Helpful Addons
Overview and Start-Up
These are some recommended addons that will help with your game playing quality of life. Addons are things that you install directly to your World of Warcraft client so that you can manage things better in game. These range from combat to collecting, or even raids to fishing. There are an endless amount of addons that support tasks, events, or actions that you might not even think of.
However, if you are looking for helpful information about class specifics, then I recommend checking out Icy-Veins. They have years worth of dedicated moderators that spend hours, even days testing out everything that a class has to offer and putting the information into one easy to navigate location.
And if you are looking for a place that has the most up to date information about the game itself, or notes for upcoming patches or expansions, check out MMO Champion.
Addons
If you have never downloaded an addon before, what you'll want to do first, is download the Twitch App for your desktop. If you don't have a Twitch or Curse account, now is the time to get one. Once that is set up, move on to the next step.
Open up the Twitch App and click on the "Mods" tab at the top of the page. From there, select "World of Warcraft." Here, if you have addons already installed, you will see the list of them appear in the default window. This is where you will check for updates, which I suggest that you do daily.
Select "Get More Addons" near the top of the page and you will see a couple lists for popular addons. On the right hand side of the screen is the search bar. Feel free to take a look through the addons because you may find something that you like more than what I am about to suggest.
After you search for an addon, just hit the "install" button, and it will automatically install the most up to date version directly to your game client. When you are finished, close out of World of Warcraft and then log back in. You may have a bit of a mess, but with some configuration you'll be up and running in no time. Most of these addons have a very simple "options" window and you can tailor everything to a perfect size or shape that suits your desires accordingly.
So without any more delay, let's get into it. I will first list out all of the addons that I am currently using, and then go into most of them a little more at the bottom.
Recommended Addons:
Addon Control Panel
Auctionator
AzeritePowerWeights
Bagnon
BFAInvasionTimer
BigWigs Bossmods
BigWigs_BurningCrusade
BigWigs_Cataclysm
BigWigs_Classic
BigWigs_Legion
BigWigs_MistsOfPandaria
BigWigs_WarlordsOfDraenor
BigWigs_WrathOfTheLichKing
Details! Damage Meter
HandyNotes
HandyNotes - Broken Shore
HandyNotes - Warfront Rares
HandyNotes_DraenorTreasures
HandyNotes_DungeonLocations
HandyNotes_LegionRares&Treasures
HandyNotes: Battle For Azeroth Treasures
HandyNotes: Mechagon & Nazjatar
HandyNotes: Visions of N'zoth
HandyNotes: Warfront Treasure
Hekili
Leatrix Plus
LegionInvasionTimer
LittleWigs
Pawn
Quester
SimPermut
SimulationCraft
Titan Panel
WeakAuras
User Interface Addons:
Bartender
Chatter
Elkano's BuffBars
Reputation Bars
SexyMap
Shadowed Unit Frames
Vuhdo
Collection Addons:
All the Things
BossesKilled
Mount Drop List
World Boss Status
WorldBossTimers
A Little Information
-Addon Control Panel will allow you to turn addons on and off in the game with just a click of a button. While in the game, hit ESC, and then click on "Addons." You will see a list of your downloaded addons here. If you want to turn any on or off, just hit the little check box, and then click "reloadUI" when you are done. This will just refresh your game with whatever changes you just made.
-Auctionator is just an updated interface for the Auction House. It also allows you to buy and sell items at a much faster rate, making your life in the Auction House much more tolerable.
-AzeritePowerWeights was created for Battle for Azeroth. When you get to those zones, you will see armor and equipment dropping that has a resource built into it called "Azerite." This is something that you will be collecting to upgrade certain items such as your neck piece, the "Heart of Azeroth," as well as any other head, shoulder, or chest piece that you may obtain. However, if you are leveling up to 120 on an alternate character other than your main, you may have the heirloom experience gear. In this case, don't worry about the Azerite armor. However, this addon is still useful and helpful when used in conjunction with other websites and scripts. I will go into that more in the set up tab.
-Bagnon is self explanatory. It puts all of your bags into one easy to see window. You can mess with the settings to suit your needs in the options window of this addon to make the bag bigger, smaller, or even change the orientation of the rows and columns. Doing this will help cut back on headaches, I promise.
-BFA & Legion Invasion Timer are both addons to track the timers for Assaults in the Battle for Azeroth quest zones and the Legion Invasions located around the Broken Isles. This is helpful with leveling alts so that you always know when the next invasion is happening, otherwise, these are completely unnecessary.
-BigWigs & LittleWigs are addons for raids/dungeons/special rare bosses. These addons will help during encounters by displaying timers for special abilities, tell you when to move out of damage, or even prepare an interrupt against an important spell. This addon is absolutely necessary for end game content, and helpful for everything else. An alternate to this would be Deadly Boss Mods, and there is some debate as to which is actually better. Truthfully, I don't think it really matters too much.
-Details! Damage Meter is another that is exactly what it sounds like. This will pull up a little popup window to track your damage and DPS, but will also track a multitude of other things during encounters such as interrupts and healing. It's extremely customizable and easy to use.
-HandyNotes is a map overlay addon that will put icons around your map for treasures, rare creatures, and even events. This is helpful if you are looking for rares to finish achievements, or if you are in a level bracket that will award experience for finding treasure chests like in the Warlords of Draenor questing zones. This is not a necessary addon, but it will be helpful in the long run. There are more than the ones I listed above, so feel free to take a look into the others as well. As a side note, many leveling guides recommend using this with Azeroth Auto Pilot and TomTom. They will all work in conjunction with one-another to list the fastest possible routes for questing and suggest you to go to new areas at key points in your journey.
-Hekili is a class rotation addon. Every class has a rather specific rotation that they "should" follow to optimize their damage, healing, or threat generation while tanking. This addon is not the end-all-be-all of rotations for every class, but it is absolutely great for starting out. Currently, it will display a message that says it is recommended for use above level 110, and you may even be prompted to cast spells or use abilities that you don't have yet. I have been playing one of every class on both Horde and Alliance for almost 15 years, and this has been the most helpful with learning new rotations on each class. (Note: There is another one called MaxDPS Rotation Helper that I haven't tried yet, because it requires more customizing than just download-and-go. On the addon page, there is a section that lists modules for each class for you to input into the addon and use.)
-Leatrix Plus is a questing addon that you can customize a little bit. It will do a handful of things, such as auto-complete quests, automatically repair your gear, and automatically sell any gray junk in your inventory when you open a vendor window. There are a few more options like skipping cut-scenes, but you'd need to go through it.
-Pawn & Simulation Craft work hand-in-hand. This is more for maximizing your load-out, and using the best gear in your inventory with the setup that you are currently running. This takes a bit of configuration, but I will go into that more directly in the set up tab. Basically, Pawn will tell you what the best gear in your inventory is, and will recommend what it thinks you should be using. It comes with default presets for every class, but to tailor it more to your current build, you need to load in the SimCraft script, also explained in the link above.
-Quester is simply a better looking quest window that will also change the colors of quests to show if you have out-leveled them or not.
-Titan Panel is a bar that goes across the top or bottom of your screen (wherever you choose to put it,) and on the bar is a list of helpful information. This is important, mainly for all of the addons that you will install, because this is where you can put the plug-in icon for each of them to access their options quickly.
-WeakAuras is an addon that is extremely customizable, but requires a lot of legwork to get it up and running properly. However, once you put the effort in, it can become one of the most helpful character management addons for questing or raiding. I go into this one a little more in the set up tab.
-All the Things is a lightweight addon that allows you to see a compiled list of all of the collection items in the game and a general idea of how to get them.
-BossesKilled will show you which bosses you have killed per week in the raid finder window so you know which wings you still need to queue up for.
-World Boss Status is mainly beneficial if you are farming the World Bosses on your alts for multiple chances at a mount reward or two. It will show you which bosses you have killed per week on each of your characters so that you don't have to play the guessing game.
-WorldBoss Timer is exactly what it sounds like. It will tell you how much longer until the next World Boss respawn. However, this only works if you were in the zone at the time of it's last kill. Other than that, it has no data to go off of and just won't show anything.
Interface Addon Information
-Bartender can be either really complex, or simple, depending on how involved you want to get with it. With this addon, you can rearrange, resize, and relocate your hotbars, as well as create more to spread them out however you want. You can also use this to make fast hotkeys for if you want to use a certain ability with a keyboard command or a shift+click of your mouse. With some time spent messing around in the options window, you can potentially open up a lot of valuable screen space by reworking your hotbars, or watch your reaction and response time go up by making your abilities much easier for you to use.
-Chatter will allow you to click and send links, as well as change many different settings in your chat window.
-Elkano's BuffBars will change your buff and debuff icons into easy to read bars that show you the names of each icon as well as a countdown timer or visual display of the duration. This will default as separate windows for buffs and debuffs, which you can keep that way, or put them all into one. The choice is yours, but again, this is another addon that will take a little bit of looking around in the options window to truly figure out what style of look you are going for.
-Reputation Bars will do something similar to Elkano's BuffBars. In the options menu, you can select certain reputations that you'd like to be permanently present on your screen so that you don't have to keep opening up your reputation window to check them. The size, color, and text can all be customized to your liking, as well.
-SexyMap is an alternate version of your minimap. You can customize this to glow, or just be a simple static shape or color. You can also relocate it elsewhere on your screen, and choose what things you want to be shown on it. If you're a minimalist like me, it will be a simple minimap with no icons around the edge except for the really important things.
-Shadowed Unit Frames is one of the more complex, yet beautiful addons that I will list. It changes the visuals of your player and target displays up in the top left of your screen, as well as your party, boss health, or battleground information. The options and customization for this is extremely overwhelming at first, and you will definitely have to go piece by piece to figure out exactly what you're doing. But once you get the hang of it, you will end up with something that you can reposition and tailor to your liking.
-Vuhdo is mainly important for healers, however, if you plan on raiding, then it will be beneficial for you as well. This will change your group/raid frames into simple boxes that you can interact with. If you're a healer, you can make the entire raid look like little squares of health that you just have to click. If you want nicer looking raid frames when you are doing raid finder with 40 people, then you can customize it that way also. Most importantly, this will allow you to assign mouse commands to certain spells. If you want a fast heal to be your left click, and your bigger heal to be a right click, and you don't want to have to target the player, then this will do that. If you need to quickly battle rez a fallen party member, this will do that. The options are very easy to figure out, and it shouldn't take long to set up.
These are some recommended addons that will help with your game playing quality of life. Addons are things that you install directly to your World of Warcraft client so that you can manage things better in game. These range from combat to collecting, or even raids to fishing. There are an endless amount of addons that support tasks, events, or actions that you might not even think of.
However, if you are looking for helpful information about class specifics, then I recommend checking out Icy-Veins. They have years worth of dedicated moderators that spend hours, even days testing out everything that a class has to offer and putting the information into one easy to navigate location.
And if you are looking for a place that has the most up to date information about the game itself, or notes for upcoming patches or expansions, check out MMO Champion.
Addons
If you have never downloaded an addon before, what you'll want to do first, is download the Twitch App for your desktop. If you don't have a Twitch or Curse account, now is the time to get one. Once that is set up, move on to the next step.
Open up the Twitch App and click on the "Mods" tab at the top of the page. From there, select "World of Warcraft." Here, if you have addons already installed, you will see the list of them appear in the default window. This is where you will check for updates, which I suggest that you do daily.
Select "Get More Addons" near the top of the page and you will see a couple lists for popular addons. On the right hand side of the screen is the search bar. Feel free to take a look through the addons because you may find something that you like more than what I am about to suggest.
After you search for an addon, just hit the "install" button, and it will automatically install the most up to date version directly to your game client. When you are finished, close out of World of Warcraft and then log back in. You may have a bit of a mess, but with some configuration you'll be up and running in no time. Most of these addons have a very simple "options" window and you can tailor everything to a perfect size or shape that suits your desires accordingly.
So without any more delay, let's get into it. I will first list out all of the addons that I am currently using, and then go into most of them a little more at the bottom.
Addon Control Panel
Auctionator
AzeritePowerWeights
Bagnon
BFAInvasionTimer
BigWigs Bossmods
BigWigs_BurningCrusade
BigWigs_Cataclysm
BigWigs_Classic
BigWigs_Legion
BigWigs_MistsOfPandaria
BigWigs_WarlordsOfDraenor
BigWigs_WrathOfTheLichKing
Details! Damage Meter
HandyNotes
HandyNotes - Broken Shore
HandyNotes - Warfront Rares
HandyNotes_DraenorTreasures
HandyNotes_DungeonLocations
HandyNotes_LegionRares&Treasures
HandyNotes: Battle For Azeroth Treasures
HandyNotes: Mechagon & Nazjatar
HandyNotes: Visions of N'zoth
HandyNotes: Warfront Treasure
Hekili
Leatrix Plus
LegionInvasionTimer
LittleWigs
Pawn
Quester
SimPermut
SimulationCraft
Titan Panel
WeakAuras
Bartender
Chatter
Elkano's BuffBars
Reputation Bars
SexyMap
Shadowed Unit Frames
Vuhdo
All the Things
BossesKilled
Mount Drop List
World Boss Status
WorldBossTimers
-Addon Control Panel will allow you to turn addons on and off in the game with just a click of a button. While in the game, hit ESC, and then click on "Addons." You will see a list of your downloaded addons here. If you want to turn any on or off, just hit the little check box, and then click "reloadUI" when you are done. This will just refresh your game with whatever changes you just made.
-Auctionator is just an updated interface for the Auction House. It also allows you to buy and sell items at a much faster rate, making your life in the Auction House much more tolerable.
-AzeritePowerWeights was created for Battle for Azeroth. When you get to those zones, you will see armor and equipment dropping that has a resource built into it called "Azerite." This is something that you will be collecting to upgrade certain items such as your neck piece, the "Heart of Azeroth," as well as any other head, shoulder, or chest piece that you may obtain. However, if you are leveling up to 120 on an alternate character other than your main, you may have the heirloom experience gear. In this case, don't worry about the Azerite armor. However, this addon is still useful and helpful when used in conjunction with other websites and scripts. I will go into that more in the set up tab.
-Bagnon is self explanatory. It puts all of your bags into one easy to see window. You can mess with the settings to suit your needs in the options window of this addon to make the bag bigger, smaller, or even change the orientation of the rows and columns. Doing this will help cut back on headaches, I promise.
-BFA & Legion Invasion Timer are both addons to track the timers for Assaults in the Battle for Azeroth quest zones and the Legion Invasions located around the Broken Isles. This is helpful with leveling alts so that you always know when the next invasion is happening, otherwise, these are completely unnecessary.
-BigWigs & LittleWigs are addons for raids/dungeons/special rare bosses. These addons will help during encounters by displaying timers for special abilities, tell you when to move out of damage, or even prepare an interrupt against an important spell. This addon is absolutely necessary for end game content, and helpful for everything else. An alternate to this would be Deadly Boss Mods, and there is some debate as to which is actually better. Truthfully, I don't think it really matters too much.
-Details! Damage Meter is another that is exactly what it sounds like. This will pull up a little popup window to track your damage and DPS, but will also track a multitude of other things during encounters such as interrupts and healing. It's extremely customizable and easy to use.
-HandyNotes is a map overlay addon that will put icons around your map for treasures, rare creatures, and even events. This is helpful if you are looking for rares to finish achievements, or if you are in a level bracket that will award experience for finding treasure chests like in the Warlords of Draenor questing zones. This is not a necessary addon, but it will be helpful in the long run. There are more than the ones I listed above, so feel free to take a look into the others as well. As a side note, many leveling guides recommend using this with Azeroth Auto Pilot and TomTom. They will all work in conjunction with one-another to list the fastest possible routes for questing and suggest you to go to new areas at key points in your journey.
-Hekili is a class rotation addon. Every class has a rather specific rotation that they "should" follow to optimize their damage, healing, or threat generation while tanking. This addon is not the end-all-be-all of rotations for every class, but it is absolutely great for starting out. Currently, it will display a message that says it is recommended for use above level 110, and you may even be prompted to cast spells or use abilities that you don't have yet. I have been playing one of every class on both Horde and Alliance for almost 15 years, and this has been the most helpful with learning new rotations on each class. (Note: There is another one called MaxDPS Rotation Helper that I haven't tried yet, because it requires more customizing than just download-and-go. On the addon page, there is a section that lists modules for each class for you to input into the addon and use.)
-Leatrix Plus is a questing addon that you can customize a little bit. It will do a handful of things, such as auto-complete quests, automatically repair your gear, and automatically sell any gray junk in your inventory when you open a vendor window. There are a few more options like skipping cut-scenes, but you'd need to go through it.
-Pawn & Simulation Craft work hand-in-hand. This is more for maximizing your load-out, and using the best gear in your inventory with the setup that you are currently running. This takes a bit of configuration, but I will go into that more directly in the set up tab. Basically, Pawn will tell you what the best gear in your inventory is, and will recommend what it thinks you should be using. It comes with default presets for every class, but to tailor it more to your current build, you need to load in the SimCraft script, also explained in the link above.
-Quester is simply a better looking quest window that will also change the colors of quests to show if you have out-leveled them or not.
-Titan Panel is a bar that goes across the top or bottom of your screen (wherever you choose to put it,) and on the bar is a list of helpful information. This is important, mainly for all of the addons that you will install, because this is where you can put the plug-in icon for each of them to access their options quickly.
-WeakAuras is an addon that is extremely customizable, but requires a lot of legwork to get it up and running properly. However, once you put the effort in, it can become one of the most helpful character management addons for questing or raiding. I go into this one a little more in the set up tab.
-All the Things is a lightweight addon that allows you to see a compiled list of all of the collection items in the game and a general idea of how to get them.
-BossesKilled will show you which bosses you have killed per week in the raid finder window so you know which wings you still need to queue up for.
-World Boss Status is mainly beneficial if you are farming the World Bosses on your alts for multiple chances at a mount reward or two. It will show you which bosses you have killed per week on each of your characters so that you don't have to play the guessing game.
-WorldBoss Timer is exactly what it sounds like. It will tell you how much longer until the next World Boss respawn. However, this only works if you were in the zone at the time of it's last kill. Other than that, it has no data to go off of and just won't show anything.
Interface Addon Information
-Bartender can be either really complex, or simple, depending on how involved you want to get with it. With this addon, you can rearrange, resize, and relocate your hotbars, as well as create more to spread them out however you want. You can also use this to make fast hotkeys for if you want to use a certain ability with a keyboard command or a shift+click of your mouse. With some time spent messing around in the options window, you can potentially open up a lot of valuable screen space by reworking your hotbars, or watch your reaction and response time go up by making your abilities much easier for you to use.
-Chatter will allow you to click and send links, as well as change many different settings in your chat window.
-Elkano's BuffBars will change your buff and debuff icons into easy to read bars that show you the names of each icon as well as a countdown timer or visual display of the duration. This will default as separate windows for buffs and debuffs, which you can keep that way, or put them all into one. The choice is yours, but again, this is another addon that will take a little bit of looking around in the options window to truly figure out what style of look you are going for.
-Reputation Bars will do something similar to Elkano's BuffBars. In the options menu, you can select certain reputations that you'd like to be permanently present on your screen so that you don't have to keep opening up your reputation window to check them. The size, color, and text can all be customized to your liking, as well.
-SexyMap is an alternate version of your minimap. You can customize this to glow, or just be a simple static shape or color. You can also relocate it elsewhere on your screen, and choose what things you want to be shown on it. If you're a minimalist like me, it will be a simple minimap with no icons around the edge except for the really important things.
-Shadowed Unit Frames is one of the more complex, yet beautiful addons that I will list. It changes the visuals of your player and target displays up in the top left of your screen, as well as your party, boss health, or battleground information. The options and customization for this is extremely overwhelming at first, and you will definitely have to go piece by piece to figure out exactly what you're doing. But once you get the hang of it, you will end up with something that you can reposition and tailor to your liking.
-Vuhdo is mainly important for healers, however, if you plan on raiding, then it will be beneficial for you as well. This will change your group/raid frames into simple boxes that you can interact with. If you're a healer, you can make the entire raid look like little squares of health that you just have to click. If you want nicer looking raid frames when you are doing raid finder with 40 people, then you can customize it that way also. Most importantly, this will allow you to assign mouse commands to certain spells. If you want a fast heal to be your left click, and your bigger heal to be a right click, and you don't want to have to target the player, then this will do that. If you need to quickly battle rez a fallen party member, this will do that. The options are very easy to figure out, and it shouldn't take long to set up.
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