom function.

Pretty sure SV memory could handle quite a bit of code before you run out.
Also, why wouldn't it be?

[Snaige]

I'm just going to 'dry code' this in the reply window so I might screw up - you could double check by looking at the API docs but the basic idea is sound.
Make a new aura that fires on event: MERCHANT_SHOW with a custom trigger:

function()
  if MerchantCanRepair() then
    return RepairAllItems(1)
  end
end

Pass 0 to repairallitems() to use your own money, 1 to use guild money. Untrigger can be timed or whatever: what's appropriate sort of depends on what (if anything) you want the aura to look like.

That's the simplest possible thing that could work as I just wanted to illustrate the concept. I assume that you have broken items (because something is always 1% broken even if you've only killed critters standing around town). I also just assumed you have enough gold in the guild bank to cover it and that you wanted it to magically work in the background -- either because it's one of several triggers on a durability tracking aura or because you really don't need to see anything for this to work.

A more clever version would check that you had enough gold, check if guild repairs were enabled, opt not to repair if you were above say 95%, etc. You might also move the repairallitems() call to an event to keep the triggers clean. You might write a note in the chat frame if repair failed for some reason…still fully fleshed out to be comparable to a stand-alone addon it shouldn't be about 15 lines of code lines of code.

This is very interesting to read. I don't get why people don't use it as a starting point when comparing power auras to weak auras.

I mean, when someone says ''weak auras can display <something on your screen> when <something happens> better/faster/more clever than power auras'' it is really not nearly as impressive as saying ''weak auras does actions in game for you while power auras only displays <something on your screen> when <something happens>"

[Machinelf]

WA is the reason I still play WOW. I had 3300 Weakuras, took me years to build those up, I recently pared them down to 2400. The most exciting part of WA for me is the audio feature, I have over 30 megs of custom sounds from movies, music, and cinema. You cannot really compare it to Power Auras or Need to Know it's on a completely different level.

[Rucati]

Haven't used it, probably never will, seems like a waste of time. There's never been a situation where I'm like "Man, I really need to know how long until X happens." since you can just look on the screen and everything is already there anyway.

Pretty sure Peggle/Bejeweled/Tetra are the best addons ever made for WoW.

[Zonex]

For me, there is one sole reason WA is the greatest thing i have ever seen; I can customize it COMPLETELY to MY own playstyle, i dont have to make ANY compromises. If i want something done, i learn how to code it via trial and error and wow wiki - api (god i love that website). When i started with weakauras about a year ago.. i couldn't even code an aura to check if an aura was up (yes tehre is a built in function for it, but still), but now.. i mean wow.. all the stuff i have going on in my UI xD. Let me indulge you:

I have the predicted value of guard always showing up (the formula is on wowhead or whereever, and is always accurate.. cuz you know the actual game uses it). The text itself, is color coded, red = its not boostede by TP, green = its boosted. That same text turns to being my actual guard value when i have guard up, and goes down as the shield decreases from dmg (sorta basic).

I have a weakaura that shows me how much my expel harm will heal me for, ON average (including the 30% buff i get IF i have guard on myself). By on average, i mean that it is multiplied by my crit chance, and thats not all, next the the value itself, there is a percentage in brackets, that shows HOW much of the healk, will be an overheal, of my TOTAL hp. But theres more, its also color coded, red = means even a hit will be 50% + overheal, blue = crit will overheal, green crit will not overheal. Now guess what. Lets see an addon do that, you can't because no ones crazy enough to think of something weird, but i was, and i wanted it, and i made it happen, and with the new glyph its gonna be awesome and let me optimize my gameplay ever further.

Further more, this is actually one of the first WA i ever made (custom at least). When i fish, i usually read so i dont pay attention to the screen, i know i caught a bite by the sound effects, but if the fishing channel timer is close to the end, my reaction time might not to it, so.. i just made the WA make a specific sound when the channel is at 4 seconds, so i can look at and start focussing on the small channel time left.

On my druid, i made WA track my energy while i was in bear form (not many addons show this cuz not many people use it, but i needed it). I can show my mana rage and energy all simultaenously whenever i want whatever form im in. I have a focus lacerate and a target lacerate set of WA.. what do they do? basically they track the lacerate debuffs on my target and my focus, except they are color coded, red = not in range to be hit, green = in range. Why is this useful? because i have afocus lacerate keybind, if im fighting against a target and also a focus target, sometimes i wont be in melee range of my focus and the focus lacerate macro wont work, this was when i know that both my WA's are green, im in range of both, and i can keep a 3 stack lacerate ticking on both with minimal effort (like rly rly rly minimal effort).

What;s more, i can WA give me the answers to formulas and change on the fly depending on if i have glyphs that change the equation, or even set bonuses. Guard glyph = 10% more guarding, as soon as i equip it, my WA is updated, as soon as i unequip, WA goes back. Same thing with my t14 4set, if it sees i have 4 or more pieces of t14 brm gear, itll put a 1.2x coefficient on the guard's predicted value, and voila.

The last thing, which im sorta proud of, i made ONE WA do this -> It shows an icon, and a text to the left of it, the text has 2 lines. It's based on primordius. The first line will tell me if i have any buffs on me, and if i do, itll tell me when wones (say i have 2 crit, 1 haste mastery and stats), itll read "M S H 2C". EACH of those letters are color coded, why? because when instead i have taken negative values, itll show that in a red color, and it wont show at all if it isnt there or if it cancels out (you have a positive AND a negative stats buff). The second line, basically just shows me how many buffs i have, until i get fully mutated, at which pointit shows me how many debuffs i have. The icon, has a duration on it as well, the duration changes based on the setting, if i dont have fully mutated, itll show me the lowest duration buff i have on me (since i have till that time to get up to 5 buffs), if i have fully mutated, it shows it's duration, and if i have only negatives, it shows those too, and ofc the icon updates with it.

Now.. i made it do all that, and it takes up 1 icon space, and 2 lines RIGHT next to it, for all that info, at a glance i know exactly the state of my char. I couldn't have even thought of doing this a year ago.. now little by little, i fiddled and fiddled with WA and wow api, and now i can do w/e the hell i want.

But yea, i love WA, i can make it my bitch, and it doesnt mind (hopefully).

[Deleted]

i cant play without it ;D

[Bizerk]

Most people who say they don't feel a need to use WA just don't know how to use it.

[Deleted]

I immediately uninstalled Power Auras upon seeing its configuration menu and never tried it again, on account of that I don't want to support the idea that you can get away with inflicting something that ugly on innocent users. I see that WeakAuras is better in that way, but it's still not great, and I'm enough of a power user that I really don't need it (especially since I'm not a fan of animated UI elements), and generally I'd rather have many small (in terms of feature sets) addons than a few big ones, is why I wouldn't recommend it. Obviously it works very well for very many people, but there's an alternate perspective for you.

[Djuntas]

Seems like a very NOT userfriendly addon. I got by with NeedtoKnow. Very simple addon that does what I need, and takes only 5-10 minutes for average dude to understand it.

[Spiralphoenix]

Back in Vanilla wow times, I really really loved Flexbar. I think it was called that anyway, it's been so long. But it did a lot of things I believe that Blizzard later decided they didn't want to allow you to do.

Aside from that, I've never really so strongly approved of an addon other than Weakauras. It's incredible what can be done with it. I created a semi-animated (basically 1 FPS) aura for Falling Ash on the Dark Shamans fight, that shows sort of a falling meteor and the "ground" (a line) to give a visual indicator as to when it's going to hit, for those that are not nearby. It could have been done much more simply (AKA... just a timer), but I was really impressed that it could be done. Basically just cascading auras that trigger off one another that quickly show and hide, with the initial trigger being the Falling Ash combat log event.

It might not be userfriendly to start with, but once you get used to it, it's actually set up pretty logically. I know that when I first got it I was a bit overwhelmed, now it's like second nature.

[Shakari]

While WA i very good the best addon ever written would have to be imo Ion (was macaroon and before then trinity action bars etc), by far the best addon if I could only choose one addon

Then it would be Pitbull 4 then Weak Aura's

[Ryme]

To OP, no it's not there are better addon's it can be fun to make all your little aura's all cute n shit but for me just the blizzard aura shit works fine I don't need more then that.

A guy in my guild built a custom aura for our raid group for heroic protectors of the endless, it told each person custom to them, when they should interrupt next, when they should be moving to the outer edge, when they should prepare for movement and who would be moving next.

The addon is simply incredible in the right hands, hands down the best addon ever made for WoW in my opinion.

[MORGATH99]

nah best addons are wim and epic music player

- - - Updated - - -

and titan panel i forgot amazing addon

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bartender too
shadoweduf

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theres a lot cool addons out there
i dont se how an addon that makes it easier should be the best what happend when the addon wasnt arround ppl did good back then

[The One Percent]

Yes, it is the best addon for any serious player in this game.

[Ryme]

i dont se how an addon that makes it easier should be the best what happend when the addon wasnt arround ppl did good back then

People got around fine on horseback, of course we can get a lot further now with the invention of the aeroplane.

[Fanatik]

A guy in my guild built a custom aura for our raid group for heroic protectors of the endless, it told each person custom to them, when they should interrupt next, when they should be moving to the outer edge, when they should prepare for movement and who would be moving next.

The addon is simply incredible in the right hands, hands down the best addon ever made for WoW in my opinion.

Pretty much this. Writing smaller custom scripts for each fight is amazingly powerful. The WA I'm working on right now is for heroic siegecrafter that will pull an updated cooldowns list from chat (also stored between sessions), allows the raidleader to provide raid warnings for cooldowns being used, gives local notices and warnings for when it was time for someone to cooldown, marks the appropriate kill targets, and warns those that needed to do the conveyor belts to go do them. Also provides a Mini UI showing the overall status of every cooldown and the health of each conveyor add. Carrying at its finest.

[wrathblade]

used to have poweraura's.
loved the thing and used it for ages.

then weakaura's came and after trying it i uninstalled it. ( looked so damm complicated:O )

now i can't play without it.
just beeing able to make a quick aura for boss fights or something as simple as a reminder that you have 15 mana tea stacks!

[darkblood14]

Yes, it is the best addon for any serious player in this game.

How can this addon be a decisive role in being a serious player or not? I like to use my own brain or team coordination to do stuff, maybe I hate when someone takes my hand and helps me out of a situation I could clearly get myself out.

Every encounter in the game is made with the idea that it can be done with no addons installed. Thinking you are better than others because you use this addon only makes you look lazy and a bit elitist.

This discussion is actually funny, people basically cry for harder content but they also seek stuff that ease of the volume of stuff they have to process and do. What it is hard for you? Doing a perfect whac-a-mole game or actually trying to respond to some already obvious stuff on the ground/self/friendlies.

Returning to topic, if we include addons that are based on protected lua functions (yes using a loader to unlock them, hacking) this addon is actually a little toy. There were some awesome bot addons created in the past that could play the game for you (some private ones would actually compete with real players without too much hassle).
Not to say this addon isn't great as an idea and as execution, but calling it the best is not even remotely close.

[Ham on Rye]

Weak Auras is a great addon, but the best addon ever written is oQueue simply because it's the only addon ever that is directly responsible for a lot of people remaining subscribed to the game, where they otherwise would have quit because of their dead realms.

[Deleted]

I like to use my own brain or team coordination to do stuff, maybe I hate when someone takes my hand and helps me out of a situation I could clearly get myself out.

It's simple - some people enjoy using their brains to create tools that will help them beat the encounter.

Metagaming at it's finest.