Addon Spotlight: RankWatch
by Eliah Hecht 
Dec 1st 2009 at 9:00AM
Author Gronzig emailed us a note about this new addon of his called RankWatch, which serves a simple purpose: it alerts you if anyone is using downranked spells. I'm sure we've all seen the player who forgets to train, put on their bars, or update their macros with new ranks of important spells. Heck, I was using rank two of Binding Heal well into Naxxramas, since I had it bound directly to a key with Dominos.
If anyone in your party or raid uses a rank lower than the maximum for their level, RankWatch will tell then about it in a whisper. The only exception is for Life Tap, which warlocks will often use rank one of to proc effects without taking much of a health hit. Back in the day, healers would commonly downrank heals as a mana-saving measure (if I recall correctly, Heal rank four was a staple in classic raiding), but this strategy is long-gone (since patch 3.0.2), because downranked spells now cost the same amount mana as top-rank spells (or more).
Configuration options include turing off the auto-whisper and ignoring certain players, which are both vital for a potentially-annoying mod like this. Overall RankWatch looks like a useful little tool, if only so I no longer have to worry about checking up on myself.
Download RankWach at Curse
Filed under: Add-Ons, AddOn Spotlight
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
maybesew Dec 1st 2009 9:06AM
It was heal rank 1
Knyle2 Dec 1st 2009 10:14AM
With allt he awesome addons out there and how little you cover the ui, the best part of wow, its amazing that this makes the cut.
Must be hard times for you guys during server downtimes?
Knyle2 Dec 1st 2009 10:21AM
NTM recount does this already! So does the wow default combat log.
(cutaia) Dec 1st 2009 11:06AM
Aww...how cute, Knyle. You've resorted to hijacking the first post to make sure people see how much you hate wow.com. Don't worry sweetheart. You're important. You'll surely get this site back up to your standards with all your clever posts like, "WTB real articles again."
Oh, and if you run out of ideas, you could always take a cue from your buddies and throw out a "Slow news day?" or a "This was already on MMOchampion," here and there.
Karilyn Dec 1st 2009 9:11AM
This is amazing.
I love you for bringing this addon to my attention.
I love the addon author for programming it.
Vanyl Dec 1st 2009 9:15AM
This was hilarious in a PuG Naxx25 I was in this weekend. My friend had it and so many people were down-ranking. The funny thing was, they all though he was typing it out to them each time and would whisper back asking how they get rank 9 (or whatever rank was highest) as if he'd know it for every class.
It's kind of disheartening when all but three people in a 25 man are downranking though.
Dood Dec 1st 2009 9:42AM
Unfortunately I wouldn't blame the person, since there is a neat feature with dual spec that when you are leveling and train up skills that are on your inactive spec bars they are not automatically updated to the new ranks when you switch over.
My apologies to that one pug, it didn't make sense to me why my healing offspec heals were so weak and I was going oom so quickly. :(
Krugeroff Dec 1st 2009 10:06AM
@dood
after reading this I thought "oh crap" and logged on to 2 of my toons (pally and priest) who I leveled main spec dps and checked their spells.
Found renew was one rank down on priest
on my pally I found BOTH of my main healing spells were was 2 ranks down, flash of light and Holy Light
grrrrrrr
but now it is fixed. glad I read the comments!
(cutaia) Dec 1st 2009 11:08AM
Exactly. I was several ranks down on many spells for my off-spec before I figured out that this was happening. They should probably fix that sometime.
Nick S Dec 1st 2009 11:54AM
Right after the Survival buffs, my Explosive Shot de-trained itself down to Rank 1, and I didn't notice for a month. >.
Arbolamante Dec 28th 2009 6:31PM
I don't get how anything could be accidentally downranked. All my bars and macros update automatically (and after reading some posts on downranking, I went back and checked just to be sure.) I do have my skill book set not to show lower ranks - might that have something to do with it? I don't know, but I had no idea this was even an issue.
perderedeus Dec 1st 2009 9:15AM
Very cool add-on. Be forewarned that when you first run it, it will start whispering anyone in your party/raid if they're using low-rank abilities. In a raid, you could be sending out whispers like mad. Check your configuration to turn off these notifications and just have it report locally to you.
Then, you can contact individuals as you see fit.
Split Dec 1st 2009 9:31AM
Pretty cool - I'm sure we all will be glad when spells no longer have ranks. Come the Cataclysm!
crschmidt Dec 1st 2009 9:32AM
I think a big reason you're seeing more downranked spells being cast -- and a need for this addon -- is because of dual specs. With many people -- especially, in my experience, healers -- picking up a secondary spec early on, and using that spec primarily for leveling, in many cases you're training in your offspec. When you do this, the bars in your 'main spec' do not upgrade ranks.
I know at least 5 healers -- 2 shamans, 2 druids, and myself, a priest -- who levelled as a DPS spec: Boomkin, Feral, Elemental, Shadow, etc. We've all since swapped primarily to healing. However, until you go through and rebind all the stuff on your bars, you'll likely be using downranked spells; in many cases, downranked to whenever you picked up dual specs (level 40, for me).
Switching from level 40 spells to level 80 spells does feel like a big buff, though. :)
Blackhorn Dec 1st 2009 10:55AM
There's a known issue with spells not updating on dual-spec player bars. This addon would be a perfect reminder to update your bars :P
Vanyl Dec 1st 2009 9:45AM
Well the one I mentioned was a Hunter without dualspec. Only 6 people in the run actually had it so unfortunately it wasn't a dual-spec issue.
Aggrajag Dec 1st 2009 9:45AM
What a fantastic mod; all the best ideas are simple ones!
Thank you.
Jim A Dec 1st 2009 10:13AM
We had a person install this last night for our ToGC attempt... during the mid raid bio break, we spammed him with all the low level spells we could cast. His last quote was "I hate you all"
Blackhorn Dec 1st 2009 10:56AM
Strange. It being an automated process, I don't see how this would bother him at all.
Jordan Dec 1st 2009 11:59AM
Because it would eat up his screen real estate with a zillion whispers.