Ultimate Castbars

Ultimate Castbars

Ultimate Castbar aims to be the last castbar World of Warcraft addon you’ll ever need. It is a highly configurabl castbar addon for World of Warcraft (Retail), focused on deep layout control, rich text/tagging, and advanced interruptibility/kick-aware visuals.

Sources of inspiration and credits

Thanks to Xepheris for DisintegrateTicks on which was based dynamic disintegrate ticks, donate here if you liked that feature.

Thanks to obk_wow for Universal Frame Anchor on which was based the frame picker, send some love his way if you liked that feature.

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Features

Highlights

• Per-unit castbars for player, target, and focus with independent enable/disable and full settings trees.
• Supports normal casts, channels, and empowered casts.
• Powerful multi-tag text system with custom formula parsing and performance-aware updates.
• Extensive style controls (textures, borders, gradients, class/ombre/custom color modes).
• Advanced uninterruptible + kick-aware visuals (overlays, “until kick” fills, tick markers, dynamic alpha).
• Class-specific channel tick tooling + player spell blacklist/whitelist.
• Deep Evoker support: empower stage visuals + dynamic Disintegrate tick logic (Devastation).
• Robust preview simulator that reuses the real cast pipeline.
• Safe-ish Blizzard castbar coexistence (hide/show, size/position/scale, restore baseline).
• AceDB profiles with import/export, schema filtering/normalization, and copy-between-units tools.

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Installation

Automatic install

1. Use either Curse or Wago and their corresponding OS apps

   • Search for “Ultimate Castbars” and click “Install” (Curse) or “Add to collection” (Wago).
   • Follow the prompts to select your WoW installation and desired options.
   • The app will handle downloading, installing, and updating the addon for you with only a few clicks.

Manual install

1. Download the repository as a ZIP (or a release archive if you publish releases).

2. Extract the UltimateCastbars sub-folder into your WoW AddOns folder (the sub-folder should have a file called UltimateCastbars.toc inside it):

   • Windows: World of Warcraft\_retail_\Interface\AddOns\
   • macOS: World of Warcraft/_retail_/Interface/AddOns/

3. Launch the game and enable the addon in the character select “AddOns” menu.

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Quick Start

1. Log in and open options with: /ucb
2. Enable the bar(s) you want (Player/Target/Focus).
3. Use the Preview buttons to spawn test casts (normal/channel/empowered).
4. Adjust anchoring and offsets until the bar sits where you want it.
5. Customize text tags, textures, borders, and interruptibility visuals.

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Configuration Overview

Per-Unit Bars

Each tracked unit (player, target, focus) has its own settings tree:

• Enable/disable per unit
• Preview controls per unit
• Copy settings from another unit bar
• Tabs for general layout, text, style, uninterruptible/kick visuals, visibility, class settings, and Blizzard default castbar handling

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Layout, Anchoring, and Size Sync

The General tab provides deep positioning controls:

• Anchor to any frame by name (default UIParent or custom frame)
• Separate anchorFrom / anchorTo point pairing
• X/Y offsets
• Frame picker helper (hover-to-identify frames)
• Late-loading frame resolution (retry + delay/interval settings)
• Optional size sync to another frame:
  • Sync width and/or height, with offsets
  • Min width/height
  • Options to include border thickness in effective sizing

Icon layout:

• Show/hide icon
• Anchor icon around the bar (sides/corners/top/bottom)
• Offsets
• Sync icon size to bar height or set explicit width/height

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Text Tags and Tokens

Ultimate Castbars includes a custom text engine:

• Multiple text entries per bar (textList)
• Per-tag enable/disable + display name
• Per-tag type: Cast, Interrupted, Cancelled
• Per-tag show rules:
  • By cast type (normal/channel/empowered)
  • By effect state (show on interrupted/cancelled)
• Per-tag font/size/outline/shadow/color, with optional shared overrides
• Performance model:
  • Static (no updates after setup)
  • Semi-Dynamic (updates on cast/state change)
  • Dynamic (updates every frame, e.g., timers)

Supported token list

Tokens may support an optional :X suffix for limits (where applicable).

Token	Meaning
[sName] / [sName:X]	Spell name
[kName] / [kName:X]	Interrupting unit name (interrupted text)
[dTime] / [dTime:X]	Total duration
[dPerTime]	Total duration percent (100)
[rTime] / [rTime:X]	Remaining time
[rPerTime] / [rPerTime:X]	Remaining percent
[rTimeInv] / [rTimeInv:X]	Elapsed time
[rPerTimeInv] / [rPerTimeInv:X]	Elapsed percent
[nIntr] / [nIntr:X]	Uninterruptible-only text (also controls visibility)
[nIntrInv] / [nIntrInv:X]	Interruptible-only text (also controls visibility)

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Style and Visuals

• Castbar texture, background texture
• Border textures for bar + icon
• Color modes:
  • Class Colour
  • Ombre (Rainbow) progression
  • Custom Colour (optional gradient start/end)
  • Target/Focus can use separate enemy NPC colors (where applicable)
• Background toggles + alpha
• Custom rectangular borders with:
  • thickness
  • per-side offsets
  • synced/independent icon border options

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Interruptibility and Kick Awareness

A major focus area:

Uninterruptible casts (notInterruptible):

• Hide main bar, or alter transparency
• Optional icon inclusion in transparency change
• Custom overlay fill/texture + background styling
• Separate border styling for uninterruptible states (bar + icon)

Kick / interrupt availability awareness:

• Hide bar until your interrupt becomes available
• Change transparency when interrupt is on cooldown/unavailable
• Optional dynamic alpha updates during the cast as cooldown changes
• Tick marker for “kick timing”
• “Until kick” fill region with optional overlay/background

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Other Features

• Spell Queue Window (player)
  • Read/write SpellQueueWindow CVAR
  • Optional custom ms duration
  • Visual overlay on castbar (per cast type)

• Channel tick markers
  • Global tick visuals (color/width, optional texture)

• Invert / mirror behavior
  • Per cast type: invert fill direction, mirror rendering using clipped frames
• Interrupted / cancelled overlays
  • Per effect type + cast type
  • Custom textures/colors + display duration

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Class Settings (Ticks + Filters)

• Class navigation UI for all classes (with class-colored labels)
• Player channel spell tick table (per spell, per spec aware UI)
• Observed units (target/focus) have class defaults and spec placeholders for channel ticks
• Player spell filter:
  • Blacklist or whitelist mode
  • Add by spell picker or spell ID
  • Applied to player castbar display logic

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Evoker Empower + Disintegrate Support

• Dynamic Disintegrate tick logic (Devastation):
  • Tick timing adapts to haste/talents/channel updates
  • Fallback to static tick settings if disabled

• Empower visuals:
  • Stage tick marks and segment backgrounds (dynamic)
  • Manual tick placement (percent-based) with reset
  • Per-stage tick and color control
  • Optional textures

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Preview Tools

Per unit:

• Preview normal cast, channel, and empowered casts
• Looping previews (auto restart)
• Choose preview spells from detected spellbook lists
• Configure duration, empower stage count, “not interruptible”
• Drag preview bar to reposition and write offsets back to settings

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Blizzard Castbar Integration

• Show/hide default Blizzard castbars while using custom bars
• Optionally show a static bar when enabling for comparison/testing
• Control default bar size/position/scale (or leave Blizzard-managed)
• Captures and restores Blizzard baseline positions with “late restore” to reduce drift
• Re-applies hide/show if Blizzard attempts to show frames again

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Slash Commands

• /ucb, /ultimatecastbars, /uc — Open main UI
• /pcb — Player castbar settings
• /tcb — Target castbar settings
• /fcb — Focus castbar settings
• /ucbprof — Profiles tab
• /ucbdebug — Start debug mode
• /ucbdebugstop — Stop debug mode
• /rl — Reload UI

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Profiles, Import/Export, and Copy Tools

• AceDB profile management (choose/copy/reset/delete)
• Optional LibDualSpec integration (if present)
• Import/Export:
  • Export selected/current profile as a string
  • Import into current or existing profile
  • Import as a new profile
  • Uses AceSerializer + optional LibDeflate for compression/printable encoding

• Copy settings between units:
  • Copy selected categories (general/text/style/visibility/uninterruptible/other/class)
  • Replaces array-like settings cleanly (e.g., text lists)

Debug Mode

Debug mode is intended for addon conflict isolation:

• Captures currently enabled addons (excluding Ultimate Castbars)
• Disables them for the current character and reloads UI
• Stores the list and can restore/reload later

Use carefully—this is disruptive by design.

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Dependencies

This addon uses (directly or via embedded libs):

• Ace3
• AceGUI-3.0-SharedMediaWidgets
• CallbackHandler-1.0
• LibDataBroker-1.1
• LibDualSpec-1.0
• LibSharedMedia-3.0
• LibDeflate

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Support

• Use Discord for issues or bugs and feature requests: https://discord.gg/wX5hWW3N3Q

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Contributing

PRs welcome.

Suggested workflow:

1. Fork the repo
2. Create a feature branch
3. Keep changes focused and documented
4. Submit a PR with a clear summary and testing notes (client version, class/spec, steps)

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