World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMOG Gamers to the Next Level!

When Blizzard launched World of Warcraft, they provided an open-ended user interface (UI) so that players could modify the way the game appears and/or provide an amazing amount of information back to the user. Using a generally accepted coding language of LUA, players can change the way their bars look, see how much damage is being done and dive even deeper into the data reported by the game. Not many other MMOGs provide this type of flexibility to the players. The modding community has responded by providing mods that help in all facets of the game. There are four basic types of mods (also called Addons). They include:

• Mods that change the appearance or location of the standard information (move your minimap, change the location/size of action bars, etc.).
• Mods that highlight information based on number crunching such as damage meters, cool down timers, buff monitors.
• Interactive Mods that will display recommended actions and then based on the player clicking the mod will relay the appropriate response. These include De-cursing tools and healing mods.
• Mods that use databases for providing aggregated information to the players. These are much more complicated and include aids for watching Auction House prices (Auctioneer), special encounter information (Deadly Boss Mods) and quest aids such as Carbonite or Questhelper.

 
With a basic understanding of Mods, it’s time to review which mods will help Paladins modify the UI to their best advantage. First we’ll tackle general addons that will help with almost any class.

General All Around Addons

Bartender4

One area WoW has always been light on is the action bar modification. Most games allow for moving bars, adding bars, but WoW is fairly limited unless modified. Using Bartender4, players can move every bar of the UI including bag bars, pet bars, stance bars, experience bar, yes all of it. Using this mod allows for resizing of the buttons and whether they are vertical or horizontal as well.

 
Minibutton Bag

Each Mod will typically place an icon around the minimap for easy access to the configuration screen. While handy, the minimap can get cluttered with all of these icons. Minibutton Bag places one icon on the minimap that expands when you click on it to reveal all of the icons that would normally be around the minimap.

Outfitter

Until WoW includes the ability to change character outfits within the game, Outfitter is one of the best for the job. Dual spec really requires the need for this mod as changing out all of the gear items can be tedious (and you may miss-click if you are in a hurry). Outfitter can be set up to automatically equip items (such as a Medallion of the Alliance/Horde when you enter PvP areas).

Recount
Recount is both useful and controversial. It is useful because it monitors damage, healing, cleansing and other combat information. The reports will show the parsed information in graphical and numerical form so that players can view how their performance ranks amongst the party/raid. The mod itself isn’t controversial, but sometimes its use is. Players sometimes become slaves to the meter and will not take care of their assignment in hopes of topping the damage chart. Using the monitor while beating on the training dummies can help evaluate different gear and talent choices. Use this for watching relative performance but don’t get too hung up if that Rogue is beating you in the DPS department.

Deadly Boss Mod

This is a critical raiding tool for every class. DBM provides encounter specific timers that announce when events are occurring or will occur. Don’t depend on it for split second timing because sometimes the game will change up the timing or the DBM counter will be off, but use this as a good guide to know what to watch for (i.e. when a boss is going to start a new phase, or when an event is going to occur).

IceHUD

IceHUD may not be for everyone, but for tanking I find it very valuable. IceHUD simply places your health and mana bars (as well as your target’s) in crescent shapes around your character so that you can stay focused on your character and still monitor your health. It does add some graphics to the screen so some minimalists don’t enjoy the “clutter.”

RatingBuster

The boss drops, and up pops the gear window. Is that helm an upgrade? Ratingbuster will show you within the window of the gear whether or not the gear is an upgrade or not based on parameters you set. It also color codes the upgrades (green) from downgrades (red) on a per/stat basis so you can tell in a quick glance whether or not you should roll on that item.

X Perl

XPerl is to character/party windows what Bartender4 is to action bars. Using XPerl, players can move, resize, and modify each of the player windows. Show target’s target’s target if you want to!

 

Using the above mods will help almost any class, but now let’s focus on mods that will specifically help Paladins. These mods will be useful depending on the talent spec in use. With dual spec available, chances are you’ll want most of these installed even if you aren’t currently playing that spec.

Paladin Specific Addons:

PallyPower

Blizzard has heard our pleas and created longer buffs, but they are still somewhat of a pain to manage. PallyPower provides an excellent way to monitor who has which buffs in your party or raid and will re-buff with the click of a button. 

Many other mods will complete this first task, but PallyPower will also coordinate buffs with other Paladins running the mod. 

Using this mod allows coordination amongst the Paladins for Auras and Buffs. This is an essential mod for all Paladins.

SmartBuff/SmartDebuff

SmartBuff/SmartDebuff has been around a long time and with good reason – cleansing party members is very difficult to monitor without a mod that will announce which party member has a debuff. This mod will show which party members have been afflicted with a debuff that Cleanse will remove. Clicking on the character’s name inside of the mod will cast Cleanse on that party member without changing your targeting window. This means that you won’t lose your current target and you can quickly remove the debuff.

 

Holy Paladin Mods:

Healing Mods are very useful for Paladins using the Holy talent tree. A couple that I’ve found useful include:

Healbot

Healbot adds a window with each party/raid members name overlaid on a green bar representing their health. The mod also places arrows around the player that currently has agro. At a glance it is easy to determine if the tank has agro and how much health has been lost. Clicking on the name will cast a heal on that target.

As shown above, I’ve set up my mouse clicks and key combinations to cast different spells when I click the character’s name within the HealBot window. 

Grid

Grid is the all-encompassing healer tool. It is very powerful, but can be a bit intimidating to set up. Grid will monitor the same things Healbot will (see above), but it will also monitor incoming heals on that player (so you don’t overheal), and many other useful bits of information. Prepare to spend some time to configure Grid, but those who have worked through the setup seem to really enjoy it.

Protection Paladin Mods:

For Protection Paladins, the mods are more informative than interactive.

Tankadin2

Tankadin uses the theorycrafting from the MainTankadin website and shows a numerical representation of a Paladin’s most useful information in regards to tanking. The mod will compile damage mitigation and show where a Paladin may want to increase armor, dodge, defense, etc. This is not a combat mod, rather it’s a mod to be used when not in combat. It is perfect for changing out gear to see the effects on your “tankability.” For example, one could change out a helm and see if lower dodge but higher armor will improve the overall tanking stats. This tool is very useful if you want to compare what your stats to what can be found on some of the theorycrafting sites.

Omen Threat Meter

Since the threat mechanics have been modified to ease threat generation, this type of mod has become less required, but still a useful too. Threat meters will show the amount of threat (agro) that the tank has or when someone else pulls agro and the enemy needs to be taunted back onto the tank. 

Omen is useful to show how quickly a tank is building threat so the others know when they can unload the DPS on the target as well.

 

Retribution Paladin Mods

Retribution Paladins don’t really care about healing or tanking, it’s all about maximizing the damage output. With many instant cast damage spells, it’s important to monitor which spells are available.

Serious Help in Timing  is a great mod to keep a Paladin apprised of which spell is coming off of cooldown.

The setup is very simple. Based on how a Paladin uses a spell rotation, the priorities of each spell are set in the configuration and then the frame in the UI sill highlight which spell should be cast and which one will be next. 

Every second counts when maximizing damage so this mod is a great tool for trying different spell rotations and finding that sweet spot of huge damage output.

 

There are literally thousands of mods available to the community. Weeding through them to find useful tools can be cumbersome, but this list should provide a great starting point for your addon library.