Vanilla World of Warcraft Addon Guide

I have created a new page for World of Warcraft: Classic Addons.

Addons are one of the great features of World of Warcraft. Customizing the game to your play style is really a meta-game in and of itself. Effective use of addons provides so much useful information and makes the game much more enjoyable. They can often automate some of the grunt work, allowing you to focus on the bigger picture.

I have seen some people say that using addons violates the spirit of playing "vanilla." I can tell you this is absolutely false. I played WoW at launch and addon development was a huge part of the game. Originally, the addons could even control the player character movement. That's right; Blizzard essentially built botting into the game. I remember one that let you build a navigation mesh around the world, setting waypoints wherever you wanted. Then you could just type "goto inn" and your character would automatically run to the nearest inn. This was, of course, patched out in the first few months, but it was cool while it lasted.

I have compiled a list of some of the most useful addons for Vanilla World of Warcraft. I have organized these into groups that work well together.

Installation

Addons are placed in your WoW install directory under Interface/Addons. If an addon doesn't show up in game, it is most likely because the folder isn't named correctly. Open the folder of the addon that doesn't appear and there will be a .toc file. The folder name has to match the name of the .toc file exactly (not including ".toc").

In game, on the character select screen, click the Addons button. Increase Script Memory to 512 and check "Load out of date Addons." From this screen you can enable addons on a per-character basis. Many addons are only applicable to certain classes or you may only need the feature on a certain character, so you can disable them on the other characters.

Addons for Making Gold

You can make a lot of money by just being smart about what you sell. A lot of players are literally throwing away cash by not selling items on the auction house or not getting nearly as much as they could if they do. These addons will make sure you maximize your selling potential.

• Informant

  • This displays the vendor value of any item in the item tooltip. This is great when you have a lot of gray trash and your bags are full. Some of the grays are truly worthless, while many others are worth a lot at the vendor. With this addon, you can easily tell the difference, making it simple to know what to remove from your bags if you need to make some space.

• Aux

  • This replaces the built-in auction house interface with one that adds many useful features. Most importantly, it tracks the prices of items over time, allowing you to see what is a good price for any item. With just a click, you can list items as the cheapest, basically guaranteeing their sale. You can be shrewd and look for listings that are listed below market value and buy them up to relist at the real market value. It also adds the auction prices to an item's tooltip, so you can immediately know if you can vendor an item or sell it on the auction house.

• GMail

  • In order to use the auction house effectively you have to use a bank-alt, a low level character that just lives at the auction house. Your main characters send all the items they get to your bank-alt to actually sell on the auction house, or store in the bank for later use. This requires using the mail box to send a lot of items. This addon makes it possible to send a lot of items very easily and quickly.

Combat Addons

These addons can improve your combat by giving you more information than the default UI provides.

• ClassicSnowfall

  • In Vanilla WoW, abilities activate when you release the keybind. This addon changes it so the abilities activate as soon as you press the key. It's a small, but important, difference. Everyone should have this installed.

• DebuffTimers

  • This displays a visible countdown timer on enemy debuff icons. This lets you know exactly when to recast a debuff on a target to maximize its effect.

• OmniCC

  • Similar to DebuffTimers, this addon displays a visible countdown timer on your own abilities, letting you time exactly when you can cast an ability again.

• MobHealth3

  • This addon estimates a mob's health based on repeated encounters. You can use this to not waste mana by casting a high rank spell when a lower rank could kill the mob.

• MobInfo2

  • This provides a lot of information about a mob in its tooltip. One of the most useful pieces of information is if the enemy will run away when it gets low on health. This lets you prioritize your attacks and lets you plan better.

• MikScrollingBattleText

  • This is a highly customizable battle text addon. This isn't the most needed addon, but it can be very useful to make the battle information easier to read.

• SmartRestore

  • This will use the most appropriate potion, bandage, food or drink, depending on the situation. This way you don't waste your most expensive potions if a cheaper one will do the trick. It has a lot of options, but can greatly simplify healing in and out of combat.

UI Customization Addons

These addons all replace or alter elements of the user interface. Putting them all together lets you create a completely custom interface. Every element can be customized to your exact design.

• Bongos

  • This lets you completely revamp your interface. Every element can be moved and resized. The action bars can be configured into absolutely any configuration you can imagine.

• LunaUnitFrames

  • A great companion addon to use with Bongos. It is a complete revamp of the unit frames (player, target, party, etc). Again, this is highly customizable so you can create the exact layout that you want.

• oCB3

  • This addon replaces the casting bar. It works beautifully with LunaUnitFrames, offering the same level of customization. More than just a new look, it also adds some very useful information that isn't available in the default interface.

• BetterAlign

  • This is a simple addon for custom UI creation that simply displays a grid and customizable guide lines on screen. If you want a really polished custom UI, this is a mandatory addition.

• Bagnon, Banknon

  • This replaces the bag and bank interface, replacing them with one that combines all the bags into one window. It saves a lot of space on screen when you want to see all your bags. Even more useful, you can see the bags and bank of your other characters. This is tremendously useful when you are gathering materials for professions and you have them stored on your bank-alt.

• simpleMinimap

  • To fully customize the user interface, you need a minimap replacement. This lets you change the size and shape to fit in with the rest of your custom UI.

• FuBar

  • There are a few "menu bar" style addons. They are basically a docking station for other addons. I like the flexibility of FuBar the most. There are a ton of FuBar addons that provide useful information and features for all sorts of situations.

• TinyTip

  • This addon allows you to change the position of tooltips. So instead of the tooltip being in the corner, you can have it appear by the cursor, for instance.

• ChatSuey

  • This adds a few nice features to the chat window, like scrolling through it with the mouse wheel, moving the typing box to the top, clickable URLs and many more.

Quality of Life Addons

These are general quality of life improvements, handling some of the annoyances or just making certain common actions faster.

• ImprovedErrorFrames

  • Addons tend to display error messages, most of which are not important, but can be terribly distracting when they pop up in the middle of the screen. This addon hides the error messages and just displays an icon on the minimap that you can click on to see all the errors if you need to.

• LazyPig

  • This is a great addon with so many nice features. Just a sampling: Auto-dismount, auto-repair at vendors, sell all grays at vendor, increased camera follow distance and many more. This is another addon that should be installed by everyone.

• Questie

  • This addon places icons on the map showing the location of everything you need for a quest. I don't recommend this addon for first time vanilla players. Part of the charm of the vanilla leveling experience is having to read the quest text and explore the area. Using this addon totally kills the experience. However, if you've leveled a few characters and seen the quests already, this addon lets you get through them much faster.

• EquipCompare

  • Every time you mouse over an equippable item, this shows your currently equipped item next to the item tooltip. This makes it much easier to gauge your equipment rewards from quests, for example.

• SpamThrottle

  • This is a must have addon. It blocks spam on the chat channels, most importantly gold seller spam. It also removes LFG repeats and any other repeated messages. There is no limit to the amount of players you can block as well, which can be very useful depending on your server.

Macro Addons

Macros are a big part of playing well in World of Warcraft. These addons will greatly improve your macros.

• SuperMacro

  • The built-in macro interface limits how long your macros can be and the amount you can create. SuperMacro removes these limits and adds functions that you can use in your macros to handle a lot of common tasks.

• Zorlen

  • This is a function library with a ton of functions that you can call from your macros. There are functions for every class, many of which are extremely sophisticated. This is an absolute must-have addon for anyone using macros.

Conclusion

Addons are so important to enjoying and playing Vanilla World of Warcraft to its fullest. They certainly aren't required, but you should definitely try these out if you haven't already. They can smooth out some of the rough edges of the vanilla experience and were always intended to do exactly that. This list is just scratching the surface of what is available. There are addons that help every class achieve their maximum potential, tons of interface changes and so much more. Check out a site like Addons.us.to to get a sense of what is available.

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