Hey guys,

Here I will list the must-have addons for WoW, may it be raiding, pvp or just socialising!
I know some of you have insane looking UI's around here, so let's make a collective list shall we?

Note: If you want to find the addon corresponding to your version of WoW, just click on the "Files" tab, which is right beside the "Overview" tab.


ADDONS

All addons are taken from Curse and Curseforge.


PVP

• Spellflash: This addon is able to make suggestions of what spell you may want to cast next by flashing on top of the spell buttons. Interesting for those looking for a stable rotation!
  
  
• Outfitter: Outfitter is an equipment management addon which gives you fast access to multiple outfits to optimize your abilities in PvE and PvP, automated equip and unequip for convenience doing a variety of activities, or to enhance role-playing. Includes minimap icon!
  
  
• MikScrollingCombatText: Don't like the default combat text? Use Mik's! Very useful and clear. Highly suggested.
  
  
• OmniCC: Too caught up in a fight to notice when your killer spell is on cooldown? This addon shows you exactly how much time there is left. No configuring needed!
  
  This is what I'd put for now, for PvP. Feel free to add some more.
  
  
  PVE
  
  
  
• Recount: You a numbers freak? Don't care if you're standing in the fire as long as you get a good number? This one's for you.
  
  
• Deadly Boss Mods: Informs you of a boss's current abilities, dangerous AoE, raid warnings,etc.
  
  
• MikScrollingCombatText: Viable for PvE as well.
  
  
• Omen: Informs you of your current threat when entering combat. Must-have for PvE. Especially if you're a tank.
  
  
• GTFO: Tells you when you should GET THE F*CK OUT OF THE FIRE.
  
  
• AtlasLoot Enhanced: Makes a chart which tells you what gear drops from what instance. You can even make a Wishlist to simplify your gearing path.
  
  
• Gearscore: This addon gives you a score or even grade for you grade. It's a must nowadays for pugging and such.
  
  
  
  UNIT FRAMES & ACTION BARS
  
  For those who hate Blizzard's standart User Interface, this is the place for you to change it into your likings!
  
  
  
• Bartender: One of the best out there. It releases you from the Blizzard standart UI, instead giving you full power on how you want to make your spellbars look. Recommended. ActionBar (AB) addon.
  
  
• SpartanUI: A lot of people out there call this Bartender's predecessor. It frees your screen, and gives you a ton of space. Quite a unique and stylish design. AB addon.
  
  
• Healbot Continued: This addon modifies your raid and party frames, making they easier to look at. May take some time to configure, but when configured well, does magic. As its name indicates, for healers mainly. UF addon.
  
  
• Grid: This does the same as Healbot, but is more flexible and somehow less clumpy. It can be used for any role, just modifies the raid frames for the user. There are a lot of tweaks out there to change your Grid into a healing monster. Works wonders with mouseover macros or Clique. UF addon.
  
  
• VuhDo: VuhDo is primarily directed to healing classes, but will make use to almost any other class. Moreover several healing spells or other actions can be asserted to mouse clicks on those bars (Click-Heal). UF addon.
  
  
• Healium: Healium allows you to place any spell onto buttons right next to each person's healthbar. The buttons will cast the spell on the person they are beside of, without the need for you to target the person first. UF addon.
  
  
• DHUD: Tired of looking in the upper left corner of your screen to see your Health and Mana/Energy/Runic Power/Focus? DHUD places all those in curved bars around your character. Check out the screenshots! UF addon.
  
  
• Xperl: This modifies Unit Frames for everything. From making character portraits 3D to good looking raid frames. Annoying to configure but awesome when used well. UF addon.
  
  
• MoveAnything: Allows you to move, change transparency, hide and adjust just about any screen element in WoW. UF & AB addon.
  
  
• Shadowed Unit Frames: If you suck at configuration this one's for you. Simple and elegant design, as well as lightweight. UF addon.
  
  
• Quartz: A casting bar addon. It gives you time, with configurable text and icon. Also gives you a timer bar for buffs and debuffs.
  
  
• Titan Panel: Big addon which places threat, guild info,etc. At the top and bottom of your screen in a much more comfortable view.
  
  
  
  BAGS & STORAGE
  
  
  We all hate Blizzard's standard bag user interface. Right?
  
  
• ArkInventory: Modifies the horrible Blizzard default UI into something easier to look at. You can organise how you want your bag to be.
  
  
• Tbag- Shefki: Another bag addons. Organises all your crap automatically.
  
  
• Bagnon: Bagnon is an addon that merges all of your bags into three frames: One for your inventory, one for your bank, and one for your keyring.
  
  
• Scrap: We all need our junk seller. Why download it? Because it's Load on Demand, meaning it (almost) sells all your crap for you!
  
  
• Auctioneer: This one is made for those who love to play the Auction House. Gives you everything: price, demand and offer, when to undercut people. Takes some space though.
  
  
  CHAT & COMMUNICATION
  
  
  
• WoW Instant Messenger: Have a hard time keeping track of multiple conversations at a time? WIM creates a separate window for each chat open!
  
  
• Prat: Chat addon which allows you to modify the font and gives you the time of the reply as well. With Prat, there's no need to type /r all the time when responding to a whisper.
  
  
• Chatter: Same as Prat, except has more detailed functions ( easier professions/items link in chat for example).
  
  
• YY: This addon is of utmost importance when raiding. It is the chinese equivalent of Teamspeak or Vent. Must make an account first.
  
  
  
  QUESTING
  
  
  
• Questhelper: Pretty self-explanatory. Comes with an arrow which will tell you which way to go, and quest objectives on map.
  
  
  

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Whew! This is it for now. Feel free to add more!

Urgh.... SpartanUI is horrible, though it was funny having 2 portraits when I put XPerl and SpartanUI together. Just mix XPerl with some artwork addons.

Sup wrote:

Urgh.... SpartanUI is horrible, though it was funny having 2 portraits when I put XPerl and SpartanUI together. Just mix XPerl with some artwork addons.

Haha, I agree. It just makes your spells harder than ever to access. Oh, and you can't see chinese player names with SpartanUI I think.

I would add MoveAnything and TweakWow in the list.

MoveAnything let you move the default wow UI elements anywhere you want in the screen.

TweakWow let you modify some advanced setup, to get better graphic performances or for exemple to unlock the camera for an even bigger dezoom(pretty cool for kitting classes)

Urubaen wrote:

Sup wrote:

Urgh.... SpartanUI is horrible, though it was funny having 2 portraits when I put XPerl and SpartanUI together. Just mix XPerl with some artwork addons.

Haha, I agree. It just makes your spells harder than ever to access. Oh, and you can't see chinese player names with SpartanUI I think.

I strongly believe that grid+grid raid debuff plugin+mouseover macroed spells, is the single best combo you can have for an UI. Though grid is a raid UI it also do a perfect group ui since you don't need to have other members portrait to play well.

Shadow unit frames Is pretty nice as ui addon it uses less memory comparecto all others.
Quartz for changing the casting bars and add buff watches.
Fubar or Titan panl incl. Additional addons like guild, friends, recount, omen addon basicly places all information in a small bar on top or bottom of your screen.
Forte exist an necrosis are suggested for all warlock classes but can be also used for othe class.

And last but not least the most loved and hated addon is Gearscore

Wow ace or course gaming are good sides to download the right version of the addons.

Thanks for the info! I couldn't find TweakWoW on Wowace or Curseforge ('bout the same thing).
What's the addon that suzhou-alex used to make his spell buttons take a circular form on his UI again?

Dunno remember the name check the old show of ur interface and addons thread

eeexxccellleennttt...

Nice post

Not sure if outfitter and Questhelper are still necesarry since wow has their own build in versions of this now.

Some addons I find usefull:

Domino's: Customizes your bar such as bartender.
Inline Aura: Shows your active buffs, debuffs inside the action button.
SLDT: Similar to titan panel except its not a bar but just text which are movable to anywhere.
Button Facade: Allows you to pimp your action buttons.
Sexy Map: Makes your map sexy
Gladius: Usefull in Arena prefer it over the standard blizz arena unitframes.
Skada: Damage and threat meter in one, advantage would be that you need only 1 window which in combat could show your threat and out of combat the damage / healing you did.

Thanks for the suggestions Stixx. Will update. But I find that Skada often gives different numbers than recount, on the same fights, with the same measurements taken into account; such as: DPS, or Damage Meter (very similar), or even healing.

True but which are correct :p

The difference now is bigger as it was before in tbc.
At that time the numbers where the same except for the fight in black temple against guldan.

In this fight recount would make dmg druids (milkpotpie) for some reason show up with 10.0000 DPS and put them by far first place where skada would just put them to a more normal amount

In WOTLK the numbers are always different for some reason skada makes everyone's damage/dps lower then recount, no idea why.

The build in threat meter is also a bit different then Omen imo its better as it shows the person who has aggro always on top instead of the person who has the most threat.


Anyways the use of the addon would be as an indication of your performance damage or healing wise and it does this more then well





Almost forget you might wanne add 2 more addons to the list for those who really want to put some time in there UI

eepanels2: this allows you to put bars or pictures or whatever into your UI
Sharedmeda: This allows you to add some extra sources for wow and addons such as fonts or images.

Stupid question for you all-
If I'm using WOW in Chinese (but can't read it at all) and I download the addons...will they come out in English or Chinese? Or will they just not work? I tried to download some a while back (try about 2 years ago) but they would always come out in Chinese so I basically gave up. I'm not the most computer savvy person and I can't read any Chinese...I'm still working on getting wow in English but not sure about addons.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

If you follow the instructions here, it shouldnt be difficult to play WoW in english (assuming you have the english version of the game). Once your game is in english, any addon you install should default to english as well.

https://wow-in-chinese.forum2jeux.com/t1730-towowcn-updated-for-335


For those who use a custom UI like bartender; is it still easy to link mouse/keyboard buttons to the action bars ? Are there any premade layouts or do I have to arrange everything on my own ?

Addons I currently use:

Atlas/Atlasloot - good for previewing loot, but also has a nice tradeskill menu that allows you to link that enchant/gem/glyph you're looking for in trade. Very useful if you cant write chinese.

Gladius - shows enemy class/spec/health/cooldowns and tracks diminishing returns. Can announce when enemies are low on health, drinking, using a cooldown. I consider it a must for arena.

Healbot - makes healing so easy that even a caveman could do it !
Lets you cast any spell/macro on any party/raid member with the click of a button. Easy to set, 1-click buffs. Tracks health aggro dispellable debuffs and more.

Carbonite - For <80 toons I use this for questing. More accurate and more features than Questhelper, but can take some time to configure. Features include a Google Earth style wow map, warning of any enemy players detected, a 'Punk' system that keeps track of people who ganked you, inventory tracker that can show if an item you're looking for is in your bank, or even on another toon and more. On the downside, carbonite can be a resource hog, and it may have issues with ATI graphics cards (kills the fps on my ATI carded laptop).

Cooldowns - Puts a timer over a spell/ability in your action bar, making easy to see exactly how much time before it is ready to use again.

There's also some class specific addons I use but I think I have more then enough wall'o'text here. I'll save it for my next novel...