Applies to v0.2.27 Last verified 2026-11-01

Timers in depth

Nag has five timer-style actions: Timer, Countdown, DoT Timer, Beneficial Timer and Stopwatch. They share most of their settings. This page describes each setting once and says which timers have it. For the other action types, see the Actions reference.

Which one do I use?

Action	Bar	Use it for	Needs
Timer	Fills up as time passes.	Anything with a known length that you want to watch fill.	A duration above zero.
Countdown	Starts full and empties.	The same, when you care about time left.	A duration above zero.
DoT Timer	Fills like a timer, one bar per target. Only the time label counts down.	Damage-over-time spells you cast.	A phrase with a named group `target`.
Beneficial Timer	Empties like a countdown, one bar per target.	Buffs, mostly your own casts.	A phrase with a named group `target`, plus the spell’s cast time.
Stopwatch	Counts up, no end.	Timing a phase or a respawn until a stop phrase matches.	At least one stop phrase.

Timers and countdowns take their length from the Timer duration you set. If the phrase that fired the action has {TS}, the length found in the log line wins, so one trigger can handle “30 seconds”, “2 minutes 30 seconds” and “1:30”. DoT, Beneficial and Stopwatch actions do not read {TS}.

The tabs

Tab	Timer, Countdown, Beneficial	DoT Timer	Stopwatch
Timer (Stopwatch for a stopwatch)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Timer Ending	Yes	Yes	No
Timer Ended (Stopwatch Ended for a stopwatch)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Exclude Targets	No	Yes	No
End Early (Stop Stopwatch for a stopwatch)	Yes	Yes	Yes

The Timer tab

Property	Used by	Description
Tick damage phrase (hint: “Select the capture phrase for the dot’s tick damage (not the initial damage).”)	DoT	Starts the clock on the first tick. See DoT Timer.
Overlay Window	All	The Timer overlay that shows the bar.
Timer name (Stopwatch name)	Timer, Countdown, Beneficial, Stopwatch	The label on the bar. On a Timer, Countdown or Stopwatch, snippets are filled in, and a name that was never filled in falls back to the trigger’s name. On a Beneficial Timer it is the spell’s name (see Beneficial Timer). DoT timers have no name box.
Timer duration	Timer, Countdown, DoT, Beneficial	The length. On a DoT Timer the label also shows the number of ticks. The Storage Formula link on a Timer or Countdown takes the length from a stored variable or Persistent Dictionary instead. A Beneficial Timer shows the link but does not use it.
AA Extended Focus Only	Beneficial	Item click effects only benefit from AA extended focus.
Hide Timer? (Hide stopwatch?)	Timer, Countdown, Beneficial, Stopwatch	Keeps track of the time without showing the bar. See Hide conditions.
Restart behavior	All	What happens when the action fires again. See Restart behavior.
Show the time remaining (Show the stopwatch duration)	All	Adds the time to the label. This also applies when the overlay’s own setting is off.
Repeat timer	Timer, Countdown, Beneficial	Starts over each time it reaches zero. A number box appears; leave it blank to repeat forever.
Use color	All	Picks a bar color instead of the overlay’s color.
Cast time	Beneficial	The spell’s base cast time in milliseconds, so 2.5 seconds is 2500. Enter 0 for instant effects.
Do not use beneficial spell haste focus.	Beneficial	For item clicks, which do not benefit from spell haste.
Timer Icon	All	Select Icon File, Select EverQuest Spell Icon, or Reset Icon to remove it.

Restart behavior

The Restart behavior list decides what happens when the action fires while an earlier bar from the same action is still showing.

Option	What happens
Always start new timer	Nothing is removed. You get one bar per match.
Restart only if the name matches	The matching bar is replaced. For a DoT or Beneficial Timer, “the name” is the `target` capture, so Soandso’s buff and Fizzlethorp’s buff stay separate. For a Timer, Countdown or Stopwatch, it is the rendered Timer name. If Timer name was never filled in, every bar from this action counts as a match. If you typed a name and then cleared it, nothing ever matches, so set a Timer name when you use this option.
Restart timer regardless of the name	Every bar from this action is replaced, whatever its name or target.
Do nothing and ignore trigger	If a bar from this action is already showing, the new match is ignored.

The Stopwatch list says “stopwatch” in place of “timer”.

Restart timer regardless of the name replaces bars for every target, even for DoT and Beneficial Timers. Choose Restart only if the name matches to keep one bar per target.

Timer Ending

Runs once when the time left drops to the Notify duration you set. It is available on Timer, Countdown, Beneficial and DoT actions.

Property	Description
Notify when ending	Turns the tab on. A duration box appears. The rest of the tab stays hidden until you set a duration above zero.
Show Timer	Only if the timer is hidden: shows the bar when the ending time arrives.
Change timer color	Changes the bar color at the ending time.
Display Text	Shows text, with an Overlay Window and a duration. Snippets are filled in.
Speak phrase	Speaks the phrase. Interrupt speech stops anything Nag is already saying.
Send text to clipboard	Copies the text.
Play an audio clip	Plays a saved clip. Select new audio file. adds one.
Execute actions when ending soon.	Timer, Countdown and Beneficial only. Runs other actions from the same trigger (see below).

Timer Ended

Runs when the time reaches zero.

Property	Description
Remain after ended (Notify when ended on a DoT Timer)	Keeps the bar on screen for the duration you set after it reaches zero. It is the same setting under two labels.
Change timer color	Changes the bar color while it remains.
Enable ended notifications. (Execute actions when timer ends. on a DoT Timer)	Turns on the options below.
Display Text, Speak phrase, Send text to clipboard, Play an audio clip	The same options as Timer Ending.
Execute actions when ended.	Timer, Countdown, Beneficial and Stopwatch only.

Right-click the Timer Ended tab to Copy Timer Ended Properties and Paste Timer Ended Properties between actions.

While Repeat timer is on, the timer never really ends, so the Display Text, Speak phrase, clipboard and audio options on this tab do not run. Execute actions when ended. still runs each time around.

Running other actions from a timer

Execute actions when ending soon. and Execute actions when ended. let a timer run other actions in the same trigger. Click the plus button, then pick an action from the list. The list only shows the trigger’s other actions.

To use this, create the action you want, such as a Screen Glow, and leave its Trigger on phrase empty. Then pick it here. If the chosen action uses snippets the timer’s phrase did not capture, Nag shows a Variable Assignment box where you type a value for each one.

End Early

The End Early tab holds phrases that stop the bar before it reaches zero. They are checked against every new log line, but only while the bar exists. A Stopwatch calls this tab Stop Stopwatch. A matching phrase there stops the stopwatch and runs its ended actions, then the bar goes away.

What happens when an End Early phrase matches:

DoT Timer: the bar is removed. Its ended settings do not run.
Timer, Countdown and Beneficial Timer: if you turned on Remain after ended or Enable ended notifications., the bar jumps to its ended state so those settings still run. Otherwise the bar is removed. The When ended early, force the timer to close without waiting for the remain timer to end. box (shown when Remain after ended is on) removes the bar at once.

When ended early, force the timer to close… only takes effect on overlays that have Group DoTs by target turned on. On other overlays the bar still stays for its full remain time.

End Early phrases are different from capture phrases in four ways:

They can use ${name} to reuse a named group from the phrase that started the bar, and {S1} or {N1} to reuse a captured value. They cannot capture new values. Use (.+?) instead.
The reused value is inserted as plain text. In a RegEx phrase it is not escaped, so a mob name with brackets or dots can change what the phrase means. In a plain-text phrase it is escaped.
Each phrase has its own RegEx checkbox and an i button in the Ops column (tooltip “Ignore Case”). Mob names often start with a capital letter in one line and not in another (“A cave lurker was slain” and “You have slain a cave lurker”), so turn on i.
A plain-text phrase here is a “contains” check that is case sensitive unless i is on. Plain-text capture phrases are always case-insensitive.

Exclude Targets

DoT Timers only. A target that matches any phrase here never gets a bar. Unlike capture phrases, these are checked only against the first capture group of the phrase that fired the action, which is normally the target’s name. A plain-text phrase must match the whole name, ignoring case. A regular expression can match any part of it.

DoT Timer

A DoT Timer follows one damage-over-time spell on one target.

What your trigger must provide:

A capture phrase with a named group called target, such as (?<target>.+?). The label on the bar is the trigger’s name and that target.
The trigger’s name should be the spell’s name. When you use a tick phrase, Nag watches for “Your trigger name spell has worn off of target.” to cut the bar short.

How the clock works:

If you pick a tick phrase in the Timer tab, the bar waits (“(??)”) until the first tick of damage, then starts counting. The tick phrase can use ?{target} to mean “the same target as phrase 1” when the trigger is Sequential.
With a tick phrase, the first “worn off” message after the bar starts ends it at that moment, as if it had run out. Its Timer Ended settings still run.
If you pick no tick phrase, the clock starts when the main phrase matches, and there is no worn-off check.

Focus effects: if you turn on Extended DOT Focus? for the character (Characters tab, Focus Effects), Nag adds the extra ticks to every DoT bar. A tick is 6 seconds. The Percent increase is reduced by 5% for each level above Level at which decay begins. The level used is the Spell Level for your class on the trigger’s Character Classes tab. The number of extra ticks is rounded down, except that a fractional gain below one tick is rounded to the nearest whole tick.

Beneficial Timer

A Beneficial Timer follows a buff on one target.

The phrase needs a named group target, like a DoT Timer. The bar’s label is the spell name followed by the target, in the form “Spell –== Target ==–”. Snippets in Timer name are not filled in.
Nag only starts the bar if it saw you begin casting the spell. It looks for “You begin casting spell name.” in the log about one cast time before the buff landed, give or take a second. The spell name is the value of the SpellBeingCast variable if the trigger has a condition on it, and otherwise the Timer name. If Cast time is 0, this check is skipped.
If the character has Beneficial Spell Haste Focus? turned on, the cast time used for that check is shortened (for cast times of 3 seconds or more). Do not use beneficial spell haste focus. turns that off for item clicks.
If the character has Extended Beneficial Focus? turned on, extra ticks are added to the duration. AA Extended Focus Only limits that to the AA part of the focus.

Stopwatch

A Stopwatch counts up from zero. It has three tabs.

Tab	Description
Stopwatch	The same settings as a timer, except there is no duration, repeat or cast time.
Stopwatch Ended	Store stopwatch duration in variable. saves the final time in Variable Name, in milliseconds. It is the unit a timer’s Storage Formula expects, so another timer can take its length from the stopwatch. Change stopwatch color, Enable ended notifications. and Execute actions when ended. work as on a timer.
Stop Stopwatch	Phrases that stop the stopwatch. “If any of the below phrases match a new log entry, the stopwatch will end and execute any specified ended actions.”

Hide conditions

Tick Hide Timer? to keep a timer running without showing its bar. Then click the blue Conditions link to hide the bar only for some matches. The Edit hide conditions box asks for a Name, an Operator (Equals or Is not equal to) and a Value. The name is a named capture group from the phrase that fired the action.

Situation	Result
No conditions	The bar is always hidden.
Every condition passes	The bar is hidden.
Any condition fails	The bar is shown.

Equals passes when the group exists and has exactly that value, including capital letters. Is not equal to passes unless the group exists and has that value.

So hide conditions work the opposite way from what you might expect: the bar is hidden only when all conditions pass.

Hide conditions read named groups, so the phrase must be a regular expression with at least one named group, such as (?<target>.+?). A plain-text phrase has none, and the timer will not start correctly.

When the target dies

Live servers now report an NPC or pet death as “… was slain by …” instead of “… has been slain by …”. Players still use “has been slain by”.

Triggers made by Nag’s generators now handle both, along with “died.” and “You have slain …”.
On update, Nag changed existing regular-expression End Early phrases that start with ^, do not start with ^You , and contain “has been slain by”. It changed them to (?:has been|was) slain by.
If you wrote the phrase yourself in another form, such as plain text, change it by hand. Emulator servers still use “has been slain by”.

A good end-early phrase for a target captured as target is:

^${target} (?:(?:has been|was) slain by [^!]*!|died\.)$