Don’t be a disabler! Get your add-ons for 3.0.2. sorted!
Now that myself and many others are actually able to log into their respective realms, it’s time to go through the arduous process of updating add-ons.
In the past, WoWAce made it easy via their handy updater, but insane usage and server loads have since made their efforts impossible. This leaves us with the ever popular Curse and WoWInterface. But before you start downloading and installing your new toys, a few pro tips to keep in mind:
- Update manually, at least the first time you clean out your old mods (see #2). Until the newer updaters such as WoWMatrix and the Curse Updater have been thoroughly vetted and verified, I’m going to pass on the lazy updates. Why?
- The Curse Updater is a little too intrusive for my tastes, and wants to run as soon as you start Windows (but that option can apparently be shut down now). Curse also requires a login ID that needs to be set up with their site, but feel free to use whatever bullshit info you want. Additionally, there have been multiple reports of Curse overwriting updated newer add-ons with older ones. Not cool.
- WoWMatrix, on the other hand, totally ganks the latest files from Curse, but doesn’t want to run 24/7, doesn’t require a login, and doesn’t even require an installation. But just to make sure, Lycentia and I will each try to run a different auto-updater for a week and see what happens.
- Delete everything that isn’t standard in your Add-Ons folder before updating (but leave the Blizzard UI shit). This is important for multiple reasons, number one being that simply copying a new add-on folder into an old one only means you overwrite files with the same names. Older files that may be broken, dated, or unnecessary will still be there. Additionally, if you used the WoWAce updater, getting rid of your old add-on folders basically guarantees that “nothing specific to the way that WoWAce did their mod packaging carries over and potentially causes problems” (Lycentia).
- Look before you leap. In all seriousness, if you’re downloading add-ons from Curse, do not click the massive orange DOWNLOAD button. Why? For some reason, it tends to load up old add-ons rather than the newest versions. Scroll down to the “Downloads” subheading, check the dates, and click on the newest version of your mod. You get the idea.
This is the perfect time to clean out your entire add-on folder and start from scratch. While the default Blizzard unit frames still make me grit my teeth, starting from the default UI and building on that can help you accurately assess what you really need—and what’s superfluous (yes, I still had StinkyQueue ). To help you out, here’s a list of the add-ons I’m currently using, and where to find them. Make sure to check your versions! These are current as of the morning of Thursday, October 16th:
- Bartender4: My go-to add-on for all my action bar needs. My favorite feature of the newest version allows you to select the “Keybinds” option and simply hover over any button to customize the binding. Super easy.
- BigWigs: Boss Mod. I still prefer Deadly Boss Mods and might go back to that.
- Cartographer: Lightweight map mod that allows you to access your world map inside your regular interface and track profession specific nodes. Make sure you pick up the appropriate plug-ins you need for this (i.e. Fishing, Mining, Gas Clouds). As of last night, it was a little buggy.
- CastYeller: Potentially going the way of the buffalo. I used to use this mod to announce when I had a Growl resist, specifically on Brutallus, but now it mostly serves as an annoyance to everyone else. I’ll probably keep it and tailor it to very specific abilities. No one cares how many times my Mage uses Conjure Water.
- EQCompare: Pairs nicely with RatingBuster. This mod allows you to compare items you have equipped to linked items and items in your inventory.
- Livestock: Definitely superfluous and basically allows you to organize all pets and mounts and summon them at random if you so choose.
- NeedToKnow: This mod functions similarly to the old HoT Candy, except it monitors any other cooldowns/abilities you tell it to. It’s especially useful for rogues trying to keep track of Hunger for Blood, Rupture, and Slice and Dice, but will also be useful in timing Mangle, Rip, and Savage Roar.
- Omen: My threat meter of choice now works in conjunction with the built in Blizzard threat monitor, ensuring incredibly accurate TPS reports.
- oRA2: An unobtrusive raid assist mod that is compatible with and also replaces CTRaid. Allows you to monitor certain raid cooldowns, set MTs, and a ton of other things that I rarely do.
- Outfitter: The quintessential Druid add-on. I have so many different sets of gear that if I didn’t have this, I’d probably be fucked. The newest version is slicker than ever, but remember when you load it to go to the new “Options” menu and turn off the “Outfit Bar.” Otherwise, you have a parade of giant outfit icons marching across your UI.
- PallyPower: As of last night, PallyPower wasn’t working, but nearly everyone who has a Paladin knows how easy this makes it to coordinate buffs with the rest of the raid. This may not be necessary anymore, although it does provide handy “time remaining on buffs” information. We Paladins don’t have all the Blessings we used to, and in a smaller environment (specifically 10 mans), I don’t imagine there will be a lot of overlap.
- PerfectRaid: It’s a very lightweight set of unit frames that you can customize to your liking and place in a generally inconspicuous portion of your screen. When I’m tanking or DPSing, I have all the bars lined up neatly on the left side of my screen and have them set to display any sort of debuff I can dispel (think: horizontal bar graph).
- Quartz: Essentially, Quartz is a lightweight casting bar add-on that allows considerable customization. You can display target buffs, focus bars, see your casting time for spells, crafting, and gathering, and perhaps most importantly, displays your latency in such a fashion as to let you know exactly when you can start casting your next spell for maximum DPS—even when your first cast isn’t over.
- RatingBuster: Converts combat ratings into easy-to-read percentages and allows comparison between two pieces of gear (read: what does this piece have that the other doesn’t?). This is super handy for a quick gear assessment, but it’s important to remember that you the player are responsible for knowing what combat ratings are most important to your class.
- SCT: Scrolling Combat Text. This goes with SCTD (the damage portion), and allows for incredible customization of all scrolling combat text. While the regular Blizzard SCT does a pretty decent job of displaying what you need, SCT and SCTD go above and beyond the call of duty.
- SCTD: See above.
- simpleMinimap: A vanity add-on, but one that really allows you to clean up the look of your UI. This allows you to change what’s displayed on your minimap, how it’s displayed, and where you’d like to position it.
- X-Perl: Unit and Raid frames. Highly customizable and easy to use, and easily my favorite for when I’m doing any sort of healing. Yes, I prefer this over both Grid and Pitbull.
- Violation: Violate me! Modular and lightweight damage meters. Displays a wealth of information quickly.
As soon as I’m finished rearranging my UI (which tends to differ ever so slightly on each of my characters) I’ll post screenshots. Questions or comments? Go for it. I’m always looking to see what I can improve or replace.
I blew up my UI, deleted all variables and mods save my macros. I’m starting from scratch too!
I’m very interested to see what mods you end up using, and how you arrange them. I spent a painstaking amount of time setting up my UI the last time I blew it up.
Oh, and Omen may be providing you with accurate TPS reports, but does it put a cover on the TPS reports? DID YOU GET THE MEMO? DID YOU, RUNY?
Lol.
Listen. My UI set up is usually godawful, and as long as things look relatively clean and I can move around, I generally call it quits and start playing.
But now that I’ve seemingly promised to post screenshots, I guess I should get my ass in gear and really clean it up in terms of functionality/appearance.
Dag, yo.
I started over from scratch too in the hope that I could get rid of all the clutter that has built up over the past year.
I’ve really been wanting to get into X-Perl but could never figure out how to customize it right for my needs. I’m a resto druid with a focus on both raiding and pvp (battlegrounds and arena), so I’d be really interested in how you customize your X-Perl to get it working for you.
A step-by-step process of what changes you make in the config after you do a fresh install of the addon would be awesome!
I should probably clarify that I’m really no add-ons expert; I just know what I like and how I’d like it presented, and then I attempt to put that into action. Phaelia would be the first to tell you that my UI was absolutely awful for a long period of time and that I’ve only recently been trying to proactively keep it organized.
X-Perl, for some reason, doesn’t seem to be very popular with many healers, especially those who go with the Grid/Clique functionality (which I loathed). In fact, when I’m tanking or DPSing on Runy, I disable X-Perl’s raid frame functionality and turn to the simplicity of PerfectRaid.
What I will try to do is display a step-by-step process of how I utilize X-Perl on my Paladin (for healing).
X-Perl, I’ve found, is a lot easier to customize and use than ag_unitframes or Pitbull. A lot of the options come pre-set in usable fashion. Until yesterday, X-Perl was my raid frame mod of choice.
However, if you’re a dedicated healer, Grid + Clique is far superior. X-Perl takes up a lot more space and tends to get cluttered if you let it display a lot. Grid, on the other hand, compacts and abbreviates things. It’s definitely a “season to taste” scenario - go with the amount of detail and space-commitment you want.
Getting back to X-Perl, most of the options in the option tab are pretty self-explanatory. Was there a specific mote of functionality you weren’t getting out of it the last time you tried it? Have you tried it?
WoWMatrix also has some controversy surrounding it. I can’t access the links from work, so I can’t provide references until I get home, but Google should back me up. The controversy being that it’s a bandwith stealer (it’s not contributing to the ad-based or any other kind of revenue, but is using the bandwith of the addon hosting sites), until about two days ago it wasn’t attributing author credit, it’s not respecting republishing licenses, it’s an opt-out service instead of an opt in service, among others.
WoWInsider’s recent Addon spotlight on Curse Client has a lot of the links about WoWMatrix in the comments section. http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/10/14/addon-spotlight-curse-client-updater/
You’re correct. WoWMatrix is apparently “stealing” and then repackaging add-ons via Curse’s site. It is, however, a better example of how I believe the next-gen add-on should function (vs. Curse’s), which is why I included it. Supposedly there’s some sort of litigation in the works as well.
You can also pick up a lot of add-ons (including some that are not included and/or updated at Curse) from WoWInterface.
One thing that I especially dislike about WoWMatrix, however, is that it adds 1kb data files as markers (wowmatrix.dat). Also intrusive. There really isn’t a great solution thus far.
I had to play without most of my addons last night, and it’s kinda sad how much I’ve come to depend on them. Especially Outfitter. I couldn’t get it to work last night…I thought I was gonna die. “Woah hold on guys I’m still in dps gear!” 5 minutes later….”Damnit, where the hell is my staff…”
I tried out the Curse Client a while ago and recently updated it after it had an error spaz. The logging in is annoying, and it doesn’t seem to actually update anything when I click update. I just noticed that it has an option under configuration for what type of addon is preferred: release, beta, or alpha. It defaults to release, but since a lot of addon writers are uploading beta versions for 3.0.2, people might want to switch that.
At least the new patch gives me an excuse to try out some new addons and trash some old ones. Most of my old cosmos ones are going bye-bye, since they’re no longer being updated (and I had most disabled anyway). I think it’s time to move from DruidStats to RatingBuster, and NeedToKnow looks helpful…thanks for the tips!
If I could only pick out one add-on that I could keep, I’d totally make sure that it was Outfitter.
All right, that’s a lie; I’d rather have Bartender4 to keep everything organized. But Outfitter would certainly be a close second. I’m hoping that with the build streamlining we’ll be able to carry less gear around with us, but come WotLK and dual specs…well, we’ll see.
As I mentioned in the post, Lycentia and I were going to try out the respective add-on updaters and see which we liked the best. You can screw around with the Curse settings a bit and it’s a little more ideal, but I’m still not sure if I like it.
Glad I could have helped!
If I could only pick out one add-on that I could keep, I’d totally make sure that it was Outfitter.
All right, that’s a lie; I’d rather have Bartender4 to keep everything organized. But Outfitter would certainly be a close second. I’m hoping that with the build streamlining we’ll be able to carry less gear around with us, but come WotLK and dual specs…well, we’ll see.
As I mentioned in the post, Lycentia and I were going to try out the respective add-on updaters and see which we liked the best. You can screw around with the Curse settings a bit and it’s a little more ideal, but I’m still not sure if I like it.
Glad I could have helped!
Nice post, save me a bit of work.
My computer is blunt-edge technology so I tend to only go with the most lightweight of mods (so Grid over XPERL, and default UI).
So far I haven’t gotten around to updating stuff (too busy blowing things up as a retadin), and have just been enjoying the errors recount throws at me (apparently, my glancing blows hit for 400, who knew? Gogo combat table changes) - they’re features, not bugs. But you’ve made the job of updating stuff easier.
How is Violation compared to Recount (obvious entendre set aside)?
Gwaendar essentially summed it up.
Violation is a great add-on for quick, reasonably accurate information that provides a broad overview as to what’s going on in your group or raid. It won’t tell you who is doing what, how they’re doing it, how many times they’re doing it, how often they’re using their trinkets, or any number of useful slices of information you’ll want if you’re committed to bettering yourself or your raid, but it’s a start.
I wouldn’t trade it for WWS.
How is Violation compared to Recount (obvious entendre set aside)?
Much, much more basic. It gives you a damage / heal meter, which provides you with the kind of information 80% of the standard player looks for. It doesn’t come with the added bells & whistles you’d find in Recount or Recap, or a WWS parse. In terms of Damage measuring accuracy, it was among the tools I surveyed after 2.4 changed the game and was consistent with Recap, Recount and WWS. In terms of healing accuracy, it has the same problems as any tool out there, and it’s currently not possible to establish a single baseline measuring.
In summary: if you’re a normal raider or don’t raid and want the numbers in a lightweight fashion, Violation is something I’d recommend. If you’re a class lead or raid lead and need in-depth analysis, Recap, Recount and WWS are the tools you should be looking for / at.
This is why blizz should consider paying some of these mod developers for their work and then including the mods in the game.
We, the players, would appreciate not having to re-create a UI (blizz UI is totally inadequate) with each major patch.
As much as it’s a pain in the ass to rebuild your UI with every massive, world-ending content patch, there’s a good reason for Blizzard not to implement too many in-game add-ons.
As a basic example, let’s take raid/unit frames. I loathe Grid and Pitbull, even though there are a ton of people who swear by both. If, then, Blizzard decided to implement Grid/Pitbull approximations in game, I’d be out of luck and still looking for another replacement to overwrite them (and the game would be using additionally, unnecessary memory FOR those add-ons).
Everyone’s playstyles and preferences are so vast that I really believe that Blizzard has pointedly taken a step back and allowed us to customize our game as much or as little as we’d like. Things that they think should be standard (such as simplified versions of scrolling combat text and in-game threat meters) have been added, and with that data readily available to modders, they’ve been able to make their components (such as Omen) more accurate.
Bottom line: patching and rebuilding sucks, but I’d rather be able to build what I like rather than be forced to play with a UI that permablows.
That’s interesting about wowextreme, I’ve been using it happily and had no idea about the controversy. We went with wowextreme because it had a Mac version and Curse didn’t.
As for a mod that announces your growl resist, I use OptiTaunt. It tells when my growl is resisted in the party/raid AND shoots a tell to the person who has aggro with a cute little phrase. It also announces when you blow your challenging roar.