Blog Azeroth

I'm starting a series of posts (see Part I) about building a UI and choosing addons. I have ~300 addons that I use frequently, but I'm sure you guys have many that I've never heard of (like Innervator).

Additionally, I'm sure there are many addons that will be used by many, and I want to get a feel for who uses what so I can make sure I don't miss an addon that shouldn't be looked over.

So, here are some questions to get your started...

• How many addons do you have?
• What addons can you not live without?
• If you met someone new to the game using the default UI, what addons would you recommend they start with?
• What are important qualities you look for when you look for new addons?
• How do you usually find new addons? Are they recommended to you? Do you search for them? Are they required by your guild?
• What sort of layout does your UI have?

Any and all comments and opinions are welcome, =D

~Salad

Auctioneer
Cartographer
Atlas Loot
Grouper

These are my most often used add-ons. The first three are pretty common and most know about them. Grouper (which I mentioned and was questioned about in a yesterday's post) lists everyone you've ever grouped with and allows you to rate them at their job as well as provide comments about why they were fun/horrible to group with. Great add-on if you're someone that PUGs a lot, like me. I've heard there are other better ones out there for that job, but Grouper works well for my purposes.

1. These are my mods as of 5 minutes ago:

+ CT Mod and Auctioneer (Which are my only mods not Ace-based)

2. The ones I couldn't live without though . . . hmm . . .

• Auctioneer
• Quartz
• Proximo (it's almost like cheating!)

3. I would start them with CT Mod and CT Raid, as I know they are updated frequently, simple to use, and are a good segue into other mods.

4. I look for mods that the author is actively trying to update. If it looks like the author has stopped caring about it, I usually will try to find a replacement.

5. I usually find my own mods by searching the WAU, browsing Curse and then trying to find it on WAU. I then recommend other mods to people. Like having my Arena teams switch from ArenaMaster to Proximo.

6. It looks like this:

I'm fairly new to addons myself, and still have a fairly basic UI. I have maybe 10 or 12 addons max.

To the starting player, I'd say get onebag and bankbag (or similar inventory addons — these are both part of Ace) before doing anything else. I don't know how I ever put up with five separate bags for so long. There's really nothing else I could live without, at least for casual solo play.

When you start running lots of instances, depending on your spec and role I'd say you need at least a dot/buff/debuff timer and a threat metre. I use Chronometer and Omen.

I'll be watching your blog to see what I'm missing!

Spellbinder
Bongos
Xperl UF

As a Raider and healer:

Omen
Pitbull Unit Frames
Bongos
Recount

OneBag
Omen
DBM
Simple Combat Log
Grid
Bongos (I guess I could live without it, but I love not having to spend more than 5 minutes setting up bars on a new character.)

The ones I couldn't live without:

A UnitFrames mod - I prefer AG_UF
Trinity (bar mod)
ItemRack (/wardrobe/closetgnome/etc)
Parrot (a replacement for Scrolling Combat Text)
Something that tells me vendor prices on tooltips.

The ones I would recommend to other people:
Omen (everyone in the world should have Omen)
Cartographer

Pitbull
Prat
Bagnon
EQCompare
Bongos
AtlasLoot
nQuestLog
SLTimex
Proximo

Amount of addons varies depending on current UI. Usually floats around 200ish, chunk of those are just libraries though.

The one I absolutely could not live without is Lightheaded. Especially when used with Cartographer.

Lightheaded ties your questlog to WowHead, providing an extra pane that you can open with quest details as well as the wowhead quest comments for you to read through. If you use it with cartographer you can click a lightheaded coordinate and cartographer will display a waypoint arrow for you to follow. It can also be set to display an X on your map for the destination.

I consider it a must have. All my other add-ons are secondary.

I was wondering about lighthead, but was a bit leery about it. So its a thumbs up then?

Forgot to mention it myself. Two very hearty thumbs up, Ten, especially if you have a bunch of alts starting in unfamiliar zones (or even in familiar zones that you may have forgotten). Load it, learn it, love it. It's just that good.

Must Have:
Bartender (or other barmod)
PitBull
Omen
Grid
SCT
FuBar
Cartographer
Chronometer
ItemRack
YATA

Could Live Without, but Love Muchly:
Simple Minimap
Simple Combat Log
Minimalist
WIM (essentially turns your /whispers into a little tabbed pop-up AIM window)
PetEmote

So I"m a bit of an addon junkie >.>

Addons I cant live without: ClosetGnome (Formerly: ItemRack)
And if I'm healing or playing my warlock, add DoTimer on there.

Yeah. Thats pretty much it. I could easily make do without my custom UI, all of my bells and whistles, even my auctioneer. But every time a patch breaks my gear swap mod, I feel it (and then promptly go check the "Load out of date addons" button to get it back).

Oh, and if you're curious, the only reason I switched to ClosetGnome was because I HATE spending an obscene amount of time updating all of my addons every time a patch comes out, so I wanted something in Ace2. Though the gnomish voice in my head every time I switch gear is rather amusing

I've used CT_Mod and Auctioneer for almost a year now - I could probably live without CT_Mod - but every time Auctioneer stops working... Yikes! I love the appraiser and HATE when I upgrade to the wrong one and it stops working for a while. I just wish my system weren't so laggy for about an hour after doing a scan...

I've been trying a lot of new ones lately and like many of them:
PitBull
AtlasLoot
Cartographer
FuBar
ItemRack (LOVE this one)
TankPoints
AllPlayed
Gladiator (Not much arena help out of this one so far... Just name displays)
and a few more I can't remember...

Some I've tried but just didn't like:
Baggins
ArkInventory
((Both of these because I have a particular way of sorting my bags and with these I can't get it exactly the way I want it! ))

I'm STILL trying to get PitBull configured to a way I really like... any quick config tips out there?

How many addons do you have?
Err, too many to count conveniently?

What addons can you not live without?
Fubar, bartender, auctioneer

If you met someone new to the game using the default UI, what addons would you recommend they start with?
Auctioneer, onebag or something similar (going to check out arkinventory shortly), and bartender.

What are important qualities you look for when you look for new addons?
I play on an etch-a-sketch. The most important thing is that it not hog resources. After that comes functionality and usability.

How do you usually find new addons? Are they recommended to you? Do you search for them? Are they required by your guild?
I'm usually the one recommending addons to my guildmates, and usually find them on one of the big sites (wowace, wowui, curse) or by reading other players' blogs (I did mention I'm getting ready to check out arkinventory, right?)

What sort of layout does your UI have?
Err, custom? Square, I guess. I run my bartender bars in a stack at the bottom, with system chat to the left and party/guild chat to the right, backed by an eepanel at max opacity (can't stand see-thru chat windows). I run agUnitframes on default settings, placed pretty much where the default target frames would go. It's a bit cluttered, but it works well for me.

Auctioneer - no need to explain
Cartographer - great map mod
ChatMod - mostly for copying url's to clipboard
DoTimer - useful for all classes; also has cooldown counter which is also great
DoubleWide/Lightheaded - invaluable for questing
Posessions - helps cure altitis
Proximo - either proximo or Arena Unit Frames; can't imagine playing without it
RatingBuster - calculates combat ratings bla bla
PriceEach - shows price of each item in stack when searching AH
WitchHunt - hard to explain but 110% useful


I could live without these, but they are extremely useful;
Atlas/Atlasloot - instance maps and loot
Afflicted - shows enemy cooldowns/buffs (check link for more)
ArenaPointer - calculates number of arena points you'll get
Bongos - action bars
Natur's Enemy Cast Bar - another cooldown mob (more or less)
Quartz - i have it mostly for swing timer
Deadly Boss Mods - battleground timers are nice
DrDamage - more details about spells in their tooltips, like crit damage, crit % etc.
Instabolt - flashy mod notifies you about nightfall/backlash procs (warlock only)
Itemrack - item sets
Simple Druid Bar - shows your mana bar when in cat/bear form; works great with Xperl
Titan - lots of useful info at a glance
WhoDrop - shows where a particular item drops
Xperl - unit frames

My essentials are:

Omen
Cartographer (with cart. data)
Lightheaded (powered by wowhead)
Bartender3
AG_unit frames
Bagnon

FuBar is very nice too.

300? holy crap.
Perhaps we should make a "shared topic" out of this.

I forgot EQCompare - that should be included in the game.

Pitbull (Grid for Raids)
Bartender 3
Quartz
PhanxChat
Fubar

My Setup looks like this: Rakels_Interface.jpg

Here are my addons:

http://shifting-out.net/images/wowaddondir.png

I use so many addons (mostly ACE) that WoWAceUpdater is a blessing.
Here's my UI

My Ace Addons:
Addon Control Panel - Adjust addons without logging out of game
AtlasLoot
BigBrother - For Officers/RL/GL to check for buffs/consumables
Bartender3
BigWigs
BulkMail2Inbox - My effort to get rid of CT alltogether. "Take All" button.
CCBreaker - For RL to find out who broke that CC and with what action.
Chronometer
Decursive
DeuceCommander - Easy way to access settings for all your mods.
DrDamage
ElkBuffBars
Fubar
HealOrganizer - Spam any channel of your choice with healing assignment
MendWatch - Essential for healing priests to see who PoM is jumping to.
MultiTips - Open up to 5 tooltips at once. Great for gear comparison.
Omen
Onebag/bank
Pitbull
Quartz
SCT - Fully customizable Scrolling Combat Text
Squeenix - Square Minimap and can remove all those pesky buttons.
TooltipExchange - Can browse items similar to wowiki style with cirteria.
WhoDrop - Mod does several things, but best feature displays where item comes from in the tooltip.
Cartographer
LitheTooltipDoctor - Move the default tooltip (mouseover) window.


Non-Ace Mods:
Advanced Tradeskill Window
Auctioneer
CensusPlus - Scans all players online and keeps track of information. Great for recruiting when you can search for unguilded players by race/class.
TelosInfoBar - Displays customizable info
ItemRack
Mobinfo2
UberShackle - Essential for priests. Displays warnings upon shackle break.

Hey! I resent that remark!



Bartender3
Grid
Omen

These I could not live without. Just beyond these, FuBar and some of its most useful plugins, PitBull (without Raid Frames though) and Proximo for arena. With Hunt (it's a Spell Alert which will redirect enemy casting messages to where you want, usually Parrot). All the rest is Gravvy.


Instead of EQCompare I suggest people try out TekKompare. Lovely.

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Nothing further. (Quartz Quartz Quartz Quartz )