Cataclysm Classic Guide to Hunter's Best Addons

While it is possible to play perfectly with the default UI, there are many critical things missing that will make your life more difficult. This is where addons can be extremely useful. There are a vast number of addons, including more comprehensive UI packages, but below we have listed some of the basic addons that are highly recommended, both for Hunters and for general use.

Luckily for Hunters, the need for addons has diminished some since Wrath of the Lich King, specifically now that we no longer need to worry about auto shot timers and melee swing timers. However, there are still other important things to track, such as ability cooldowns, procs, and DoTs that are not easily tracked on the default UI.

WeakAuras is an addon that allows you to track almost anything in-game, from boss abilities to personal buffs and debuffs. As a Hunter, there are many useful WeakAuras that can be found on Wago, which is a place where people can publicly share WeakAuras and a brief description and example of their usages.

Details provides a much more detailed combat log that can track damage done, application of debuffs, healing done, deaths, and much more. It is an extremely powerful tool to maximize your understanding of what is happening in each combat encounter.

Deadly Boss Mods (DBM) is a great addon that has pre-made timers for boss abilities in nearly every PvE encounter in the game. Deadly Boss Mods is highly customizable so you can configure it however it works best for you.

in addition to DBM's timers, the maker of the addon also has DBM Voicepack VEM that adds an audio cue to the notifications from Deadly Boss Mods.

Threat Plates allows for a ton of customization of enemy nameplates. While threat is much less of an issue in Cataclysm it is still very important to have an understanding of what mob is attacking who especially in large pulls. This Addon also allows for a much simpler display of debuffs or buffs on any enemies within name plate display range.

ReforgeLite Classic greatly simplifies the process of reforging by allowing you to either use pre-set stat weights or input your own to achieve the optimal amount of your desired stats via reforging while maintaining important things like Hit and Expertise cap.

VuhDo is a party/raid frame replacement. Vuhdo is highly customizable and allows for you to display things such as heal-over-time effects, buffs, targets range, and incoming healing to targets on your frames, so you can better understand what spell you should be using at any given time.

Questie acts as a greatly improved quest log and quest helper, showing clear indicators on your in-game map of where to go for quests and what your objectives for each quest are.

Leatrix Plus allows you the ability to automate many functions throughout the game like skipping NPC dialog, accepting a resurrection or summon, repair your gear, sell vendor trash, and much more.

TomTom is a map plugin that allows you to set waypoints via a chat command or by clicking on your world map and displays coordinates wherever you hover your mouse cursor over the map.

Item Rack provides a quick and easy way to switch between single pieces of gear or entire item sets.

GatherMate will plot the location of every herb you pick and ore you mine on the map so you will quickly have a database of all of the locations throughout a zone where these nodes can spawn.

AtlasLoot is a master database of item drops from raids, dungeons, and reputation rewards, it allows you easy access to nearly every item in the game that drops from a boss or is able to be purchased from a faction.

ElvUI is a complete UI overhaul and is extremely customizable. If you are coming from the retail version of the game, this addon offers more modern cast bars, unit frames, and most common conveniences that are baked into later expansion changes.

While these addons are not quite as impactful as the ones listed previously, they can still be helpful to certain people, especially for those who dislike the setup we presented beforehand.

Auctionator Classic makes it easier to search and post on the Auction House. It also lists the price per item on stacks of items being sold.

This addon allows you to change a lot of UI options that are normally hidden, such as Floating Combat Text customization options, mouse wheel chat scrolling, the displaying of Lua errors, among other options.

Minimal Archeology is a heavily simplified UI for Archaeology and will help minimize the amount of time you spend managing your solves and get you back to digging for treasure quicker.

Macros simplify many things in Cataclysm, allowing you to do more with fewer button presses.

For this reason, we recommend that you also read our Hunter Macros page, in order to improve your game play experience!