Tank Buff Reminder is a powerful all‑in‑one toolkit designed to help tanks maintain optimal buffs, consumables, and awareness while reducing mental load during raids and dungeons. It features a dynamic buff bar, a smart consumable bar (with druid‑safe instant‑shift macros), automated buff removal, taunt and threat alerts, a defense cap reference tool, an external buff tracker, and a full configuration UI.
Now with translation support for all 7 additional locales covering all retail WoW regions: enUS · deDE · frFR · esES · ruRU · zhCN · zhTW · koKR
Core Features
Dynamic Buff Bar
- Real‑time Tracking: Instant visibility of essential tanking buffs. Missing buffs glow and pulse to grab your attention.
- Self-Casting System These are your buffs, so even if having the Healer targeted, you will cast Thorns on yourself.
- Secure Actions: Interactive layout allows you to click any missing buff icon to cast it instantly.
- Layout Freedom: Draggable via Shift+Click, fully resizable, with customizable padding and scale.
- Class‑Specific Tracking:
- Druid: Thorns, Mark/Gift of the Wild, Omen of Clarity.
- Warrior: Battle Shout, Commanding Shout, Defensive Stance.
- Paladin: Righteous Fury, Devotion Aura.
External Buff Bar
Tracks buffs cast on you by other players — the buffs you can't cast yourself but can't afford to be without.
- Raid Buff Coverage: Monitors Fortitude, Shadow Protection, Divine Spirit, Fear Ward, Inner Fire (Priest), Arcane Brilliance (Mage), Mark of the Wild, Thorns (Druid), and all five Paladin Blessings (Kings, Might, Wisdom, Sanctuary, Light).
- One-Click Announcements: Click any icon on the bar to broadcast missing or expiring buffs to a configurable channel (Self Warning, /say, /yell, /party, or /raid). Works in combat.
- Expiration Warning: Set a threshold (0–25 seconds) in the Alerts tab. Icons glow when a buff is about to expire, still showing it's time left, so you can call for a rebuff before it drops entirely.
- Shared Appearance: Uses the same visual settings as the main buff bar (scale, glow, pulse speed, alpha, timer style) — no separate appearance configuration needed.
- Group-Aware: Optionally hide the bar when not in a party or raid, keeping your UI clean while soloing.
- Layout Freedom: Draggable via Shift+Click, independent position saved per account.
Consumable Bar
- Comprehensive Catalog: Smart tracking for Healthstones, Potions, Food, Weapon Buffs, Scrolls, Engineering items, and more.
- Quick Bindings: Bind any hotkey instantly using CTRL+Click on an item slot; clear bindings using Backspace.
- Feral Druid Protection: Built-in druid-safe macros automate shifting out, using the item, and re-forming immediately.
- CC Safeguard: Integrated crowd control protection prevents accidental shape manipulation or cancellation while you are stunned, feared, or silenced.
- Visual Controls: Configure scale, glow, pulse speed, colors, duration timers, mouseover visibility, and layout orientation. Shows accurate item counts and tracks shared potion cooldowns.
Technical Implementation for Consumable Bar and Druids: Secure Macro vs. Standard Macro
Standard World of Warcraft macros rely on sequential text lines (e.g., /use item:xxxx followed by /cast !Dire Bear Form). Because the WoW game server evaluates these lines as separate actions, executing them simultaneously frequently triggers errors, eats inputs due to physical delays, or fails entirely if the server doesn't register the stance state change within the exact microsecond of the item usage.
To solve this, Tank Buff Reminder bypasses text-line sequencing by using the Blizzard SecureActionButtonTemplate engine to assemble a dynamic macro string directly inside the game's secure execution path. If a blocking crowd control state or active Global Cooldown is flagged, the addon modifies the autoUnshift SetCVar("autoUnshift", 0) instantly before the secure click completes. The same way that Druid Macro Helper blocks CC/GDC. This strictly locks you into your mitigation form, protecting your life pool when you are unable to act.
Note: This isn't a replacement for Druid Macro Helper, macro's behind the TBR secure action buttons can't be edited or customized.
Smart Buff Removal
Helps to quickly purge unwanted buffs (like Blessing of Salvation or Blessing of Protection) that can be accidentally cast on a tank, endangering aggro or boss positioning.
- Auto‑Remove: Automatically cancels specified unwanted buffs the moment you are out of combat.
- In‑Combat Fallback: Displays a pulsing red warning icon that can be manually clicked to cancel the buff mid-encounter.
- Show Icon Only: Disables automatic removal entirely, functioning strictly as a clickable reminder icon.
- Off: Disables the buff removal system entirely.
- UI Controls: Fully movable, scalable, and spacing-adjustable via the options configuration panel.
Automation & Quality of Life
- Role Enforcement: Automatically checks and sets your dungeon/raid group role to Tank.
- Auto-Repair: Automatically handles vendor repairs at merchants and prints a clear cost summary to your chat frame.
- Taunt Failure Detection: Instantly monitors taunt misses, resists, or immunities with smart batching mechanics to prevent log spam.
- Custom Alerts: Supports multiple announcement channels and includes a full sound picker for auditory warnings.
- PvP-Safe Integration: Automatically silences alerts and updates while inside Battlegrounds or Arenas.
Threat Alert System
Detects early-pull threat issues before they wipe your group, providing instant notification the moment an opening sequence goes wrong.
- Spell Miss & Resist Tracking: Alerts you immediately when opening threat abilities fail to land on your target. AoE abilities (Consecration, Demo Shout, Swipe, Cleave) produce a single alert per ability rather than one per target hit.
- CC Detection Engine: Tracks Stuns, Fears, Roots, Silences, Disarms, and Snares landing on you at the start of a pull. Powered by a comprehensive spell list synced with LoseControl TBC, covering every class, pet, racial, item, dungeon, and raid CC in the game.
- Alert Window: Configurable time window (5–25 seconds) after establishing a pull during which miss/resist alerts will fire. CC alerts can optionally be toggled to persist for the entire duration of combat.
- Announce Channels: Supports localized warnings (chat print),
/say, /yell, /party, and /raid.
- Smart Tank Verification: Only triggers when you are actively assigned the Tank role (Druids are additionally verified to be in Bear or Dire Bear Form).
- Configuration: Easily managed via the Alerts tab inside
/tbr.
Defense Cap & Tank Stats Reference Tool
An all-in-one diagnostic panel for classic tanks (Warriors, Druids, and Paladins) that tracks critical mitigation caps, combat ratings, and dynamic threat performance.
Panel Features
- Paperdoll Integration: Adds a quick-access, movable shield icon directly to your Character Paperdoll screen providing instant status indicators (✓/✗) for critical immunity.
- Dynamic Target Benchmarking: Switch seamlessly between target level presets (70–73/Raid Boss) to instantly recalculate your required baseline defenses.
- Mitigation Tracking: Live readout of your Defense Skill, Resilience Rating, Avoidance breakdowns, Armor Damage Reduction, and true Effective Health Pools (EHP).
- Predictive Threat Profiling: A specialized TPS (Threat Per Second) modeling engine that evaluates tank performance in real-time based on active equipment, spec talents, and consumables.
- UI Personalization: Integrates with the addon's master options panel, featuring modular font scaling, alpha sliding, and a custom Color Theme Picker.
Important Note on TPS Estimates: The Threat Per Second (TPS) readout is a predictive baseline estimate derived strictly from your current gear, stats, and passive modifiers. It is not a live combat simulator, it does not actively log your real-time actions, and it does not calculate individual spell casts or specific ability rotations. It is intended solely as a benchmarking tool to show how your gear upgrades, consumables, and stat changes scale your baseline threat potential.
Mechanics & Predictive Threat Modeling (The Math)
The tool tracks your character sheet statistics (UnitAttackPower, GetCritChance, and GetCombatRatingBonus) and evaluates them through custom class algorithms to project your baseline threat generation:
Druid (Bear Stance Simulation): The script isolates your core Feral tanking metrics to benchmark authentic mitigation threat, intentionally bypassing out-of-form stat inflation. It simulates a 2.5s base weapon swing speed matched with a 1.9x Dire Bear physical damage modifier. It then multiplies your projected damage output by 1.495x to account for the multiplicative stacking of standard Bear Stance threat (1.3x) and a fully-talented 3/3 Feral Instinct spec (1.15x). An active rotational modifier of 1.3x is applied to factor in high-threat ability use (Maul and Mangle execution priority).
**Estimated Druid TPS** = (Total AP / 14 \* 2.5) \* 1.9 \* 1.3 \* Hit Factor \* 1.495 \* Crit Bonus
Warrior (Rotational Simulation): Calculates threat generation assuming a standard, fast-mitigation tanking weapon speed profile (1.6s). It takes your raw attack power weapon DPS framework and runs it through a compounded 2.4x rotational multiplier. This multiplier bundles the passive threat coefficient of Defensive Stance (1.10x), 5/5 Defiance (1.15x), your melee hit rate factor, and the hardcoded flat bonus threat values generated by a high-priority Shield Slam and Revenge rotation.
**Estimated Warrior TPS** = (Total AP / 14 \* 1.6) \* 2.4 \* Hit Factor \* Crit Bonus
Paladin (Holy Spell-Power Engine): Driven primarily by holy spell modifiers and blocking mechanics rather than physical attack power calculations. It scans your active character data for Holy Spell Power (GetSpellBonusDamage(2)) and your sheet Shield Block Value (GetShieldBlockValue). It projects the baseline DPS ticks of Consecration, factors in Holy Shield reactive spikes scaled by your block value, and multiplies total Holy damage by 1.9x to account for a talented 3/3 Righteous Fury stance. A minor physical baseline component scaled by melee hit metrics is added to complete the calculation.
**Estimated Paladin TPS** = ((Base Holy DPS + Holy Shield DPS) \* 1.9) + (Physical DPS \* Hit Factor)
Customization
Access the comprehensive master configuration layout via /tbr. Settings are saved per-character and update your user interface instantly upon modification across 5 tabs:
- Buffs: Toggle specific tracked buffs and customize the priority casting layout for your class. Also configure which external buffs to track.
- Appearance: Complete aesthetic control over the buff, consumable, and external buff bars, including glow effects, scale, pulse frequencies, durations, colors, and alpha opacity sliders.
- Alerts: Manage audio indicators for buff expirations, successful purges, taunt failures, early-pull Threat Alert criteria, and external buff announcements including the expiration warning threshold.
- Automation: Toggle group role auto-assignment, vendor repairs, conditional buff removal scripts, and customize the placement of the removal frame.
- Consumables: Enable or disable tracking for specific inventory consumables, adjust bar orientation, toggle mouseover hiding, and suppress empty slots.
Commands
/tbr — Open the main Options Configuration Panel./tbrcap — Toggle the Defense Cap and Tank Stats Reference window.
Installation
- Download the latest release version.
- Extract the
TankBuffReminder folder into your World of Warcraft directory:
World of Warcraft/_classic_/Interface/AddOns/
- Launch the game, or type
/reload if you are already logged in.
Author
Gravebear
Note About this Addon:
"While many of these features can be done by WeakAura's, there is also a heavy cost in performance when doing so. It's not WeakAura's Fault, but a combination of things."
- Blizzard’s API is limited and restricted.
- The client is single-threaded, so WA calling OnUpdate every frame can be demanding.
- Players load 200+ auras, forcing WA to work extra hard.
- Many auras are badly written, outdated, or only partially work.
- Combat lockdown forces inefficient workarounds for WA due to Blizzard API
- Tanks use more expensive tracking than most players.
Special Thanks
Heartfelt appreciation to the tanks who dedicated their time to test, refine, and provide feedback:
- Anthal
- Bambàm
- BearStance
- Bison
- Krek
- Tenshö
- JV
