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The Best Addons for 'World of Warcraft: Shadowlands' Launch Day
It’s finally here: World of Warcraft’s eighth expansion, Shadowlands, goes live today. If you’ve never played, or you’re cautious about re-entering the sprawling world, you still have the good ol’ free-until-level experience to see if WoW is your thing—which is one-third of the maximum level you’ll be able to hit in Shadowlands (not to mention something you can probably crank out in a weekend, if that).
Otherwise, for seasoned players, I hope you’ve finished your last-minute raiding and Icecrown farming because you have little time remaining before Shadowlands launches. According to Blizzard, all the new content will phase into existence at 3 p.m. PT.
You won’t need to make a mad dash to Blizzard’s servers right at launch time, as all the new Shadowlands content—which kicks off with a quest in your capital of Stormwind or Orgrimmar, respectively—should magically appear when it’s time to go. (And all the other changes to questing, rewards, and other events that coincide with the Shadowlands launch will take place at various points today, too.)
Whether you’ll be waiting around in a digital city for hours for Shadowlands to start (like me), or you’re slowly planning to inch your way back into WoW over the Thanksgiving holiday and beyond, I recommend reacquainting yourself with some of the best and most basic addons you can use to make your virtual adventures that much easier.
WoW addons can help you manage your sprawling inventory, show you where to go if you’re feeling a little lost on quests, and even tell you where to not stand so you don’t get smoked by a boss. There are so many addons that enable so much functionality, it can be hard to know what’s worth installing at first glance. To help, I’ve rounded up what I think is a pretty thorough list of addons that should get you back into the game without feeling as overwhelmed as a pick-up adventurer in a brand-new, person raid.
Step one: Install a great addon manager
You’ll want to take a moment to grab an addon manager to help you find, install, and update addons. You can certainly install addons manually, but it’s a thousand times easier to use an app. A great app also helps ensure your addons stay updated with the latest features and fixes, especially important when something in the to-be-launched expansion (or any upcoming Blizzard update) breaks your favorite third-party helpers.
There are plenty of amazing guides and databases you can use to find the best addon manager for you. If you want a quick answer, I wholeheartedly recommend Ajour. It’s an open-source app that downloads as a single executable—nothing to install, and no bullshit to wade through (save for your browser suggesting it might be a malicious file, which I’ve noticed on Edge Chromium).
To get started, park Ajour in any folder you want and run it—doesn’t matter where. Let the app know the location to your World of Warcraft addons folder (something like [wherever you installed WoW]\World of Warcraft\_retail_\Interface, if you’re playing both WoW and WoW Classic). Then, go shopping for addons by clicking on the handy Catalog link in the upper-left corner:
Which addons should you install for an easy introduction back into World of Warcraft? Let’s begin.
AdiBags
Whether you’re starting World of Warcraft fresh or you’re revisiting a character you haven’t touched in months (or years), one of the best things you can to do keep your sanity—insert your best N’Zoth /funny here—is to have an addon manage your character’s inventory. I love AdiBags more than any other bag addon, including Bagnon, because of one key feature: It automatically sorts your stuff into different categories, which makes it so much easier for you to see what you have (and what you can get rid of) at a glance.
AutoVendor
Little will annoy you more in WoW than manually selling junk items in your inventory whenever you visit a merchant. That, and clicking the “repair items” button over and over to fix all the gear that got dinged up when you accidentally ran into a high-level world boss. Solve this with the AutoVendoraddon, which automatically sells your crap and fixes you up whenever you talk to a merchant.
Pawn
Even with WoW’s recent stat squish—which is why you’re going to be fighting up to a maximum level of 60, not +, in the new Shadowlands expansion—I still find all the different variables that play into your character’s overall power a wee bit confusing. For example, when some shiny new sword drops, should you prioritize Haste over your current sword’s Mastery stat? What about Versatility? Critical Strike?
Take the brainpower out of upgrades using an addon like Pawn, which tells you whether something in your inventory makes you stronger than a piece of gear you’ve equipped. And if you’re looking at a quest’s reward options and see no great upgrade, you’ll at least know which item sells for more sweet, sweet gold.
Bartender4
Nothing against World of Warcraft’s default user interface, but I like being able to completely control where its various windows live. I also like hiding and revealing UI elements based on what I’m up to, whether that’s exploring around with no purpose or jumping into combat. Short of a full-on reskinning, which you can do using plenty of other addons, I think Bartender4 provides a great way to get extra customization without relearning a brand-new custom UI.
Deadly Boss Mods
You will, at some point in your adventuring, want to tackle trickier bosses—an instance, perhaps, or even a raid. They’re super fun so long as you don’t stand in the glowing stuff. (Consider this rule reversed if you happen to be in one of those dungeons where standing in the glowing stuff is actually highly encouraged or the only way to beat said boss.)
Unless you want to really enjoy a “purist” experience, Deadly Boss Mods does a great job of telling you key details of any larger boss fight, including what fun powers-that-can-hurt-you might be coming next, and when powers-that-can-hurt-you have been used by said boss. You’ll typically get a big air horn warning and a quick tip about what you should or should not do in these moments. These callouts won’t make you a master raider out of the gate, but they’ll definitely help you learn trickier fights faster than you’d expect. Also, they’ll help you die less, so long as you pay attention to the can’t-miss warnings.
(Yes, I know about WeakAuras, too; I haven’t yet ventured down that road.)
Kaliel’s Tracker
Blizzard’s default window for displaying your active quests is a bit bulky, to put it nicely. I much prefer the svelte look of Kaliel’s Tracker, which also comes with a bunch of useful automations and filters so you can hyper-focus on quests, say, in your current zone. If nothing else, though, you can limit the height of your quest window. It’s much nicer to scroll to see what you have to rather than staring at a gigantic sidebar on your screen.
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BtWQuests (and its many “quest packs”)
BtWQuests (and its many “quest packs”)
BtWQuests (and its many “quest packs”)
If you’re ever curious just what the hell you’re doing in a particular area—whether you’re on the right questline for whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish or you need a quick refresher how what you’re doing fits into a larger picture—BtWQuests is the answer. This addon shows you every single questline WoW offers, giving you a little tree you can follow to review what you’ve done, what you have coming up next, and how the various questlines relate to form a larger narrative. Honestly, I just use it to see how much I have left to do in zones that are a bit more of a slog than others.
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