Entries in roguepowerbars (1)
iTZKooPA's Add-Ons (And The War With Them)
iTZKooPA on Thursday, October 1, 2009 - 15 Comments Tags: Addons, Addons, Recount, auctioneer, autobar, bankitems, ct mod, fishing buddy, gatherer, itzkoopa's addons, lag, questhelper, repairing wow, roguepowerbars 
ZOMG, No Deadly Boss MOBS!? Gkick!
Major combat operations in /World of Warcraft have ended. By dedicating a healthy bit of time before bed, and using my own advice, I was able overcome the horrible lag I was experiencing in all of my World of Warcraft endeavors. No more 30% drops in framerates, lost DPS or accidental dives off cliffs to large for a gnome to survive. WoW has returned to normal. Onyxia will rue the day she returned to these lands!
There are a few things that I learned during my hour-plus battle. Most important is that I am absolutely terrible at keeping my add-ons up to date. The majority of them haven't been updated since the Wrath launch patch (v3.0), or at best v3.1. I refuse to use the various auto-updating services because of my fear of hackers, unsavory add-on authors and the notion that such a program will clutter my computer. These ridiculous reasons mean that the blame falls squarely on my shoulders for being lazy. At least suggestions four and five, after already narrowing things down from 1-3 earlier this week, fixed the problem.
In addition to my disorganized /AddOns folder - it in no way reflects the cleanliness of my slop pit house - I came to the realization that I have far too many add-ons. During my campaign to capture the latest versions of my tools, I cut my add-on list from 49 memory suckers to a slim 26 user interface enhancements. It wasn't even difficult, no hard decisions made. Simply, do I use this or not?
Here's my list:
- Auctioneer: This add-on is the key to my financial success in World of Warcraft, arguably responsible for the Mo' Money, Mo' Problems column, among many other one-shot posts. It scans and records data from the Auction House, and automates putting items up for sale at competitive prices. I roll with the suite, which includes numerous supporting add-ons like BeanCounter, Enchantrix, Informant, and Stubby. Norganna's add-ons have proven to be so helpful to me that I have even made donations. Yes, plural.
- AutoBar: An easily customizable and maintainable bar that is populated with all your hot items and abilities, like hearthstones, mounts, potions, food, food with buffs, etc, by default. I set it up to be a third default action bar, just one with collapsible buttons. It's proven to be a clutch addition. Contains class specific bars as well.
- BankItems: Enables player to look at their bank, their alts' banks, and even the guild banks from anywhere. Good enough?
- CT_Basic: The CT_Mod team was the first team to create an ubiquitous collection of add-ons. Some of their tools were so common that they've been enshrined in the Add-On Hall of Fame (Blizzard implementing an add-on's capabilities in the default UI). CT_Basic is still an incredibly useful package thanks to the CT_MailMod, allowing players to loot their mailbox via a 'Select All' button. There is a perfect synergy between it and Auctioneer. I nuke CT_PartyBuffs though. I used to use CT_RaidAssist when I was a raid leader, but no more.
- CT_ExpenseHistory: A good expansion to the basic CTMod package for the gold nuts like myself. Tracks your expenses - repairs, reagents, even mail postage - to see where all that gold went. It's pointless, but I love numbers and finances.
- Fishing Buddy: I used to be huge on fishing, and that's when I fell in love with this mod. It previously automated almost everything about fishing, but Blizzard disabled some of that functionality. I continue to use it mainly out of nostalgia, but also for the tracking (numbers!), and easy casting.
- Gatherer: This bad boy records where you've looted gatherable items (mining, herb and even treasure nodes) and displays them on your minimap. The best part is the ability to share the data with friends, party members and even your guild! I always kill Gatherer_HUD. It's a resource hog that offers nothing but fancy visual effects over the normal add-on.
- QuestHelper: What can I say? I like saving time, and it's even more useful after you've already run through the zones on your first toon. QuestHelper is another mod that has entered the Add-On Hall of Fame due to its ease of use and immense quest database. There are many imitators, but I've found QH to be the best.
- Recount: Allows me to see my mad deeps, overall damage or how many times I die. Recount tracks healing and useless stuff like that too. It doesn't matter how much healing they do, it's never enough and always their fault when someone dies. :p
- RoguePowerBars: You may have noticed that I don't use Deadly Boss Mods (eh GM?). I may have died a few times because of that decision, but I find it to be too informative for my taste. I mention DBM in this RPB snippet because they effectively do the same thing, scream information at you. My justification for RPB is that the standard UI is laid out poorly for rogues (and many other classes). We have so many buffs and debuffs on short timers that need to be kept active for maximum DPS that they really should be in your face. RPB accomplishes that goal superbly. I rarely ever lose my spell rotations since I began using it. That obviously increases my DPS.