My Addons/UI

Here I will provide information about the addons I use in my daily WoW life.

Some people don’t believe in addons, some people can’t live without them, I’m somewhere in between.  I dont need a million different addons to play the game, I can actually use the default Blizzard UI and functionality just fine.  Though I do find that some addons make things that much easier or just a little bit more comfortable, which is why I use the addons that I do.

Here is what my UI looks like:

MetaHud:

The first thing you probably notice is the HUD in the middle of the screen (the green and red bars).  It took me a while to get used to MetaHud but now I think it really helps.  It displays all the information I need (my health and rage, target’s health and mana/whatever, amount/percentage of my health and my target’s health, target’s distance, name, buffs, etc).  All of this information can be seen elsewhere on the screen, like in the character frames; but it’s good to have everything right where the action is so I’m not looking all over the place.

Bartender3:

This is one of my favorite interface mods.  It replaces the default Blizzard action bars and lets you customize the action bar’s to your heart’s desire.  You can change the number of buttons, the number of rows, move them anywhere on the screen, etc.  It definitely helps to organize the screen.

XPerl UnitFrames:

This is one of the most customizable addons that I have, it’s ridiculous.  It’s a replacement for the default unit frames (obviously) and I love what it does.  The 3d portrait is not very necessary, but it is very very cool, one of the things that makes me love this addon.  You can see in the screenshot that it has built in target of target functionality, as well as displaying level, class (or mob type), health/rage/mana numbers and percent, buffs.  It has a bunch of different options for party and raid views as well. 

TitanPanel:

Next up we have an addon that everyone seems to love.  Some people swear by FuBar, but I haven’t used it that much, and Titan had worked very well for me so far.  You can see the Titan bars at the top and bottom of my screen; basically it shows you a lot of information at a glance.  You can see how much space is in your bags, how much gold you have, how much durability your items have, technical info about your connection, your coordinates, what zone you are in, your XP/Hr and time to level, etc.  In other words, EVERYTHING you need to see.  It also has a bunch of downloadble plugins for specific classes and other things.  It’s a pretty sweet little package.

Cartographer:

This is an addon that I don’t think I could live with out.  This is the map mod, in my opinion.  Besides revealing the entire map (you can turn the fog of war on if you want), it allows you to see your group members and guild mates on the map, and gives you a ton of options when it comes to notes and such.  Everytime you talk to someone, Cartographer automatically creates a note on the map.  If you talk to a quest giver, it creates a quest note (which stays across all characters, btw) that allows you to see what quests are available, what quests you have done, etc.  It does the same with vendors, class trainers, everything.  You can read the whole list of things it can do at the link I provided, there’s too much to list here. 

One of the coolest things about Cartographer (something I just found out about) is the waypoint system.  Basically you can click on any note on your map (create a specific note on coordinates you found, for example) and you can set it as a waypoint.  When you do this, an arrow appears on your screen giving you the direction and distance to the target. 

Equip Compare:

This is seriously something that Blizzard should have built into the default UI.  Whenever you hover over an item, it it gives you a side-by-side comparison with whatever gear you currently have equipped in that slot.  This saves lots of time, and just feels so natural.

AtlasLoot:

I love this addon (I just need to preface this page by saying I LOVE EVERY ADDON IN THE LIST!).  It allows you to see what loot drops from any boss in any dungeon, great for trying to figure out if you really want to respond to that “LF Tank SlavePens!” request (no thanks).  The only thing that is kind of annoying, is that if you try to look at some of the items, they might crash your game.  This is because they’re “unsafe” which I guess means that the item hasn’t been verified by whatever tool AtlasLoot uses to get its information (I forget exactly what it does).  Besides that, this is a great help in the game.  Not having to alt-tab and check Thottbot saves a lot of time and frustration.

(Note:  You can also see EquipCompare in this screenshot.)

ItemRack:

ItemRack allows you to create “sets” of gear and switch them with one click.  No more looking through your bag for your tanking gear, or fire resist gear, or dps gear.  All you have to do is create a set, keep the items in your bag, and ItemRack automatically switches it all for you. 

ArkInventory:

I love to keep my bags organized.  I have some friends who’s bags are ridiculous, trash here, gear there, trinkets somewhere.  Before I downloaded ArkInventory, I always kept certain things in certain bags.  It was such a pain in the ass to make sure everything was in the right place (quest items in one bag, gear in another bag, etc.).  ArkInventory now does all this for me.  It allows you open up all of your bags in one screen and displays your equipment in bars.  You assign categories to the bars, and the equipment is automatically shown in the corresponding bar (you can use the built in configuration, or create your own custom setup). 

Well that’s it.  Now you know how I roll.  I’ve allowed comments on this page so you can tell me how awesome my setup is, or tell me how bad it sucks and how primitive it is.  Either way, let me know what you think.  That’s what a blog is all about after all, building community and sharing ideas.