[Guide] Spell swapping as of 3.3.2 (without MES)

[Sekan]

Edit: Updated again June 9th, now with a second technique ending the limitations of the original method.

Here's a guide for how to swap spell animations, working as of now (patch 3.3.3). None of the programs mentioned were created by me, with credit going to respective authors.

Although there are other guides based on Glitchy's MES, such crashes on my computer, so here's an alternative for any one else experiencing the same issue. A guide was made by Balnir here a couple years ago ("Spell Swapping without MES Patch 2.4"), which served as excellent inspiration for this but had column numbers which are now either out-of-date or based on an unknown different DBC editor being used.

Step 1:
Download MyWarcraftStudio from
MyWarCraftStudio.rar

Step 2:
Running MyWarcraftStudio, open patch-enUS-3.MPQ which is found in the Data\enUS subdirectory of your WoW folder. If you're european, the names may be slightly different, like enGB instead of enUS, etc.

When you first open that MPQ file, you may or may not see a DBFilesClient directory.

If you don't initially see DBFilesClient, then go to the bottom left of the screen and set it to show all files in the pull-down menu.

Go into DBFilesClient, and select Spell.dbc before right-clicking and doing extract file (to any convenient location, perhaps your desktop).

Close MyWarcraftStudio.

Step 3:
Now you need a DBC files editor. A variety of such programs exist, but, to ensure these instructions work exactly, let's use the same one I did.

Download the file at
MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service

Alternatively, download it from another mirror: Mediafire

Extract from that package.rar the DBC_Editor directory.

Step 4:
Run the DBC editor program, opening the Spell.dbc file we extracted earlier. It is a big file, so it may take a minute to load.

Scroll all the way over to field 136. You'll see spell names there. Click on field 136, and now the spells will be mostly sorted alphabetically (though they'll look out of order at the start). Scroll down until you find the spell which has the animation you want copied.

In this example, let's say you want the cool-looking bubble of Divine Aegis to be applied to another spell.

We find 5 entries for Divine Aegis. Now look at field 131. Some of them have no animation referenced in field 131 (just a 0 there), but we see the bottom 2 entries have an animation number there. In this case, that's 10895 (while, if we were copying a different spell, there would be an animation number other than 10895).

Save that number so you remember it, such as copying it to notepad / the clipboard.

Step 5:

Now we find the spell we want to change.

Let's say we want Rejuvenation to create that bubble when cast on a target. We scroll down further to find Rejuvenation. We see there are many Rejuvenation entries. If you scroll way right to field 153, you can see how some of them correspond to different ranks of the spell. The unmodified file has a different animation number set for them in field 131, in this case a 32 for the original rejuvenation animation.

For the sloppy method, simply replace all those 32 numbers with 10895, pasting 10895 over 32 a few times.

Alternatively, you may be more precise by scrolling over to fields 153 and 170 to see ranks and descriptions, since you may save time by replacing only the ranks of the spell which matter to you.

Step 6:

You may repeat steps 4 and 5 as appropriate to swap animations for more spells if desired, just remembering that spell animation numbers are in field 131, five fields left of the spell names. Sounds are also changed in the process.

Step 7:

Then we save the file, which, due to its size, may take a couple minutes to complete. Close the DBC Editor.

Run MyWarcraftStudio again. This time, go to Pack -> Create MPQ archive. Name the new file you are creating to be patch-#.MPQ where # is a single-digit number, of your choice as long as it doesn't contradict with files you already have in your WoWData directory. For instance, you could name it patch-7.MPQ

Then go to Pack -> Add file to archive.

Select the Spells.dbc file you earlier edited. There's a trick at this point: Before you click the final ok to add the file, replace its Spell.dbc name in the dialog box with DBFilesClient\Spell.dbc

That'll cause MyWarcraftStudio to create a DBFilesClient directory within your new MPQ file and put it there, as needed.

Go to Pack -> Save and close archive. Close MyWarcraftStudio.

Move your new patch-7.MPQ file to the Data subdirectory of your World of Warcraft folder, if you didn't already save it there.

Run WoW, and you should see your new animation working. In the above example, we made Rejuvenation cause a bubble (looking like Divine Aegis) to appear around players it is active upon.

---------------------------------

In a minority of cases, the above spell swap method is not enough. Specifically, just doing the above won't work if you try to change a spell having no traveling-missile animation to one which does have such. An example is that the above alone wouldn't work to change Starfire to obtain Pyroblast's animation.

To fix that issue, you must change not only field 131 but also field 47. Field 47 is about the spell's animation enroute to target (if it has such), being 0 in value if a spell animation doesn't include any traveling missile effect.

For instance, let's say we want Smite to look like Fireball. We follow the same steps as the above guide (which means that we put the 67 number from Fireball into field 131 of Smite), but, also, we copy Fireball's number for field 47 (which in that example is 1103101952) into field 47 of Smite. The result works fully. The damage in-game to the target of our new Fireball-appearing Smite spell occurs the instant the Smite finishes casting, like normal there, but the animation (and sound) is the same as Fireball, with a fiery ball missile traveling to the target and hitting a moment later.

Any number of spells can be swapped in a single patch.

---------------------------------

EDIT history:
March 29th: Patch 3.3.3 made the original guide stop working; Zurhho pointed out a solution, incorporated into the guide now.
June 9th: A new method was devised, allowing even spell swaps such as Smite -> Fireball to work too.

[Vigilastic]

thanks alot +Rep

[4paint]

Very nicely done, thanks.

[00162]

Got it to work but now all the spells are called "?" and my char/ target health, name , and mana wont show up

[Zantas]

Nice!

What i do like to see is picture of the DBCediting cause many here are new to it
and pictures always can say more than 1000 words.

[Sekan]

Got it to work but now all the spells are called "?" and my char/ target health, name , and mana wont show up

Odd. I've never had that happen.

You could upload your patch file to mediafire.com (free and no registration sign-up involved), posting the link here, and then I could look at it to see if I could tell what was going on.

Anyway, which spells were you trying to swap?

I'd double-check to be sure that you're using the same DBC editor as in my download link, to ensure the field numbers modified are the same as in my example. Be careful you aren't modifying other fields accidentally. Only field 137 should be changed in each case (though one glances at field 142 for spell names simply to know which rows to modify).

A troubleshooting suggestion, to help isolate the problem:
Begin with simply swapping a single spell, such as exactly the rejuvenation -> divine aegis swap in my example, known working, or another simple swap like wrath -> fireball. That'd test the procedure you're doing and minimize the risks of human error by reducing the number of edits. Then do more after confirming the basics worked.

Also, if problems continue on your computer, test with any other model edit patches temporarily uninstalled. After all, while they won't necessarily conflict, depending on the type (like I have a race swap patch installed at the same time as another patch that swaps a dozen spells), there's nothing better than minimizing the number of extra variables when trying to troubleshoot, just in case. I'm actually not sure what would happen if someone were to install two different patches both trying to modify the same database file, with it probably better to keep all spell swaps confined within one patch file.

---------------

Vigilastic, 4paint, Zantas92: thanks.

I might add pictures later perhaps.

[00162]

Ya got it to work 100% however the DBC will crash upon saving allot and i have to do the process about 10 time

[rageeeee]

i got a problem, trying to swap
"Item - Death Knight T10 DPS Relic (Obliterate, Scourge Strike, Death Strike)"
---->
"Item - Icecrown 25 Normal Melee Trinket"

but when i look both of those up in dbc editor at colum 137 it says 0, so what id am i suppose to swap? please help me out

[Sekan]

Ya got it to work 100% however the DBC will crash upon saving allot and i have to do the process about 10 time

After you click to save, even when you might think the process is already done, keep waiting a while longer, multiple minutes, before only then clicking to close it. If you click to close the DBC editor window when it appears fully saved (but really isn't yet), that will cause Windows to give a message about the program not responding.

I have a rather fast computer a few months old, 300GB SATA drive and all. Even so, I click to save the DBC file, then ALT-TAB to browse the internet or something while waiting for 2 or 3 minutes, check Windows explorer to see that the file finished saving (all tens of MB, no longer growing in size), and only then close the DBC editor.

[rageeeee]

After you click to save, even when you might think the process is already done, keep waiting a while longer, multiple minutes, before only then clicking to close it. If you click to close the DBC editor window when it appears fully saved (but really isn't yet), that will cause Windows to give a message about the program not responding.

I have a rather fast computer a few months old, 300GB SATA drive and all. Even so, I click to save the DBC file, then ALT-TAB to browse the internet or something while waiting for 2 or 3 minutes, check Windows explorer to see that the file finished saving (all tens of MB, no longer growing in size), and only then close the DBC editor.

hey now that ur answering him, would u happen to know the problem i have right above your post? with the colum 137 only showing "0" ? for the spell im trying to swap?

[Sekan]

i got a problem, trying to swap
"Item - Death Knight T10 DPS Relic (Obliterate, Scourge Strike, Death Strike)"
---->
"Item - Icecrown 25 Normal Melee Trinket"

but when i look both of those up in dbc editor at colum 137 it says 0, so what id am i suppose to swap? please help me out

I see what you mean. I think the key will be to swap animations for the procs from those trinkets, which go by different names than the trinkets themselves.

For the Icecrown 25 Normal Melee trinket, I think there is a related effect proc called "Aim of the Iron Dwarves" (which "grants the form and aim of the iron dwarves"), which in contrast does have something in field 137, having 4023 there.

Meanwhile, if we go to wowhead.com and look up the Death Knight T10 DPS Relic, we see that it applies an effect called Indomitable.

So, I'd try the following:

Replace the 0 in field 137 that the Indomitable entry has with 4023. Do the usual procedure for making a patch file from it. See if that works.

If it doesn't work, try also putting 4023 into field 137 of the "Item - Icecrown 25 Normal Melee Trinket" entry.

I'm not entirely sure if such will work, since this is different from my spell swaps done before by trying to swap an item's effect and also by trying to apply what is more of a temporary race change than an ordinary spell animation.

Still, it should have a good chance of working.

Please let me know if it does work, as I'd be curious (and can't test it myself, having no character with that trinket).

The one other possible method, if none of the above worked, might be for you to get that effect from a spell instead, just pasting the 4023 into field 137 of one of your regular spells.

hey now that ur answering him, would u happen to know the problem i have right above your post? with the colum 137 only showing "0" ? for the spell im trying to swap?

LOL, we went online simultaneously, and I was investigating & writing the above at the same time as your post.

[rageeeee]

I see what you mean. I think the key will be to swap animations for the procs from those trinkets, which go by different names than the trinkets themselves.

For the Icecrown 25 Normal Melee trinket, I think there is a related effect proc called "Aim of the Iron Dwarves" (which "grants the form and aim of the iron dwarves"), which in contrast does have something in field 137, having 4023 there.

Meanwhile, if we go to wowhead.com and look up the Death Knight T10 DPS Relic, we see that it applies an effect called Indomitable.

So, I'd try the following:

Replace the 0 in field 137 that the Indomitable entry has with 4023. Do the usual procedure for making a patch file from it. See if that works.

If it doesn't work, try also putting 4023 into field 137 of the "Item - Icecrown 25 Normal Melee Trinket" entry.

I'm not entirely sure if such will work, since this is different from my spell swaps done before by trying to swap an item's effect and also by trying to apply what is more of a temporary race change than an ordinary spell animation.

Still, it should have a good chance of working.

Please let me know if it does work, as I'd be curious (and can't test it myself, having no character with that trinket).

The one other possible method, if none of the above worked, might be for you to get that effect from a spell instead, just pasting the 4023 into field 137 of one of your regular spells.



LOL, we went online simultaneously, and I was investigating & writing the above at the same time as your post.

rofl just found out what u said with the deathbringers will trinket proc gives these buff:

Uncategorized - Spells - World of Warcraft

and i looked them up on dbc editor, there is an animation number in 137 so i should be able to swap it now, with Indomitable like u wrote above thanks will try

[Sekan]

rofl just found out what u said with the deathbringers will trinket proc gives these buff:

Uncategorized - Spells - World of Warcraft

and i looked them up on dbc editor, there is an animation number in 137 so i should be able to swap it now, with Indomitable like u wrote above thanks will try

Excellent. Let us know what happens.

[rageeeee]

Excellent. Let us know what happens.

swapping sigil does work, the thing is i just get a smoke screen like the proc would give, but doesnt give the "Form" so im pretty lost now, have to make a model swap from orc into taunka model then i guess?

[Sekan]

swapping sigil does work, the thing is i just get a smoke screen like the proc would give, but doesnt give the "Form" so im pretty lost now, have to make a model swap from orc into taunka model then i guess?

Well, then apparently this method for spell swapping does not work if trying to add an effect that is a temporary race change like such.

That's useful to know, though unfortunate.

Orc male into taunka male can be done fast as a permanent race change, though. Personally I earlier used the guide at http://www.mmowned.com/forums/model-...-creature.html to convert my night elf male resto druid character to be a moonkin whenever in caster form, so I assume that guide would work for you too. (An amusing side effect of that method is that it affects other player characters of the same race-gender combo too, so I see Stormwind as full of moonkins, and you'd no doubt see Orgrimmar as having lots of taunka afterward, LOL).

One limitation of the character->creature method, though, is that your gear may not show aside from your weapon, and I don't know how complete will be the animation package for the Taunka, since NPC creature models often are missing some animations / emotes compared to what's designed to be played by players.

A more perfect orc -> taunka race change including keeping gear displayed is no doubt possible but would require more complicated methods than I know about and probably a lot of work.

Depending on whether or not keeping your gear displayed is desirable to you, you might also want to consider just downloading one of the orc male -> tauren male race change patches in the simple model edits forum, since you're aiming for a taunka that is mostly a winterized tauren.