Vamp
Automates the selection of bite targets during the Blood-Queen Lana'thel fight in Icecrown Citadel. Works for both 10 and 25 player normal and heroic modes.
Ask your guild to install VampArrow for the ultimate in bite navigation!
VampArrow adds an arrow to your bite target, as well as a speech bubble. Never miss a bite again! Make sure your raid leader is running Vamp r94 or later to take advantage of VampArrow.
Example video
This video shows Vamp and VampArrow in action during heroic BQL 25: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vY9TWPWSDs
The UI used in the video is available for download here.
What makes this different from other BQL add-ons?
- Uses up to three separate DPS groups, a healer group, and a tank group. This allows the add-on to make intelligent choices, and lets you control positioning and limit movement during the fight.
- Configuration uses the standard WowAce UI and is entirely manual, giving you more control and reliability.
- Group lists are persisted forever, and can be setup to never change if you raid with a fairly consistent group.
- Setup group lists in advance based on guild rank, or set it up on the fly based on players in your raid.
- Continually overwrites other boss mods (like DBM) that are trying to use raid marks, ensuring bite marks are up at all times.
- Can optionally reverse marks (for strategies where the bite target finds the biter).
- Uses the Ace3 profile system, allowing you to switch between several predefined priority lists.
- Can output a detailed log of everything that happened during the fight, to help diagnose issues afterwards.
- Integrates with VampArrow to help your players locate their victims faster.
- Note: players in groups 1-5 are the only players that Vamp considers to be participating in the fight. This applies to both 10 and 25 player modes.
AddonLoader recommended
Installing AddonLoader will cause this add-on to only load when you enter the appropriate raid zone or sub-zone.
Comments and bug reports
General comments and questions can be posted at the WowAce site. Bug reports and feature requests should be made using the ticket system.
Frequently asked questions
How does Vamp inform the raid of the bite target?
A few seconds after someone is bit, that player receives a whisper. The whisper tells them who to bite and what raid mark the bite target will have. It also sends a whisper to the bite target, saying "Soandso is coming to bite you!" It will then mark all bite targets and maintain those marks until more bites occur. The raid marks are reapplied every second, so they will overwrite other boss mods (this is intentional).
When does it announce the bite target?
The delay between bite and whisper defaults to 10 seconds, in order to make sure all bites have happened. The delay is configurable. This gives players 50 seconds (65 seconds on 10 man) to find their target and get ready.
How does it choose the bite order?
The goal is to "seed" each of the three DPS groups as early as possible. Vamp's first priority is to make sure at least one member from Melee, Ranged A, and Ranged B is bitten. It will always try to limit movement as much as possible - for example, a player from Ranged A will be used to seed Ranged B, melee will bite the offtank if possible, ranged will bite healers if possible, etc.
You don't have to use all the groups. If any group is empty, Vamp will just ignore it.
Once the three DPS groups are seeded, players will try to bite other players within their own group. When DPS targets are exhausted, the offtank is the next priority. Unlisted players will be bit next, if that option is enabled. Healers are after that. The very last target will be the main tank.
Vamp will always try to re-seed a DPS group if all vampires within that group die, disconnect, or are mind controlled.
Will it automatically skip players who are dead or disconnected?
Yes. If your bite target dies or disconnects before you bite him or her, Vamp will immediately recalculate a new target for you and let everyone know. Vamp will also send a raid warning, letting the raid know that somebody died or disconnected. This warning can be turned off, and is throttled to occur by default no more often than once every 10 seconds. This throttle is also configurable.
Will Vamp adjust if someone doesn't follow it's directions?
Yes. Decisions are only made in response to actual bites.
Does it require raid leader/raid assist status?
Yes. You must be a raid assistant or raid leader.
Can multiple players in the same raid use Vamp at the same time?
No. Choose one player (preferably the raid leader) to run Vamp.
If a player is in my raid, but I didn't list them in any priority list, will they ever be a bite target?
Yes, if you've turned on the option: "Bite unlisted players". This is on by default. Unlisted players have a priority just below ranged and melee, and above the healers.
Does Vamp provide an arrow to my next target?
Not by itself. Have everyone in your guild install VampArrow.
I'm running Vamp for my guild. Can I tell who's running VampArrow?
Yes. Use the command /vamp ver.
Is there provisions for stupid in the addon (i.e. people biting the wrong targets)?
1. Whoever that was supposed to BITE someone else got mc'd instead. Both times it occured, it still told the mc'd person to bite someone. Its relatively minor and should happen rarely anyway, but its there.
2. The situation he described. We had a rogue bite someone else because he couldn't get to his target after a fear. It immediately seemed to skip over everyone above the person that got bitten on the priority list, at least from what i could see.
I also have no idea how #2 could occur. I may need more specifics on what you saw. The add-on looks down the entire priority lists every time and picks the first available person. If you skip a person, it doesn't matter. It goes from 1 to 30 every time on each list.
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/7442/wowscrnshot021110224328.jpg
Obviously Spartico should have been bitten first, but Shivall got bitten instead. The next assignments ignored him entirely, and went right to Rurouni. The lines after that are people dying to stupid shit (obviously), but Spartico was never choosen again. He was alive at least for the assignment to Rurouni, because i was eyeballing the raid frames.
Please let me know if issues persist. Thanks!
if self:AnyMeleeBit() then desiredVictimType = "ranged" else desiredVictimType = "melee" end
What if AnyMeleeBit() returns false because it didn't yet see that the mage just bit a melee? For example, Gagnrad is a mage, Balgadar is a warrior, Bloodbear is a feral,
2/2 20:58:18.291 To Gagnråd: ---->> BALGADAR {rt1} {rt1} {rt1}
2/2 20:58:18.291 To Balgadar: Gagnråd is coming to bite you!
2/2 20:58:18.495 To Cobbra: ---->> BLOODBEAR {rt2} {rt2} {rt2}
2/2 20:58:18.506 To Bloodbear: Cobbra is coming to bite you!
And here from the combat logs:
[20:58:16.356] Gagnråd afflicted by Essence of the Blood Queen from Gagnråd
[20:58:16.746] Cobbra afflicted by Essence of the Blood Queen from Gagnråd
You see that the mage becomes a Vampire and triggers your OnCombatEvent, so assigns a new target but can't see yet that a melee was bitten.
Furthermore, it seemed to not always pick the highest priority from ranged nor from melee. I had a feral druid on about 5th priority in melee, but it would often pick him over warriors and rogues. Similar with ranged, I put a shadow priest 6th, after our mages and hunters and he was picked once while there were at least 2 hunters not-dc and alive and waiting. It would be great if the first 3 people picked were infact from the top2 of melee or ranged. This was not always the case.
Ideally I would actually like the addon to have the first 4 people bitten to be 3 ranged and 1 melee, because our mages are doing the highest dps, but there's no way to select this without putting everyone in one group.
I want to give this addon another try with version 42beta when we do blood queen tonight, but I feel I can't trust it entirely. I looked at the v42 code and at first glace it seems to do what it advertises: picking people by order of priority, but on experience of v36 I'm not quite sure to continue with this.
If you don't want a melee bitten second, you do need to use one priority list. This is what the majority of the other BQL add-ons do.
Keep in mind that I have only been able to test this myself one time in the actual fight. It's pretty hard to make any guarantees of behavior without testing it.
Thanks a bunch for your report; I'm not sure if we'll be on BQL tonight, so I think I'll be able to do the delayed assignment thing before we get to her.
Currently known issues:
- Once a player gets a bite assignment, the next time they need to bite they won't get an assignment
In order to fix those issues, I also had to release all my other untested code from my to-do list. Be aware that r23-beta will (assuming the code works):
- Bite unlisted players if no other targets are available
- Raid warning when players die or disconnect, by default no more frequently than every 10 seconds