Addons 101: The other essentials
by Mathew McCurley 
Jul 14th 2010 at 8:00PM
Addons 101 has covered a lot of ground for new players looking to get into addons for the first time. We have discussed what addons are and why you would want them, and we have gone over some of the basic elements of the World of Warcraft user interface and how they can be improved upon. I hope that some people have gained some knowledge into addons and have had their fears alleviated somewhat -- addons won't hurt you, I promise!
This week, Addons 101 looks at what I call the other essentials. These are interface elements that have become important over the lifetime of WoW but are not intrinsically understandable just by looking at the user interface the game presents you with. Before I start, let me say that Blizzard has taken steps in the right direction on many of these items, but addons still do the job better, for the most part. We will discuss terms, recommend certain addons and hopefully give some good explanations for any questions that might be had. As always, if you're an interface and addon newbie, I'm more than happy to field questions at mat@wow.com (remember the one "t").
The "other essentials" of the World of Warcraft user interface are DPS and threat meters, raid warnings and cooldowns. We will tackle each individually, hopefully making some nebulous concepts more clear.
DPS and threat meters
The DPS and threat meter has almost become a thing of art in World of Warcraft. What was once an incredibly inaccurate diagnostic tool and an encounter-specific crutch (Vael, KLHThreatmeters) has become something much more, evolving into a true component of the game's structure.
DPS stands for "damage per second," but more colloquially it refers to the amount of damage you are capable of doing to an enemy. "Threat" is the primary way of judging who a boss is going to hit. If you're at the top of the threat meter, the boss will attack you. DPSers need to be careful not to do as much threat as the tank, or else there could be trouble.
Blizzard recently introduced an in-game threat identifier, but it never seemed substantial to me. There just aren't enough options, and the data output isn't substantial. Like most of the built-in user interface, it works, but it could be better -- and that's where addons come in.
If you're new to the game, you haven't yet experienced the ins and outs of group content. You will! And after reading this, you'll be prepared. The basic group setup includes the defensive character who will take the hits (the tank), the healer who keeps everyone happy and healthy (the healer), and other characters whose role is to damage the enemies until they die (the DPS). Threat and DPS meters show you who has the enemy's threat, let you know how close you are to taking threat away from the tank and onto yourself (we don't want this), and how much actual damage you are doing. This is a good statistic to know as sort of a diagnostic for whether you're doing the best you can with what you have.
These types of addons are mostly used in 5-man and raid content. Knowing how the tank is doing on threat is crucial for DPS so that they do not go over the tank's. Knowing your DPS can't hurt, as it helps you evaluate your game, like knowing how well your car is running by the sounds it makes.
Recap -- DPS and threat meters:
- show DPS and threat during combat of both you and your fellow group/raid members
- allow you to see the damage you do relative to others
- help you make sure you don't take threat away from the tank
- Omen threat meters
- Recount DPS meters
- Skada DPS and threat meters
A large amount of the end-game content in World of Warcraft deals with raiding, grouping up 10 or 25 people together to tackle harder boss challenges. In addition, group content for 5-man dungeons also makes up a large amount of the end game for many players. Raid warning addons are used to alert the player when a boss is going to do an ability of some kind or when the encounter is changing in some dramatic way.
Recap -- raid warning addons:
- give you warnings and notifications about a boss' special abilities and timers on those abilities
- allow you to react to the changing circumstances during WoW's intricate boss encounters in 5-, 10- or 25-man instances and raids
- are usually required by higher-end guilds for their incredible functionality and help in dealing with harder encounters
- Deadly Boss Mods (DBM)
- BigWigs
- Deus Vox Encounters (DXE)
Many classes, from warriors to rogues, paladins to druids, and everything in between, have abilities that have time-sensitive cooldowns, or a period of time before the ability can be used again. Addons that track a player's cooldowns, therefore, have the potential to be very powerful -- the more information you have about the time between your abilities, the better you can plan for the immediate future.
Take the warrior's ability Shield Wall, for example. This ability reduces all damage that the warrior takes by 60% for 12 seconds, on a five-minute cooldown. A warrior engaged in combat with a particular hard-hitting boss has to know when his Shield Wall cooldown is ready to go again, just in case the boss is going to cast an ability he knows might kill him or his healers request the damage reduction while they tend to other issues.
Recap -- cooldowns:
- A cooldown addon monitors your abilities and the time until they are usable again.
- Cooldown management can lead to better DPS and situational awareness and use of abilities on tricky fights
- Sexycooldown
- NeedToKnow
- ForteXorcist
- OmniCC -- displays cooldowns on the action bars themselves, an excellent resource
Addons are what we do on Addon Spotlight. This special edition of Addon Spotlight is aimed at you newcomers out there, to help you learn a little bit about addons. We are so happy to have you! If you have any questions or suggestions for Addons 101, email Mat at mat@wow.com. Filed under: Add-Ons
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Markus Laumann Jul 14th 2010 8:07PM
worst
Frank Jul 14th 2010 8:08PM
and i am the first to downrank you. you're right - this is fun!
moirafae Jul 14th 2010 8:09PM
I used Recount and Omen together forever. Then a friend of mine talked me into using Skada simply because it takes up less screen real estate (something I'm always big on) ... I love it. I will never look back!!
marauder Jul 14th 2010 8:22PM
I agree. I love mode switching. Two functions in one window: threat in combat, dps after combat.
Frank Jul 14th 2010 9:10PM
i'm using skada too. overall, love it. sometimes it doesn't keep track for me, though, and i can't figure out why.
Kettu Jul 14th 2010 10:45PM
I, too, am a Skada convert. It is infinitely nicer, in my honest opinion, and I love the paging it does between threat during fights and DPS done after it is finished. The only thing I -do- miss about Recount is that Skada does not allow you to see just what people are doing to create the numbers they are. So if you have some ridiculously low DPS output by someone, you can't click their bar and be all "Oh, that explains it. They're only doing auto attack with the occasional *insert move here*".
None the less, Skada is my preferred mod. Lightweight, does the job of two other mods, and simplistic.
tonyplus Jul 14th 2010 11:23PM
Actually, if you go to damage done instead on dps, you can click on the bar and see what abilities they are doing, but for some reason this dose not work for dps mode.
MysticalOS Jul 15th 2010 12:43AM
frank. it won't work if combat log isn't working. One thing this spotlight doesn't cover is a nasty combat log bug that dates backk to 2.x wow. if combat log breaks, so do all of your mods that depend on it, like recount/skada, boss mods, etc..
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info16001-CombatLogFix.html is a key addon for this problem.
Eyhk Jul 15th 2010 3:13AM
I used DiamondThreatMeter for the longest time, but then switched to Skada for the threat/dps meter in one. The only thing I miss though, is that DTM does a big warning with a magnified threat bar showing how close you are to the tank when you go over a certain threshold. With Skada, I have to keep an eye on it since it doesn't alert me.
Culhag Jul 15th 2010 6:22AM
They don't need to take much screen space.
I set up Recount to hide in combat, and Omen to hide out of combat, so I only need one place for both.
Duulket Jul 15th 2010 8:12AM
I use Recount and Omen but I have them set up on top of each other so Omen shows in combat and recount show out of combat. But I might have to try Skada since it is one addon instead of two. I do love how Omen gives me a DBM style warning when I pass a set threshold of threat
Mike Jul 15th 2010 9:51AM
@Eyhk I believe Skada has an option to flash your screen red if your threat goes above a certain threshold, like Omen does.
erknost Jul 15th 2010 12:34PM
I use Skada LONG time, because... well it is simple and minimalistic, but since I start hardcore raiding hard modes, I have find huge differences between Recount and Skada, mainly in the healing rating, Skada almost completely forgot the druid and priest mitigation abilities.
Rob Jul 14th 2010 8:21PM
I haven't actually looked at threat meters for a while. Sure, my toons all have them, esp my tank. However I either grossly outthreat everything (as a tank) or I don't notice and a stray mob comes loose. Threat meters only work on your mob. There are addons like tidyplates that show the global threat on a bunch of mobs, but I haven't installed them (although I should).
Anyway threat at this point is moot, and honestly the ingame stuff is fine. To me threat is only an issue on raid boss fights, and the in-game one is fine for that.
DPS meters are good for evaluating yourself or your group, but don't be an asshat and post them. I don't really care if the dps is doing 300 dps or 3000, as long as we are progressing.
Sleutel Jul 14th 2010 9:04PM
Threat meters are still essential for certain fights. For example, if you're the Shadow tank for Halion, you're probably not going to be able to stick to 100% of your normal rotation when you're strafing out of Cutters.
Even on something as simple as trash, it's still useful to be able to tell HOW MUCH threat you have on any given mob. When you're tabbing around, you want to be able to see which mobs you should use a GCD on and which you can skip past.
MrJackSauce Jul 14th 2010 9:55PM
The blizzard UI does show how much threat you have on your target. For example you can have each persons threat shown on their portraits in comparison to yours. A portrait goes red when they are getting close on threat. Keep an eye out for the red portraits. Win.
Of course omen does do this better but I'm just sayin' :)
vazhkatsi Jul 14th 2010 11:05PM
yes but it only shows a percentage, i see from the ui that i'm at 90% of the tanks threat, but how much is that? if its a 5 man i could be one attack from pulling, if its a raid i could be 100k behind the tank and not have to worry. i also like omen better because it tells you which threat zone you are in, the 110% melee range, or 130% ranged range.
Nayr Jul 14th 2010 8:25PM
I've never used a threat meter because I'm either tanking or healing. I can almost always feel people sneaking up on aggro with the damage done meter. Am I doing it wrong?
Bionic Radd Jul 14th 2010 9:50PM
It's possible to completely play this game without either, so no, you aren't doing it wrong. You're just possibly very good at being aware of your surroundings. bravo.
Nayr Jul 14th 2010 10:22PM
Well I think you're being too generous. I guess I'm pretty fast on the taunt too, but raid bosses don't really have threat problems these days.