Power Auras Classic Guide

Power Auras Classic is a brilliant addon which allows the user to display textured and stylised alerts based on certain conditions. For example, you might wish to display an obvious warning when you lack a buff, when you gain one, when your enemy has (or has not) a debuff applied, when something comes off cooldown, etc. The possibilities really are endless. Because of its flexibility, however, it presents a rather steeper learning curve than most addons. Setting up new power auras isn’t quite a hard task, but it can be a daunting one. That’s why I’m writing this guide.

First off, grab your copy of the addon here. Install as usual, enter the game and type /powa to open the configuration menu. The options are detailed below.

1. Pages of Power Auras which will display only for the current character.
2. Pages of Power Auras which will display for all characters.
3. The main area where auras are created and displayed as a list of icons. Click an icon to select it, shift-click to disable it.
4. Create a new aura.
5. Delete the selected aura. Ctrl must be held in order for this button to work.
6. Move the selected aura to another page under either Character Effects or Global Effects.
7. Same as above, but makes a copy instead of moving. Might be handy to create multiple similar auras.
8. Import an aura from someone else using the Export button.
9. Export an aura to a string which can then be copied and pasted to another player via forums, blogs, IMs, etc.
10. Rename the currently selected page
11. Test the currently selected aura by showing the effects that it would when it normally triggers. This does not test the conditions themself, only the visuals. Same functionality can be toggled by clicking once again on the currently selected aura.
12. This essentially “un-tests” all auras, hiding them.
13. Edit the selected aura. Same functionality as right-clicking an icon.

Now let’s go a bit deeper and create a new power aura. Select a page and click the New button. You’ll be met with a large, daunting dialogue which we’ll go through bit-by-bit. First is the top portion.

1. In practice, glow will remove dark outlines/shadows from your texture. Toggle it to see which you prefer.
2. Lets you choose from a selection of WoW’s own textures rather than those included in Power Auras.
3. Custom Textures refers to those which you can add to the “Custom” folder within Power Auras. You can also specify a spell name or ID to grab the texture from using this option.
4. Instead of a texture, this uses specified text.
5. Move the slider to choose from your the selection of textures. You may also input the number to the right in order to jump straight to it. The current texture is displayed at the top-left.
6. Choose the colour of the texture.
7. Checking this makes the power aura pop up in a random colour every time it fires.
8. Controls transparency. Low is invisible, high is opaque.
9. Slide to flip the texture different ways.
10. For lack of a better description, it’s like grabbing and pulling it horizontally or vertically.
11. Scales the texture.
12. Position relative to middle on the x axis. Do note that pulling the slider and then releasing resets the indicator to the middle, allowing further movement than the default -200 to +200.
13. Position relative to middle on the y axis. See above.

That should give you enough information to appropriately select a texture and change the way it looks to suit your preferences. In my opinion, you’ll want the auras to be somewhat central but not overly obscuring. In other words, don’t think you have to place them all around your character, but think of them as small icons that are very easy to notice.

With that, we’ll move onto the lower part of the dialogue. Tabs break this part down into smaller, easier to digest categories. I’ll be taking these tab-by-tab, beginning with Activation.

Activation controls, for the most part, the conditions upon which your Power Aura will trigger. It is probably the most daunting part of configuration as it tends to confuse newcomers. It is essentially simplified, graphical programming — or logic. I think you’ll find it is very logical.

1. The main condition under which your Power Aura will be triggered. Choose the most obvious one for the task and it should work. At time of writing, the choices are Debuff Type, Rage/Energy/Runic, Buff, Aggro, Mana, Action Usable, Weapon Enchant, Stance, Debuff, Health, My Spell, Combo Points, PvP, AOE, Debuff and Spell Alert.
2. This should really be placed on the upper part of the dialogue. It makes the action use its own texture, so Righteous Fury would use the icon for Righteous Fury instead of the one chosen above. The texture will only be found once the aura has been triggered at least once, and is then displayed to the right where the red “?” currently is. I don’t recommend using this until you’ve confirmed that the aura works.
3. How many stacks should there be of this action to display the power aura? For example, if you only want to display a power aura when 5 or less stacks if remaining (think of it as a warning to rebuff Inner Fire), you’ll input < =5. For more detailed information, refer to the tooltip or this Wikipedia entry.
4. Enter the name of the action here. If you want to display something regarding your Righteous Fury buff, you would type Righteous Fury. You can separate multiple actions with a slash, like for example Righteous Fury/Blessing of Might/Blessing of Kings. This would trigger the Power Aura if the action is any of the above.
5. Keeping this unchecked will allow, for example, triggers with the name “of the Wild” to evaluate to true on both Gift and Mark of the Wild. Checking it would strictly look for a buff named “of the Wild”. Thanks to Drii for the explanation.
6. This one is a bit hard to explain, so bear with me. Here you can enter the ID of another Power Aura (which can be found on the tooltip of that aura) in order to combine the two. Let’s say that aura #1 is triggered when you are buffed with Fortitude and that aura #2 is triggered when you are buffed with Inner Fire. If 1 is entered aura #2′s box here, you’re telling Power Auras to trigger aura #2 only when aura #1 has been triggered, and then when the conditions regarding aura #2 evaluate to true. So in this example, if Fortitude is not on, you will see nothing regardless of Inner Fire’s status, and if Fortitude is on, you will see Inner Fire if and only if Inner Fire is on.
7. Another redundant option in combination with 5. Ignores the case on your entry, sO yOu CaN WrItE iT aNy WAY YOU want. This could simply be a default option and not have any impact, unless I’m missing something.
8. Anything you type into this box will be checked against the tooltip of the action you’re processing. In other words, if you only want to trigger the Power Aura if your Inner Fire buff increases armor by 315 (level 1) you can simply enter 315. Be as verbose as you like.
9. Another one that’s a bit awkward to explain. Basically, if you have a spell that you’re using with the “Action Usable” condition, the action will usually be considered unusable if it’s on cooldown. By default this won’t include the global cooldown, but by using this option it will. This means that if another spell triggers global cooldown, this aura will trigger to show it for the duration of the global cooldown.
10. Inverts the logic of the condition. For example, if you want to see when Righteous Fury is not active, you would check this. Usually, if Righteous Fury is active as a buff, it would evaluate to true. With this option, if Righteous Fury is active then it will evaluate to true. This applies to all conditions: it simply flips the reason for the aura to trigger.
11. Self-explanatory. If action is cast by you.
12. Has 3 cases¹ If you are case in combat trigger aura.
13. Has 3 cases. If you are case in raid trigger aura.
14. Has 3 cases. If you are case resting trigger aura.
15. Has 3 cases. If you are case mounted trigger aura.
16. Has 3 cases. If you are case in vehicle trigger aura.
17. Has 3 cases. If you are case alive trigger aura.
18. Test the enemy target for this condition, e.g., does the enemy have debuff Hammer of Justice?
19. Test the friendly target for this condition, e.g., does the friendly target have buff Lifebloom?
20. Test the focus target for this condition, e.g., does the focus have debuff Polymorph?
21. Test the raid/party/self for this condition, e.g., does the raid, party, or myself have debuff Sated?
22. Test the party member for this condition, e.g., does the party member have buff Earth Shield?
23. Test the raid member for this condition, e.g., does the raid member have buff Fortitude?
24. This checkbox will works together with checkboxes 21-23. Checking it will make those other conditions check for the condition on any of the members, whereas unchecking it will check for the condition on all. For example, you might want to check for all on a bloodlust aura, so you can tell whether or not some people were unable to obtain the buff.
25. Test the specific unit for this condition, e.g., does the specified unit have buff Vigilance? You need to specify a name of the unit for this one. I assume it could be useful for duo levelling.
26. Use this aura only if in primary spec.
27. Use this aura only if in secondary spec.

Whew! That’s really the meat of Power Auras. It’s powerful because of all those options and conditions. The other tabs in the lower dialogue are far simpler and far more self-explanatory, so I’ll just go through them quickly.

Animation

This controls the way the texture is animated. Just select an effect from the dropdowns and it will show immediately on the preview. Begin and End Animation control the effect when the aura is triggered and ends respectively. Main and Secondary animation basically allow you to apply two different animations at the same time, so just experiment with them. Animation Speed is self-explanatory, and Animation Duration will be infinite if left at 0.

Sound

Allows you to add a sound when the aura is triggered. You can also choose a custom sound in the Sounds folder by typing the name into the input box.

Timer

Yes, you can show timers with Power Auras too, and yes this is incredibly useful. All options are self-explanatory, apart from perhaps the last two. Use transparent textures is like Glow in the upper dialog, while Stacks texture is essentially font (which is probably mislabelled).

Stacks

… And you can also show the stack count. Very much like the Timer tab, so I won’t go into detail.

So with that out the way, I don’t see much else I can write about to make this much more of a guide. The possibilities with Power Auras are endless, and Ninoa has currently come closer to that limit than I have — every time I look at her screen there are about 57 shiny effects going off thanks to Power Auras — but below are a few things I use the addon for. I do plan to think up more, but haven’t had the time.

Righteous Fury

Yep! I finally found a good way to remember Righteous Fury, should it ever come off. I’ve set it up in such a way that the screen isn’t completely obscured if I’m playing without it — indeed, there are some times where I’d want to fight without it, if temporarily — but obvious enough to tell me to turn the damned thing on. My guild has been bugging me for months, nay years, about Righteous Fury and I believe it will soon be off the collective Strobe Fail Macro™ thanks to Power Auras!

Import

Copy this code and paste it into the import dialogue

gcd:bofalse; b:nu1; anim1:nu7; g:nu1; optunitn:bofalse; ignoremaj:bofalse; stacksLower:nu0; target:bofalse; icon:stInterface\Icons\Spell_Holy_SealOfFury; size:nu0.19999998807907; torsion:nu1; r:nu1; y:nu0; x:nu0; customname:st; groupany:bofalse; isAlive:botrue; timerduration:nu0; unitn:st; bufftype:nu1; stacks:nu0; focus:bofalse; raid:bofalse; texture:nu1; DurationExpired:bofalse; alpha:nu0.85000002384186; aurastext:st; symetrie:nu0; soundfile:st; owntex:botrue; isResting:bofalse; duration:nu30; mine:bofalse; multiids:st; inVehicle:bofalse; speed:nu2; sound:nu0; TimeShown:nu0; stacksOperator:st>=; realaura:nu1; threshold:nu50; exact:botrue; textaura:bofalse; wowtex:bofalse; groupOrSelf:bofalse; customsound:st; combat:nu0; InactiveDueToState:botrue; randomcolor:bofalse; aurastextfont:nu1; id:nu3; HideRequest:bofalse; Active:botrue; customtex:bofalse; anim2:nu4; tooltipCheck:st; isSecondary:bofalse; thresholdinvert:bofalse; stance:nu10; inRaid:nu0; spec2:bofalse; Showing:botrue; buffname:stRighteous Fury; spec1:botrue; begin:nu10; off:bofalse; texmode:nu1; inverse:botrue; ismounted:bofalse; targetfriend:bofalse; party:bofalse; finish:nu2; timer.a:nu1; timer.dual:bofalse; timer.CustomDuration:nu0; timer.enabled:bofalse; timer.cents:botrue; timer.HideLeadingZeros:bofalse; timer.id:nu3; timer.Showing:bofalse; timer.y:nu0; timer.h:nu1; timer.Transparent:bofalse; timer.HideRequest:botrue; timer.HideAura:nu0; timer.x:nu0; timer.Texture:stDefault

Bloodlust

This is what I use to display Bloodlust on all characters. It’s another simple use, but certainly a useful one that most people could get something out of. I’d also recommend doing something similar with class-specific cooldowns and trinkets, just so you know exactly how much time you have left for that burst of extra power.

Import

Copy this code and paste it into the import dialogue

gcd:bofalse; b:nu0; anim1:nu2; g:nu0.047058823529412; optunitn:bofalse; ignoremaj:botrue; stacksLower:nu0; target:bofalse; icon:stInterface\Icons\Spell_Nature_BloodLust; size:nu0.25999999046326; torsion:nu0.85000002384186; r:nu1; y:nu25; x:nu55; customname:st; groupany:bofalse; isAlive:botrue; timerduration:nu0; unitn:stOnly for raid/group.; bufftype:nu1; stacks:nu0; focus:bofalse; raid:bofalse; texture:nu9; DurationExpired:bofalse; alpha:nu0.75; aurastext:st; symetrie:nu0; soundfile:st; owntex:bofalse; isResting:bofalse; duration:nu0; mine:bofalse; multiids:st; inVehicle:bofalse; speed:nu1.1499999761581; sound:nu0; TimeShown:nu0; stacksOperator:st=; realaura:nu1; threshold:nu50; exact:botrue; textaura:bofalse; wowtex:bofalse; groupOrSelf:bofalse; customsound:st; combat:nu0; InactiveDueToState:botrue; randomcolor:bofalse; aurastextfont:nu1; id:nu121; HideRequest:bofalse; Active:botrue; customtex:bofalse; anim2:nu4; tooltipCheck:st; isSecondary:bofalse; thresholdinvert:bofalse; stance:nu10; inRaid:nu0; spec2:botrue; Showing:botrue; buffname:stBloodlust; spec1:botrue; begin:nu11; off:bofalse; texmode:nu1; inverse:bofalse; ismounted:bofalse; targetfriend:bofalse; party:bofalse; finish:nu1; timer.a:nu1; timer.dual:bofalse; timer.CustomDuration:nu0; timer.enabled:botrue; timer.cents:botrue; timer.HideLeadingZeros:bofalse; timer.id:nu121; timer.Showing:botrue; timer.y:nu50; timer.h:nu1; timer.ShowOnAuraHide:bofalse; timer.Transparent:bofalse; timer.HideRequest:botrue; timer.HideAura:nu0; timer.x:nu40; timer.Texture:stDefault

That about does it for the Power Auras guide. Hopefully you’ve learnt something reading as I have writing. If you’re struggling to get a power aura working, or have some clever uses, feel free to drop it in a comment and I’ll take a look.

Power Auras Classic is always evolving, so some of this information may be a little outdated. Whether or not that is the case, most options should continue to produce the same behaviour.