WowAce

Auras, which many of you may know of as buffs or debuffs, are something you may want to see associated with some of your layouts. (And maybe some of them you don't want to see.) For this part of the guide I'm going to assume you are already aware of how to make different layouts, and turning all buffs/debuffs/highlight on and off for the layout, and how to set up placement of auras on your layouts. (If you missed that information its in the Making Layouts portion of the Guide!)

(This is the start of a guide... patience peeps!)

Default Behavior

Before we jump into how to change things up, its generally a nice thing to consider what PB4 does before we tinker with it. This can also be a great point to see what it does now, and what things you would like to see differently.

• The starting "Normal" Layout has Buff auras that start on the bottom left and grow right. Debuffs start on the bottom right and grow left. Basically Good and Bad meet in the middle.
• It caps the number of aura icons attached to the frame at 6 buffs and 6 debuffs.
• Its set up to Sort Auras by name with a priority on your own buffs/debuffs.
• It does have time remaining spirals turned on.
• Some of the borders on the aura icons are set to the dispel type (magic, curse, disease, etc.) And some are set to differentiate between who cast the spell, where spells cast by you are green bordered, and spells cast by others are red bordered. Weapon Enchants are set to border based on the color of the weapon quality. (Uncommon green, Rare Blue, Epic Purple, etc.)
• The default does not filter any auras
• The Count text for auras is turned on, but the time remain text is not.
• Highlighting is turned on, for friendly units that have a debuff you can dispel, the highlight will be a border color that matches the spell class. (Magic blue, Poison Green, Curse Purple, etc)

Aesthetics: Changing how Auras Appear

Aura Colors

So let's say you want to alter the Colors of Auras (Keep in mind that changing colors here will change BOTH the borders of your Aura icons AND the highlights. So if you are wanting just to change borders and keep highlights by dispel type you want to change this another way described further down.) for your entire profile (not just one layout). Maybe you have trouble with differentiating some of the default colors due to color blindness. On the left, you will see a "Colors" Menu with a sub-option for "Auras" Clicking on it should bring up a screen that looks like this:

Clicking on the colored boxes will bring up a color picker. (Color Picker makes you whites whiter and your brights brighter! Its like Clorox2, but for your UI!)

Custom Border Colors

For border purposes Auras are sorted into 9 different types.:

• My own buffs on enemy units
• My own buffs on friendly units
• My own debuffs on enemy units
• My own debuffs on friendly units
• Others Buffs on enemy units
• Others Buffs on friendly units
• Others Debuffs on enemy units
• Others Debuffs on friendly units
• Weapon Enchants

For the first 8 choices(all the non-weapon enchants) there are 3 different options for borders:

• Caster
  • This will set the border to the colors in the top section of Colors > Aura and will differentiate between things you cast and things someone else cast.
• Custom Color
  • Color Picker.
• Dispel Type
  • This will set the border to the colors in the bottom section of Colors > Aura which is based on spell types. This will color them those colors irregardless of if you have the ability to dispel the buff/debuff type.

Weapon Enchants offers the option to use Weapon Quality or a Custom Color only. If you prefer to have all your aura icons with the same border color, you will need to change all 9 types of auras.

Function: Making Auras More Effective

Sorting Auras

This is part of the layout features and will appear on the Buff Screen and Debuff screen. I've added an arrow to the screenshot below to emphasize where this appears. (Its the same place on the debuff layout page as well):

Sort will arrange your auras by time duration, and name, with a priority to your own buffs. The Buff sort priority is as follows:

1. Item Buffs (Temporary Weapon Enchants such as poisons, and shaman weapon buffs)
2. Your own Auras sorted by name.
3. Others Auras sorted by name.

The Debuff sort priority is same as above, but for Debuffs it will add a preference for debuffs you can dispel ahead of those you can not. (This is helpful if you have set your aura display numbers rather small, since it will keep those auras to the front.

Reverse simply flips the order upside down.

Making Your Auras Larger

You can choose to adjust the size of just your auras making them larger or smaller than those from others. One thing to keep in mind is that numbers of Auras change, and when setting up your auras if you choose a size that does not break evenly with the size of other auras you may see some trapped space in your layout.

Adding Time Texts

If you would like to have numbered time texts on your auras, you can enable them under Aura > Texts. The default does have counts of these turned on. (For stacking buffs/debuffs) but not time.

Select the type of aura you want to see time text on from the drop down and check the "enable" box to turn them on. You can then also set specific placement and coloration of the text as well.

Aura Filtering: Simple

Located Under /pb Modules > Auras > Aura Filter Editor

The Simple Aura filter option is used primarily when you want to add or remove a named buff to your whole profile of frames. For example you Never want to see a specific buff/debuff on any of your frames or you Always want to see a specific buff or debuff.

First you need to know the specific name of the buff or debuff (case sensitivity is an issue!) and secondly you need to identify what type of aura you are dealing with and how you want it presented (icons or highlights).

Adding and Removing Aura Icons

There are three types of Aura Icons:

• Friend Buffs - Buffs on both yourself and friendly to you combatants
• Friend Debuffs - Debuffs both on yourself and on friendly to you combatants.
• Enemy Debuffs - Debuffs placed on a hostile target

Each section has a menu of known auras based on your class and other global factors such as the pvp battleground flags. In my example image below, I'm on a mage, and looking at my Friends Buffs:

Once a spell is in the Drop Down Menu, you can simply click on the name to check or uncheck the name. Checked = Shown, Unchecked = Hidden.

If you find other buffs or debuffs that aren't on the listing, you can type their name (remember the case!) in the Add box to the right of the drop down menu and press OK. This will add that spell to the listing so that you can show or hide it by specific name.

Adding and Removing Custom Highlights

To add a Highlight, you will need to determine "is this a buff/debuff that applies to my friend or my enemy?" and the exact spelling including capitalization of the spell. In my example of Mark of the Fallen Champion, that is a friend debuff (applied to my allies) and its spelled with capital M, F and C.

Next I would type the name of the Spell in the correct Friend Highlight or Enemy Highlight box. Press the "Okay" Button to add them to your highlight menu list. (The Okay button will only appear when you have something typed in the Add box.)

In the above picture, I've already added Mark of the Fallen Champion to my Friend Highlights, and I'm adding the Super Saiyan boss buff to my highlights. Once bosses go Super Saiyan its OVER!

Once you have added a buff or debuff custom highlight, if you decide later that you do not want to use the feature, simply open the drop down menu, and click on the check mark to the left of the name. (Alternatively you can click on the blank space to the left of the name to re-enable this highlighting without having to re-add the buff/debuff)

Aura Filtering: Advanced

Located at /pb Modules > Auras > Aura Filter Editor

Advanced Filtering can be used when you want to filter specific type of buffs. (Such as not wanting to see vehicle buffs on any frames) Or for adding specific types of auras as a highlight. Or for when you want to customize aura sets so that Frame A shows specific items that is unique from what you want to see displayed on Frame B.

Current Filter opens a rather large drop down menu with a pretty large selection of options. These are all the building blocks for building a filter PLUS all the more complex filters you may have created. Rest Assured that you can not delete any of the building blocks that are used to build more complex filters. (The button will be grayed out) They key to finding out what some of these are is to look at their Filter Type.

Most people want to see a variety of different types of auras not just one type. An Aura Filter built of many different variable filters has the "Meta" filter type. One thing to keep in mind when building your own Meta filter is that just like new layouts inherit their features from their parent layouts; new meta filters will inherit their filter features from the parent filter you use.

Building a Filter can be thought of as being the game master in a game of 20 questions. You know what you want to see as Auras. The Game is going to Test each Aura to see if it fits your criteria to be shown or not shown.

Building a New Meta Filter is the first step in getting the display of auras the way you want. The Second Step is setting "Display When." This drop down tells Pitbull when you want to make this filter available. You can choose to Always make it available, or if your new filter is pertinent only to debuffs.. just show it under the debuff filter. Display When set to something other than "Never" will make it available in your layout editor for the layout.

Since some people learn more by doing... I thought perhaps a couple samples of using this editor would be helpful.

Sample:

Sample: New Highlight Filter (Purge-atory/Simmer Down Now)

Let's Build a Sample Aura Highlight that will Highlight the Boss Frame when it has a Buff we can Remove. (Shamans Purge, or Hunters Tranq. Shot use for example)

First we pick a name, since I'm building this one on my hunter, I'm going to call mine "Highlight:Simmer Down Now" I'm going to start with "Highlight: Dispellable by me Debuffs" in the Current Filter Box and type my new name in the New Box.

Once I Click the Okay Button my new Highlight will be identical to the Dispellable by me Debuffs Filter and will look like this:

Looking at the Filter Options, I want to keep "My Class can Dispel" as a part of my Highlight. But instead of "Friend Debuffs" I want to see "Enemy Buffs" So I change that option to "Highlight: Enemy Buffs."

So now I've made my Highlight Filter, I confirm that its set to Show When "Highlights" so that this filter will be an option on the Highlights portion of the Auras in the Layout Editor. So... off to that section we go!

I am going to select my new highlight in one of the drop down highlight options boxes and then I need to decide if this is something I want to be colored by type (this will use the colors from the colors portion. Default Enrages are Orange, and magic buffs for shaman would appear blue if you choose color by type) or if I want to give this a custom color.

Special Note: Changes from Patch 4.0

Patch 4.0 in all its wondrous glory introduced secure buff handler code. What this means to the average viewer is that currently with PB4 you can not right click to remove buffs. This is more completely addressed in the FAQ. The tl:dr version is that a new module to enable the removal of buffs will need to be written. However, that new module will likely not include as many options for filtering and sorting as some of that code does not comply well with the ability to right-click.