TideCaller

1.4 — WoW: Forever

• Runs on the modern client. Forever and retail forbid addons the combat log, which is where TideCaller used to learn who your Earth Shield was on. It now takes the target from your own cast, confirmed only once the cast lands.
• Shields stay on screen in combat. The modern client hides auras from addons during combat, even your own. A shield card now keeps the last shield it saw, timer still counting down, instead of flipping to "No Shield" mid-fight.
• Shield charges are not shown in combat. The game hides a shield's charges from addons during a fight, so the card shows none rather than a count that may be wrong, and shows the real count again when the fight ends. A shield used up in a fight stays on the card until then.
• A shield cast in combat restarts its card. The card's timer starts again from your own cast, since the new shield cannot be read until the fight is over.
• Your totems show when you are alone. The totem display used to appear only in a group. It now shows solo as well, without the party coverage count, which has nobody to count. "Show Totems When Solo" in the settings turns that off.
• Totems stay on the display in combat. The game hides your totems from addons during a fight, and the display took that for "no totems". A totem that was down stays, timer running, and one you put down in the fight shows from your cast, timed by how long that totem lasted the last time it was seen out of combat. A totem never yet seen out of combat does not show until the fight ends, and one killed in a fight stays up until its time runs out or the fight ends.
• Fixed: a shield card's countdown ran ahead of the game's own buff. The card rounded the seconds up and was redrawn twice a second, while the game's buff drops the fraction, so the card could read 50 beside a buff at 48. The shield, imbue and totem countdowns now count as the game does and the cards are redrawn ten times a second. A countdown also no longer shows 1:00 and then 60.
• Party buff coverage leaves out players it cannot read. Other players' buffs can be hidden from addons, and counting those players as missing your totem made the coverage read 0/4 with everyone listed as missing.
• Totems are matched to their element by name, not by slot. Retail fills totem slots in the order you drop them, so a Tremor Totem could show as your fire totem.
• The Earth Shield card shows only once you know the spell. "Always Show Earth Shield" meant always, even on a character too low to have it. It now means always once Earth Shield is learned.
• Fixed: Earth Shield ranks 1 and 2 were never tracked. Only rank 3 was recognised.
• Fixed: Earth Shield on a player from another realm was never tracked.
• Fixed: leaving test mode kept the test. Your real totems were not restored, and the ones that came back kept the fake test icons.
• Fixed: one error could switch off the whole addon. Each part of TideCaller waited on the one before it at login, so a single failure stopped everything after it, the shield tracker included. Each part now starts on its own.
• New: /tc debug and /tc debug totems. They print what TideCaller can see of your Earth Shield target and your totems, which is the quickest way to a useful bug report.

Supported versions

Built for WoW: Forever, and for retail, where the addon API is the same. Tested on the Forever beta with a shaman (the totem display and the shield cards), and before that on retail.

TBC Anniversary is no longer a development target and will receive no further work. 1.2 stays available for it.