Intro to add-ons?

Community General Discussion
1

Been playing since Wrath and not once have I used add-ons. I always considered it kinda cheating… But after watching hours of Mage Tower videos and seeing/hearing what I’m assuming to be an add-on it has me intrigued.

Specifically when Veriss was getting ready to cast drain life there would be this erie sounding voice counting down.

The question is.

How do I get something like that? Does it work for every dungeon/raid/open world encounter?

2

AddOns should be considered “additional information” as they don’t play the game for you, they typically just offer information.

“Boss Mods” (DBM or BigWigs) are scripted timers based on the encounter/boss you’re facing. These are usually very accurate, or otherwise let you know what you need to know.

I personally use BigWigs along with the additional plugin LittleWigs. I’m not sure if LittleWigs has the Mage Tower stuff in there, but I’d think it would.

DBM supports it via the plugin: “Challenges”
https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/dbm-challenges

There is typically a setting is these AddOns to “Super Emphasize” the timer. Basically, this means that the timer associated with that spell is really, really important and you cannot mess it up.

A lot of players like using an AddOn manager, but I haven’t used any, nor are they required. Just make sure you have a program like 7zip or WinRAR on your computer.

How to install AddOns (the easy way):

  1. Navigate to your WoW folder, click on “Interface” and ensure the “AddOns” folder is there. (If it’s not, simply make a new folder and name it “AddOns”). C:\Program Files (x86)\World of Warcraft\_retail_\Interface
  2. Download all the addons you want. Use Curseforge (preferred) or WoWInterface. These will typically go to the Downloads folder on your PC as “zip”/compressed files.
  3. Select all of your addons files from the Downloads folder and right-click the selection. Then choose “Extract all files”, but do not choose “Extract files here”. (We want to pick where these files will go.). Navigate to the AddOn folder and extract the files to the AddOn folder. More often than not, you’ll have more files than you started with, this is totally fine.
  4. Now that you’ve put all your AddOns in the AddOn folder, you can log into WoW and there will be an “AddOns” button. It’ll be in the In-game Menu too.
  5. Configure your addons to fit your needs. (Honestly, most of this is just moving things around the screen.) More advanced addons tend to have more configuration requirements, but nearly all addons are functional right as you log in.
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3

I’d like to add to this that Curseforge has a lot of choices for addons

https://i.postimg.cc/9Qyn4Yz9/image.png

So I usually suggest people to go here https://www.vranx.com/ it gives suggestions for different categories of addons.

4

Sounds easy enough.

5

Only thing I want to add is that unzipping isn’t needed. Open the zip file and copy the contents works for me everytime.

Also, windows has a built-in zip utility if you want to go that route. You’ll see it in the options when you right click any item.

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6

I THINK windows can handle zip files by default now so the software may not be necessary but idk.

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7

Due to Curseforge being Purchased by Overwolf this past year, I’d highly suggest the WoWUp Launcher to manage your add ons.

https: //wowup. io/

Also if your the hesitant type about downloading random software, WoWUp is completely safe, and it’s open source. :grin:

Curseforge is still the place download majority of the addons, but I wouldn’t suggest using their launcher.

8

Yep. Support for .zip files is built into 10 and 11. You might need third party software for some other compression formats though.

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9

i second this.

I’ll mention that I just made a simple batch file to open the download page of my addons. Then I can mass-extract to my addon folder. I’ve also allowed my browser to auto-download from curseforge too, so i dont need to accept every download.

10

:thinking:

I probably shouldn’t do that :laughing:

11

JFC, i have two batch files for this reason.

the first one is my "its a new patch, lets just update the TOC file i guess.

the second one is “lets update RIO and BigWigs/DBM to the latest builds”.

12

I used to check for updates daily before I got on, but since Overwolfs recent announcement and the Ajour dev saying he’s packing up shop that’s not going to be a thing anymore for most of my addons :sob: I’ll probably just update when I get a bug going forward, I’m certainly not checking 100+ addon pages nor will I be using the curse client.

13

Maybe you could point me in the right direction. Is there an add-on that counts down certain attacks from bosses? More specifically in the linked video…the countdown for “drain life”. It’s dope AF. If I can have countdowns to certain devastating attacks that would be dope. I just hate seeing the players UI all altered and what not. I’ve grown accustomed to the standard UI lol. Countdown timers to me as a tank would be really helpful

14

If you watch the chat right as the fight starts this pops up

So I’d assume you’d want
https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/deadly-boss-mods
https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/dbm-challenges

like Cyous said here Intro to add-ons? - #2 by Cyous-illidan

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15

To add, AddOns like DBM typically have an options menu. You can navigate to a specific dungeon/raid/challenge and step into options for each boss. Within these boss options should exist a specific timer for the Drain Life spell you want to countdown. And an option should exist for “Emphasize” or something that elevates the importance of the timer.

And this emphasis feature is how you make the “Countdown” effect.

I use BigWigs, so I’m unfamiliar with DBM’s steps to find this info, but I’d expect it to be virtually the same method as I described.

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16

Solid info brother :ok_hand:

17

Use an addon manager. While it’s not bad to know how to install addons manually, it’s pointless extra work to actually do so, particularly if you use more than just a couple addons.

Updating them is why. Redownloading and extracting to the correct folder each time (which can be quite often) vs… just hitting the “update” button on the manager.

https://wowup.io is what I use.