Hey guys.
Noticed a lot of players posting screenshots here of their UI and being stuck at low rating, being frustrated etc. I decided to lay down some very useful addons and tips in this thread for whoever wants to make their life easier. If you already use these or have your own alternative versions, thats fine. None of these addons are mandatory; they just make your life much easier. You can download all of them from CurseForge.
Before taking a look at these addons, I strongly recommend you enable party frames to the side with the hp / mana bars of your teammates, so you have awareness if your teammates are in trouble, or if your healer is running out of mana. To do this, just open Edit mode and toggle Party Frames on.
Extra tip for game awareness: To understand how most specs of the game work, you can go to the character creation screen, select a class and make a class trial of it, then try out some spells, read a bit etc, or just make a level 1 and see what the talents / spells are about. Knowing what your teammates can do and what enemies can do with their classes and specs is crucial to winning. A good recommendation is also to watch videos or streams of some high-ranking player that plays your class and spec, where you can also ask questions.
Here are the addons:
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Omnicd. This addon attaches itself to your party frames on the side, you can fully customize where it is, how big the icons are and more. What it does: This addon shows the important cooldowns for your teammates, and if they are used, shows the remaining time for them. Example: You can see your healer has no more defensive cooldowns to save you with, so you may want to play more defensive if they are trying to kill you.
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BigDebuffs. This addon shows debuffs in the party frames for your teammates, and also enemies with a larger icon. For example, your healer has been Kidney shotted by a Rogue, you can see the stun debuff icon easily and see how long is left before the stun is over. This helps with overall awareness of the game.
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NamePlateCooldowns / Omnibar. It is a preference which one you want to use. Both these addons show if enemies have used cooldowns and the remaining time for those cooldowns. NamePlateCooldowns will show these cooldowns above the enemy player’s name frame (above their moving character) and Omnibar will show them anywhere on your screen based on preference where you put them. (there is no point to use both of these at the same time)
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sArena / Gladius. These addons show enemy frames, diminishing returns for Crowd Control abilities such as stuns in timers and casting bars. For example, if you stun a target for full duration, the next stun will be half duration if the target is stunned again within 20 seconds after the initial stun. Those addons show you the time remaining until you can fully stun, fear, sheep etc a target for the entire duration again. Both addons do the same thing, only the way they look is different and some customization settings.
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WeakAuras. Most people think of WeakAuras as unnecessary clutter on your screen and are unsure how to use them. Oftentimes this is true, however there are 2 specific WeakAuras which are EXTREMELY useful for arenas. The way you get specific weakauras is by firstly installing the WeakAuras addon, then going to wago .io (the website everybody uses to get weakauras) to find weakauras you might want. When you find such, you click " Copy string" and then go ingame, open the addon and press “Import” then just add.
The 2 most useful WeakAuras for PvP are the Mes weakaura package, which will notify you of any big cooldowns used throughout the match (you can see most r1 and AWC streamers use this). On wago .io, write Mes DF Arena CDs in the search bar and do the above. The other most useful WeakAura for DPS specifically is called “Healer cc” by AnnieFuschia. This Weakaura gives you an onscreen notification with an image and sound ( you can customize this) if your healer is in CC and you may want to play defensive to survive, or help your teammate to survive.
These addons will provide you with all the information you need to win an Arena match, will greatly boost your game sense and awareness and help you win.
Just wanted to be of help to anybody who’s interested in improving.