Monthly Cleaning

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Addons, almost everyone uses at least a couple.  Some people use hundreds.  They can really enhance your playing experience however, they can also needlessly slow down your computer.  I have gotten into the habit of once a month, going through all my addons and evaluating what they do for me and if I really need each add-on. I keep the ones I use and delete the ones I don't need.  In this way I make sure that my computer isn't slowing down by loading several add-ons that I don't use.  I highly suggest you also do this from time to time and, I will go through my add-ons as an example of what I mean.

My list of addons and process after the break...


I use Curse Client to manage most of my addons so, it is fairly easy to delete and add more with just a couple button pushes.

Addon Control Panel - Adds an addon button to the Game Menu that allows you to set up multiple profiles of addons, see their memory usage and, turn on or off addons with a UI reload.  Very handy for keeping all of your utility addons working but, easy switching them off for peak performance in raids or PvP. (Keep)

Advanced Trade Skill Window - Turns your trade skill window into a double-wide window and allows you to que items to make.  It also allows you to que an item, such as the Armor Plated Shotgun, and it will look at the parts you have in your bag and make any of the small parts needed for the main item.  No more figuring out what you have to make first before you can make the big item.  (Delete, I am not using often)

 Afflicted 3 - An enemy timer addon.  Shows cooldowns and, spell alerts for enemy players. (Keep, I still have to investigate how to make the most use of this addon)

 ag_UnitFrames - My Unit Frame mod of choice. Just like Pitbull or any other number of unit frame mods out there.  I just happen to like ag the best.  (keep)

 Altoholic - Capable of showing all of your toons bank and bags.  Along with linkable professions from each of your toons.  Shows gold, time played, level, rested experience, suggested leveling zones. Can show in item tooltips how many of that item you have and where they are, spread over all of your toons. Very handy addon for keeping track of all of your toons.  (Keep, to convenient to do without)

Arena Historian - Keeps track of what team compositions you have fought against, what map you played on and, your results.  This addon was from a time prior to the armory having so much data in it.  I still find it usefull as you can see what general comps you excel against and what ones your struggle with. (keep for now)

 Atlasloot Enhanced - View what bosses drop what, link items to chat, make a wishlist. (What raider doesn't make use of this addon, Keep)

Auctioneer -  Auctioneer Suite provides you with the tools and data necessary to make those difficult auctioning decisions with ease.  Provides tools to keep track of average item price, how many seen recently and, makes posting a breeze. (Must keep, memory hog but, can be safely turned off for raids)

 Bartender 4 - Customizable action bar mod.  Again, there are several choices out there this is my preference. (Stock bars? no thanks, Keep)

 Capping Battleground Timers - Provides timer bars for Battlegrounds.  Shows bars for AV towers and graveyards, WSG flag respawn timer; along with name and health% of flag carriers.  (Keep, nice to know if you can make it to a tower to defend before it is capped)

 Cartographer - World map mod.  I honestly don't know what else to say about this mod as it was my first ever addon and I can't imagine running without it. (Keep)

 CensusPlus - A Census mod that takes a census of your realm/faction and stores the data.  This data can be uploaded to warcraftrealms.com  (Keep, lightweight it can nice info to have)

 Clique - is a simple GUI that lets you assign click-casting for any number of unit frames. Click casting allows you to define the behavior the game takes when you click on a frame. This can be casting spells, running a macro, using an item, or something as simple as changing targets or assisting a unit. (Keep for now)

 Coconuts - adds a button to your interface that smartly decides a random mount for you. If you're in Outland and have a flying mount, it will pick it! Also lets you dismount. Easy switching to a slower mount or to a ground mount if you need to.(Love it, Keep it)

Decursive Allows for quick and easy cleansing of raid members. (Keep for alts)

 Deus Vox Encounters - (DXE) is a boss mod inspired by RDX. It is designed to be functional, efficient, and customizable, so you can change what you want and how you see this addon. (I just switched from DBM to DXE so, keep until I decide)

 DR Tracker - Shows time left until diminishing returns on enemy/friendly/yourself, as well as how far the spell is diminished. Shows the next diminish, so for example when a Cyclone first fades from a player it'll show 50%, once the 2nd one is casted within 15 seconds of the first one fading it'll show 25%.  (Seems not to work all the time, Keep for now)

 Eavesdrop - A simple combat log that displays events similar to how SCT/D would in a log, using icons to display spells/skills. It seperates incoming events (left side) from out going events (right side) from misc. events (middle).  Events are linkable to chat.  (Keep)

Fishing Buddy - A fishing addon that keeps track of the fish you catch and helps manage your fishing gear. (Keep)


Gatherer - is an addon for herbalists, miners and treasure hunters in World of Warcraft. It's main purpose is to track the closest plants, deposits and treasure locations on your minimap (Keep)


Gladius - adds enemy unit frames to arenas for easier targeting and focusing. It is highly configurable and you can disable most features of this addon. (Keep)

 Grid - is a modular, lightweight, and screen-estate saving grid of party/raid unit frames. (I use this as my raid frames on all but, my resto shaman alt.  Keep)

GridManaBars - Adds mana bars to the grid display.  (Keep)

Healbot Continued - Addon that allows click healing and other healer realated functinality.  (Used for my resto shaman, Keep)

LilSparky's Workshop - adds auction-derived pricing information for trade skills right into the trade skill recipe frame. Each skill is evaluated for material costs and potential value of the item created. These two numbers are listed next to each skill in an easy-to-read format  (Keep for now)

MikScrollingBattleText - MSBT is designed to be an extremely lightweight, efficient, and highly configurable mod that makes it easier to see combat information by scrolling the information on the screen in separate, dynamically creatable scroll areas. It is a replacement for Blizzard's Floating Combat Text and Damage output  (I love it and, a definite keeper)

MiniPet - There are a number of events that trigger the loss of your companion. This addon reminds you to summon a new one, either by displaying a text warning and/or flashing the MiniPet button. You can drag and position the MiniPet button wherever it's most convenient for your UI. (Used with my pet collecting Hunter, Keep for now)

Omen Threat Meter - Displays your threat and can be configured to give audio and visual warning when nearing the tank's threat.  (Must have for all DPS classes,  Keep)


OmniCC - is an addon that adds text to items/spells/abilities that are on cooldown to indicate when they'll be ready for use. OmniCC should be compatible with any addon that uses a cooldown model. (Keep)


oRA2 - similar to CT_RaidAssist.  Allows you to set main tanks and, players of your choosing to monitor.  Great for following the main assist's target while keeping your focus frame free for other uses.  (Keep)

Outfitter - is an equipment management addon which gives you fast access to multiple outfits to optimize your abilities in PvE and PvP, automated equip and unequip for convenience doing a variety of activities, or to enhance role-playing.  (I much prefer this over the stock, automatic switching for various things is too nice, Keep)

Overachiever - Achievement addon.  Increased Achievement pane functions.  Adds icons next to cooking recipes that you still have to make for various achievements.  When linked an achievement it shows you that players progress along with your own.  (Keep for now)

 Overhead - Arena name plate addon.  Hides non-player name plates in arenas and, shows enemy cast bars for all enemy players even if not targeted.  (The cast bar display is what makes this a keeper)

 Postal - Mailbox addon.  Address book, extra return mail functions and, an option to take all mail from the mailbox with one click.  (Great for cutting down the time it takes to retrieve AH mail, Keep)

 Power Auras Classic - This addon was created to provide visual cues (auras) when you gain buffs, debuffs and many more. Very useful for shorts buffs or debuffs, it allows you to draw in the center of the screen, or around your character, very customizable visual effects, rather than having to look at or mouseover buff/debuff icons/actionbars. ( I love this addon.  A must keep)

Prat 3.0 - A chat window addon.  Provides extra options and functionality for the chat window.  (Not needed but, very nice to have.  Keep for convience)

Quartz - A customizable cast bar addon.  Allows for repositioning and sizing of cast bars for both player and target.  Displays latency delay allowing you to start your next cast before your client has finished the previous cast.  (Keep)

QuestHelper - Quest tracking.  Shows where to complete quests and suggests an efficient order in which to do them.  (keep until Blizzard implements theirs.  Very resource heavy)

RatingBuster - addon that converts combat ratings in your tooltips into percentages, so that you have more meaningful information when comparing different items (Makes comparing items easier, Keep)

Recount - Damage meter. Capable of showing overall raid dps along with a breakdown of each players damaging/healing abilities.  Great for evaluating your performance and how to improve.  (Memory hog but, a keeper)

SexyMap - Minimap mod.  Change the shape, position, look and, overall feel of your minimap.  Hide buttons, add a graphical border.  (Keep)

ShockAndAwe - displays timer bars for Shocks, Stormstrike, Windfury (internal CD), Maelstrom Weapon, Lava Lash, Feral Spirits, and your shield. It optionally shows number of orbs on left shield, stacks of MW, advises of next shock in rotation. It also shows a user configurable priority icon frame to advise you of what the highest damage ability available is. (Used when my shaman was Enhancement.  Invaluable for Enh but, now that my shaman in Resto, Delete)

TipTac - is a tooltip enchancement addon, it allows you to configure various aspects of the tooltip, such as moving where it's shown, the font, the scale of tips, plus a lot more.  (Keep. Love how you can move the frame but, reading guild's rank names is the funniest part)

TitanPanel - Adds bar(s) to the top or bottom of your screen.  Able to show location, total gold, loot settings, repair costs, XP/hr, time to next level, etc.  (Keeper)

TitanHonor - A plug-in for TitanPanel.  Adds an honor tracker to the titan panel.  (I'm too lazy to open another window, Keeper)

TotemTimers - helps managing totems, shields, and weapon buffs, showing additional info about active totems (range, cooldowns) and provides additional totem sets. (A Keeper for my shaman alt)

Align - Very simple and light addon that creates a grid on your screen to aid you in aligning and centering your UI. (Keep for helping set up my UI)


And that is it.  Unfortunately I had the idea for this post after I had just cleaned out some unused addons such as RogueFocusClassic and MarketWatcher so I did not have too many deletable addons. But, I hope this long list kind of helped explain my process of defining the addon and deciding how much I use it and whether or not it was worth hanging on to.  Give cleaning out your addon folder a try and delete any unused/unnecessary addons.  I'm sure you will find your screen and gameplay greatly improved.

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