User Interface Addons

So I have *hinted* at my deep and unending love for UI addons... they are more than helpful, they surpass useful, some of them I just cant live (that is to say play...) without.  As patches come out, new addons come and go, but old or new, I'm always lookin for that 'perfect' one, that 'awesome' addon.  Some people you talk to are what I will call 'purists', totally opposed to addons, claiming that all addons are crutches. To a certain degree I would agree, some addons you become so dependent on that you literally cannot play without them, but most of them are inessential *that is to say I use them because I wanna, F what they say. To follow is a list of my addons and their descriptions, more information can be found and most of these can be downloaded at Curse.

AddonLoader - A handy tool to cut down the time on your loading screen, it loads your addons 'on use'. ie: your mail addon loads when you open the mailbox, your auto-vend and auto-buy addons load when you open the vendor, your auction addons load when you visit the auction house.

Ampere - This one is basically your addon selection screen, but in-game.  It puts a list of checkboxes next to a list of addons in your interface/addons menu, where you can check/uncheck to load/unload addons with a simple /reloadui. No more re-logging mid raid to turn on your bossmods or turn off that annoying raid-announce mod. *this is one of my 'must have' addons

ArenaLog - Moderately useful, this addon keeps a list of arena teams you've gone up against as well as a record of your wins/losses against that team. It includes names and classes, so you can compare which team comps you go better/worse when up against.

ArenaUnitFrames - WoW has arena frames built in which will work just as well, but these frames are moveable/sizeable/customizeable where the stock frames are not.

ArkInventory - A very setup-intense addon, but super useful. This mod puts all your inventory contents in one big 'bag', you customize it by groups/categories, so that you always know where to look to find what you want in your bags. It includes a way to make custom categories and assign items to those, so you can keep special things separate. *this is one of my 'must have' addons

AtlasLoot - Very useful loot table mod. This shows you information on everything from crafted items to boss drops to heirloom/pvp/badge/token vendor items/costs. *this is one of my 'must have' addons

Auctioneer - Awesome auction addon. This mod comes with an entire suite of addons that make auctioning easy, whether you are buying or selling, or just pricing. *this is one of my 'must have' addons

Autobar - A relatively setup-intense addon, but totally worth it. This mod puts categories onto a button, and you can put these buttons on a bar/multiple bars for easy use. (ie: puts all your mounts on a button, click the button to get the last mount you used or a random mount or your favorite mount, hold shift to see the entire mount menu and select one manually) Fully customizeable and dead useful.

BankItems - Simple easy addon that alot of other addons have built in. It puts a button on your minimap that lets you browse the banks/guildbanks/inventories/equipped/mailbox/auctions of all your toons without switching.  It also puts information in your mouseover tooltips as to how many of that item you have and where they can be found. *this is one of my 'must have' addons

Bartender4 - Fully customizeable actionbar addon. This addon rocks, nuff said.  *this is one of my 'must have' addons

BlizzMove - Lets you move stock blizzard display windows (mailbox, bank, quest info, etc) and saves their locations for next open.

Capping - Awesome PvP timers, moveable/sizeable, announce timers to /bg /raid or /say. Useful for battlegrounders

Chatter - Chat addon that allows copying/pasting and interactive chat controls, recoloring of text and whatnot *alot of this addon has been built into the new stock blizz chat frame so its not 'as useful' as it used to be.

Decursive - Neat little addon for anyone who will like to cure a disease/poison/curse without having raidframes/healbot open

Deus Vox Encounters (DXE) - An alternative to Deadly Boss Mods, timers and detailed spell info for raid boss encounters. *this is one of my 'must have' addons (unless you are a sheep and like DBM, no shame in that)

Elk's Buff Bars - Great buff addon, sizeable, customizeable, text list of buffs/debuffs with timers. if you dont like the way blizz displays buffs or find it hard to see what buffs you have or how long they have left, this is the mod for you.  *this is one of my 'must have' addons

EveryQuest - Loremaster addon, though slightly useful for questing in general. This mod needs 2 more mods to perform well imo: Handy Notes and EveryQuest Questgivers.  With all 3 you get a complete list of all quests in a zone, plus notations on your minimap and zone map as to where the quest givers can be found and how many quests they have still available.  You can get this mod to interface directly to WoW and find out for your which quests you have already done as well, so if you are goin back to clean up for Loremaster, this mod is the bizniss.

FindTheHealers - (not updated for this patch yet... hope it does soon)  This mod reads from the battleground stats automatically and puts a big ugly nameplate above the healers in the battleground. Excellent for dps healer targeting goodness.

Gatherer - A very useful mod for Miners and Herbalists. It remembers where your nodes spawn, with a shareable list of nodes and stats (ie: percentage of frost lotuses inside an herb node) and a neat little HuD (which I dont use personally) that makes farming/finding a route nice and easy.  *this is one of my 'must have' addons

GearScore - The 'purists' say this is the worst thing to ever happen to WoW, I say dont blame the hammer when you smash your finger. This tool gives you an idea of what a player's gear is like. The reason this addon upsets idiots is that they liken gearscore to skill. This is one of those 'use it as you will' addons, or 'at your own risk' would be more appropriate, if you go bragging in trade chat about your gearscore, you are more likely to be yelled at than patted on the back.

Grid - A neat little raidframe, very customizeable, used for target selection for mouseover macros or for 'keybinder' style healers.

Healbot - My personal favorite addon. If I was going to a deserted island with a broadband connection and I could only install one addon *(that doesnt even make sense...)  This would be the one.  This is the addon that the 'purists' talk about, I literally could not heal without this mod. *this is one of my 'must have' addons (again for clarity) *this is one of my 'must have' addons

Incoming - Easy one-click addon to annouce incoming enemies to your location in a battleground, also one click to announce your all clear.

Jobber - Neat professions screen addon gives you a longer list window as well as tabs to swap back and forth professions without having to close and open. disenchant/mill/prospect/campfire buttons right there as well.

LootFilter - Very useful addon to automatically destroy junk that you pick up. So if you are fishing and you get Tangled Fishing Line, or you are farming humans and get Fur Clothing Scraps, full autodelete when added to the list. Nice time/space saver.

Minimap Button Bag - With all these addons cluttering up my minimap with icons... This addon puts all your minimap buttons in a single dropdown menu button. You can also select which (if any) you want to keep out on your minimap itself. Very useful.

Omen3 - Threat Meter. Absolutely necessary addon for tanks and dps. period. *this is one of my 'must have' addons

Overachiever - Nice achievement addon. Compare your achieves with other's links, it suggest achieves for you while you are in the area.  Not very useful, I'll admit.

Postal - Mailbox addon, One button to open all those auctions. nuff said. *this is one of my 'must have' addons

Power Auras - Customizeable display for your ability/buff/debuff/procs. HuD style

Quartz - Cast bars, yours, your target's, focus target's. Text, timer, countdown/countup. Very useful. *this is one of my 'must have' addons

QuestHelper - Very useful *once upon a time*, most of it is now built into WoW

RaidBuffStatus - Nice buff monitor addon, for raidwide buffs/announcing. Excellent for raid leaders/staff.

RaidRoll - Lootmaster mod, easy rolls for mainspec and offspec, announce and award.

Recount - Fight data. Dps, damage done, healing done, damage taken, you name it, recount records it. (*if you are in range)  *this is one of my 'must have' addons

Skinner - Custom skins for blizz stock and addon windows.

SmartRes - Raid recovery addon, tells you who's res'in who, and how long its gonna take, no wasted res'
*this is one of my 'must have' addons (if you can res)

TidyPlates - Customizeable nameplate addon, widgets for threat and random junk.

TipTac - Tooltip addon, details incl. target, talents, health, etc. Customizeable and most importantly... moveable.

TitanPanel - Nice addon to display things like your clock, some of your buttons from your minimap can be placed on it, displays your durability and gold/experience per hour, coordinates.

Xperl Raid Frames - Excellent frames for player, target, pet, focus, and least of all, raid. *this is one of my 'must have' addons

A few addons have been removed from my reportioire by the last few patches.  Some of these listed addons haven't been updated, but I expect and *hope* that they will be soon. I'm always on the lookout for more, so if you got a good one, holler @ me.