I certainly mentioned I’m an achievement freak, but that’s only an obsession of the last year. I’ve been an addon freak for much longer.
I’ve been putting up a “Recommended AddOns” post on my guild forums nearly every year, so let’s stick to that tradition.
I’ve chosen to file them into one of these categories this time:
- Absolutely essential
- Very useful
- FuBar and LDB
- Nice to have
- Installed, but subject to change
- New Addons
Read more after the break.
These Addons are absolutely essential:
- Bagnon
- Bag Addon of my dreams. I’ve used TBag, OneBag, ArkInventory, Baggins, and I bet a few more. Stuck with this one for all my alts, ranging from “no extra gear, just levelling” to “3-4 gear sets and consumables en masse”
- Bartender
- I’ve gotten rid of the default Blizzard Actionbars a long time ago. I think I never actually tried anything besides Bartender, it works perfectly. Alternatives: Dominos
- Big Wigs
- ccComboPoints
- HUGE still gorgeous combo points. With poison. Easy and simple. Wasn’t needed in vanilla, but nowdays (especially with Mutilate) combo point generation is anything but predictable.
- Envenomous
- Deadly Poison Tick Timer. Rogue Stuff.
- Evl’s Slice and Dice
- Best Rogue Timer Bar I know. SnD, HfB and Rupture.
- Examiner
- If they took away the inspect function from wow, I would miss out on quite some fun in this game. This addon makes inspecting even more fun. Think I used SuperInspect in vanilla already.
- Fizzle
- Shows item durability in the character frame. Probably useless for some if you use Cork. I still need this, been using this or a similar one for 3 years.
- Fizzwidget Levelator
- I still don’t get why this is not in the default UI. Been using this or something similar since I started.
- Friends With Benefits
- Keeps the friend and ignore list in sync across all alts. Friends: needed, Ignore: not needed.
- Grid (GridManaBars/GridStatusMTs)
- RaidFrames. Don’t know much to say. I love it as DPS and Tank (I can’t just disable raid, I need a bit of overview. I also don’t need huge raidframes.)
- VuhDo
- Think I like these RaidFrame more for Healing. Whack-A-Mole is more fun when the buttons are fancier than in Grid.
- Mapster
- Everytime I’m flying or riding I open up the map to estimate the direction even if I took the same route (like Dalaran to AN/OK a hundred times). I used to have Cartographer, the old one.
- Mik’s Scrolling Battle Text
- It’s like sct(Scrolling Combat Text), but I liked it more.
- OmniCC
- Displays cooldown numbers on buttons instead of the clock-like fadein. I need it.
- PitBull3
- Possessions
- Type “/poss fish” and see all items matching “*fish*” on all your characters. A must for the everyday altoholic like me. Might be superseded by Armory (see below).
- Postal
- Some Mailbox stuff like autocomplete. Used to be better in former times until it stopped working and changed its face. I still can’t make it prefer alts over guildies and friends. I know, I’m an egoist.
- RatingBuster
- How much % crit was 44 Rating again? I don’t know and I don’t care to memorize, but RatingBuster tells me.
- Recount
- The infamous DamageMeters. Show off your great deeds. But don’t bother to link “Healing Done” in any of my raids and insult the ‘slackers’ – I might bite you. Skada might be worth a look as well as an alternative.
- SexyMap
- Best MiniMap Addon I’ve seen so far. But not for the fancy textures. Default look: Square Minimap with only the clock. Mouseover: All buttons visible. Quite some overkill to use this mod, but it works. (OK, I admit it, I had the swirly skin for a while)
- SickOfClickingDailies
- Accepts and Hands in Dailies automatically. Essential for Blade’s Edge Bomberman – annoying when you can’t accept a normal quest if the NPC also has a daily. Holding Shift helps, but you *will* forget.
- SpamSentry
- Keeps your wow 90% spamfree. Includes easy reporting, but don’t forget to doublecheck.
- SquawkAndAwe
- THE Moonkin addon. Can’t really say much apart from: “Get it, you’ll love it.”
- Talented
- Lets you plan Talent Specs and save/load/apply them. Very useful.
- TotemTimers
- The best Totem addon I’ve found so far. Not much to say, really. Try it.
- TrinketMenu
- Another one of the oldtimers that I’ve been using since I started playing. As the friend who got me hooked supplied an addon “starter pack” for me I absolutely had no idea what this thing was for for the first months…
- VendorBait
- Highlights the quest reward that’s worth the most money. Absolutely handy unless you’re an Enchanter 😛
- XLoot (Group/Master)
- Better Loot Frames.
These Addons are not essential, but I wouldn’t want to play without them either:
- Ackis Recipe List
- I’m a collector, I collect stuff. Especially recipes for my professions. This makes it easy for us completionists to find the missing ones.
- Bison
- Customizable buff display. Actually not really happy with it, but by far the least awful one I found. Some people swear on Elkano’s BuffBars, but I just can’t befriend it.
- Blipstick
- smaller/different MiniMap Icons. Simple and awesome.
- BugGrabber & BugSack
- Put those nasty errors away, I don’t care most of the time. And if I do, I can look it up.
- ButtonFacade (Caith)
- Skins for Buttons. Duh. Running with Caith for 2 years and still like it.
- ChatMOD
- I used to use Prat, this one seems a bit lighter (ok, quite a bit lighter) and hilarity ensues if it colors [Drake-Mounted CROSSBOW] in character name colors
- Cork
- Buff/repair reminders. Simple and awesome.
- DropTheCheapestThing
- Bags full? Click to kill the cheapest grey item. I love it.
- DynRepBar
- Sets the reputation bar automatically to the last faction you gained rep with. Handy.
- Elkano’s FramesResized
- Tiny annoying frames begone. Hey, I can read stuff finally.
- GoGoMount
- Everyone loves random mounts. Everybody hates Mount macros that fail all the time. Use this.
- LinkWrangler
- Copy on any link (http://, not item) to get a popup with selected text, ctrl+c to copy, esc to close.
- LoggerHead
- Automatically log your combatlog, handy if you want to upload it to wowmeter et al.
- Omen Threat Meter
- Used to be a top 5 addon in TBC, as a Rogue I hardly need it nowadays. Mostly on the Mage when there’s only a pet tank 😛
- oRA2
- Used to be absolutely needed in TBC, nowadays I don’t feel it that pressing. I still like it and wouldn’t want to go without it. There’s oRA3 as well…
- ProfessionBars
- Tucks some buttons below your profession windows. Click to Mill, Disenchant or do stuff. Handy.
- TellMeWhen
- Notifications about cooldowns and buffs. Using it on my Rogue to display an icon whenever Blood Fury and Cold Blood are up and also if I don’t have HfB up. Empty screen = all fine.
These Addons are directly related to FuBar/DataBroker/etc:
- Broker_ChannelWatch
- Shows the people in all my channels on mouseover. Handy.
- Broker_Equipment
- Equipment Manager icon. Right click for menu, left click to switch. Shift click to update.
- DockingStation
- First I used TitanPanel, then FuBar. Then FuBar broke and I switched to Fortress. Fortress is nice, unless you have many alts. It’s defaults are horrible, always cluttered in the middle of the screen. Enter DockingStation, it rocks.
- FuBar_AddonSpamFu
- Tells you which of your addons are spamming your guildies (invisibly) and maybe causing lag.
- FuBar_MailExpiryFu
- I hardly look at this, maybe I should get rid of it. Or look at it more, it’s handy.
- FuBar2Broker
- You can display your non-LDB-FuBar plugins in an LDB display. Without FuBar. Awesome.
- MakeRocketGoNow
- A small LDB launcher, hosts all the stuff I don’t need to see all the time. So one button on DockingStation I can click on for more buttons instead of 20 others.
- SavedInstances
- I *never* knew which toon was saved to which instance. Until I had this addon. Pure gold.
- StatBlock_*
- Ara_Broker_Money
- Show me the money!
- Ara_Broker_SpecSwitcher
- Lets you use your primary/secondary spec on a click. Additionally displays an icon according to your current spec. Handy.
- Ara_Broker_WeaponBuffer
- Click to apply poisons, sharpening stones, oil or Shaman weapon buffs.
- Ara_Broker_XP
- Displaying your experience bar in colored ASCII art. Like so: IIIIIIIiii (70%)
These Addons are still useful, but not much more than nice to have:
- Capping Battleground Timers
- Some BG/WG timers and general PvP stuff. Handy.
- ChatColorSync
- conforms chat channel colors ‘cross characters (nice alliteration, eh?)
- Cosplay
- Undress your character with a click. Don’t look at me like this, I like trying on gear…
- Fizzwidget Disenchant Predictor
- Handy for the Enchanter alts, but not overly useful, after a while you’ll know anyway.
- ForceEnchant
- While levelling Enchanting, avoid the “Do you really want to hurt me?” popup dialog
- GnomishVendorShrinker
- Displays more goods per page at a vendor. Handy. Actually buying gets a bit trickier though.
- LargerMacroIconSelection
- Another “why isn’t this in the default UI?”
- MillHelp
- Shows the resulting pigment on Herb tooltips. Handy.
- OptiTaunt
- Announces resists on Taunts, Saps, Sheeps, Traps and stuff. Moderately useful.
- Pawn
- Lets you assign numbers to stats and put a “score” on item tooltips. Handy to decide about upgrades, but don’t judge solely based on this. Actually you can do that for some specs, but mostly not.
- SpellCraft
- Mage addon. Easy access to Portals and stuff. Not overly great and maybe I’ll remove it once I hit 80 and raid, but it was nice to have while levelling.
- Wowhead Looter
- No direct benefit for me, but as I use Wowhead daily I feel the obligation to do everything I can (apart from paying a monthly fee) to support them.
- Hide Talent Spec Spam
- It… hides… Talent Spec… Spam. If you respec. It really does. Seriously. I swear!
- pRogue
- Puts an “Unlock” button to the Trade Frame.
- Auctioneer
- Lets you post auctions. Only really needed if you’re spending a lot of time on the AH. I only have this on my bank alt (and in my second wow installation) as it’s intrusive (with an additional tooltip) and it uses a lot of memory.
- Capping Battleground Timers
- Some BG/WG timers and general PvP stuff. Handy.
- ChatColorSync
- conforms chat channel colors ‘cross characters (nice alliteration, eh?)
- Cosplay
- Undress your character with a click. Don’t look at me like this, I like trying on gear…
- Fizzwidget Disenchant Predictor
- Handy for the Enchanter alts, but not overly useful, after a while you’ll know anyway.
- ForceEnchant
- While levelling Enchanting, avoid the “Do you really want to hurt me?” popup dialog
- GnomishVendorShrinker
- Displays more goods per page at a vendor. Handy. Actually buying gets a bit trickier though.
- LargerMacroIconSelection
- Another “why isn’t this in the default UI?”
- MillHelp
- Shows the resulting pigment on Herb tooltips. Handy.
- OptiTaunt
- Announces resists on Taunts, Saps, Sheeps, Traps and stuff. Moderately useful.
- Pawn
- Lets you assign numbers to stats and put a “score” on item tooltips. Handy to decide about upgrades, but don’t judge solely based on this. Actually you can do that for some specs, but mostly not.
- SpellCraft
- Mage addon. Easy access to Portals and stuff. Not overly great and maybe I’ll remove it once I hit 80 and raid, but it was nice to have while levelling.
- Wowhead Looter
- No direct benefit for me, but as I use Wowhead daily I feel the obligation to do everything I can (apart from paying a monthly fee) to support them.
- Hide Talent Spec Spam
- It… hides… Talent Spec… Spam. If you respec. It really does. Seriously. I swear!
- pRogue
- Puts an “Unlock” button to the Trade Frame.
- Auctioneer
- Lets you post auctions. Only really needed if you’re spending a lot of time on the AH. I only have this on my bank alt (and in my second wow installation) as it’s intrusive (with an additional tooltip) and it uses a lot of memory.
I’m using these Addons, but I’m not particularly happy:
- Collectinator
- Why did I have that again? Checking tabards, mounts and pets probably.
- DoTimer
- Not especially happy here either, but usable for DPS, Tanking and Healing. WTB cool replacement, PST.
- eCastingBar
- A cast bar. I used to use Quartz, can’t really remember why I switched. Maybe trying Quartz again. AzCastBar is sweet, but looks unmaintained and I run into 1-2 problems. Too bad.
- GatherMate
- Decently useful if you’re levelling Mining, Herbalism or Fishing and very useful if you like to farm. I hate farming (I don’t even play FarmVille on Facebook!) and thus.. it’s handy, but I think I could disable it.
These are my latest additions, and I’m not recommending them (yet):
- Armory
- I’ve used Altoholic before but found it neither really needed nor light enough to keep it around, trying Armory now after some guildies recommended it.
- ShushTheGame
- Lets you bind a key to your PTT (PushToTalk) button and is said to mute WoW then while speaking. Actually I think I didn’t notice any difference, but the idea is brilliant.
- MonkeySpeed
- I actually used this waaayyy back when you still used a Riding Crop and Mithril Spurs. Still handy if you, for some reason, care about movement speed.
- CensusPlus
- Lets you scan the population on your realm to upload that on WarcraftRealms. I’ve only recently started doing this again, I love statistics, so I’ll try to help out.