Suggested Addons

[Gobbeldygook]

Wow, it looks like Bongos was abandoned like 5 months ago.  Time to try bartender I guess.

Bongos wasn't abandoned; it was remade as Dominos.

[Kageru]

And dominos seems to be pretty good. I like mods that keep it simple and don't try to do too much.

MetaHUD was mentioned earlier and I liked that mod, being able to get rid of the group frames (since I'm using grid for that) gained me a lot of screen space and less things that would lead to a mouseover cast. It's not being maintained though so I've switched to IceHUD which is fairly similar.

For enhance shaman "ShockAndAwe" is very good, organizes all your cooldowns. Clique is good for mapping events to actions.

[Xanthippe]

For people who use Questhelper, this one is even better.  It's not, however, for people who do not want spoilers.

Carbonite
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/carbonite-quest.aspx

[Signe]

Thanks, Xanthi!  This is much better! 

It's cold and snowing and I don't feel like doing anything today.  I might play games ALL FUCKING DAY!  Until my fingers fall off.   I'll take off a little bit of time to make soup though.

[Reg]

Is having your fingers fall off a common problem for you zombies? Or am I mixing you up with lepers again?

[Signe]

NO SOUP FOR YOU!

[Rasix]

And dominos seems to be pretty good. I like mods that keep it simple and don't try to do too much.

Any problems in WOLK? I've heard of problems with vehicles.  Not systemic, but a few of the vehicles either behave oddly or just don't work with Dominos.  I'm not completely sold on Bartender4 although it's a lot better than I remember that addon to be.

Uggg, Carbonite and QuestHelper.  Each did things I disapproved of and took up nasty amounts of memory. I can't remember if it was Carbonite or QuestHelper that did all of the funky map coloring.  While helpful, it got bothersome.   Need something cleaner, although I imagine I'll get one of them once I've got my first 80.

[Signe]

I think it might have been Carbonite.  I just had a look at my world map and it looks like the Easter Bunny had a nasty accident all over it.  I'm hoping I can turn that bit off.

[Sheepherder]

My brother uses Questhelper.  It's candy-coated crap as well.

Also, it appears to be bugged and give freakish directions, like taking a detour through Menethil Harbor via Stormwind to get to the other side of Northrend, or giving you directions to go right through an area you have quests in to get somewhere else without suggesting you kill the quest mobs you are plowing through to get there.

[Ralence]

MetaHUD was mentioned earlier and I liked that mod, being able to get rid of the group frames (since I'm using grid for that) gained me a lot of screen space and less things that would lead to a mouseover cast. It's not being maintained though so I've switched to IceHUD which is fairly similar.

Awesome!  Thanks for that, having the CP's in the middle of my screen on my rogue was a huge help, and I've been without MetaHUD since the patch before the expansion, and it sucks trying to watch the top of the screen while moving and trying to PVP!

[Venkman]

I've been messing with both Quest Helper and Carbonite 2 lately. Both worked fine for me, though I think QH incurs slightly more resources which may impact older systems.

QH's difference is that is has the marching ants thing that shows the optimal path from wherever you are through all of the current quests you have. It's weakness is that you still need to use Blizzard's crappy track quest UI, or for me, MonkeyQuest which I've been using since before Blizzard added that feature.

Carbonite's difference is the Google Maps-inspired large and small maps, the back-channel link it creates with all other Carbonite users, and the integration with it's own (still-weak) quest tracker. I was surprised to see a whole bunch of moving dots when I first launched it with a bunch of names I didn't know. I've long since become reliant on it for PUG elite fights.

I am going to stick with Carbonite for a bit. The map manipulation tools are just pure luv. And I don't really want quest optimization advice until I work my DK through the same Northrend stuff I'm doing first on my Mage.

[Signe]

I'm sticking with Carbonite, too.  It's better than the other one and, yeah, I'm really enjoying the map tools!

[Le0]

Does carbonite contain all quests? because I went to their website and noticed that *gasp* you gotta pay for it to be complete otherwise you have a trial version.

[Venkman]

Carbonite 2 has contained everything I've needed so far. Not sure what site you hit, but no way would the AddOn last if they were going to charge you for the basics (every single quest, map, icons on map). Are you sure you're getting the right one? Here's the one I've been using.

On the topic of AddOns in general, I'm having an issue.

Some quests adjust your UI to give you specialize abilities (rescueing civilians with that gryphon in Wintergarde/whatever-that-town-is on the east end fo Dragonblight, the DK quest where you ride the mine cart to the ships and use the cannon to nuke the beach force). Both times I've gotten "An AddOn has caused an error". And both times upon completion I've had to "/console reloadUI". Here's my addons:

Carbonite 2
CTMod
MonkeyQuest

I'm thinking it's CTMod but I don't know what part. Could be the bars part, which means I should probably just forget CTMod for the one reason I need it and switch to Bartender. But I like the ViewPort mode too (so I can leave black the both 15% of my screen for the button bars). I can always just pick up ViewPort alone.

Anyone else have this experience?

[Gorky]

Carbonite 2 has contained everything I've needed so far. Not sure what site you hit, but no way would the AddOn last if they were going to charge you for the basics (every single quest, map, icons on map). Are you sure you're getting the right one? Here's the one I've been using.

On the topic of AddOns in general, I'm having an issue.

Some quests adjust your UI to give you specialize abilities (rescueing civilians with that gryphon in Wintergarde/whatever-that-town-is on the east end fo Dragonblight, the DK quest where you ride the mine cart to the ships and use the cannon to nuke the beach force). Both times I've gotten "An AddOn has caused an error". And both times upon completion I've had to "/console reloadUI". Here's my addons:

Carbonite 2
CTMod
MonkeyQuest

I'm thinking it's CTMod but I don't know what part. Could be the bars part, which means I should probably just forget CTMod for the one reason I need it and switch to Bartender. But I like the ViewPort mode too (so I can leave black the both 15% of my screen for the button bars). I can always just pick up ViewPort alone.

Anyone else have this experience?

The most likely culprit would be any bar mods. Are you using any? the next most likely would be any unitframe mods, and CTMod would come under that. Make sure the version you are using is compatible with v3.x.x (WotLK).

This also applies to those errors when you 'take over' a mob or vehicle like the special buttons not appearing.

[Venkman]

Ok cool. In exploring this I grabbed Bartender 4 anyway. Man what a nice setup. MUCH easier to configure than CT. So regardless of how this turns out, I'm sticking with Bartender.

[Numtini]

There is a pay version of carbonite. The core quest stuff is free, there's a bunch of additional map enhancements in the paid version.

[MrHat]

What was that one that let you drop healing/buffing/spells right next to the unti frame?

Basically, click on Lesser Healing Wave button next to Party Person 2, and it heals party person 2 without changing your target.

[Venkman]

There is a pay version of carbonite. The core quest stuff is free, there's a bunch of additional map enhancements in the paid version.

Wow never saw that before. Not that there'd be any way I'd ever pay for it, but is anything they offer fundamentally better than what could be done through a patchwork of existing AddOns?

[Tale]

As a returning player, I suggest thoroughly investigating the existing Blizzard UI before adding anything. Many things that used to require addons have been added to the default UI.

The only thing I've added so far is Outfitter because I'm playing a druid and it automatically switches between sets of equipment depending on which form I'm in.

[Merusk]

Get one of the loot-sell addons, outfitter and Auctioneer and you're golden for almost any non-raiding, "I don't give a damn about optimizing my playstyle" character. 

speaking of loot-sell addons, anyone have better one than sell-o-matic? It works great for greys, but I'd like one that I can add useless white items like Fish Oil, light feathers and scales to.

[Drubear]

I use Garbage Fu http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info5301-FuBar-GarbageFu.html - don't use all the bells and whistles tho so YMMV.

[Ozzu]

The mods I use:

Cartographer -  Maps! It's been outlined here already, but it is mega-nice and it's hard to go back to not using it once you get used to it.

CTMod - I specifically use the basic package and also the unit frames portion. The best part of it is the mail mod. Lets me mass mail things or open all my mail and retrieve attachments with one click. The unit frames are very basic compared to some mods, but I just find the other mods too busy.

Auctioneer - Best mod ever. Everyone knows what auctioneer is.

Gatherer - It's useful. It's probably not as useful for me as it would be for others. I don't specifically go out looking to just gather stuff. So, unless it crosses my minimap and my tracking skill picks up a node, I'm not going out of my way to check nodes. Still, it's useful.

ZygorGuide - It's a leveling guide. It saves time and has a nifty little arrow pointing me where to go and distance. The entire thing is in-game. One thing I do like about it though is that I've leveled characters without it and when I started using it, it led me to areas I never explored without it. It also advances to the next step automatically when you complete the step that you're currently on.

[Le0]

What was that one that let you drop healing/buffing/spells right next to the unti frame?

Basically, click on Lesser Healing Wave button next to Party Person 2, and it heals party person 2 without changing your target.

I don't know the name of the addon you are looking for but I might have an alternative solution.

Back when I still played my restoration shaman I used the Grid + Clique commando. Grid basically shows your raid/party/thing as a nice set of square displaying the health of the players, it can also displays poison/debuff as a little icon in the edge of the square. And clique lets you cast spell from a combination of key + click(like shift+left clique = less heal, right clique = big heal etc..) Then you can simply cast heal on the player by doing your mouse combo + cliquing on the square of the player you wanna heal. Super efficient and no need to manually target anymore.

[Merusk]

I use Garbage Fu http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info5301-FuBar-GarbageFu.html - don't use all the bells and whistles tho so YMMV.

Since it says "FU" I assume this requires FuBar, which (although I didn't mention it) put it right out of the picture.  I have one mandate regarding mods: Do not install any that modify action bars/ bar layout.  That's what fucks-up people 99% of the time on patch days such that they say, "Man I can't play at all because my mods are broken."  What they really mean is, "Fuck I'm back to the standard layout and I have no fucking clue how to play using the base UI."

Thanks tho.

[Numtini]

I can understand that and I think you're right, though I can't remember being sidelined for more than a night due to that. However, Fubar doesn't change anything about the standard unit frames or ability buttons, it just adds a narrow bar on the bottom or top for you to put helpful icons in rather than attaching them to the minimap. It's one of the things you can live without until its patched up.

[DraconianOne]

I concur - Fubar doen't modify action bars or buttons like Bartender or Dominos does.  It's just an information panel.  I use it to show location, co-ordinates, money, ammo/soul shards (more effective than bag count), xp rate (when I install it).  I don't use any action bar altering mods.

Yet.

The only mod that I find it hard to live without on a patch day is Informant which shows how much trash and items will sell for.  Only important when turning in quests and none of the items are ones I can use or want so I go for the one that will get me most money. It hasn't been updated for WotLK yet so I just go for plate stuff mostly.

[Selby]

I have one mandate regarding mods: Do not install any that modify action bars/ bar layout.  That's what fucks-up people 99% of the time on patch days such that they say, "Man I can't play at all because my mods are broken."  What they really mean is, "Fuck I'm back to the standard layout and I have no fucking clue how to play using the base UI."

I laugh when this happens.  Also, I still don't use any real mods, so essentially I can play with the default UI on any computer anywhere and not have an issue.  Much more versatile in my opinion.

[Merusk]

Ah, so FuBar is an updated & expanded Titanbar.  I'd been under the impression it was a full bar mod, particularly since folks I know who used Bartender and the like always indicated they prefer it to FuBar.

[Signe]

I'd give up the game before I'd give up my mods.

[Nija]

If you play on a PVP server, try out the pay to play version of Carbonite. It's like cheating.

edit: I guess I'll say why I think it's cheating.

You know all those dots you see on the free version of carbonite? Those are other people running the free version of carbonite. If you run the full version of carbonite, you'll connect to their servers (or whatever, I'm not sure how it works really) and it mines data from the people running the free version.

So I can fly into a zone and I'll start getting red dots appearing on the zone map that tell me an enemies name and a timer counting down to the last time someone came within loading distance of this guy. It pulls data from people on your server also running carbonite, but it's limited to just the zone that you are in in regards to the 'enemy populating' feature.

Also, if an enemy is near me, and his graphics are loaded on my client (but i'm not necessarily looking at him) his name will appear on a "Punks" list and i can click that to target him. If he is close enough to target, it'll tell me his class on that punks list. Then I can send my pet at him, and follow my pet to figure out exactly where he is.

[Draegan]

LOL Really? 

I use a shit load of addons.
Quartz
AG_uf
Bartender
Auctioneer
Omen
Recount
MagicRunes
CowTip
ChatMOD
EquipCompare
RatingBuster
TitanBar + Extensions
Cartographer
QuestHelper
DeadlyBossMods
SCT
SCTD
Gatherer (or something similar to it)

That's all I can think of.

[DraconianOne]

Ah, so FuBar is an updated & expanded Titanbar.  I'd been under the impression it was a full bar mod, particularly since folks I know who used Bartender and the like always indicated they prefer it to FuBar.

It's an alternative to Titan that uses the ACE2 framework. There was a theory that it was less of a memory hog but some geek did an analysis of the memory usage and found they were comparable.  The only reason I changed from Titan to Fubar was because I was using other ACE addons (like Cartographer etc.)

[JWIV]

Guys, seriously.

Thanks for this thread.    

The wife finally got me to agree to go back to WoW after a 2+ year hiatus (I quit before Burning Crusade after hitting massive levels of burnout between gearing up for bullshit raids).   I threw the addons onto my machine and they are sweet.  Cartographer alone is sex on wheels as it may as well be a permanent sign of - THIS WAY TO FUN.

[apocrypha]

FuBar is hacking me off atm, specifically several plugins that just won't work properly for me now for some reason. the _Exp, _Rest and _Durability ones all say they should work on their respective pages but just don't.

Starting to fear that a WDB & WTF clearout may be on the cards, but with 2 accounts, 2 PCs and lots of chars that's a lot of settings to re-do