Any UI mod advisable?

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Good morning,
I m besically a new player, even if I have been playing till level 88 years ago.

However, I never used or installed any add on or mods; I heard experienced players saying in my guild that it is OK to play with the vanilla UI.
But I have been looking into LUI and it seems very slick, clean and quite refreshing.

Do you suggest getting and using LUI or any essential UI mod? I like keeping the installation folder quite clean so I was thinking of getting not more than a couple add ons, tops.

Thanks for your time answering this question.
Vince

2

Welcome back!

And yes, I believe you are a new player. :slight_smile: Dottie gave a great definition of someone who has passed being a new player once that I never forgot: you stop being a new player when you have levelled to max in one expansion, and then levelled to max in the next. The key is the understanding of what end-game is, and seeing the change in end-game between expansions.

And on to your question ā€¦

You can play with the default UI and no addons. It is definitely not optimal for efficiency, though. Different addons do different things for you. Some make pretty sweeping changes to your view. Some make pretty sweeping changes to your gameplay. Some donā€™t really affect either.

The main thing I would say to a new player who hasnā€™t used addons before is to add addons one by one. If you try to change too much too quickly, you WILL get lost. You will not know what that flashing thing is, or which addon itā€™s coming from. You will not understand why sounds are blaring. You will accidentally do things you didnā€™t mean to do.

Some addons are simple. Some are really complicated. One - a very useful one - may mail all your gold to a stranger when you visit a postbox, if you have accepted the wrong program for it. (I think Blizzard have prevented this happening now.) Further, some addons interfere with each other, throwing distracting errors. And of course, many addons break when Blizzard changes the game in new patches, meaning you need to update or reinstall them, and reset their configuration.

Mostly, addons are fine, pretty much everybody uses them, and they are a major part of playing the game. But for each addon, you should know what it does and why you want it. Installing a bucketload of addons all at once when youā€™ve never used them before is a great way to get confused and frustrated.

And then we have complete UI kits, like LUI and ElvUI. They provide pre-defined screen layouts. Personally, I hate them, so I am not the best person to advise you. I tried ElvUI once, and spent far too much time fighting with it to try and put things exactly where and as I wanted them. However, for people who like that kind of thing, thatā€™s the kind of thing that people like that tend to like. :stuck_out_tongue:

Itā€™s entirely up to you. If that LUI look really appeals to you, go for it on its own, and get used to it. Then start adding addons one by one, setting up and understanding each as you do so.

Remember, you can at any time remove an addon by removing its directory in

ā€¦World of Warcraft\_retail\Interface\Addons

and you can disable it by clicking on the Addons button in your character login screen and unticking its name

and you can configure it with

Esc->Interface->Addons tab.

We havenā€™t had an add-on thread since the forums were changed. Hereā€™s one from the old forums you could have a look at:
https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/17615422038

Iā€™ve edited it slightly to update it

We havenā€™t had an addons thread in a while. Looking at the top downloads list on https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons will give you the general idea.

Some Addons I like are:

Deadly Boss Mods (DBM) and its modules for raid and dungeon tactics

Skada for damage and healing meters

Bartender4 for managing your bars

Threat Plates for nameplates

SellGrey for selling junk

Quick Repair for auto repairs

Carbonite for maps. Youā€™ll love it. Or hate it. Or both.

Auctioneer, Auctionator and Trade Skill Master for the Auction House

Altoholic if you have many characters

GTFO reminds you when youā€™re standing in the fire

Pitbull gives you nice unit frames

Postal is an improved mail interface

You donā€™t NEED any of these, and there are many others, some generally useful, some specialised.

Ah, hereā€™s a post I made

26/08/2016 21:21Posted by GrƔinne
I recently reinstalled all addons from scratch - just adding them one by one when I felt I needed. I haven't "done" anything at all since the pre-patch. Here's my current list of addons:

General:
Addon Control Panel
Advanced Interface Options
Bartender4
Altoholic
DejaCharacterStats
OmniCC
Prat
Sell Grey Items

Maps:
Carbonite 7.0.0
HandyNotes (with Broken isles module ready for next week)

Auctions:
Auctionator
Postal

Pet Battles:
Battle Pet BreedID
Derangement's Pet Battle Cooldowns
Rematch

Fighting:
Classtimer
DBM
Focus Interrupt Sounds
GTFO
HealBot
PitBull
ThreatPlates
Skada

As I look down that list, I say "Why don't I have....." quite a lot. Quick Repair, TellMeWhen or WeakAuras (I change between them from time to time), TSM. More, I'm sure. Some of them weren't available at the start of the pre-patch. Some of them I just haven't felt the need for yet, since I haven't been doing anything more than derping around and doing some invasions.
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Thank you for the exhaustive answer :ok_hand:
I will look into those mods and see if they would be good for me.

How is Blizzard position on mods by the way?

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Addons are absolutely fine with Blizzard. They deliberately write the hooks into WoW to allow them to work, and they liaise - irregularly - with addon authors about them.

Anything you can download from Curseforge will be safe. Sometimes Blizzard decides they donā€™t like the functionality of some specific addon, but they donā€™t take it out on the users in such cases; they change the hooks WoW allows so as to ā€œbreakā€, or disable, the addon functionality they object to.

ā€œModsā€ in the more general sense are not safe. You MUST NOT use external third party programs to press keys for you, or change the data or code in the WoW program itself.

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7

Also, Hazel has a youtube where she went through her addons. She shows what they look like and what their use is.

It can be a bit much if you are new to addons, but you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqjTsUUpxP4

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8

Very useful video! Thanks!!

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My thoughts:

  1. There are a bunch of addons that significantly improve specific, non-core areas of the game (pet battles and auction house come to mind). My advice would be to leave these out (for the time being) if you only ā€˜dabbleā€™ in these areas. If you become a more serious ah trader at a later date, that is the time to get the relevant addon. The point is that most (not all) addons work by offering increased functionality in return for being more complicated. Once you know how things work and are on your way to becoming a ā€˜proā€™, functionality is more important than becoming more complicated. When just the basic interface is still a bit confusing, the opposite is true.

  2. Elvui. Donā€™t be put off by Grainneā€™s view on Elvui! It is an as amazing addon that I have used since almost exactly where you are (iirc, I picked it up when my first alt was around 75-80). The big advantage is that it does the job of lots of addons (you then donā€™t need eg Bartender and Tidyplates that most people otherwise consider mandatory). It is big, but not complicated - very easy to personalise. I would recommend at least trying it. It will take an hour or so to get your interface set up how you want it, but against /played, thatā€™s nothing and itā€™s definitely worth it. And if you try it - go for this first, before getting any other addons (you may well not need the other ones if you go with Elvui).

  3. The ā€˜compulsoryā€™ raiding addons. If you are going to do any real raiding (pretty much anything above dipping your toe into lfr), you need these (some people make a point of raiding the purist way, but very few and it makes life a lot more difficult / confusing!).

3a. DBM ( Deadly Boss Mods) - helps with what boss abilities are going on and what you need to be doing. Just get it!

3b. A damage meter - I use Recount; other options are Skada or Details. This is not for epeen, but for self-improvement.

Thatā€™s it. I play relatively seriously, but only really have Elvui, Recount and DBM installed. (oh, and TomTom - useful for finding places or sets of quest points quickly, but certainly not essential).

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UI mod - Eulvi

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I have been looking at ELVUI and Iā€™m quite intrigued.
It seems that it is a collection of very useful addons.

I m following a YouTube Elvui guide and it is broken down in two parts. I find it very easy to follow and interesting. (too lazy to look for that link again and past it on here lol).

There are other addons that suggest other hardcore / more advanced things useful in raids and mythic + difficulties: way too early for me to even know what thatā€™s about.

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Yes, UIs tend to be presented as a collection of addons. And as Darkelth said, if you are happy to accept that as your selection, thatā€™s great. Changing and adapting it further to personalise it, though, can be quite difficult.

Streamers and YouTubers often do that for themselves, or get experts to do it for them, and then offer their customised UIs for download as well. Hereā€™s one case, though you will find many more on YT:

I still do insist, though, that the problem with installing a whole pre-built machine of addons when you never used addons before is that you can easily run into problems when you donā€™t understand why something is happening, or hit an error and need to fix it, or want to install something specific for yourself.

The first words in that video, about customising that UI: ā€œā€¦ this has been a massive undertaking ā€¦ many sleepless nightsā€ - and that from a world-class player with 14 years of experience. :stuck_out_tongue:

However, you seem to be taking a careful approach, so I trust you will make a thoughtful decision for yourself! Since you seem inclined, go ahead with your gut, and just be prepared to start over or delete and replace your UI if you run into snags.

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13

Addons are completely fine as long as they donā€™t ā€œautomateā€ anything or change the code as GrĆ”inne mentioned. So basically as long as you are playing the character yourself and not changing the core engine, itā€™s fine - although I do personally recommend trying to get the most of the default addon where possible, it certainly makes it easier when there are patches (most addons donā€™t get updated for a few days so your addons might cause strange problems until they are updated).

Most people use addons for a different user interface, helpful addons to see how to improve their damage/healing, or to help deal with certain boss mechanics!

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14

Iā€™m not trying to push Elvui, but

Itā€™s not that complicated!!

But this is the advantage of Elvui. Youā€™re not installing a whole raft of addons that will almost certainly conflict with each other unless you know what youā€™re doing. Elvui is one addon that does the job of lots of addons. Because itā€™s all one addon though, it works seamlessly.

Either way, itā€™s worth a try.

In particular, I play on a laptop and (even with a 17" screen) the default ui just fills half the screen with clutter. Elvui allows you to have a much more minimalist approach (that is also better laid out).

Not everyone likes it, but a lot do.

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15

Tbh there are few add-ons I suggest.

DBM
Recount/scada
Weakauras(need set up)/hekili
Eulvi (only if u need UI modifications - first time lengthy set up)

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In regard of ElvUI i am still struggling to understand its actual benefits; it has an incredible array of customisability, but it takes away some of the ā€œbeautyā€ of the vanilla UI in favour of a more modern (not really fitting) UI. ā€¦ Still in debateā€¦

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