MODS: August 2010 edition

[fuser]

Bartender - Bars and stance bars! Covered above
Gearscore_lite - No arguments please, too many times when gearing I wanted to know what mine is
Bagnon - One bag window for your character. Also adds tooltips to indicate on a mouse over if you have the items and where (alts etc). You can access alt bag/bank from the window and search. Also now supports guild banks in the beta again!
Gathermate/Gathermate_data - For node info
DBM - Covered above
Sexymap - Totally customizable minimap
Pitbull - Nice clean unit frames (make sure the unit filters allow raid sizes)
Skada - I like it better then recount because you can dump fights from over all data without a resetting all data.
Postal - Simply for the "Open all" option or the mousewheel support for the list
ForteXorcist - Its an amazing timer bar. I've started to use it on other alt such as a warrior youtube demo (its the center bar at the top of his panel frame)

[Ironwood]

Yeah.  Bartender.  Once you get your head round it, it's kinda awesome.

Not using it for anyone else except my druid, but it's removed SO MANY headaches.  Only had one wee bug thus far.

[Azazel]

Been playing around with mods now, and decided to update a few more. Anyone have any idea where of a safe site I can find recount or gatherer? Wowinterface doesn't seem to have them. I have no interest in installing Curse.

[apocrypha]

Gatherer has it's own site. And you can get Recount directly from Curse.com without having to use the client. Just download and install manually.

I'd recommend Skada instead of Recount - it uses far less memory and is more accurate and faster. I have problems with Recount in 25m raids, it uses a LOT of memory and noticeably reduces my framerate.

[Azazel]

thanks - just picked them both up.

[Xanthippe]

I've been playing a lot of resto druid and disc priest in the bgs lately.  I like Decursive very much.  I also like Healbot for resto druid, but not so much for disc priest.  (I use a trac ball without a middle mouse button, and it's kind of unwieldy for setting up much besides left/right and shift/alt/control modifiers, if that matters at all).

Are there other, better mods than these out there for healing?

I have used Grid and cannot recall why I did not like it but quite possibly it was because I never set it up correctly.

[Azazel]

Healing ones might need to wait a bit since they're about to change the mechanics? I've heard random scuttlebutt that the 4.0 patch is not this week, but next week. Likely? or no? Also that Amazon has sent out email to Cata pre-order customers to expect them on the 24th(or 22nd?) of Nov.

[Shrike]

Seems a bit early for 4.0 yet. Especially since tanking seem very screwed up at the moment on the PTR. The Nov.2 date being bandied about would make more sense for 4.0. It also dovetails nicely with a late Nov. launch for Cataclysm.

[Rasix]

I've been playing a lot of resto druid and disc priest in the bgs lately.  I like Decursive very much.  I also like Healbot for resto druid, but not so much for disc priest.  (I use a trac ball without a middle mouse button, and it's kind of unwieldy for setting up much besides left/right and shift/alt/control modifiers, if that matters at all).

Are there other, better mods than these out there for healing?

I have used Grid and cannot recall why I did not like it but quite possibly it was because I never set it up correctly.

Grid + Clique is all I ever use for healing. Really simple to set up now.   Other mods feel bloated.  I can't imagine this would be good though for someone using a tracball (dear sweet Jesus, why?).

I'd suggest a mostly using memorized key binds if you plan to stick with that mouse.  Grid still is helpful for easy display of health deficits and debuffs.  I have a hard time seeing you do well in a mouse driven solution.  

[dd0029]

Seems a bit early for 4.0 yet. Especially since tanking seem very screwed up at the moment on the PTR. The Nov.2 date being bandied about would make more sense for 4.0. It also dovetails nicely with a late Nov. launch for Cataclysm.

Wrong thread for the big Cataclysm random.  Anyway,  what I meant to say is that MMO Champion switched their call this morning to first or second week in December.

[Azazel]

My main point is that the mods we're all using will be broken for awhile when the pre-cata patch hits, so anything new I'm installing is more of a sampler right now...

[SurfD]

My main point is that the mods we're all using will be broken for awhile when the pre-cata patch hits, so anything new I'm installing is more of a sampler right now...

Most of the really big ones (like bartender / important Party Frames Replacement Mods) usually get fixed within a day, if not hours of the new expantion release.  Some of them are even ready to go as soon as the Expantion hits because the author has been codeing a beta version complient with the current live beta build.   Of course, it is always a crapshoot that blizzard doesent break things (even more) with a last minute change to some important lua object.

[dd0029]

My main point is that the mods we're all using will be broken for awhile when the pre-cata patch hits, so anything new I'm installing is more of a sampler right now...

Most of them work in Beta as it is.  There's always a big push to get the big mod authors into the betas to get their mods working.  I'm using Bartender, Pitbull and Bagnon in the beta.  Most of the other smaller mods work as well.  The Tidy Plates someone recommended a bit ago works well too.  Some of the map addons are kind of flaky, but other than that most of everything works for me.

[caladein]

There aren't sweeping changes to the API or related systems this go around so most mods just need some find-and-replace action to work as they do on live.

[apocrypha]

Grid + Clique is all I ever use for healing. Really simple to set up now.   Other mods feel bloated.  I can't imagine this would be good though for someone using a tracball (dear sweet Jesus, why?).

I'd heartily endorse the choice of Grid + Clique for healing too. It does take some time to learn how to set it all up, especially if you have a lot of different healers (I have 5), but once it's all working and you've got the heals for them all in muscle memory it's just a fantastic combination.

[Azazel]

Most of them work in Beta as it is.  There's always a big push to get the big mod authors into the betas to get their mods working.  I'm using Bartender, Pitbull and Bagnon in the beta.  Most of the other smaller mods work as well.  The Tidy Plates someone recommended a bit ago works well too.  Some of the map addons are kind of flaky, but other than that most of everything works for me.

Fair enough. Back when I used mods most (Vanilla) every major patch would trash most of them, and the BC launch really wiped them out. Clearly it's all changed since then.

[dd0029]

I'm going to revisit my comment on things working.  Lots of the big ones mostly/kind of work.  Bartender works completely as far as I can see.  Pitbull works enough, though it has some sort of problem with buffs.  Omni CC is what I switched to when Cooldown Count finally gave up the ghost and that is a much better replacement that works.  It's what does the button pop out thing on availability.  Bejewled works flawlessly.  Mapster sort of works, but area reveal and some of the builtin quest tracking can be flaky. Clique and Grid seem to be borked in the beta at the moment.  I have not seen a minimap mod that works right yet.   Fubar shows up, but you can't move things and menu does not work.  Lots of the plugins are in a semi working state as well.  Recount is not really working either.

[Sheepherder]

Fair enough. Back when I used mods most (Vanilla) every major patch would trash most of them, and the BC launch really wiped them out. Clearly it's all changed since then.

You're not the only one who remembers those days.  It's (largely) different now.

Hell, for 3.0 PTR I just dropped my live interface folder into the PTR interface folder and checked "Use out of date addons."  Recount broke because of the combat log changes (until I found the PTR beta version), everything else was fine.

[Dren]

Fair enough. Back when I used mods most (Vanilla) every major patch would trash most of them, and the BC launch really wiped them out. Clearly it's all changed since then.

You're not the only one who remembers those days.  It's (largely) different now.

Hell, for 3.0 PTR I just dropped my live interface folder into the PTR interface folder and checked "Use out of date addons."  Recount broke because of the combat log changes (until I found the PTR beta version), everything else was fine.

Yeah, mods definitely work through updates better these days.  The only time I update is if I'm bored and it has been awhile.  Most the time, there are no updates because they weren't needed.  Some of the better add-ons remind you in game that your copy is outdated and to go get the newest, but they still keep working.