Field Report #30 - I Am That Noob Now

Back in the day when I played WoW, after a year or so of finding my footing, I started to play fairly seriously. Especially when I started to get into raiding in TBC, I was one of those people who pored over logs, read every detail in patch notes and analyzed it all to bits. I wrote posts on how to play classes I didn't even main, because I even put time into analyzing their rotations (can't say whether my guides were good or not though). While I hope I never looked down on the players who spent their time doing other things, I do know occasionally thinking "why wouldn't you want to bring your A-game to every group?".

Now I find myself constantly being that person. I don't know tacs for raids (other than what I barely remember from having done them 10+ years ago). I don't know what I need attunement for nor do I keep track of my rep on any of my characters (it doesn't help that I level everything simultaneously). Just the other week I joined a raid for Mount Hyjal only to find out I can't enter. I was mortified... My guild asked me if I wanted to join for their raids and I was almost embarrassed to say I hadn't signed for anything yet because I have no idea how Discord works. Fortunately they were kind enough to work me through it slowly and it's not that hard after all.

I have no idea what my BiS gear is and I only just downloaded an Addon that allows me to see what loot I could get from bosses (AtlasLoot) so that I can join in on that Reserve Loot thingy in Pugs. When the new patch was released and we suddenly only needed Honored to get into Heroics I had no idea until someone told me. Joining a Pug for Zul'Aman this week I quickly read some notes on raid tacs while I was making my way there so I wouldn't ruin the evening for everyone else (I think I did ok). I used to know these things way ahead and plan ahead, knowing exactly where I was going, what I was doing and what I needed. I used to be the person who explained these details to other people. Maybe it is karma then that I am receiving the same from others now.

Because now I log in and I don't have a clue. I feel like I have to ask about everything. I feel like I am constantly left behind, gear-wise. Everyone is going to fancy raids and have all the fancy gear with the fancy DPS. I am never the best in my groups.

This might sound horrible but it's actually all just pretty amusing. It's how I started out in WoW and somehow I've come full circle. I've seen what it is like on the hardcore side of things, doing the server first runs and discussing every fight with your fellow guildies. While I loved that part of WoW as well, I don't miss it. I enjoy this side of WoW just as much, for completely different reasons. I log in and I don't have a mission. I have nowhere I need to be and nothing special I need to do. It's whatever I have time for or brain power left in my head to do that evening. I don't have a purpose other than what I fancy for the evening and it's exactly the way I want it to be. 

Fortunately I feel like people have patience for my lack of knowledge, and hopefully my cheery demeanor can make up for some lacking gear. I still try to do my best of course. And best of all, I finally got to answer my question - now I know exactly why some people don't bring their A-game. 

Let's Talk About Addons [WoW Classic]

Let's talk a bit about addons shall we?

Oftentimes when I have thought about going back to playing WoW (before Classic was announced), one of the main things that held me back was thinking about all the addons that I would need to install and get into shape before being able to play. The mere thought of going "naked" into retail barely even crossed my mind and that's even knowing that Blizzard had implemented a great deal of the addons I used to use into their own UI.

Fast forward a bit and Classic was announced and suddenly my brain goes all puritan - now I want to experience the game with as few addons as possible!

But that doesn't mean I don't need a couple though… Technically you don't need any addon to play the game of course, and I did play it completely addon free for several weeks before I caved in.

Unrelated picture of me playing.

There will always be some addons that I will never* install. A quest addon is one such addon. While I do occasionally google a quest here and there, having help with every one of them feels like it robs a bit of the fun out of the game. I enjoy reading the quest text and having to think for a bit for myself, at least for the most part. Some times the quest text is so damn vague I wonder if the whole idea was to actually go have me run all over Barrens to find that one dude hiding in a hovel somewhere. Probably. There are points to that as well - more experience as you fight your way through areas and a good way to discover places you maybe wouldn't go to otherwise.

It didn't take long before I realized that just as there are addons I really wouldn't want to use, there are addons I really wouldn't want to play without this time around as well. And it all comes down to one of three things. Either it's an addon that gives me information about something that I really think the game should already provide me with. Or it speeds up a process I often use. Or it's just for fun. And considering I used to use somewhere around 30-40 addons back in the day, the four I've settled on so far feel like nothing.

Let's get the "for fun" addon out of the way - Recount. Yeah, I like to see how much damage people do. It's not just about peen-measuring, I actually use it to test the efficiency of skills and rotations that I use. If I see someone doing good damage I like to pore over their stats to see if I can learn something from it. I try not to be that person who links damage meters in chat every two seconds and I think I've succeeded pretty well.

Recount

Now for the information ones - VendorPrice and ClassicAuras.

VendorPrice: Classic has a combination of facts that in themselves aren't a problem, but combined become quite the issue. At least for me. Firstly, you don't really have much bag space. And secondly, everything seems to drop a ton of crap. Every murloc has the possibility to drop Murloc Eye, Murloc Fin, Shiny Scales, Shells and other stuff. Kill a couple and your bag will very quickly be filled with loads of things that is everything from grey to green (and even blue if you're lucky!). You will have to prioritize, ie throw things out, unless you want to run back to some vendor and unload every fifteen minutes. But how do you know what to throw? Is a 5 stack of Murloc Eyes worth more than a 10 stack of Sharp Claws? I don't know! And after having played a couple of weeks not knowing I decided money was hard enough to come by as it is without me literally throwing it away. So I got an addon that does nothing but show me the vendor value of items. That also allows me to see if it's even worth putting that stack of Linen Cloth on the Auction House, when the going price is just coppers above what the vendor gives me for it anyway...

I don't want an addon that tells me how much things are going for on the Auction House though, which might seem odd. For some reason I don't mind having to find that out for myself, and besides, the prices can fluctuate so much there that in the end that's probably what I would have to do anyway.

Spiders also drop a lot of crap.

ClassicAuras: Classic also has a big problem in that it doesn't show you the time left on your debuffs on your target. The fact that it doesn't actually absolutely baffles me and feels like straight up bad design. You might think, as I am guessing the designers did, that there isn't more to it than just looking at your target and seeing when the debuff runs out. That quickly becomes completely impractical when you've got more than one target, or even worse, another class using the same debuffs as you. Partying with another warlock is a nightmare when I no longer can tell if that is my Immolate on the target or not! I shudder to think how this works in raids...

Then the one that speed up some things - Clique

Back in the day I used to pair Clique with Vuhdo for some easy healing, because the in-game raid frames are frankly just... not good. At least they weren't back then. Since I only do lowbie dungeons now I have settled with Clique, at least for now. It allows me to bind my spells to clicks with my mouse, so that shift-right click does a certain heal on my target for instance. The default way is to click a target and then choose one of your heals in your bar. Clique not only saves me time since I choose spell and target at the same time, but it also saves slots on the action bar since I don't need to have my spells on there (I usually do anyway though, just in case). It just makes healing so much more practical, which doesn't matter much when you do lowbie dungeons but it makes a ton of difference when you're raiding difficult bosses. So now I'm so used to it I really don't like doing it the original way. (Clique has an issue in Classic though in that it can't distinguish between different ranks of spells).

I have a big wish for an addon to add... on... to this list here though. That is AutoBar. It's an action bar that auto-updates with contents from my bag. For instance it would automatically update with a Healthstone if I have one in my bag, or automatically put up any food in my bag. What I have to do now is locate any food in my bag every time I want to eat, or swap it out on my action bars as I get new types. It's just a little handy thing that doesn't make you a better player or anything, just saves a lot of hassle.

And that's it. For now. I know for sure I will get more addons because that is just how these things go. You tell yourself that one addon won't hurt. Then there is another. And another. And suddenly you're sitting there with 40 addons and wondering how the heck that happened and still you couldn't get yourself to turn off a single one. But I think I am still some ways off that yet.

What addons are crucial to your gameplay?

*never say never though.

Do we need mods/addons?

So it's time to battle the mods again, or addons as I prefer to call them for no special reason at all (but I am gonna keep calling them mods because my autocorrect likes it). Typhoon Andrew asks us what our attitude towards mods are, some refuse to use any, some only use the bare necessity and some use mods to do anything, from mounting to selling to eating stuff in the game. I would probably describe myself as a lazy mod user, I normally don't bother getting a mod until someone forces it on me, either a person or the game, and then I can't play without it ever again. I never update my mods until they break however, which means I always get a message from dbm telling me someone in my dungeon group has a newer version. Some mods are quality of life ones for me, like karni crap which prevents me from picking up items I don't want (like fish scales!) or mods that auto sell all the greys in my bags automatically or with a simple click of a button. Some I consider necessary enough that I probably wouldn't play without them eventhough they don't really improve my gaming, like autobar and bag mods. Some alter my gamestyle enough for me to consider them a core part of the game, like mods that allow me to bind my healing keys and to "click" heal. I used to use clique and now I use vuhdo but I know for a fact I could not play without these mods even if I wanted to. I've known annoyance both when trying to convince a fellow player about the necessity of a certain mod, and trying to convince a fellow player that I really don't need a certain mod.

According to Typhoon Andrew Blizzard are expecting players to use mods when raiding and I can understand that. I don't know of anyone who does any serious raiding without at least one mod that affects their gameplay, be it a warning mod like dbm, a timer mod like dotimers or a key mod like vuhdo. But apparently Blizzard have now started to create fights with this in mind meaning you are now basically forced to use mods to be able to raid properly. I can see why this would bother some people, in fact I am not entirely sure I like that concept myself, eventhough I have always used mods when raiding to some extent and will defend their use vigorously if I have to. I know there are people out there who can be awesome players without tweaking their entire game with mods but the fact is the vast majority of us play a lot better with mods than we do without. But that is because there is just so much to keep track of and so much information to gather and the game just doesn't present it well enough for us in most cases.

Sometimes a mod isn't meant to help us do our job better, it's to make the game do it's job better so that we can do our job better (this is something I've written about before). DBM might help us notice that the boss is doing that special skill, because the in-game cues are just not visible enough. In some cases Blizzard have realized that a mod has been a very useful feature to the game and have incoroporated in themselves - like QuestHelper or PowerAuras. The difference is that the incorporated version often is rigid and stumped compared to the original, probably to be easily used by any kind of player. But going as far as saying that they'll create fights with us using mods in mind just feels like Blizzard agreeing with us that they're not capable of designing a style understandable enough for us themselves but have to rely on amateurs (i.e unpaid people) doing the job for them. Basically throwing their hands up and saying "kay, we're clearly no good at this, so we'll stop trying".

If we need mods to help us manage a fight, does that mean we're lazy and/or bad at playing or that the UI mechanics already in the game are too poorly designed? I'm trying to imagine dispelling on Spine without having a mod that helps me see who has the debuff I need to remove. I know that the Blizzard UI-frames are horrendous when it comes to trying to see a certain buff or debuff, and by the time I have located the right debuff on the right person, the raid is most likely dead. And this is just one out of all the things I have to keep track of in a regular raid to make sure we don't all die horrible deaths.

I can agree that probably 90% of the mods I currently use aren't really necessary for me to play the game. The vast majority of them are there to smoothen out my playing experience and save some time when dealing with one of Blizzard many time-sinks. I know this at least, I don't use mods just for the sake of it, I use them because I think I need them. Normally I get another mod because I've realized I can't handle a certain mechanic the way I need to, and try to find something that will help me do so.  In these cases I argue that mods are crucial for me to be able to handle certain fight mechanics and I wonder - is it because I need to become a better player or because Blizzard need to become better fight designers?

Addon Review - Karni's Crap Filter

It's been a time since I last wrote something about an addon. After the great addon-death of 4.0, I removed all my addons completely, and revamped my entire UI. Because I am very lazy, I decided to go with a ready and set UI, rather than bust my ass off like I had done with my old one. I chose Tukui, and am mostly happy with it. Many of the addons that stopped working pre-Cata have been updated since however, and I am seriously contemplating whether I should go back to my old UI, at least to some part. But that is not what this post will be about. Instead I intend to talk about an addon that I've only recently started to use.

Although it might seem difficult to believe, I'm not an addon-hugger. Love likes to use an addon for just about anything in the game, which makes his char about as automated it can be without actually botting anything. He probably has an addon to wipe the ass of other addons. But I'm not really like that. I do think using addons is comfy, and in some cases even crucial to do a good job (like some sort of healing UI). That doesn't mean I want an addon for everything in the game. I can recall at least a dozen occasions throughout a typical year where I will go "oh, I hate it when it's like this" or "wouldn't it be awesome if there was an addon that did this?". That could be just about anything, but mostly based on what I am sick of at doing at the time. If I've been fishing a couple of hours I'm sure to be saying something like "wouldn't it be awesome if there was some way to keep track of all the fish you've caught?" or "I'd love it if there was some way to make it easier to hear the bobber sound" to which Love nearly always replies - "there is an addon that does that". Whining about something doesn't mean I want to fix it though, but guys don't get that. I want him to go "yeah, isn't that annoying!" and he want's to solve my problem and be the prince in shining armor.

I couldn't agree more!

So about a year ago, or actually probably more, I was leveling yet another alt. When doing some sort of troll area, killing trolls and looting Troll Sweat, one of the most annoying gray items in the game, I was complaining as usual - "wouldn't it be awesome if there was some way to just not loot all the crap that mobs drop?". And Love of course goes - "there is an addon that does that". Yes indeed, Karni's Crap Filter (Karni Crap for short) will make sure that you never have to loot another crap item again. It sounds simple and awesome, kind of like the addon I've got that automatically sells all grays in my bags, an addon I'd never ever play without ever again. But when I heard about Karni Crap I merely shrugged. I thought "nah, there aren't that many things I'd like to avoid to make it worth having an entire addon for it". That's what I usually think. "I don't think this is troublesome enough to actually go to a site and download the addon and set it up". So months passed and I kept on looting all those Troll Sweats and other crap items that exist around the world.

I'm usually a crap collector though. I'm always astonished at people who don't loot Bastard Sword worth 3g to vendor, and then complain about not affording that shiny purple on AH. The easiest way to earn money is without a doubt to simply loot the mobs that you kill. It's not awesomely much, which probably is the reason people avoid it in the first place, but it adds up. And why not loot it? Aint got enough bag space? I am known to constantly run around with only 1-2 free bag slots, but as long as you vendor when you repair, and don't keep your profession in your bags, running out of bag space doesn't happen often. But even if 99% of everything that drops is worth picking up, those 1% can really become a nuisance. I kept on looting those 1% and throwing them out of my bags manually (because I wouldn't save them in my bags for vendoring), until I finally snapped.

I am currently leveling yet another prot warrior (my fifth or so), and having to remove some sort of water from my bags after every instance is what finally got me to download Karni's Crap Filter. Water is just one example of many of things that aren't worth anything, and that yet drops in abundance. Another example is the already mentioned Troll Sweat, and something that drops everywhere in Cata - Shiny Fish Scales and Fish Oils. Imagine to never have to think about that crap again? you're probably thinking "hah, I don't loot that stuff often enough to care about this". I understand you, so did I for more than a year. And you may be right. Depending on how you play, you might actually rarely get into contant with crap dropping mobs. After having looted my umptififth stack of water however, I decided to give it a go. And I can say, I have no idea why I didn't try it sooner.

So what does Karni Crap do? Quite simply, you tell it what the value of the items you're looting have to be for it to loot them. Say you think you can't be bothered with anything worth less than 1g, simply tell Karni Crap so and you won't loot anything worth less. You can also decide whether you want Karni to count the value of a stack or of a single item towards this limit, so say if you have a stack limit of 1g, you'll loot items that are worth 20s as long as they stack in more than 4. Some items are worth looting regardless of their vendor value, like cloths and meats for instance. You can easily tick these items off in a little premade list to make sure Karni doesn't ignore them. If you happen to grind some certain item that falls outside of your rules and don't want to change your entire rule set for that item, you can simply write /notcrap[item] and Karni puts it on the safe-list. The opposite goes with /crap[item]. Karni comes with its own built in auto-loot, which means you have to turn the regular one off in order for Karni to work. A side effect of using Karni Crap is that looting goes a lot faster, since it won't even show the loot window if there is nothing but money. You can have it give you a message about the loot it doesn't pick up, if you want to make sure you're not missing out on something good. And it can be found right here.

Addon Review - DrDamage

With the coming of 4.0 and the loss of basically all my addons, there were a few I undoubtedly missed alot more than others. One of those was DrDamage, one of my favorite addons. What it does sounds fairly simple in theory, but is very complicated in practice (for the addon authors, not the users), which meant it took them several months to get the addon up and running again. Rejoice, it is back and I am happy like a pig in dirt.

So what does it do? I am glad you asked. Simply put, DrDamage will tell you just about any information you'd like to have about your damage and healing skills. Hps, dps, hpm, dpr (damage per rage), average damage, highest/lowest damage, how various gear/talent coefficients affect the skill, how a stat affects you hps or hpm and so on. Whenever I write a post on how some healing skill works and bring up numbers about hps, hpm and the like, I've based most on my maths on numbers from DrDamage.

Because I like to play around with numbers and experiment with output and throughput, this addon has proven to be invaluable. One good example was when I was leveling a rogue and by using DrDamage I could see that whether it was worth opening a fight with Garrote or not, whether I should use Eviscerate or Rupture, completely depended on which rank of the skill I had. Even at endgame, even if there is a best way to deal with a situation, a rotation if you like (especially if you're dps), DrDamage is the tool you need if you like me like to tweak your play to be optimal for each encounter. It is especially useful if you play alot of different chars and want an easy way to keep track of how to use your skills. With a simple mouseover I can tell that Fireball has a higher dps than Scorch and draw conclusions from that, instead of having to sift through various forums on the internet for the same information. Instead of having to sit down and count the numbers for each skill manually, DrDamage will give you a nice breakdown of all the information you want about your skills.

Many choices to add, of which I've only chosen a few myself. Easy usage, you need only to tick the information you want displayed.

Easy comparison of skills. This is an example of how the tooltip looks with my above choices (scorch has no dpm, because I'm fire).

Comparison of skills between classes (you have to switch character though), also shows different settings for different characters (if you want it to).

Displays average damage/healing of your skills on your hotkeys (which includes crit damage), if you like. No mocking of the skill setup.

 I want to hand out a big thanks to the addon authors for taking their time with collecting all the necessary data for this awesome addon! The addon can be found here.

Addons 4.0 - Starting out fresh

I took a friends good advice and burned my addons folder to the ground. At first I thought I'd just remove everything and then replace it all with up to date addons one by one. But then I thought - hey, why not take this opportunity to completely redo my interface? I like addons. I've put plenty of time on the interface I'm currently using, with xperl, dominos, grid and clique at its core, but what the heck. It's only addons. So instead I decided to make it easy for me and get a ready and set ui. Inspired by Loves choice I went with Tukui, and so far so good (link can be found at bottom). Tukui has several of my favorite features built in, like "sell-all-grays-in-bags"-feature which without the game would be unplayable. This also means I could cut down some on the amount of extra-addons I've been using who only have one function. Addons that in themselves are great, like AutoProfitX, but if they're already there I don't really need them.

So I am doing to my UI what I usually do to my chars. Instead of patching something up I rip it all away and start fresh. That way I know exactly what works and what doesn't. There were some issues with tukui that I have decided to tolerate at the moment.
First of all, I don't like the placement of the bars 100%. I like to have some bars close to my char, so I don't have to move my eyes when I want to check some skill on my bar.
Secondly, it has placed the totem bar up in the far left corner. What is it doing up there? Also I could only find one totem bar, when I should have three.
Thirdly, Tukui gives you a completely new bar when you use a shapeshift. Like when going into Metamorphosis or Shadow Dance. But I don't want a completely new bar, because both these shapeshifts mainly use the regular skills. Also this "shapeshift" bar is one of the four default bars, which means that when shapeshifting you'll have two identical bars next to eachother, with the same skills. Since its really the same bar. It's difficult to explain, but believe me when I say it's silly.

EDIT: Everything on the picture below not marked is part of the Tukui.

Once I had installed Tukui I ran around a little to figure out which other addons I needed to complement it, that were also updated to the 4.0 patch. Here is what I found so far and it is working well enough for me to be happy with playing again.

Clique - The only alternative to this one is using mouse-over macros. This addon does the same thing but is way easier to set up. I did notice that it didn't work flawless with Tukui however. There seemed to be a delay or targetting issue when using Clique and Tukui together which meant I had to sometimes clique my skill a couple of times on a target for it to actually be cast. Hopefully just a minor problem (that will be resolved soon). I am aiming at having Tukui raid frames replacing Grid, and so far it looks good, but I haven't tried it in a real raid setting yet so that can still change. UPDATE 22/10: Due to the issues with Tukui raid frames I have gone back to grid, and Grid+ Clique works as well as ever.
DBM - Yesterday I raided without DBM and most of the time this works well as long as you just keep your eyes open. The shit on the ground that you're not supposed to stand in is usually quite visible. But yesterday with everything else going on, me trying to make heads from tails of my skills, I actually completely missed that I was standing in the middle of Swarming Shadows on heroic Blood Queen. Which kinda killed me. First time I died from standing in fire in a looong time (I do admittedly die from Malleable Goo on Putricide from time to time, because if you move from one you can run into another...). In any case it made me realize I needed DBM.
DoTimer - DoTimer used to be a frickin awesome addon for tracking any kind of buffs and debuffs on yourself and your target. I especially loved it for tracking Prayer of Mending. Then something happened and DoTimer started tracking -everything-. Which completely spammed my face. So I had to replace it with SexyCooldown, which was ok but far from as good. For one, DoTimer tracks several debuffs on separate targets simultaneously and also removes those timers if my target dies before the debuffs runs out. Making a long story short, DoTimer has started working again. Not as well as it once did, for instance I haven't gotten it to track PoM as good as it used to. But at least it track my debuffs, and that is well enough.
Recount - I have to be able to keep track of how I use my skills! This is the best way to do it. As a disc I will always be lowest on "healing done" but then I check "guessed absorbs" for comfort (and worldoflogs consolidates heals and absorbs fortunately, so it doesn't seem like I suck).
AutobarMuffin - Autobar is one of the most important addons in my addon-arsenal. It gives me what I want when I need it. Unfortunately Autobar didn't make it to 4.0, but AutobarMuffin does! Just don't use class bar, because that seemed to give me alot of errors still. If you want to know more you can read my post on it.
AuctionLite - I've written a post on this one too, and it concludes why I still want to keep it around.
BadBoy - BadBoy blocks spam, not the regular trade-trolls unfortunately, but the goldsellers. I haven't seen a goldsell-message in my chats for years, and I want to keep it that way.
BugGrabber & Bugsack - I've written a post on the BugGrabber & Bugsack combo too. I played briefly without these two and that was a big mistake I won't do again.
ArkInventory - Tukui has a built in bag mod which is a simple allinone-bag. Dreadful. With ArkInventory you can create a bag that suits your needs perfectly, and it is fairly simple to do so.
Postal - Not being able to just press a button to empty my mailbox made me extremely furious. How do people stand taking stuff out one by one? Postal will ease up any mailbox usage alot. Even if you don't mail stuff often, which I don't, you'll want this.
Chocolate bar - Gives me a neat little bar at the top of my window where I can keep track of interesting to know stats. Like durability of my gear, how much ammo I've got (which is moot now that people don't use ammo anymore, but anyway), how much money I've got, how much bagslots I've got free and etc. Tukui has many of these features built in already, but I like my little bar...
Broker Allxp - Shows xp on my chocolate bar. Since I play so many alts this is good to know, otherwise you don't know when you're going to ding! I've played a couple of chars that way from time to time and it does add a certain amount of suprise to the game. Also, not knowing when you'll ding will prevent you from ever thinking "oh but I'm so close to ding, just 5 more quests!". Maybe I should remove this ^^
Mik Scrolling Combat Text - I tried Blizzards own Scrolling Combat Text, but it's right over my char, and I don't like that. At all. MSBT at least allows me to move it away somewhat so I can see what the heck is going on at my char. I mean if I am raiding and supposed to move from fire, I have to see that I am standing in fire...
AtlasLoot - I love being able to check out gear without having to go to the internets. And for some reason I do this alot.
SecretAdmirer - I got this from Love a long time ago. He secretely put into my addon folder, and I haven't removed it since. Try it out to see what it does ;)
NoDuel - Automatically cancels any duel request from anyone. Why would I want to duel random dude while running through some place? If I want to duel you I'll ask.
SavedInstances - This is a life saver when you've got one trillion alts like me. It displays any instance any of my chars are saved to. So I don't have to relogg to check if I did weekly on my warrior already.

There are alot of addons I'm still missing however and that I will implement into my arsenal as soon as they've been updated.

Autobar - Yeah I know I've got it already, but as mentioned the class bar isn't working. This is only an issue on two of my chars - my hunter and my shaman. I want the totem bar that autobar has, it's awesome for shamans. And the class bar for hunters is a great way to tuck away all those hunter skills you almost never use, like tame beast, beast lore, dismiss pet and the like.
DrDamage - The best way to keep track of your skills effectiviness is through DrDamage. Or at least used to be. It hasn't been updated for ages and has been working so so. I fear 4.0 will be the killing blow, but I really, really hope someone will update it. It's awesome. Shows the exact hpm, dps, casts till oom and seriously everything you'd ever want to know about your skills. If this won't work again I need to find a good replacement, any tips are very welcome!
PallyPower - I have left this for now since I haven't dared to play my paladins yet. I am also secretely hoping Blizzard will have implemented something like this already into the game. On the other hand it seems like Blessings have been sufficiently simplified to make this kind of addon unnecessary (finally).
Talented - The way the talent frame works right now is basically what Talented used to do, so maybe I won't need this addon anymore. One feature Talented had that I'll be missing however was the possibility to save specs, look at them from any char and also share them with friends. Because of this I'd probably get this addon anyway if it gets updated.
TargetCharms - Allows for quick marking of targets which I still think will be important. Maybe even more so when Cata comes that we will actually have to mark for cc.
RatingBuster - Displays stat gains and losses from any gear. Not just the raw stats, but also what they're converted into so you don't have to think about how much dodge you're loosing from removing all that agi. This will be less important now that they've removed alot of stats, but on the other hand it could be nice to know how much crit and spellpower you would gain from a certain amount of intellect on some gear. So I still want this addon. Makes gear choices a piece of cake.

And some addons I won't need anymore;
Gearscore - I've grown away from gearscore. I think. I'll try to play without it at least.
TidyPlates - Name plates are working really odd in default Blizzard settings. disappearing and reappearing totally at random which makes targetting as a melee rather frustrating. TidyPlates was great in that it easily showed which targets you had aggro from, which was particularly handy when tanking. But this is built into Tukui already, so I won't need it.
Itemrack - This is already built into the wow-ui. Itemrack is definitely alot better. For one I know that the built in equipment manager chrashes from time to time, which Itemrack never has done to me. But now that Itemrack doesn't work at all anymore I might as well get to love the built in one.

My two main sources for addons are wow.curse.com and wowinterface.com. Tukui has its own download page however.

A-o-R: AutoBar

AutoBar
Category - BarMod
Necessity Level - High
Class/Role - Any

Ready access to stuff in your bags is something everyone should have one way or the other. Having to search for potions when going low on mana or hp in combat is one of the most inefficient things you can do and in raids that is a sure wipe. When you really need something, you don't have the time or mental capacity to start rummaging through your bags, it's that simple. This need has always been there, and even though I haven't raided throughout my gaming time, I've been in tricky situations. Everyone ends up in tricky situations sooner or later in WoW, and you sure want your potions handy in that case.

My solution back in the days used to be to place items that I used often on my action bars. It's a simple solution that works well enough, it has some drawbacks however. First of all it uses up an action bar button and we all know there aint many enough of those in the first place. Secondly, action bar buttons don't update themselves. If you run out of say health potions, it will simply show that you have zero, instead of removing the item from the action bar. Also if you want several different items of the same kind, like different mana potions, you need one button for each one of them, which means it'll quickly take up alot of your action bar space. in the end, having to place your bags on your action bar isn't a good solution, but still one I ran with for a long time.

Autobar has been around since forever. It was around even back then when I used action bars instead. It didn't work the way I wanted it too then however, and I found that action bars worked better. Alot has happened since then though and Autobar is without a doubt one of my most favorite addons. Playing without it would be difficult. A lowbie alt might still manage with my half-ass action bar solution, but I really wouldn't raid without it. It's definitely a life and huge time saver.

So what does it do really?
It gives you a bar, placeable wherever you like and in whatever size you prefer. On this bar are buttons, buttons for different items, whichever items you choose. I for example have a button for health potions. This means any potion that gives me health will show up on this button. Whichever pot that gives me the most health first (also adjustable), and if I mouseover I get the other pots in a dropdown (or up, depending on where it lies on the screen) menu. This is the system it applies to any kind of item you like. Here are some more examples of what I have on this bar; elixirs, potions (mana in one, health in one, other potions in one), quest items, professions, hearthstones (teleports/portals for mage for example), food (water in one button, buff food in one, and buffless food in a third) and so on. These are just examples because you can really have a button for any kind of item.

Autobar also has a special bar for class specific buttons, like on my hunter I have all traps in one button, and all pet specific skills in one button. on my shaman I have my totems in different buttons. All fire in one, water in one and so on. I hope you realize by yourself the awesomeness in being able to collect several skills/items into one single button. But that's not all, Autobar will update itself automatically which means that if you run out of health potions, that button disappears from the list. And reappears when you acquire another health potion.

Autobar is extremely (read EXTREMELY) handy and I strongly recommend anyone of using it. There is only one slight drawback of Autobar today and that is that the menus not always disappear after a mouse over. This means that if you have a button which has a very long menu of items it could block a portion of your screen ocassionally, until you mouse over again. It is supposed to disappear when you remove the cursor, but it doesn't always do this. Also, for reasons that are Blizzards fault, Autobar can't update when in combat (no addons can). This is a minor issue however as long as you think about it (it means it might look like you still have that potion you just drank, but you really don't). There are also some items it doesn't know off (or that the addon author simply hasn't implemented into its library) and which therefore won't show up on the addon. These items are rather rare however, like Slippery Eel.

It hasn't been updated for some months now, but apart for above mentioned problems (which always have been there) the addons works perfectly.

Considering how beneficial the usage of Autobar is and how minor these issues are, Autobar is an awesome addon. And it can be found here.

A-o-R: Auditor

Auditor
Category - Money mod
Necessity Level - Low
Class/Role - Any

There are some addons I've used for such a long time I forget what they do. Auditor is such an addon, so I had to ask Love. It's always just been around, sitting in the corner (or on my Chocolate Bar more recently), doing its thing so smoothly I even forgot it was doing it. It's funny when you get so used to some features you think they're actually part of the game and then you freak when you happen to play on some friends computer without addons.

It doesn't really do anything necessary, it's more one of those neat to have addons. Auditor will give you a better overview of your cash flow, showing for instance where your money is coming from and going to. It will also show you how much money you have on alts and how much you've earned or spent this week (or another time frame) and on what. (Image borrowed from Curse.com)

If you're one of them AH-nerds, constantly sitting around trying to make a buck, being able to keep an eagle eye on earnings and outgoings is quite nice. I use it mainly to keep track on how much money I have on alts, but considering I have another addon that does that as well... Well, Auditor does it in a really easy-to-view way and since it doesn't take much space I might as well keep it around, like I have all this time.

Auditor can get really specific, showing you for instance how much money you spent the last week/day/lifetime etc on stuff like repairs, vendors, AH etc. You can choose to look at a specific character, realm or overall. So if you're one of those people who love addons because they help you keep track on everything, then this is definitely for you. There is even an option called "Absurd Detail" and that is really what this addon is all about. There are really no drawbacks about this addon, if you want to know everything about your money flows, this will do it for you. And then of course if you're not so interested in that then there's no need for you to use an addon like this. It won't make you a better player, it might however save you some time when you're trying to buy something expensive on your alt and are unsure about if they can afford it or if you have to send them some money.

It hasn't been updated for quite a while, but still works well for me. I only use it very little though. The creator also tells us that Spicy Meatballs is part of the "new features", can't miss out on that can we!
And you can find it here.

A-o-R: AuctionLite

AuctionLite
Category - AH mod
Necessity Level - Medium
Class/Role - Any

This time we'll look at an addon that took me quite some time to get, but once I tried it I immedatiely fell in love.
When leveling a bunch of alts, you'll get alot of junk. Selling this junk will usually get you alot of money, but it also takes alot of time taking care of. Seeing to it that your items get properly priced according to the current market means researching what else is on the AH. My solution to this was to do a simple search for the item I was going to sell, and then manually underprice it with some silver. Easy enough, but when you've got 50 items in your bags to sell, this quickly takes quite a while.So I complained about it to Love and he told me about getting an auction addon. I said I didn't want something bulky that needed to be updated through continuous scans and whatnot, just something that did what I did, but automagically - search for current prices on AH and undercut.

And lucky me, there was just such an addon. Enter AuctionLite!

AuctionLite will do exactly this. When you go to AH it gives you two new tabs. AuctionLiteSell and AuctionLiteBuy. Meaning it won't remove the original AH view in case you want to use them.

AuctionLiteSell will scan the AH for the item you have added (using alt + rightclick) and automatically undercut it by an amount set by you (there is a default amount set that works just fine). If there is no other item like yours on AH, it will automatically set the price to 3 times vendor price. For stuff like gear this works well, but for stuff like consumables (meat, ores etc) this is totally off, since an ore might be worth 1 silver to vendor but way more than 3 silver on AH. This just means you will have to tell it what price you want for these items, and it will use that price the next time this happens.
AuctionLiteSell uses an average of the items on AH to set its price. In case someone has a really really low price, it won't try to undercut that, but rather the prices it sees as within the "normal" price range for the item.

On the picture we can see the grey items representing items that are too cheap to undercut, the yellow items represent my own auctions and the white auctions represent auctions of others that are undercuttable.

AuctionLiteBuy will give you a new "buy items"- interface. This allows you to do something Blizzard should've implemented long ago - buying stuff in bulks. Some people (idiots *cough*) place items like cloth and dusts in single stacks, thus cramming AH with pages up and down of these items. Buying them one and one takes forever as well (and who the heck needs -one- cloth!?) but with AuctionLiteBuy you can select any number and press "buy". Before you do the mistake of your lifetime accidentally buying 100 Abyss Crystals, you'll get an "approve this buy" selection, telling you exactly how much the entire purchase will cost before actually buying anything.


The Buy Stuff Interface will also show you price per item and per stack among other things.

This is a set and forget kind of addon. Just simply download it, put into your addons-folder and it will work. Any time you have to do anything about it is if you want to fine tune it's pricing settings. I haven't done this as I am perfectly happy with default settings, so I can't really tell you how difficult that is. My guess is that it's easy though, like the rest of the addon.

I love the AuctionLiteSell part of this addon. It saves me tons of time, and if you have any regular business with AH at all, I really recommend using this. it does everything I want nearly automatically (I still have to place the items and collect the money). The AuctionLiteBuy part is good too, but not the main reason I use this addon. It's great for when I want to buy bulks, but otherwise I actually still prefer the original setup.

A-o-R: AtlasLoot Enhanced

AtlasLoot Enhanced
Category - Loot mod
Necessity Level - Medium
Class/Role - Any

AtlasLoot is an addon that does alot of things. Most of them involve being able to look at loot. Loot that drops in instances, is bought by emblems, or is crafted by a profession, to mention a few options. To explain everything it does would take forever, but in short it answers just about any question you might have about loot. Questions like;

- What mats do I need to craft that item?
- Does that boss drop any nice loot?
- How many emblems does that item cost?
- What bonuses was there in that tier set?
- What do I get when I am exalted with that faction?
- How do I look in that item?

There are even some features that I've never used, like being able to display dkp-values for items (as set by your guild) and being able to bind "quick-buttons" to certain items to access them more easily.

The ui for Atlasloot is very user friendly, with a search window that will allow you to use keywords to search for any items and some easy to understand drop down menus to search for things "manually". I simply love this addon. I'm one of those people who check gear drops constantly, like when doing raids or instances, or to check what would be a nice upgrade next. I couldn't imagine playing without this addon, although it's not really necessary per se. It's just a damn nice addon if you want to be able to look at gear. There are several reasons why you should have this addon even if you don't like to look at gear though. If you ever want something crafted, you should know what mats are needed and have them ready. People hate it when you ask them "what mats is it?" and then take forever getting them. I also think that anyone who raids should be aware of what gear he needs and wants before he enters the raid. People hate it when you go "I don't know if this is an upgrade..." and then take forever deciding it (there are other addons that I will talk about that will help you with this issue further).

Loot is one of the major things that WoW revolves around. No matter if you're a loot whore or not, you will be affected by loot (maybe not if you're a hunter), so being able to have a full overview to quickly check whatever you might need to check will most likely be very handy. Unless you play WoW very rarely (and I doubt you do if you read this blog) I strongly recommend this addon.

The only drawback of AtlasLoot is that it takes alot of space. Fortunately it comes in modules, which means you can choose not to be able to look at vanilla/bc/crafting etc loot if you don't want to. AtlasLoot only takes as much room as you need it to and doesn't force information on your that you're not interested in.

I could show you some nice pictures, but they'd be just the same as the ones over at wowinterface.com, so go check them out there!

A-o-R: !BugGrabber (& BugSack)

I'm trying to post these addon posts in alphabetical order, but for some reason my alphabetical list keeps changing. Silly windows. Ah well, it's good enough I suppose.

This time we'll look at a small but significant addon called !BugGrabber which combined with the addon BugSack will help you keep your game free from error messages.

!BugGrabber & BugSack
Category - Gaming Utility
Necessity Level - Depending
Class/Role - Any

The necessity of these two addons totally depends on how many addons you use. When you use many addons they tend to clash with eachother and the game sooner or later, no matter if you update them frequently. That's just what hobby-made addons do. This results in a whole lot of error messages, especially just after patchdays when alot of addons become outdated. Those error messages usually turn up smack in the middle of the screen. I love it when someone goes "everytime I press this button I get a huge error message in the middle of the screen", while raiding. There is a reason for this of course, an error means there is something wrong and you should know about it so that you can fix it. It might interfer with your gaming.

Woot, I have an error! (It's the little red sack in the top left corner)

Thing is, most errors are very minor and you won't notice them while playing at all. And even if you might want to know about them, you don't want to have them in your face every other second. Ok, you -know- something is wrong, thank you very much.

!BugGrabber does the first part of two things. It simply removes the error messages from the middle of the screen and hide them. If you're happy with that, you don't need anything else. But with an addon like BugSack you get all your errors in one place, that isn't your face. BugSack will do the second thing and place them where you can look at them easily (a little icon around your minimap usually). Therefore these addons combine greatly together to help you manage your error messages (you can't really use BugSack without BugGrabber). BugGrabber will actually allow you to look at your errors by itself through a /command, but BugSack does it in a better way with a proper interface.

So if you use alot of addons this could really help you out to save some of that nerdrage for where it's really needed instead, like for shamans that gear spirit. These addons are still updated continuously (just some weeks ago when writing this) and have never stopped working for me.

And you can find them here; BugGrabber & BugSack.

A-o-R: AutoScreenshot

In case anyone didn't know, I love addons. One might not believe it since I've only written about actual addons three times ever on over 200 posts. I've mentioned Grid, Xperl, Rankwatch, Breaktime and Twenty Twenty (which you might notice is actually 5 addons, but written over 3 posts).

I don't know why I haven't written more about addons before, maybe because everyone does, or because I just get stuck on another idea all the time, that has to be written about first. I still have a bunch of those ideas laying around (I haven't forgotten about the Demoralizing Shout test, just need to find a good way to collect data), but I thought since addons make up such a huge and important factor in my gaming, maybe I should tell you which ones I use, and why. First I thought I'd just write about some addons I really love, but I like all my addons, that is why I use them afterall.
To make it easy I'll go through them in alphabetical order. And since they're quite many I won't mention them all in one go (I'll be sitting here till next summer in that case). And don't worry, you won't just get to read about addons for the next weeks, I'll definitely throw in other stuff. My warrior will ding 80 any day now and that will have to be covered in some posts.

Oh and "A-o-R" stands for Addon-o-Rama. That is what this is going to be. I've decided to categorise the addons by three different factors; Overall Category, Class/Role and Necessity Level. "Category" basically means which area its supposed to be used in, aka healing, tanking, ui, info, and these can also be combined to for example info-tanking. I hope you'll get it :P. "Class/Role" is in case it is class or role specific aka priest, warrior, dps etc. "Necessity Level" is how important I value it to be to increase overall gaming experience, which means if I could play the way I do with or without it.
(EDIT 31/7: If you want to find all my other posts in the subject, simply click the "Addons" label, or type "aor" in the search window.)

AutoScreenshot
Category - Gaming Utility
Necessity Level - Low
Class/Role - Any

First out is a really small and specific addon called AutoScreenshot. I bet you can't guess what it does. Ok so you guessed it, it will automatically do screenshots. It's difficult to show this in a screenshot, since it basically is a screenshot. It will notify in chat how many screenshots it has taken during that game session, as you can see in the picture below. Default is set to 30 minutes, but you can set it to anything you like. And that is essentially what it does!


The good thing about it is that if you want to screenshot something that you probably won't have mind capacity to remember to do once you're there, like say a really intense boss fight, this will do the job for you. Also it is a good way to keep a "scrap book" of your progress on some char, if you like to. If you want to play a new main and would like to keep record of its way from hobo geared newb killing kobolds/plainstriders to full fledged epic geared killing arthas, this will definitely do the trick.

If you want to track a boss fight I recommend setting down the screenshot time frame though, since doing a screenshot every 30 minutes mostly just ends up in alot of wipe-res-rebuff shots.

The drawbacks of this addon are two. First of all this will really cram your screenshot folder, faster than you think. That isn't much of a problem though if you remember to either turn the addon off on the chars you don't want to record (five screenshots of your bankchar standing around by the postbox isn't as thrilling as it sounds) or just clear your screenshot folder every other day (depending on how much you play of course). But like I said that is a small problem. The other thing usually isn't a problem, but could turn disastrous if you're unlucky. AutoScreenshot will freeze your frame for half a second when it is screenshotting, just like when doing a regular screenshot. Since you probably won't keep track of every 30 minute mark (or whatever you set it to) this usually comes as a suprise as in "oh right, the screenshot addon is doing its thing". Normally this doesn't bother at all, but if you're in a really intense boss fight where every split second could make a difference... well it could turn out bad. It hasn't for me, so far! But be warned.

Overall this addon's really brought me alot of joy. I've used it alot for getting screenshots to put in posts here for example. I would never ever remember to screenshot interesting stuff, so this has been a life saver for me.

So this addon definitely does its job, and if you have any wants to record your gaming through screenshots I couldn't see any reason not to recommend it. It hasn't been updated for ages, but since it's an addon that only affects such a small area (that Blizzard hasn't changed yet), it still works perfectly.
And it can be found here -> AutoScreenshot at WoWInterface

Addon request

I realize that alot of addons don't exist simply because they're not possible to do. The information or functions they need to work aren't supplied by the game and so on. This is also the reason alot of nice addons have become useless, like the old Healbot (which if you ask me made things a little too easy though). This special addon I have in mind probably falls into one of these two categories.

Alot of people spend alot of time farming stuff in WoW. You basically just run around and check the minimap (or some other kind of map if you use an addon) for that yellow little dot that tells you you've found a vein/herb. Unfortunately this is a lousy way to spend your time playing. You don't actually do anything fun in the game (unless you happen to feel that finding yellow dots is hilarious) and you can't really do anything else either, since you have to watch that damn minimap for yellow dots the whole time. If you wish to read or watch a movie/series while doing this, you have to interrupt it every 4 seconds to check the minimap. Blizzard loves that you waste time like that, semi-playing. You pay just as much for that game time as any other game time of course. Just as with travel times and the like. They have removed alot of these time sink holes (in the old days you had to spend hours farming mats if you raided for example), but farming is still tedious and boring.

Therefore I would totally love it if there was an addon that simply played a little sound whenever a yellow dot appeared on your minimap. A little "bing!" or something, to notify me that there is something to herb/mine. That would make yet another of those boring parts of WoW a little less boring.

So, if you happen to know of an addon that does something like this, please tell me! Or, if you happen to be one of those cool guys who knows how to write addons (assuming this kind of addon would be possible at all, which I don't think), and write it, please tell me too!

Got any other ideas for addons that would be nice? Remember there's a difference between addon and bot though ;P

What's wrong with the WoW UI?

(Can you see what is going on behind those frames? Neither can I.)

I've talked about addons before and I usually note that people who play with absolutely no addons are either Terminator-like geniouses or not very good players (unfortunately, most likely the latter). People do look down on these non-addon users, that's a fact. And I concluded last time that the beauty about addons is that they allow you to costumizes information display and skill execution so that it suits your way of playing. I also stated that a vast majority of the WoW players would gain alot from using at least some addons for some areas of the game (depending on the way you play of course) and that the standard WoW UI simply doesn't cut it. So what is wrong with the standard ui anyway?

Once you give it a closer look, and compare the standard UI to what it could've been (like what addons can do) you quickly notice there is quite much lacking here. On the defense side, and I talked about this last time too, Blizzard has had to create a UI which must suit any player in any class playing any spec and etc... It has to be able to do it all for anyone. And this very thing is probably what the problem is all about really. Because even though this is a fact, I don't agree about most of the solutions with the UI being the best one or only one. Here are some of the things that annoy me the very most about the standard UI;

First of all you wonder if the UI is designed to work with the game at all. Just open any panel and you'll see that it blocks a huge chunk of your screen. Can you move it? No. Can you resize it? Definitely not. The bags, the quest log, the calendar (oh holy Spaghettimonster is that thing bulky or what?) and actually any screen you want to look at means you will have to pause your game play because you can't actually see what you're doing. Does this make sense? Many other mmorpgs have customizable UI's as a standard, Guild Wars and Fallen Earth just to mention two. I can't think of a very good reason that Blizzard hasn't gotten around to throwing in some code to make the UI less bulky and in the frickin way (I realize it's not that simple, but on the other hand it's a rather big issue that deserves some attention). And if the reason is about not forcing people with bad computer to play an overloaded game, then just make the UI optional through an option panel like the graphics are now.

Other things that annoy me is the "all or nothing" think of the UI. You can't close down a portion of it (to see something!), but gotta keep it all up or close it all down. Yet again I come to think of the Calendar. You can't just see the tab with the event info to the right, no you've gotta keep the entire calendar monster up to see it. Another theme on this is the fact that you can't craft something without the craft window up. Say you've got a 100 saronite ores to smelt, you've got to keep that mining profession window up at all times. Can you move it so that it doesn't block the entire left part of your screen? No. Oh wait, isn't that where Blizzard also have chosen to place the party frame? Which you also can not move in the standard UI? Yes of course. Great planning there.

And because you can't resize them, you'll only be able to browse a set number of frames at the same time, usually around three depending on what frames you wish to look at. But if you're looking at something really big, like the Auction House, you can forget that you can look at a profession frame or character frame at the same time. No, you have to close the AH down to do that. Not very efficient if you want to check what mats you need for a certain craft or if you've already got that gem in your gear.

And changing stuff takes such time! If I want to keybind something using an addon it takes 3 seconds. If I want to do it using Blizzard UI I have to go into "Esc", "interface", find the proper button in the list and then choose the keybind. That takes at least ten times longer than with the addon and might turn out wrong in the end anyway. This is the fact with most of Blizzards UI when compared to addons.

Ok I admit, I haven't used the standard UI for so long that I'm not completely sure about what Blizzard have implemented along the way. Because another issue with the WoW UI is that it simply lacks some very needed options. Think about all the addon solutions we had to work with that eventually became part of the standard UI because Blizzard realized that it was needed for efficient (and thus fun) game play. Some of these include;
- Quest Helper
- Wardrobe to switch between two (or more) gears, which should have been implemented the second Blizzard wanted people to collect special resist gears and the like.
- A way to plan how you'd like to place your talents without actually having to place them.
- Scrolling Combat Text, so you don't have to look in the combat log to know what the heck is going on around you (which is what I did in the early days of my WoW play).
- A slightly better AH although still a long way from something like Auctioneer.
- A threatmeter, which still isn't very clear but at least something.

And here are some areas that still need a lot of polishing;
- The bags. Everything is wrong about the bags. You can't sort items or search items in them which is just plain horribad. You don't have any way to check what lies in your bank or on an alt without having to relog or go there (which is such a waste of time).
- Well the fact that you can't actually move or resize anything, like I've said some times now. Please please do something about that. And while we're on it, the fact that you're barely able to customize anything about the frames, like what buffs/debuffs you'd like to see and etc. Things that actually matter alot when fighting tough raid encounters.

So to conclude; the problem with the Blizzard UI is that it is extremely rigid, bulky and uncostumizable. Trying to play efficiently with it is like trying to thread a needle with boxing gloves.

To AddOn or not to AddOn

I sometimes write or mention something about which addons to use in different situations in WoW. It is true that most WoW-related sites on the internet covers the use of AddOns to some extent. Yet there are quite varying opinions as to the usefulness, or rather necessity, of using AddOns. Few say you don't need any addons at all to play endgame (you could level decently by only using a standard ui), but opinions differ as to what extent addons are needed, and for what purposes. Debates flame up constantly with one side saying "you don't need that addon to play better" and the other says "oh yes you do". And then there are the addons that simply make life a little more comfy, without making you a better player in the progress. The last category, which could be bag-addons, sell/buy/auction-addons, map-addons and the like, usually only make out of combat parts of WoW a little easier, and as such aren't necessary to improve your playstyle. No one can say you should have had Auctioneer to down that boss.

So what I am interested here is what combat-addons are needed, and why? Or why not?

Like I've mentioned before, combat addons are used for one thing, to tell you stuff you need to know about in an easy way. It's about providing you with as much information as possible. Some addons are also used to aid you with converting that information into a quick reaction. This is something I will talk more about when writing about good addons for healing.
This means combat addons do two things; provide information and provide a way for fast reaction. For example you can have an addon that shows you who has a certain debuff and another addon that helps you dispel that debuff fast (or one addon to do both of those of course).

If we start by looking at the information bit we can see that every addon get their information from WoW itself. Blizzard doesn't hide necessary information, like who gets a debuff, who is hurt, how far away is someone and such. Technically, all this information is already in the game, and you don't need an addon to see it. You might however need an addon to see it in the way you want to.

The problem with the Blizzard ui (in my opinion) is that it's extremely rigid. You can't move anything to suit your playstyle. It takes way more space than it has to. Also it is designed to work for any class in any spec, and therefore doesn't work especially well for any. It can provide general information, such as how much damage you do to a certain target but that's basically it. Now correct me if I'm wrong, for I haven't used regular Blizzard ui for many months... or years perhaps. They do add new features all the time, features who usually are the most used addons. Like an addon to show you where to go to do your quests and aid with the switching of gears.

If you want information about when to use a certain skill presented in an effective way you'll probably have to use an addon (effective is quite subjective though). Want to know if your trinket is ready to use again? Want to know if your 3 min cd is ready to use again? Want to know how long time it is left before the boss does his certain doom attack? Want to tell people you've used a certain spell? All of the above can be seen or done in WoW, but not in a practical way. You could macro all your spells to announce when you use them (or at least the spells you want to announce). Or you could get an addon that does all this for you. Saves some time, and is usually alot easier to turn on/off or do changes to.

And these are the key words here - "saves time". Out of combat this doesn't matter much of course, what you do while standing around is up to you. But when things get hot and heavy, you want to know stuff as fast and clear as possible. You don't want to have to dig around in drop down menus and whatnot to know what you should do next.

All the addons I have, I've gotten because I thought I could do something better. I got myself a new ui because I didn't like that I had to move my field of vision to the corners of the screen to see certain information (like how much rage I've got on my warrior). I prefer my information as close to where I usually look as possible. When tanking I want to look at the mobs. Everything that forces me to look away from the mobs annoys me. I don't want to have to scan through the combat log to know what happened to who when fighting. But the information is there (just not where I want it), and if you're happy with the way it's presented in the Blizzard ui, I don't think you need an extra addon for it.

So next, the addons that help you with a fast reaction. This goes hand in hand with the information addons of course. Like I said, the Blizzard ui will tell you who has a certain debuff (since you can see their debuff icon). This means however that you have to scan through every persons debuff and then successfully identify the one you need to remove. If you can do this really fast, you don't need an addon for it. And by really fast I mean within a gcd fast. If you can't do this within a gcd, or without keeping your attention from everything else you have to do, you need an addon to help you.

Some addons help you cast spells faster, like Clique. It allows you to cast a spell on someone with having to target them first, which greatly increases your reaction time. I think however that this could be accomplished with some nifty mouse-over macros, so you don't need clique to do this in the game either.

So what am I really saying here? Something quite obvious. Addons don't actually add anything to the game, that would be illegal. They take something from the game, and present it in another way than Blizzard does. Except for the estetic part, there is nothing an addon does that you can't already do in the regular Blizzard ui. This means that if you're satisfied with the estetic part - you don't need addons. Big note however - I don't know of anyone who hasn't gained (i.e become better player) from using at least some addons. The way the information is presented in WoW just isn't efficient enough for 99,5% of the WoW population.

Holyness - Addons to streamline your healing

No matter what an addon does (not counting the ploy ones) it is there to help you do something faster. Be it using skills, organize your items or simply getting an overview, they all want to streamline the way you go about doing things in WoW. This goes for the healing addons as well. Some healing addons do this so well in fact, they're nearly necessary to perform sufficiently enough for many raid encounters. I'm not saying playing without addons is impossible... but to most people it probably is. The human mind is only so fast and so perceptive and could definitely need some help to perform at its best in a game like WoW.

So what addons are useful for a healer? Although I write this mainly from a priests perspective, most addons work for any healing class, the only difference might be what skills they track and the like. I'll mention my favorite, healing specific addons which are great whether you heal instances or raids. Although it is more common that you need really fast reactions in a raid setting, these addons will simplify any type of healing and hopefully make it more fun!

Let's start with the overview ones. What is it a healer needs to see? Well mainly who might need some healing of course. The Blizzard standard ui does this in an ok way, which definitely works for 5 man instances all the way up to 80. But when you start doing raids, 10 mans and 25 mans, you get a hell of alot of people to keep track off. And even in instances it will come in handy to get a quick overview of who needs the most attention at any given moment. The more people around you, the more important this gets.

So what could an addon do that the Blizzard ui doesn't?

First of all it could show you who needs to be healed at all. This is especially useful when you've got 25 possible targets to tend for, but like mentioned could come in handy in any healing situations. Some addons will highlight anyone who has taken a set amount of dmg (chosen by you) and if the person is within range of you at all (so you don't try to heal something you can't reach anyway). This will allow you to focus on the ones that need a heal -now- and the ones that need a heal in a moment.

A great complement to seeing who needs a heal, is seeing exactly how much dmg someone has taken, to help you estimate how big a heal you have to throw at someone. 20% of 20.000 dmg differs greatly from 20% of 50.000 dmg. And you don't want to start doing math subtractions when someone is dying - "so 4573/34876 means...?". To me, using deficits has proven quite useful, this way I can see that person X is at -6391 hp and can decide what to do based on that information. Knowing someones max hp is less important, imo, since what you need to know is how much dmg is someone taking, and how much more dmg can they take before they die unless I heal them. If someone with 10.000 is taking 100 dmg each second he can continue doing so for quite a while before I have to heal him. If someone with 50.000 dmg is taking 10.000 dmg each second I will probably need to pay alot of healing attention to him.

I need to know how much hps my target needs to win over the dps they're taking.

Another great feature of addons is if they can show you who needs to be dispelled. Blizzard ui shows debuffs, but not in a particularly clear way, and this is again even more obvious when having to concentrate on more than 5 targets. You don't want to scan through the complete debuff list of 25 people to decide who needs a dispel/cleanse, you want to be able to make that decision within a gcd.

An addon could also help you keep better track of people who commonly need your attention, mostly the tanks. It can separate them from the others so you'll always have an easy view over what's happening to them (this is however not a feature I use myself, since I think I can give better attention to tanks when they're where everyone else are in my ui.)

There are two addons I've tried that do these things in a satisfactory way, and they both have some benefits/drawbacks compared to eachother. I used the addon X-perl for a very long time, and there are still features about it I like more than Grid, the addon I currently use. They vary somewhat in how they display the abovementioned features, but I finally chose Grid because it displays debuffs/buffs in a more visible way than X-perl. Benefits of X-perl however is that you can get nearly as much usefulness out of it but with way less hassle of configuration. Grid needs -alot- of configuration before it does what you want it to, and X-perl wasn't as difficult to get started with. I'd recommend X-perl over Grid if you're not a dedicated raider actually, or if you don't feel like a leet addon user.

I could show you some screenshots on how they look, but my ui is so messy (but that's the way I like it!) I think you get a better idea by going directly to their download pages. And since I like wowinterface more than curse, that is where I will direct you!

--> Grid (this needs alot of extra "add on" addons to get all the features though, the basic addon is pretty stripped down).
--> X-perl (Comes pretty complete, and might therefore hold features you're not interested in. These are always just to turn off of course, but it might make the addon bigger than Grid, depending on how much extras you get to Grid. Not that size matters though ;) )

More addons for the people - Rankwatch

You'd be suprised at how often it actually happens - someone in your group is using the wrong rank of a spell. Like I mentioned about healing a couple of posts ago (Holyness, what's it all about), there was a time when downranking spells was the skilled way to go about things. Some changes from Blizzard quickly made downrankers go from leet to noob however, and although these changes were implemented quite some time ago (with the coming of wotlk I think), people still downrank their spells. Why is this?

First of all, there are actually still good reasons to downrank spells. Sometimes you want a lower rank because it is less good than max rank, like with Life Tap and Health Funnel for warlocks which drain less health at lower ranks. Mages might want to use rank 1 frostbolts when pvping because it has faster cast time but is still as able to proc the snare effect. Similar downranking reasons exist for many classes.

But most of the time a downranked spell is simply a mistake. The most common cause to this mistake is dual speccing. Some time ago, before wotlk, you had to place your new ranked skills on your bars manually everytime you bought new ones. Blizzard changed this so that the bars would automatically update with the latest rank when you bought it, and this led to people assuming they'd always do this. But they don't. If you're dual specced and buy new ranks of your other spec, the one you're not currently in, the bars won't update. But people still assume they do and don't even check. This has happened to me too, embarrassingly enough. I had the wrong rank on nearly all my paladins threat skills. Wonder how I've managed for so long. Only for one rank, but still.

Nearly every pug I join has at least one player using at least one spell with the wrong rank. And this is where the addon Rankwatch comes into play! It checks the ranks of all the spells used and tells that player, by whisper or in party/raid chat that they're using the wrong rank, and which rank they should be using. It doesn't report for spells commonly downranked, like Life Tap and Health Funnel I mentioned earlier. I've enabled it to tell people in party/raid chat simply because I think everyone in the group should know someone is using the wrong rank of a spell, encouraging them to correct the mistake faster.

The addon can be found here --> RankWatch

Staying fit while playing WoW

Many of us tend to spend a whole lot of time in front of the computer playing WoW. I actually find myself thinking "jeez, did it already go an hour?" many times while playing. You just don't notice how much time WoW is stealing away from you! I thought I'd highlight some addons that help you keep track of time and to encourage you to take a moments rest from WoW to do something else for a short while. Nothing too fancy since the time one can take for breaks depends greatly on what you're currently doing. When grinding it's easy, when raiding it's not so easy.

TwentyTwenty
This is a very simple addon that is there to remind you to look away from the computer screen now and then. Although computer screens have come a long way since those bulky, ugly things we had ten years ago, screens still tend wear the eye out. The biggest problem being the fact that by constantly staring at something 50 cm away you won't properly keep the eye up to date with how to look at stuff further away.
Every twenty minutes this addon will display a text in the chat frame saying it's time to look at something twenty yards (about 5 meters) away for twenty seconds. When twenty seconds have passed you will hear a whisper sound that notifies you the time is up and you can go back to playing. I've tried this addon myself and it's not particularly intrusive, without being too easy to ignore. I recommend it for anyone who feel they'd like to train their eyes a bit every now and then.
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info14881-TwentyTwenty.html

BreakTime!
An alternative to TwentyTwenty, and which also allows for any kind of breaks, is the addon BreakTime! You simply set a selfchosen message to go off on your screen anytime between every 15 minutes and 2 hours. This way you can for instance type "do 5 pushups" to popup every 30 minutes, and hopefully you'll obey your own suggestion. What differs this addon from say the built in alarm system is the possibilty to have it display a message that will catch your attention, and not just sound an alarm. I haven't tried this one out yet but it seems simplistic enough.
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info8751-BreakTime.html