Ah, I’ve been expecting you, Champion! Make yourself comfortable, as we are going to have a long talk today. We will talk about add-ons for World of Warcraft Classic. Almost every WoW Player uses them in this or that quantity; some became so popular over the years that developers integrated them into the game itself. So what are add-ons exactly? These are Modifications made by some Players for others. These Modifications are created especially for making in-game life and experience easier, more comfortable, and less irritating. There are hundreds and hundreds of different add-ons right now.
They may be of two kinds – the ones for a retail version and the ones for Classic. The majority of add-ons under today’s discussion are suitable for both of them, so you have to watch carefully for the correct game version before installing each modification. The Classic version of an add-on will have 1.13 figures, while the retailed version add-ons will be marked as 8.3. We wouldn’t also recommend downloading old versions of any add-on, as they might not work correctly with the latest patches.
Some modifications are more useful than others; some may be in use for certain roles, classes, and even specializations. In this article, we will try to highlight the most useful and popular add-ons for World of Warcraft Classic.
Where to get
The very first question, that pops up is Where to find the add-on I need? These are several sites, which provide safe downloading. Note: be very cautious and remember to check every add-on before installing it nevertheless.
How to install WoW add-ons
Remember that you install and use any Add-on at your own risk. In case you have any problems, direct Add-on/Game Issues to Blizzard or the add-on author.
- Download an add-on of your choice from any site;
- Extract the downloaded archive (.zip, .rar);
- Place the files into your World of Warcraft/_classic_/Interface/Add-ons folder.
- Log in to the game, click the Add-ons tab located in the bottom left corner of the screen.
- Make sure all add-ons are enabled. Otherwise, they won’t function at all.
Addons
And now let’s move on to the most interesting part. As it was said, there are hundreds of different add-ons for all occasions. The majority of them work together perfectly; some require others to be installed, but sometimes they may argue with one another, so you might need to choose. We pick a certain amount of the most interesting add-ons and divided them into several groups.
User Interface
Neat Plates – A nameplate add-on with a variety of preset and customization options, like debuff tracking or color-coding based on hostility or threat.
IceHUD – Groups all the needed information at the center of the screen. It shows player’s and target’s health and mana bars, casting and mirror bars, pet health, druid mana bar in forms, extensive target info, etc.
Pitbull Unit Frames 4.0 – A powerful and highly customizable unit frame add-on, which allows you to rearrange, hide, or otherwise personalize your unit frames. It provides such information as actual mob HP (Real Mob Health need to be installed); duration of auras; cast bars; threat bars (Classic Threat Meter, Details!, or similar add-ons need to be installed).
Bartender4 – This is a full action bar replacement and highly configurable add-on, which allows you almost everything: hide or move the Blizzard art; move, separate, combine, or completely hide the bag bar, micro menu, XP bar, and your regular action bars.
Dominos Classic – Lets you change the standard UI. This add-on removes the backgrounds completely and allows you to move the bars wherever you like. It will also let you clean the layout completely and set it once again in the way you want.
Classic Spell Activations – Adds a highlight for spells that have special activation requirements. Lights up spell activation overlay for reactive abilities for each class.
Tukui – An extensive all-in-one UI add-on, which combines the elements of several of the add-ons above. It is great for players who don’t want to set up their UI but makes a lot of changes.
ELVUI – Allows replacing most elements of the default UI with a customizable set of action bars, unit frames and most other conveniences a Player can think of. This add-on is similar to the previous except being more modern.
OneBag3 – This is one of the most comfortable bag add-ons, as it combines all the bags you have into one huge sack. It also has a search button, customizes the number of columns, and works with other bag add-ons.
Bagnon – Is another very useful bag add-on. It helps the player to find items easier within their inventory, and bank. Beyond the basic all-bags-in-one functionality, Bagnon provides such features as view the items of any character, from anywhere, coloring based on item quality, the detailed tooltip for each item, etc.
WIM – Improves the overall UI and Chat option. These improvements include whispers and new chats in separate windows.
Leatrix Plus – Is an efficient and modular add-on that enhances the default user interface.
Questing
Questie – Probably the most usable add-on in Classic WoW as it adds icons to the map for the quests in your log, shows what quests you can pick up, and presents lots of useful tools. Beware: Questie kills the lore of the game a little bit, but if you are interested in level up to 60 as fast as possible – this is your chance.
Azeroth AutoPilot Classic – Provides various features such as auto skipping cut scenes, auto talk to NPCs, auto pick up and hand in quests, etc. It is mostly intended for speed leveling. AutoPilot will give you predefined quest paths based on your level, class, and other variables; provides making hotkeys or macros to use quest items.
Immersion Classic – This add-on is quite the opposite of Questie. Perfect for those who want to get more into the story of the game. It displays the quest text in a far more pleasing manner and shows the character, which is relaying the dialogue.
Classic Quest Log for Classic – Despite the awkward name, this is an invaluable add-on that creates the two-pane quest log, allowing you to see all of your quests on the left, and the currently selected quest information on the right.
Quest Icon Desaturation – A very simple, though quite useful add-on, which correctly turns quest giver dialogue markers grey for uncompleted quests.
Combat
Classic Threat Meter – This is an invaluable add-on for every DD member of the raid, as it shows a player’s relative threat values, letting you know who is about to take aggro. The combat log data is used to calculate the amount of threat. A must for any serious endgame dungeon or raid group.
Recount – A perfect add-on for endgame raiding with a large customization menu. It displays the amount of damage players are doing, has an auto-reset option after a fight, and gives the possibility to view previous fights. Useful for Tanks and Healers as well, as it displays healing and threat stats.
Details! Damage Meter Classic – Grants not only Damage Done data, but also different details, such as how many times a certain healer cast a concrete cooldown on the Main Tank. The interface is clean, easy to use, and dynamic. Perfect for Raid Leaders.
Shadowed Unit Frames – A customizable unit frame add-on, similar to Pitbull (see the description above). It displays such information as incoming heals, auras, health bars, cast bars, power bars, portraits, indicators, and so on. You can also change from one profile to another without reloading your UI.
Mik Scrolling Battle Text Classic – Customize the default damage numbers, along with incoming healing, and other information. We recommend spending some time setting up this add-on, as the out of the box settings can display extra information which may be unnecessary for some players.
Real Mob Health – One of the easiest, yet essential add-ons for WoW Classic, as it shows the number of XP points of an enemy. Unfortunately, only percentages are available, but this is already much better than having nothing.
Classic Castbars – As long as there are no target cast bars available in the game, this mod adds them, so you can see what and when exactly an enemy is casting so that you could interrupt the correct spell easier and faster. The Player’s cast bar may be modified also. Perfect decision for PvP Players.
Omni CC – Is a small but very popular add-on that adds text to items, spells, and abilities that are on cooldown to indicate when they will be ready to use. All the standard analogue cooldowns are transformed into digital ones. Work with the majority of other add-ons.
Omni Bar – This is an extremely lightweight add-on. It is used to track enemy cooldowns. Omni Bar is easily customized, and has a rich feature set, like: multiple bars, cooldown count, tracks multiple players, customizable cooldowns. May be used in arenas and battlegrounds.
Lose Control – Displays duration of all crowd control spells, abilities, and buffs/debuffs on your Character, pet, target, party, raid group. Supports PvP interrupts and may be customized according to your needs.
H.H.T.D. (Healers Have To Die) – This is a very useful PvP orientated add-on, as it finds and automatically adds a special symbol on healing players. The add-on shows their class and current healing rank. It will also help you to protect the healers from your group alerting you when they are being attacked.
Spy Classic – Scans for enemy Players and warns you when they’re nearby. The add-on will try to provide as much information about the enemy as possible. It may be class race and level. You can share data with your party, raid, or guild in case they are using Spy as well.
Dungeons and Raids
Atlas Loot Classic – This is a UI mod that gives access to the loot tables of bosses everywhere and at any time and shows a full list of the Best In Slot items for your class and where to get them. It also provides information about crafting materials, created items, and skill ranks.
Atlas Classic WoW – Provides instances maps to the Player, marks the locations of major bosses, provides detailed and accurate information about all of the creatures, NPCs, objects, and events you’ll encounter in each instance.
Deadly Boss Mods – Classic (DBM) – It is a dungeon support add-on; probably the best and most popular among others of its kind. DBM warns you when a boss is about to use certain abilities that might require you to move or counter its spell.
Big Wigs Bossmods – The boss encounter add-on. It triggers alert messages, timers, and sounds for specific encounters. This add-on is similar to DBM, but the memory/second and CPU/second footprint of Big Wigs is the lowest among all boss mod add-ons.
TellMeWhen – Another highly customizable modification that provides visual, auditory, and textual notifications about elements of combat such as cooldowns, buffs and debuffs, reactive abilities, temporary weapon enchants, totems, runes, spell casts, and any combination of over 110 other things with easy-to-use conditions.
Weak Auras 2 – This powerful and flexible framework add-on is necessary for anyone who plans on doing raiding. It tracks auras, health, power (mana, rage, soul shards, holy power, etc.), cooldowns, combat events, runes, totems, items, and more. Everything is customizable.
Decursive – This add-on tracks the cursed members of the raid/party. Allows you to prioritize decursing some classes over others. Decursive supports all classes with cleansing abilities and configures itself automatically. It is suitable for both PvE and PvP as you can polymorph/cyclone/hex mind-controlled players.
Auction House
Trade Skill Master 4 – This add-on is designed especially to help both players new to the gold making process and experienced auction house goblins. It comes with powerful tools that help you earn gold and speed up everything related to buying/selling items on the Auction House.
Auctionator Classic – Simple add-on that makes the auction experience easier. It helps searching, buying, and selling items either per stack or per unit. It helps track the cost of items and will store the cost of how much certain items are being auctioned.
Auctioneer – Another AH mod that can make you feel a real stock gambler. You will learn how to track, sell, and buy items easily. It also shows in-depth information for all in-game items, such as those used in quests or profession recipes.
Aux – This is an AH add-on which specializes in the gear items. Check the vendor prices to see how much gold you will get for selling a particular piece of gear.
Quality of life
Advanced Interface Options – Gives a Player the following options: adds stop auto-attack or attacks on assist buttons for pets; fades map when moving; displays Lua errors; adds cleanup bags button; has a quest sorting mode, etc. It also adds floating combat text: energy and honor gains, auras, changes in reputation, combo points; shows combat state (entering/leaving combat), spell mechanics, healing, absorb (self and target), low HP/mana.
MapCoords – This small and quite simple add-on will display map coordinates at the top of the minimap.
Coordinates by TomCat’s Tours – This add-on is similar to the previous one, but it shows the coordinates on both minimap and World map. The coordinates of a cursor on the World map are displayed too. This is a big help to the ones, who are stuck and can’t find that exact place, NPC, or an item.
Simple Map – A useful mod that reduces the size of the World map and removes the black background, which allows the Player to see the map without blocking out the rest of the screen. The map fades while the Character is moving.
Vendor Price – Shows the vendor selling price of a concrete item on the game’s tooltip for that item at any moment. Pairs well with Item Tooltip Profession Icons (see below). It also shows the selling price per unit.
Item Tooltip Profession Icons – Adds small icons to item tooltips, indicating whether they’re used for a profession or a quest (only tradable items). It also tracks items that can be exchanged for Darkmoon Faire Prize Tickets. Compact, non-invasive, customizable, and is extremely good for knowing what items you can sell safely, and which you might want to hold onto.
Gather Mate 2 – A quite useful tracking and collecting professional materials add-on. It shows herbs, mines, and fishing pools, and displays them on both world map and minimap. Gather Mate remembers the locations and spots, at which you have gathered resources before. The add-on offers a pre-filled data module called GatherMate2_Data (needs to be installed separately), so Players don’t need to discover all herbs and mines by themselves, but can just start gathering right away.
Class add-ons
All the above-described add-ons may be used by any class and any role in the game, as each gives Players lots of various options. However, there are some modifications, which are made especially for certain classes or even specializations. We will present the patient reader with the most important ones below. Note: if the title of a concrete add-on has no description, search for it in the text above.
Druid
Druid Bar – This is a very simple yet important add-on for all Druids, as it allows them to see their mana bar even while shapeshifted.
(Tank) Gear Menu – This is a very useful add-on for all classes and specializations, as it saves gear sets of a Player. It is very easy to change your current gear in no time without all those searches throughout the inventory. Gear Menu is irreplaceable for those who use several specs permanently.
(Heal) VuhDo – This is a raid frame monitor add-on that displays the health of raid members in the form of clearly arranged bars. VuhDo is primarily directed to healing classes but will make use to almost any other class. It also can show several healing spells or other actions at the same time.
(Heal) Heal Comm Classic – This is a simple, lightweight yet crucial add-on for all raiding healers. It is highly configurable, has the incoming heal and Feign Death indicators. It easily communicates with other healing add-ons. Shows the Player incoming heals on a target from anyone who also uses this add-on and how much your HoTs will heal on the target.
(Heal) Five Second Rule – Shows the countdown of the five seconds (FSR or 5SR) until your mana from Spirit will regenerate, as well as each tick once the five seconds are over. The timer starts counting down whenever the player successfully spends mana.
Hunter
Weapon Swing Timer – This add-on is, without a doubt, an absolute requirement to play a Hunter effectively in Classic WoW, for it tracks yours and your target’s swing timers. It also shows the Auto Shot timing and other shots casting time. Works for wand user as well.
Classic Aura Durations – Displays the remaining time on Buffs/Debuffs.
Mage
Paladin
Pally Power Classic – This add-on provides an interactive and easy to use interface that allows you to set your blessings and automatically checks for missing buffs with an easy to read indicator. Usable in dungeons and raids and can assign blessings to other Paladins. None of the assignments can be changed in combat, unfortunately, due to the in-combat lock-out.
(Tank) Gear Menu
(Heal) VuhDo
(Heal) Heal Comm Classic
Priest
Trinket Menu – A special trinket-changing add-on. It shows two equipped trinkets in a bar. Mouseover on either trinket will display a menu of up to 30 trinkets in the bags to swap.
Clique – Allows the user to bind certain spells, abilities, and unit frame actions to whatever keyboard and mouse combinations they wish. It also combines with the majority of interface add-ons.
(Heal) VuhDo
(Heal) Heal Comm Classic
(Heal) Five Second Rule
Dominos Classic or Classic Castbars
Rogue
Nug Energy – This is an essential Rogue add-on, as it shows the tick rate for every incoming 20 energy. The add-on is customizable and is suitable for both PvP and PvE. It also alerts the user if the energy is capped.
Tulla Range – Another handy Rogue mod that makes standard action buttons appear red when the target is out of range. Colors for both the out of range and the out of mana/energy/rage indicators are customizable.
Shaman
(Heal) VuhDo
(Heal) Heal Comm Classic
(Heal) Five Second Rule
Warlock
Necrosis – A Warlock special add-on helps you managing Soul Shards, Soul Stones, Health Stones, Fire Stones, and Spell Stones. It also provides an easy menu to summon demons, give buffs, summon players, apply curses, and tracks DoT timers.
Warrior
(Tank) Gear Menu
