Every good World of Warcraft player learns early on to rely on
add‐ons – little UI and function changers that add all sorts of goodies to the screen in the game. These add‐ons can make a world of difference when you are competing in PvP, running instances or trying to find rare spawns on the map. They save you a great deal of time and often times patch holes in the UI that Blizzard has not yet gotten around to.
Unfortunately, there seem to be thousands of the things and they all add to your memory consumption and if you’re not careful can slow down how fast you play the game substantially. If you run with add‐ons, you need to be careful that you get good ones that will not over work your game or bog down your screen. It’s important to also keep in mind what the add‐ons are for.
That’s why we’ve put together a short guide to help you recognize when you need add‐ons and how to pick the right ones for your needs.
Leveling Add‐OnsThere are a number of different add‐ons that can help boost your
leveling speed if
you know how to properly integrate them into your gameplay style. Here are a few of our favorites that should you keep on at all times:
Cartographer – There are a number of map mod add‐ons, and they each tend to offer similar benefits, but this has been one of our faves for a while. To start with, you can turn on all quest giver markers for an entire map, as well as having it show you which quests they have and what their names are. You will also have the entire map revealed before you start playing, which can help immensely with finding hot spots. You can also view coordinates on the screen, which will allow you to more accurately find the quest locations as marked in Quest Helper (another top choice).
Tom‐Tom – The different GPS add‐ons tend to offer very much the same benefits as Cartographer, but with a few added boosts. First off, you can see map coordinates on your mini‐map, which lets you keep from having to open up your map. Second, you can set waypoints on the map and Tom Tom will provide an in‐game arrow that directs you to your destination, making quest completion a snap.
Quest Helper - Quest Helper is the most popular add‐on for World of Warcraft for a number of reasons. It integrates directly with your quest interface, addons more useful tracking for each quest and tells you exactly what to do for each quest, according to an online database maintained by its users. As a result, you can find just about anything you need for your quests without needing to resort to an expensive in‐game leveling guide.
Altoholic – For those that run multiple characters through the game as alts, this add‐on provides a number of useful tools to help you keep track of them all without needing to log back out and in over and over again to check the stats, gear, or requirements of those characters. Perfect for anyone trying to get their last few Level 80s created.
Gold Making Add‐Ons
Next to leveling, the one other thing that everyone does is farm for gold. And it can be a crapshoot at best if you don’t have a good set of tools to help you realize what you need to be farming, and how to sell it. Here are a couple of the better tools out there to help make your life easier.
Auctioneer or Auctionater – Right now, these two add‐ons are about even in terms of popularity. Once upon a time
auctioneer was the top of the pile, but recently
Auctionater has added a number additional record and track all of the gathering nodes they run across in a given zone. It works for both
Herbalism and
Mining and doesn’t need the minimap tracking system, so you can continue to track other items on the map while this add‐on is on. In short, it creates in game routes to make quick runs around a zone when farming for ore or herbs.
Ackis Recipe List – This add‐on will scan all of your trade skill recipes and print a list of the recipes you don’t currently have. Basically, it shows you what you need to
farm and how to go about getting those recipes – a very cool add‐on that works for more than just profession skills. Class specific skills like runeforging and poisons are included here as well.
Raiding Add‐OnsBy far, the part of the game that uses the most add‐ons is
raiding. I will be honest
with you in saying that the add‐ons recommended here may not be the ones you end up using. If you’re in a guild, you may have a listing of add‐ons that are required by your guild leaders for all players. You may already have an interface that works well for you. Or you may just not like these and have different preferences. However, if you’re getting started in raiding, these are all good places to start to get your account in good order before you start running instances.
Recount – This add‐on provides in‐game graphical damage and healing data for your character. You can easily see all of the data from your
raid and share it with whispers and chat by using quick, simple macros. Anyone that deals damage or who heals damage needs to have this add‐on on their account. It is the only way you’ll be able to get accurate numbers about how you are performing and to improve those numbers as you proceed through the game.
Deadly Boss Mods – There are dozens of boss mods in the game, but this is the best by far with a huge following and constant updates for new content. The best part about this mod, beyond its maps and in‐game strategies is the use of raid warnings to tell you when a boss is about to perform a certain attack. Any raiding group that has not worked together before or that is getting used to a new raid will get a great deal of benefit out of this mod.
Omen Threat Meter – Threat is one of the cornerstones of good raiding. If you don’t have a good handle on it, things will get messy very quickly. Blizzard has added a threat meter to the game recently, but honestly – it’s not very good. This add‐on still remains among the best for telling you where threat stands for both the tanks and any DPS and healing characters. You can track the Threat Per Second, compare to the tank and ensure that no one is going to make any serious mistakes when playing the game. This mod has probably saved teams from millions of wipes.
Atlas Loot – Atlas Loot is an addon that allows you to keep track of what loot can drop from mobs in the field, bosses in instances, instances as a whole, world raid bosses, faction rewards, and PvP rewards. Basically, anything you can get by completing tasks in the game is included in this add‐on. It can fit into any of the four categories in this article, but I’ll put it here because it gets used more often than not for a raid loot tracker. One of my favorite aspects of this add‐on is the wishlist. With so much loot in the game, having a list of what I would like to get along with where to go and get it makes it much easier to know what I’ll be doing on any given day when I log into the game.
Healbot – This is a very useful add‐on for healers that have trouble keeping track of all those raid party members who need healing. Combos can be created, macros integrated, and items even tossed into the mix to make healing a much more streamlined action – something that a lot of raid parties should jump at the chance of adding to their mix.
PvP Add‐OnsMost of the add‐ons in the game are pointed towards
PvE content because of all the data you can gather that is definite about those fights. However, in
PvP, you may find that there are some instances where the data you would gather from these same add‐ons doesn’t do you much good. Knowing the threat or the healing order in a 5v5 match is meaningless because the other side isn’t affected by these things. There are some ways to boost your performance in
PvP though with good add‐ons. Here are some of the better ones:
PitBull – This is a unit frames addon that does just about everything you could need it to. It allows you to customize every single aspect of your unit frames and is highly customizable to allow for just about any different options you need. This is a great add‐on for almost any team combat events, not just
PvP.
Bartender4 – Action bars in
World of Warcraft are okay, but they can use an upgrade, especially when you’re talking about high speed interactive PvP combat. This add‐on will replace your default action bars with much more efficient, high speed options. You can set up as many as you want, add other information such as bag bars, pet bars, and XP/Reputation bars, change their size and shape and move them around however you like. Basically, whatever you want your screen to look like, Bartender4 will accommodate.
As you can see, there are a number of top notch, high quality add‐ons out there, but they need to be carefully matched to your game needs. It’s okay to install them all, just remember to go into the interface options before you login to your character and turn off all the add‐ons you don’t need. This will allow you to switch seamlessly between which add‐ons are on or off when you turn the game on. You’ll run faster and get the benefits of them at the same time.
