Warlock Power Auras in Cataclysm

     I've ranted in the past about my love for Power Auras, and it's an affair that has only deepened since the expansion.
     Power Auras can be configured to give you the information you want in two different ways: in can give you information about what you are already doing, or it can remind you of what you should be doing. You can ask it to tell you if you are wearing a fishing pole, or if you are not wearing a weapon.
     As much as I love the glowing effects of Power Auras, I think that using Power Auras as an uptime tracker gets cluttered far too easily. It becomes too difficult to digest all of the information it is throwing at you and discern what is missing. Instead, I use Power Auras to keep track of my priorities: a clean screen means that I am doing everything right.

Spell Cooldowns for Destruction

     Many of the Power Auras I use today have not changed much since Patch 4.0. I think using Power Auras to track Chaos Bolt, Conflagrate, and Shadowflame are great training wheels when you are just starting out with Destruction. The constant reminders can become a little overwhelming, however, and as you get more comfortable with the spec you might choose to turn these alerts off, or at least turn the opacity down. You are going to have a lot more important things clamoring for space!

     I also created brand new alert for Shadowburn, because not only does this spell have a higher damage per cast time than Incinerate (at least during the brief window it can be used, of course), it can also help remind you to use the ability on adds to regenerate soul shards, which will in turn give you more opportunities for instant Soul Fires, which you need to proc your 8% increase in spell damage. The aura for Shadowburn is set to activate only when the spell is usable - that is, when the target is below 20% health, and the spell is not on cooldown. You do this by combining the Shadowburn aura with a conditional aura tied to your target's health.

Improved Soulfire Tracking

     Prior to Cataclysm, I was happy with the auras I used to track Improved Soulfire. However, once the ability was no longer dependent on the health of the target, I decided to set the aura to alert me when it was not active, instead of solely tracking its uptime. Equally important was tracking the amount of time left on the buff.

     To do this, I separated the alert into two seperate auras: one very large aura to notify me when the buff was not active, and another to track the amount of time left on the buff. Using two auras gives me the information that I want without compromising optimal visibility.
     One of the reasons it is important to track the amount of time left on the buff is to ensure the best use of Empowered Imp procs. The in-game auras are excellent at letting you know when the proc is available, however I added an additional timer to keep track of how long the proc would last. When the Improved Soulfire Buff is fresh, using an Empowered Imp proc to refresh it immediately does not give you much additional uptime on the buff. By using the proc at the last moment, you can maximize the amount of time it refreshes, and reduce the number of hardcasted Soulfires you will need.  

Soul Swap

     This may not seem like a necessity to many, and indeed if you don't enjoy using glyphed Soul Swap to roll DoTs on two targets simultaneously, it isn't all that helpful. I generally use it when I play Affliction on the twin dragons, as it is one less thing to keep track of. You already have your hands full keeping track of the unforgiving, rubber-band like movement on this fight and punsihing debuffs, in addition to your regular DoT uptimes; when you add-in watching those timers tick on two targets, including the all-important Shadow Embrace, well, guessing when Soul Swap is available is just too much. It's an arbitrary line, but hey, that's where I'm putting it.
     This aura is set to activate only when you have a focus target set, which I will do when I intend to use this spell heavily. While I'll still use the spell occasionally in other situations, I can generally assume it is available, and the loss of visibility is more trouble than it's worth.

Hand of Gul'dan

     If you have played Demonology at all since 4.0, you are familiar with the pain in the ass that is Hand of Gul'dan. This is a really cool spell that has not recieved a lot of love from Blizzard. In the early hours of 4.06, the successful modification to the duration of Immolate, meant to make refreshing with this spell easier, was in fact broken when you used Hand of Gul'dan to refresh Immolate. What a headache.
    The effect is working as intended now, however, and gone are the days when you needed to hover over the Hand of Gul'dan button to make sure Immolate never fell off. Even so, it's almost always a good idea to keep track of the cooldown on any spell you use regularly.

Decimation

      I wanted to keep track of Decimation in two ways: I wanted to know the very moment it could be procced, and I wanted to know when the buff was up, and how long it was going to last.
     To do this, I first created a standard aura to track the buff. Then, I created another set of auras to monitor the boss's health, and alert me when we were in Decimation range, but the buff was not active.



Damage Cooldowns

     An aura I did ultimately decide to change since 4.0 was the graphic for Soulburn, which I didn't find was large enough. The purple also tended to blend in too well with the atmosphere in the Bastion of Twilight. I've changed the color to a brighter pink, and made the effect more striking.

     In the same vein, I added a new alert to let me know when Demon Soul was available. Like the Shadowflame graphic, you don't want this one to be too vivid because you will often be saving it for specific burst phases, and you don't want it to get in your way when you are biding your time.

     Finally, any warlocks using the four piece set bonus will want to know when the bonus damage to Fel Flame procs. Remember that this proc will disappear on hit, and not on cast. What this means is that because there is often a travel time involved, and personal damage modifiers are applied on cast, you can squeeze in two and sometimes even three casts that will benefit from the proc.




Other Useful Trackers

     The final aura I'll share is one to keep track of your self buffs. This is to remind you to activate Fel Armor, Soul Link, and our new damage-sharing buff Dark Intent. These three auras are color coded and will be visible when you are not self buffed.

 You can find the coding for these auras behind the cut.

To use these auras, type /powa to open your Power Auras configuration, and then past this text into the Import screen. If you already use Power Auras, make sure you change the page number listed here to avoid overriding your own auras.

If you move those auras around, know that many of these auras (Soul Swap, Decimation, Shadowburn) are dependent on other auras. If you move the auras around, you will have to manually check and make sure that the auras are correctly tied to the appropriate modifer.

Set=Page 1@
Aura[1]=Version:4.9; b:0.0902; g:0.2784; icon:Spell_Fire_Fireball; buffname:Conflagrate; bufftype:15; texture:24; alpha:1; mine:true; sound:22; PowerType:0; combat:true; size:0.83@
Aura[2]=Version:4.9; b:0.902; g:0.3294; icon:Ability_Warlock_ShadowFlame; buffname:Shadowflame; bufftype:15; texture:4; mine:true; sound:22; PowerType:0; combat:true@
Aura[3]=Version:4.9; b:0.7373; g:0.0275; icon:spell_warlock_soulburn; buffname:Soulburn; bufftype:15; texture:17; alpha:0.48; mine:true; sound:23; combat:true; size:1.18; torsion:1.5; y:165@
Aura[4]=Version:4.9; b:0; g:0.8784; icon:Spell_Fire_Fireball02; buffname:Improved Soul Fire; texture:16; alpha:1; mine:true; soundend:22; combat:true; size:0.81; timer.enabled:true; timer.cents:false; timer.y:-100@
Aura[5]=Version:4.9; b:0.1961; icon:Ability_Warlock_ChaosBolt; buffname:Chaos Bolt; r:0.2353; bufftype:15; texture:5; alpha:0.4; mine:true; sound:22; PowerType:0; combat:true; size:1.28@
Aura[6]=Version:4.9; b:0.1569; g:0.5961; icon:Ability_Warlock_EmpoweredImp; buffname:Empowered Imp; texture:182; alpha:1; combat:true; timer.enabled:true; timer.cents:false; timer.y:55@
Aura[7]=Version:4.9; g:0; icon:spell_warlock_demonsoul; buffname:Demon Soul; r:0.2431; bufftype:15; texture:63; alpha:0.5; mine:true; combat:true@
Aura[8]=Version:4.9; b:0; g:0.9373; icon:Spell_Fire_Fireball02; buffname:Improved Soul Fire; groupany:false; texture:2; alpha:0.4; mine:true; spec2:false; combat:true; size:2.15; inverse:true@
Aura[9]=Version:4.9; b:0.1412; icon:Spell_Fire_FelFire; buffname:Fel Spark; r:0.1255; texture:3; alpha:0.5; mine:true; combat:true; size:1.63@
Aura[10]=Version:4.9; target:true; icon:inv_alchemy_elixir_05; bufftype:8; texture:182; threshold:20; combat:true@
Aura[11]=Version:4.9; g:0; icon:Spell_Shadow_ScourgeBuild; buffname:Shadowburn; r:0.0078; bufftype:15; texture:4; alpha:1; mine:true; multiids:10; combat:true; size:0.53@
Aura[12]=Version:4.9; b:0.2235; g:0.3451; icon:Spell_Fire_Fireball02; buffname:Decimation; mine:true; multiids:Decimation; tooltipCheck:Decimation; combat:true; timer.enabled:true; timer.cents:false; timer.y:62@
Aura[13]=Version:4.9; b:0.0314; g:0.1961; icon:INV_SummerFest_FireSpirit; buffname:Hand of Gul'dan; bufftype:15; texture:24; mine:true; spec1:false; combat:true@
Aura[14]=Version:4.9; target:true; icon:inv_alchemy_elixir_05; bufftype:8; texture:182; threshold:25; combat:true@
Aura[15]=Version:4.9; b:0.2235; g:0.3451; icon:Spell_Fire_Fireball02; buffname:Decimation; groupany:false; texture:3; mine:true; multiids:14; spec1:false; combat:true; size:1.09; inverse:true@
Aura[16]=Version:4.9; b:0.8706; g:0.098; icon:ability_warlock_soulswap; buffname:Soul Swap; bufftype:15; alpha:1; multiids:17; exact:true; tooltipCheck:Soul Swap; combat:true; size:1.14@
Aura[17]=Version:4.9; target:true; icon:inv_alchemy_elixir_05; bufftype:8; focus:true; texture:182; threshold:100; combat:true@
Aura[18]=Version:4.9; b:0.5137; icon:Spell_Shadow_FelArmour; buffname:Fel Armor; r:0; texture:126; mine:true; size:0.76; y:0; inverse:true@
Aura[19]=Version:4.9; icon:Spell_Shadow_GatherShadows; buffname:Soul Link; x:10; texture:127; inverse:true@
Aura[20]=Version:4.9; g:0.1373; icon:spell_warlock_focusshadow; buffname:Dark Intent; r:0.4784; x:-20; texture:128; mine:true; y:-25; inverse:true@