No More Dire Beast Whistle!!

[Boven]

I'm kind of torn in my feelings about the change.

Before the prepatch, I didn't mind the whistle since it was an audio indicator that I had, in fact, hit Dire Beast. I rely on some audio cues, since I'm usually busy trying to keep an eye on things other than my action bars when raiding or PvP'ing. When the prepatch hit and I was hitting Dire Beast a whole heck of a lot more, it really started to bug me. I hated the constant whistling. Then that hotfix happened and it really threw me at first. I'd end up looking down at my action bar to see if DB was on cooldown since I didn't know if I'd actually hit the right key or something.

I'd kind of prefer something in between. Maybe a sound that's not so annoying as the frequent whistling. I'd also like to get the old Kill Command sound back. The shouting is just weird.

[Sukurachi]

I've started using a macro that alternates between a bear growl and a wolf growl every time I cast Dire Beast, which is much better. I wouldn't mind putting the whistle back in as an occasional cast, but I can't seem to find the file path for the sound.

how did you write your macro?

[Kalliope]

I'm kind of torn in my feelings about the change.

Before the prepatch, I didn't mind the whistle since it was an audio indicator that I had, in fact, hit Dire Beast. I rely on some audio cues, since I'm usually busy trying to keep an eye on things other than my action bars when raiding or PvP'ing. When the prepatch hit and I was hitting Dire Beast a whole heck of a lot more, it really started to bug me. I hated the constant whistling. Then that hotfix happened and it really threw me at first. I'd end up looking down at my action bar to see if DB was on cooldown since I didn't know if I'd actually hit the right key or something.

I'd kind of prefer something in between. Maybe a sound that's not so annoying as the frequent whistling. I'd also like to get the old Kill Command sound back. The shouting is just weird.

I am right there with you on the audio cues!

It'd likely be a nightmare to implement, but I wish we could get an option of what to use. Maybe a glyph or something.

[Xella]

Call Pet/ex-Dire Beast Whistle: /script PlaySoundFile("Sound/Spells/PetCall.ogg")

Old Kill Command: /script PlaySoundFile("Sound/Spells/KillCommand.ogg")

I can extract the old KC sound and set up a zip with the proper structure if that would help, I dunno how comfortable y'all are with that sort of thing, haha. (You'd probably have to replace the sounds on a per-race/gender basis and there's multiple sounds used so that's kind of gonna be a pain and also potentially hilarious when you're on a not-hunter alt and your warrior or whatever is making kill command noises; this seems like a good candidate for just adding the /script line into a Kill Command macro and letting both sounds play)

(PS: I definitely had Sindragosa's "as your magic BETRAAAaaAaAays you!" line macroed to my thunderstorm on my shaman at one point, so it seems we've all got dubious sound choices sometimes haha :P)

Edit: Also, I'm too tired to do it right now but it shouldn't actually be SUPER difficult to create a WeakAura that will play a random sound file of your choosing when you cast an ability (aka Dire Beast). I know not everybody uses WA but a lot of people do, and it'd probably be easier to handle than a macro once you get more than a handful of sound files and their paths in the 225 character limit. I may do that tomorrow in order to continue to procrastinate making actual useful BM WAs for rotational shenanigans, haha.

[Rawr]

This may help, I've been playing around with it. http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/i ... clysm.html Just follow the instructions on the page.

EDIT: one of my macros, I like the soft roars

#showtooltip
/cast Dire Beast
/script PlaySoundFile("Sound/creature/ProtoDragon/ProtoDragonRoar.ogg")

[Xella]

Okay here's that gassed-about WeakAura from last night: http://pastebin.com/m50x88k5

YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY GOING TO WANT TO CHANGE WHICH SOUND FILES IT USES because I'm a huge memelord and was using the most obnoxious ones (that make me giggle) to keep myself from getting discouraged at how bad at custom LUA I am (I'm not actually that bad, but I'm also still not fluent so there's a lot of trial and error and frustration involved).

Currently it's set to randomly play one of five audio files when Dire Beast goes on CD:

• • the Fel Reaver noise
  • Auriaya's death noise
  • Dis Pear
  • Sindragosa's magic debuff voice line
  • the Air Horn noise that comes with WeakAuras

It's not THE most intuitive weakaura to edit but it shouldn't be THAT complicated, I don't think; once you have it imported you can change the sounds you're using and how many of them you want by going to Actions -> On Show -> Expand Text Editor.

You can use the "addon" Rawr posted to find the sound paths you're looking for, or you can create and use your own—WoW can read .mp3 files and .wav files and .ogg files so whatever format your sound is in should probably be all right; the path to it starts in your WoW folder and goes from there (so if you have it just in the root folder all you'd have to put in the weakaura is the file name; if you stick it in your screenshots folder the path would be Screenshots/filename, if you put it in a folder like any other addon it would be Interface/Addons/XellAuras/filename, etc). A word on adding your own sound files: you'll want to exit and re-open WoW entirely after adding any to your wow folder so the game recognizes that they exist (just like installing a brand new addon).

That OnLoad Action is actually the only bit of the aura that's "weird," so if you wanted to you could just copy and paste that bit into any existing WA you were using, in case you wanted to... I dunno, maybe if you wanted to play a random powerup noise from Super Smash Brothers when you hit Roll the Bones or something. I've currently got it set to Action (Not) Useable: Dire Beast because I wasn't having much luck getting it to work on a combat log successful cast event (I've never been very good with that tbh lol), but back to back Wild Call procs didn't seem to break it so maybe that's all right, I dunno.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPogSnHbrUg Here's what it looks (sounds?) like in action; I've tested it on both training dummies and out in the world but not in a proper raid/dungeon environment yet. I thought about actually narrating how to set it up and change it and whatnot but then I was like man, I'm already almost guaranteed to ramble for like an hour in text, do I need to repeat myself with my actual gross voice too? :P but if that'd be helpful for someone let me know, I guess.

(I wonder if there's a way to make it less random but choose the file based on the beast summoned? That may require a proper standalone addon cos you'd have to pull the IDs of every beast summoned and I don't know if there's a way to even get that information automatically without mousing over the DB in question. That's way beyond my skills, personally—I'mma go back to painting stylized cats hiding in grass and stuff :P)

Edit: I think for now I'm going to random between some of the old Aspect noises—they're suitably beasty because they're old hunter sounds, which also gives them the benefit of a bit of nostalgia and making my hunter feel just slightly more like a hunter again:
Sound/Spells/AspectofTheBeast.ogg
Sound/Spells/AspectofTheCheeta.ogg (not actually the noise current Cheetah uses, I don't think?)
Sound/Spells/AspectofTheHawk.ogg
Sound/Spells/AspectofTheMonkey.ogg
Sound/Spells/AspectofThePack.ogg
Sound/Spells/AspectofTheSnake.ogg
Sound/Spells/AspectofTheWolf.ogg

[Vephriel]

This may help, I've been playing around with it. http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/i ... clysm.html Just follow the instructions on the page.

EDIT: one of my macros, I like the soft roars

#showtooltip
/cast Dire Beast
/script PlaySoundFile("Sound/creature/ProtoDragon/ProtoDragonRoar.ogg")

Oh thank you Rawr! This is really helpful. I might find a different sound but I do find it a bit disorienting not having any audio cues after hitting Dire Beast now. (the whistle was definitely too much though) The only downside I can see is that it plays the sound when I hit my hotkey regardless of whether the spell itself is off CD or not, meaning it's not necessarily an indication that I properly used the spell, but I still think the sound will be helpful.

EDIT: I found the Felhound soundfile and think I'll use it, it's quiet and not too long but has enough of a sound for me to notice.
/script PlaySoundFile("Sound/creature/FelHound/FelHoundStandRoar.ogg")

[Xota]

The downside of using PlaySoundFile in a macro is that it plays the sound every time the button is hit, even if the spell isn't cast. What weakauras does is register to get combat log notifications, and then play sounds when the player casts a spell. You can do the same thing in your own addon, if you have a sandbox type addon where you put in all the odds and ends you make for yourself.

If you're working on your own lua, then this is where to start:
http://wow.gamepedia.com/COMBAT_LOG_EVENT

I suggest using srcFlags and spellId instead of srcName and spellName. And "SPELL_CAST_SUCCESS" for the eventtype.

More later, if I get the opportunity.

[peanutbuttercup]

Like many others who've posted I don't miss the whistling AT ALL but having no audio cue is a bummer. I wish they'd now kill the KC screaming because that's getting just as tiring. I'll be curious to see what sort of solution those who know how to work with addons and macros can come up with.

[Xella]

Yeah, the lack of "if this is successful, do this" is half of why I prefer weakauras to macros (the other half being that I have a lot of duplicate class alts and rewriting or copying and pasting the macros over tends to get annoying, especially on classes where I use a lot of @mouseover stuff). There's some stuff you can only really do in a macro but for... I dunno, non-combat "extras" like announcing an interrupt or a CC or adding an audio cue, WA is pretty great, especially if you're already running Weak Auras for other reasons. The interrupt one is a personal favourite, cos rewriting that per character would be awful, lol

For a single-sound WA there's no extra lua necessary at all; you can choose to play a sound when the WA first fires and can choose a custom one by selecting the appropriate dropdown:


And a pre-made single-sound WA for when Dire Beast is cast, using the felhound noise that Veph likes: http://pastebin.com/M9NHdZYK