Add-ons

Through my years of playing World of Warcraft, I found myself more and more “dependant” on Add-ons. Starting out with a simple ‘Omen’ or ‘DamageMeters’, I now dare to call myself an Add-on-aholic.

My interface.
On my interface, there is only one thing that remains default. My Buffs/Debuffs. The only reason for this is that I haven’t found an add-on that can do things better then the default. Sure, I have tried ‘Elkano’s BuffBars’ but I found it not adding anything I need. Maybe I must just accept that the default here, might just be just what I need!

Needs.
Obviously, the question arrives; “What Add-ons do you actually need to tank?”
I’m not sure, but thinking about it, I doubt there is one that is really needed. There are those however that make a huge difference.
In the old days, you had to have Omen, not because you needed to know your threat, but your DPS needed to know yours. Nowadays, threat is only a minor issue untill you reach high-end raiding. Also, Omen collects his data from the ingame threatmeter, so unless you like to have a nice looking visual, and I you know I do, there is no reason to have Omen running at all.

Recommended.
To talk about all my add-ons in one post is not only a waste of interesting topics for the future, it would probably also make this post extremely long. So I would limit this post to the add-ons I absolutely recommend, with a very small explanation why. (if there are any add-ons on which you like to read more, please leave a comment and I will address that add-on first when going into detail!)

Note: These are the add-ons I like to play with. As stated, they are by no means needed and some might outright not even be useful for you. As rule of thumb when using add-ons, use what you think Works well for you. That I why it’s called “personalizing your interface”!

XPerl.
As an old-time XPerl lover. I like the way it is set up and it can do anything I would like a Unit-Frame Add-on to do. Point is, you ‘need’ an add-on which easily tell you what you need to know. I like to move my healthbar and target to the centre of the screen, near my character and this is impossible with the Default.
Some people might prefer PittBull, Shadowed Unit Frames or the likes.

XPerl.
More important though, is the status of your Group. XPerl, like many other add-ons provides a nice Raid-Group overview. Not only healers should be aware of their groups health, but so should you!
Lots of players also prefer to use ‘Grid’ for this purpose.

Recount.
Great way to keep an eye on your DPS and more importantly.. your TPS. And in combination with Omen, a great way to see who might have the best use of your Vigilance (Warrior’s only).
Skada seems to do pretty much the same.

Power Aura’s.
This Add-on deserves a post on itself and will get one soon enough. I use this to see when my stuff Procs and to keep track of important buffs/debuffs.

Bartender.
Great way to place my actionbars wherever I might need them. Also for the people who like gimmicks in their interface, you can make them appear or disappear on various events like whether you are in combat or not, if your target is friendly or not, if your pet is out or not and many many more. The ability to relocate your actionbars still stays it most useful function however.
There are many, many more add-ons which can do this.

As you can see, this post is already rather lengthy and there is way more to tell about add-ons.
I will probably be making some more topics on both general and tanking add-ons. Like I said earlier, let me know if there are specific add-ons you would like me to talk about. If not, I’ll make my own pick on which one I deem the most interesting to rattle on about.

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