A big part of WoW is its add-ons that extend out-of-the-box functionality, revamp user interface and provide alerts and extra information. I am running World of Warcraft on a laptop with an integrated Intel HD1000 card, so my FPS struggles sometimes even on low graphic settings, especially during raids. So I try to minimize add-ons footprint and only run things I really need at the moment.
Here's the list of add-ons I find useful:
Auctioneer - the add-on for managing your Auction House activities. I tried Trade Skill Master and Auctionator and still prefer Auctioneer. One of the things it does better than other add-ons is its market value estimates. Default price estimation for posting in Auctioneer is to undercut the competition. And this feature is being exploited by some traders out there, they'd post a single item way below the market price and wait for people posting their stuff without checking the real market price on items. I have to admit Auctionator is even better in spotting these guys with its consolidated view of the auctions, I wish Auctioneer developed something similar.
Another powerful feature - built-in searches. Vendor search returns you all the items marked below vendor price - no-brainer way to make some quick cash. Go to Search tab, select Vendor, run search and click on "Purchase" button while holding Shift-Ctrl-Alt. It will buy items with buyout values less than vendor price and bid on the items where bid is set below vendor price.
It has built-in searches for crafters and enchanters, unfortunately I am neither and General query is not very useful, I would prefer to see filter by category there. not just item name.
As drawbacks I can list couple of things: the Auctioneer team is notoriously slow to deliver updates to their addons (another popular one being Gatherer). And it does not support Cooking skill, apparently not being "crafting" enough.
Battle Pets - Quality Notifier - must-have for people trying to get Battle Pets achievements. Tells you if you don't have a battle pet or the one you fighting right now is an upgrade to what you already have. If you are serious about getting achievements for captured pets, number of rare pets etc, this is what you need. There may be other add-ins for this purpose, I haven't tried anything else, just went with someone's recommendation and it worked for me.
BigWigs - hints for raid bosses fights, cooldowns, abilities etc. Lighter alternative to Deadly Boss Mode. It tracks bosses abilities, warns you, displays countdowns. Not sure how it stacks against DBM which seems to be more popular, I have made my choice after reviewing screenshots, DBM looked way too busy for me.
GTFO - exactly what it is, alerts you when you're standing in stuff you shouldn't be standing in. I use it with all default settings, so it's a sound alert, not sure if you can configure it to display graphical alerts.
TinyDPS - DPS meter. I would prefer Recount if it wasn't that resource-intensive or Skada if it had a little bit better usability and footprint. By replacing Recount with TinyDPS I improved my FPS in instances significantly.
TitanPanel is a great add-on, but I have started using ShestakUI which has this functionality built-in and I have TitanPanel disabled at the moment. It shows bunch of useful information, such as coordinates, repair costs, available gold etc and can integrate with other add-ons. Once I tried it I feel naked without this functionality.
_NPCScan - alerts when you pass by a rare NPC. Unfortunately it doesn't care if NPC is a pet tamed by a hunter, so if you spend 15 minutes standing by the Auction House you'd get at least dozen of them registered, which means add-on will not notify you when you see one in the wild unless you reset the data. And once you reset it resets everything. Gets kinda annoying over time.
Here's the list of add-ons I find useful:
Auctioneer - the add-on for managing your Auction House activities. I tried Trade Skill Master and Auctionator and still prefer Auctioneer. One of the things it does better than other add-ons is its market value estimates. Default price estimation for posting in Auctioneer is to undercut the competition. And this feature is being exploited by some traders out there, they'd post a single item way below the market price and wait for people posting their stuff without checking the real market price on items. I have to admit Auctionator is even better in spotting these guys with its consolidated view of the auctions, I wish Auctioneer developed something similar.
Another powerful feature - built-in searches. Vendor search returns you all the items marked below vendor price - no-brainer way to make some quick cash. Go to Search tab, select Vendor, run search and click on "Purchase" button while holding Shift-Ctrl-Alt. It will buy items with buyout values less than vendor price and bid on the items where bid is set below vendor price.
It has built-in searches for crafters and enchanters, unfortunately I am neither and General query is not very useful, I would prefer to see filter by category there. not just item name.
As drawbacks I can list couple of things: the Auctioneer team is notoriously slow to deliver updates to their addons (another popular one being Gatherer). And it does not support Cooking skill, apparently not being "crafting" enough.
Battle Pets - Quality Notifier - must-have for people trying to get Battle Pets achievements. Tells you if you don't have a battle pet or the one you fighting right now is an upgrade to what you already have. If you are serious about getting achievements for captured pets, number of rare pets etc, this is what you need. There may be other add-ins for this purpose, I haven't tried anything else, just went with someone's recommendation and it worked for me.
BigWigs - hints for raid bosses fights, cooldowns, abilities etc. Lighter alternative to Deadly Boss Mode. It tracks bosses abilities, warns you, displays countdowns. Not sure how it stacks against DBM which seems to be more popular, I have made my choice after reviewing screenshots, DBM looked way too busy for me.
GTFO - exactly what it is, alerts you when you're standing in stuff you shouldn't be standing in. I use it with all default settings, so it's a sound alert, not sure if you can configure it to display graphical alerts.
TinyDPS - DPS meter. I would prefer Recount if it wasn't that resource-intensive or Skada if it had a little bit better usability and footprint. By replacing Recount with TinyDPS I improved my FPS in instances significantly.
TitanPanel is a great add-on, but I have started using ShestakUI which has this functionality built-in and I have TitanPanel disabled at the moment. It shows bunch of useful information, such as coordinates, repair costs, available gold etc and can integrate with other add-ons. Once I tried it I feel naked without this functionality.
_NPCScan - alerts when you pass by a rare NPC. Unfortunately it doesn't care if NPC is a pet tamed by a hunter, so if you spend 15 minutes standing by the Auction House you'd get at least dozen of them registered, which means add-on will not notify you when you see one in the wild unless you reset the data. And once you reset it resets everything. Gets kinda annoying over time.
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