Filed under: AddOn Spotlight

DoT trackers are addons which monitor your DoTs, or Damage over Time effects. If you're playing a class whose damage relies on DoTs, and there are plenty, you should definitely consider using one of these addons. What they do is provide an easy-to-read representation of what DoTs you have on a given target, be it your focus, your target, or any target in the area, depending on your choice of addon. This is important to ensure DoT classes are maximising their DPS, and yes, the Blizzard standard UI does represent them, but the time display is not that clear.

To maximise DoT damage, efficient re-casting is key. You should certainly check out guides for your specific class to ensure you're using the right method, whether that's clipping -- replacing a DoT before it's expired -- or allowing something like a mage Living Bomb to explode. It's often useful to be able to start the cast of a DoT to time it with its expiration, and of course, to maintain maximum DoT uptime for the minimum of GCDs and mana, and for all those reasons, you need to track your DoTs.

Tidy Plates

What the heck? Why am I starting with a nameplate addon? Well, dear reader, I understand your confusion, but for PvP purposes, Tidy Plates, or any similar addon such as the built-in ElvUI nameplates, is a pretty decent way to track your DoTs.

Right, it's been quite some time since I last scoured the internet for obscure addons on behalf of the WoW Insider readership, and the mailbag has been filling up, so it's time for another edition of Your Addon Questions! As always, if you have questions, pop them in the comments or send me an email.

Wordgardener asked:

ElvUI is a sneaky devil with this. It seems to shift from window to window with every update, but there's a very simple way indeed to make sure it pops up where you need it, and what's more, it allows you to completely customize your chat panels.

It turns out that Addon Spotlight hasn't done an exploration of what must be among the top ten most used addons in World of Warcraft for many years. So, of course, we had to put that right. Yes, there are categorically other DPS addons available, such as TinyDPS, but I think it's fair to say that these two are the biggest. So we should examine them, it seems, and wonder why people prefer Skada to Recount and vice versa.

As you can see, I've been running with both addons active, in the interest of testing, and what's more, I've been combat logging and uploading the results to World of Logs, in the interest of having the output verified against an independent third party. And the results have been fairly interesting!

But let's start with a comparison of some of the elements of the addons that don't relate to their numerical output. First and foremost, before we get on to the heavy stuff, by far the most important question one can ask about any DPS meter, what visual customization does it offer?

We haven't had an Addon Mailbag in a while, and the questions starting to mount up. The poor undead lady you see in the header is getting quite flustered about having such a full mailbox, so it seemed like a logical time to address the task at hand. If you have a question, do stick it in the comments or send me an email!

Let's get started with a very simple question that took me an inordinate amount of time to answer:

Chester writes:

It took me a really, really long time to find this option, which was, quite frankly, rather annoying given that it's on the front page of the options screen.

Thanks to everyone who responded to part one of this two-part series with their bag addon recommendations! If there are ones I still missed out, do let me know in the comments below, and as ever, links mean prizes! It should be noted that all prizes are imaginary.

In testing all the addons I've looked at so far, I've come to the conclusion that bag addons are all extremely similar, but most have some feature that helps them stand out from the rest. It's not a great surprise, after all, there are only so many ways that an addon can say "hey, look at all these things you have"! Today we're looking at two more bag addons, in addition to the three we looked at last week. I confess right now, one of these has almost persuaded me to move away from my beloved Adibags, not for certain just yet, but it has certainly been a very interesting couple of weeks.


Baud Bags

I mentioned last week that the one bag option was so intuitive and logical that I didn't really see why Blizzard didn't make it standard. I should clarify, having ruffled some feathers by saying so, that I didn't mean to force all you separate bag lovers into having one big bag -- I am an advocate of adding options, not of removing them, and so, it seems, is Baud Bag.

Weak Auras is a really incredibly powerful addon, enabling users to create custom alerts for pretty much anything they want to see. However, like many very powerful addons, it can be a little daunting, and there's an awful lot going on. Unlike several other very powerful addons, a user guide also exists, that walks you through the basic starting point of Weak Auras, creating your first display. But, it's missing a few bits. While I use it a lot, I am far from an advanced user, given some of the things I've seen people create with this addon, so I'm going to keep it basic, and I'm also going to hopefully, with your help, start a useful set of Weak Auras strings!

Weak Auras, when created, can be imported and exported as what are called strings. These, essentially, are huge text files full of mumbo jumbo that can be translated by Weak Auras into displays. When I first got started with Weak Auras, a while back, I found that the easiest way for me to learn to use it was to start with an existing aura and go from there.

We've collected some of our favorite Weak Auras strings, and published them for each class (and some general ones) on their own page:

• Priest Strings
• Monk Strings
• Hunter Strings
• Death Knight Strings
• Mage Strings
• Shaman Strings
• General Strings

Welcome to another addon question session! I was prompted to do one of these by the fact that a recent reader question has been answered by some updates on my curse client downloader. A while back I wrote a column about archaeology addons, in which I asserted that much-loved addon Archaeology Helper was all working perfectly, despite not being updated since 2011. Since then I've had a few people contact me to let me know that, actually, it isn't.

Apparently, it was all good in the old world, the only place I could test it as my toons don't have very high level Archaeology, but wasn't working in Pandaria. Prolific addon author Oscarucb has recently taken it over from Biasha, starting from mid-December, and since I wrote that last column back on November 1, has done a lot of updating. There's now a new release version for all you Archaeology fans out there, so do go and check out this fantastically useful archaeology addon.

Moving swiftly forward, let's tackle some more addon questions. If you have addon questions, or want to make us aware of an addon that we should be covering, do drop an email to olivia@wowinsider.com.

You must have seen it coming, people. I'm the PvP columnist, and now the addon columnist, too. So, naturally, I had to eventually write a column about the addons I use for PvP. For clarity, I should state that the majority of PvP I do is in the arena. I am also on a couple of rated battleground teams, and do random battlegrounds to gear up my characters, but not once they're geared beyond honor gear, thanks to the changes to the conquest point cap. Now that that's out of the way, let's get started. I've got a lot of addons to talk to you about today.

SaySapped

When there's a rogue in your midst, particularly in random battlegrounds, and you're going about your merry way with a couple of cohorts nearby, they may not notice when you're suddenly sapped. SaySapped is a great little addon that does exactly what it says on the tin -- it makes your character say "Sapped". Simple as that! It's also very handy in rated battlegrounds, saves the use of the chat channel to announce such things, and allows your team to make a decision on whether to leave you as rogue-bait, or to stay and fight. Especially if there's two of you defending the flag or base, it's a boon.

Two weeks back, I looked into two fine contenders for raid healing addons, namely Healbot and VuhDo. There was a great and lengthy tussle between the two, and no clear victor was named, although VuhDo snatched a narrow lead. As I promised back in that column, I've gone away to test two more raid healing addons, or party healing addons, as you prefer.

Actually, I tested three of them, to be precise, but one probably couldn't stand alone as a healing addon, and is more a raid frame replacement. Those three addons are Healium, Clique and Grid. I began with Healium, for no other reason than because that was the first one I decided to switch on, but as it happens that worked out pretty well for the testing as, when I wandered into the settings, I discovered it could work with Clique.

Healium

Healium takes quite a different approach to the other addons I've reviewed so far in this set of Addon Spotlights. VuhDo, Healbot, and Grid+Clique are all click-to-heal addons, that is to say, they take a set of either their own frames or a third-party set of frames, and set up mouseover macros on them. A left-click on a frame fires one heal at that player, while an ALT+ left click fires a different one. Healium, on the other hand, as can be seen in the header image, doesn't perform quite like this.

I know, I promised you more raid healing rundown this week, and I apologize for the absence of that, but I'm testing a few new raid healing addons (Grid, Clique and Healium) and I want to be thorough. I've also been getting a lot of reader questions, so I thought it was high time we did an Addon Mailbag.

If you have addon questions, or want to make us aware of an addon that we should be covering, do drop an email to olivia@wowinsider.com. We have a lot of questions to cover, so let's get going. I'm asking for a lot of reader feedback this week for addon questions that have stumped me, so get involved in the comments below!

Ailindah of Wyrmrest Accord asked:

What's Tori Amos doing as the header? Well, since starting to do the research for this column, I haven't been able to get this song out of my head. I'm not 100% sure what the song's about, but I've replaced the words in my head with the two addons I'm going to be talking about today. There are other raid healing addons, and next week I'll likely be comparing the third of the big three, which I consider to be Healbot, Vuhdo, and Grid+Clique. If there are others out there that do the same thing which you'd like me to look at, do let me know via email on olivia@wowinsider.com or in the comments below, with links please!

But back to Tori. I never was a Vuhdo girl, I thought that was a good solution, hanging with the Healbot girls... I've been a Healbot user since I found out what a raid healing addon was, way back when, when I discovered that there were ways of healing that didn't require you to select your friendly target then cast spells. If you're not aware of exactly what all these addons do, they essentially replace your raid frames, and turn them into clickable frames, allowing you to heal with clicks on frames while holding various modifiers. I've talked before about why I don't like these for PvP healing, but for PvE, they're very handy.

Last week's Addon Spotlight was apparently a little confusing for some readers, since it dealt with raid-wide cooldowns and addons to assist in managing those cooldowns. It was not meant as a column addressing your own personal cooldowns. We talked about addons for your entire raid to follow, such as healing cooldowns for healers, so that your entire raid don't blow them all at once.

But fear not, this week we're going to look at personal cooldown tracking! This, in contrast to last week's column, looks at methods to monitor your own things, and not share them with other players. I touched briefly on this topic in an addon mailbag a while back, but my main recommendation is not behaving itself at all well at the moment, so I figure we ought to have a second look at this.

Not-so-sexy cooldown

This is the addon I recommended last time I discussed this, and up to recently was my addon of choice for personal cooldown monitoring. It's a pretty simple premise, really, it has a bar, as you use spells, their cooldowns move from one end of the bar to the other. They can either have a timer on them or not. Up to you.

I'm certainly not going to pretend even for a second that this is a comprehensive list of raid cooldown tracking addons, encompassing every addon that exists with this purpose. I'm starting off today's column with an addon suggested to me via email. If you want to suggest any addon for review, do email me with download links, a brief description, and why you think I should test it out!

Today's topic is the start of a set of raid-related Addon Spotlights. I'm really hoping that our commenters will provide more addons that they consider vital for raiding, with links and all, and that I can have a look at them so we can do this again next week. Inevitably, you'll have raiding addons I don't use, or maybe ones that I don't even know about. Tell me about them in the comments! And, of course, today's addons could also be really, really handy for PvP!

Anyhow, a while back in late October, Frego of The Wyld Hunt on The Sha'tar (EU-H) sent me an email regarding an addon he thought I should take a look at.