NPC Spell Monitor
This window listens and reports on player and NPC spellcasting activity. During battle, spells and combat arts frequently are cast so quickly that you don't have time to see and react to them. The NPC Spell Monitor solves this problem by collecting and learning spellcasting patterns on an encounter-by-encounter basis. When a spell is cast, its name goes into the next open slot on the list. Each time it's recast, the spell slot lights up and optionally plays a sound or sends a line of text into chat.
Which targets display their casts is controlled in the Game Options window (Alt+O). Go to User Interface >> Targeting Windows >> Casting Bars. You can choose to show casting bars from a variety of target type combinations.
The monitor is built into the Target Tagging window, so you can open it with the default key combination (Shift+Ctrl+T) or assign a different key combination from the Options window. You can also right-click the target window and choose Tagging. If you use the window extensively, there is a checkbox in the window manager/utility to open the window automatically upon logging in.
Spellcast historyThe NPC Spell Monitor also includes an optional spell history overlay. Wade into battle and the Spell Monitor will begin collecting player or NPC spells and cast times. Countdown timer bars can be configured for specific recast estimates or the monitor can display a history of pre-casting and casting intervals for you. When the encounter is over, the timers shut down automatically.
Audible and chat channel announcementsYou can easily add the target's name and the spell being cast into chat channel announcements. You can set up alerts and announcements prior to an encounter by choosing from the configurable preset dropdown or add any spell name manually. A large part of EverQuest II combat is reacting to enemy spellcasts, and the NPC Spell Monitor makes it less necessary to stay chained to the casting bar.
Tutorial
Spell listenerThe easiest way to begin using the NPC Spell Monitor is by listening and reporting on spellcasting activity in battle. Open the Spell Monitor (default is Shift+Ctrl+T) and click the red Start listening button. The monitor will indicate that it is listening for spellcasts. Now during combat spellcasts from your target or your implied target will begin filling the spellcast slots. Each time a spell is recast, its spell slot flashes briefly. You can watch for a particular spell to react to, or simply collect the combat spell data.
Spell slotsThe last slot on the monitor is an "overflow" slot. When the enemy casts more than six different spells, additional spells will go into the overflow. You can clear spells you aren't interested in during combat. Mouse over an unwanted spell and click the red X to make room for another spell. To clear all spell slots at once, click the larger red X button on the right hand side of the monitor.
Spellcast alertsDuring combat, many things are vying for your attention and even with the spell monitor window showing, certain critical spellcasts can be missed. To assist with this, you can play a sound on your computer or send a line of text into a chat channel to alert your allies whenever a spell of interest is cast.
There are three alerts that can be customized with sounds or chat text. To assign an alert to a spell that is already showing in the spell monitor, click the square button to the right of the spell slot until the alert number appears. To stop using the alert for a spell slot, cycle through the alert numbers until the button goes blank. You can safely change or stop the alert any time during battle or between encounters.
If you configure an alert for a chat channel, you may sometimes miss the line of text. In these cases you can add a common sound that will play in addition to whatever is configured in the alert. Check the Common box next to the alert on the setup page. When you cycle through the alerts on the monitor, a green + plus sign will appear alongside the alert number.
Countdown timersYou will notice that each time a spell is cast or recast, a countdown timer bar and number appear on the spell slot. This defaults to 60 seconds (which can be changed or turned off completely on the setup page.) Near the end of the countdown, the spell slot begins flashing to warn that another spellcast is imminent. Naturally, not all spells are recast at 60-second intervals, but when the timer is running for a spell it is also collecting casting interval data. Casting interval is the time in seconds between casts of a spell during a single encounter. For difficult encounters, certain critical spells are cast at regular intervals and the timers assist in keeping track of these.
You can change a spell's recast interval to a more accurate value during an encounter. Mouse over the spell slot and you will see a blue textbox. Change the recast number here and the timer will immediately restart using the new value. The new value will remain in use as long as the spell remains in the spell slot.
As the spell is cast multiple times, the most recent interval between casts can be seen next to the blue interval textbox on the overlay. Mouse over the box to see the current values. New recast calculations are added to this list from the bottom, like a cash register tape. You can clear the values any time by clicking the box.
Pre-cast intervalsSome encounter scripts have spellcasts that occur at a certain point into the encounter. These are less common, but the information is useful to collect. After a spell is added to a spell slot, the following encounter will start the pre-cast timer for the spell. As soon as the spell is cast for the first time during the second (and subsequent) encounters, the purple pre-cast interval is calculated and added to the pre-cast listing. You can view pre-cast times for a spell by mousing over the box with the purple number. Clear the values by clicking on the pre-cast box.
Preset spells
Now that you have seen the basics of the NPC Spell Monitor, the benefit of the Preset spells area should be clear. In this table you can set up anticipated spells, recast estimates and alert choices for spells in upcoming encounters so you don't have to set them up mid-battle. For spells that are set up in this table, the first time they are cast in battle they will go automatically into the next available spell slot on the monitor and the alert, if any, will fire. The recast estimate that you configured will be applied to the countdown timer.
If you want to ensure that certain preset spells go into specific spell slots before battle, you can arrange them in the list using the manual input area at the bottom of the monitor. If you don't see this, check Show manual input area in the window manager. Select the spell in the dropdown, and then press ^ to add the spell to the next available slot in the list.
Working with spellcast patternsIf you are in game, you have an option on the window manager to review spellcasting histories of the spells that are loaded in the monitor from your current battles. Press the History button above the preset spells grid to open a subpanel showing the five spells (not including the overflow slot) that have been cast recently. On this panel you can review and make judgements about recast interval patterns based upon the collected data.
If you see a new spell that you would like to add to your presets, you can adjust the timer estimate if needed and then click Add to enter the new spell on the next empty slot in the preset grid. Or if you want to change the recast estimate of a spell that you already know, change the timer value for the known spell and press Replace to replace it. This is a good place to review and edit the alert selection, if any, for the spell.
It's important to close the window manager after working with spellcast histories in order to set the newly saved data for the current session.
Preset templatesPreset spell alerts can be saved and loaded in groups of 10 using the links on the setup page in the DarqUI Unified window utility. The files are saved as *.tpl files in the custom UI folder. You can name the preset groups by zone, expansion, or encounter and easily distribute them to your other guild or raid members.
Configuring alerts
There are two types of alerts that can be configured in the spell monitor: sounds and chat text. To set up a sound, simply type playsound ding or whatever sound you want to play. The common sound dropdown box displays a list of choices, but any game sound playable with the playsound command can be used. Sound alerts are only played on your computer.
Chat text alerts can go into any chat channel, and it is a best practice to avoid using special characters excessively. It is true that alerts using special characters are more easily noticed during battle, but you must use care when configuring them. Any chat string that contains characters that are not letters, numbers and spaces should be wrapped entirely in single-quotes (apostrophes) like this:
raidsay '----- JOUST NOW! -----'
The exception to this rule is when using special mnemonics to refer to certain elements of the encounter. The mnemonics available in the Spell Monitor are TNAME (target name), ITNAME (implied target name), and SPELL (the spell being cast). Mnemonic references for spells are automatically <bracketed> in chat output. In the case of chat strings that use any of these mnemonics, you must make sure they are not enclosed in single-quotes, otherwise they will be interpreted literally. If you are using special characters and mnemonics in the same chat string, leave a space between the mnemonic and all other text, and keep it outside of the single-quote pairs like this:
shout '-###-' TNAME is casting SPELL '-###-'
This will produce the chat string:
-###- Sontalak is casting <Flame Wrought> -###-