The Best Addons for WoW Classic

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

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Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

With players tackling the second phase of the Burning Crusade: Classic, it’s more important than ever to have the right addons to provide you all the necessary tools to be a better player.

Having the right ones can cut down on time wasted over menial tasks, provide more clarity in battle, and enhance your game experience. Despite having less addons than retail WoW, Classic still has all the critical ones that you’ll need on your journey.

With that in mind, we’ll be going over the best addons for WoW Classic today, sorted into various categories. The ones that we think you absolutely should have will be at the top of each section.

Installing and Managing the Best Addons for WoW Classic

First things first — setting everything up to actually download the addons. If you’re already familiar with how to do so, skip on down to the actual list. If you’re not, don’t worry. We’ll go over what you need to do.

Important: If you have both retail and classic WoW installed, you’ll need to do an extra step to specify which version of the game you want addons for. We’ll highlight that step below.

The simplest and sponsored (by Blizzard) way to download addons is via the new Overwolf client and CurseForge app.

You’ll need to download both for this to work, but the programs are simple to obtain and non-intrusive. Most importantly, anything you get via CurseForge is vetted and guaranteed to be safe for download — any other sources carry the risk of malware.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to downloading WoW addons:

Click on the “Download Overwolf” button at the top right and run the program to install the client. Once it’s complete, it’ll open up Overwolf.
From the Overwolf client, download the CurseForge app to manage your WoW addons. Click on the search magnifying glass at the top right, and type in “wow” to get it to appear.
Install the app and launch it to reach the CurseForge manager.
Click on “Get More Addons” at the top, and you’ll be able to search for and install any addon you want.
For those with both retail and classic downloaded, you’ll need to click on the three vertical ‘…’ at the top-right corner and choose “Scan computer for games” to register the two versions of WoW.
If done correctly, another drop-down menu should appear next to the play button in the top-right corner. This will allow you to choose whether you want to manage addons for Classic or Retail WoW.

You’ll have to periodically update your addons whenever their creator patches them, which you can do from the “My Addons” tab at the top. Be sure to check back frequently to keep them updated! You can also delete any addons that you no longer need from this tab.

Installation Extra Step — Image: Blizzard Entertainment via HGG

Occasionally, an addon will be abandoned by its creator and will not be updated for future WoW patches. You can continue using out-of-date addons by clicking on the “AddOns” button in the bottom-left corner of your character selection screen and clicking “Load out of date Addons” in the top-right of the pop-up menu.

Best Addons for User Interface in WoW Classic

First up is the one (and only) best addon for UI in WoW Classic. It gives you control over your layout and interface, providing a more personalized experience.

1. Bartender4

There are quite a few addons that manage your UI in WoW, but Bartender has been the go-to option for many players for years. Most addons allow you to adjust the layout of your screen, but we feel as though Bartender is the simplest one to pick up while providing the most customization, making it our one and only choice for best addon for UI.

Best Addons for PvE in WoW Classic

The next section on our list of best addons for WoW Classic includes options that enhance player-vs-environment gameplay.

2. Deadly Boss Mods (DBM)

Probably the single most important addon you’ll ever have for PvE content. It provides timers for boss mechanics, will visibly and audibly announce callouts/warnings, and even mark allies and locations to run to for certain fight gimmicks. Having this addon is absolutely crucial if you plan on taking on any endgame content in dungeons and raids, as responding quickly to mechanics is a must.

You’ll most likely want to customize it to your liking with different sound clips, reposition where timer bars show up, etc. The process is rather simple and shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes of your time to have everything set up just the way you like it.

3. Classic Castbars (TBC & Classic)

Technically this addon is no longer needed for those playing TBC, as Blizzard has added castbars under targeted units. However, for players interested in Vanilla Classic, this addon is a must.

Knowing what spell someone else is casting and how long until it goes off is critical for managing survival cooldowns and interrupts. While it’s not necessary for those in TBC, it does allow you to edit the castbar size, positioning, etc. if you want more control over it.

4. HealBarsClassic (formerly known as HealCommClassic)

This addon is for those who are interested in healing and using the default Blizzard UI. Making sure that you’re not wasting mana by overhealing a friendly target is a critical aspect of Classic WoW.

This useful addon adds additional color combinations to a target’s bar to designate incoming heals, HoTs, and other status effects from yourself and your group members. It works with some other UI adjusting addons, but is designed primarily for the basic UI. We recommend playing around with it a bit.

5. OmniCC Classic

After playing a class for a while, you tend to know how long your cooldowns are, as the sweeping bar on the ability slowly fills up to indicate an ability is ready again. However, sometimes you just want to know exactly how long you have to wait.

This addon adds a number to each ability to indicate the remaining time before an ability is ready or a buff/debuff expires. Incredibly useful for not having to hover over status effects to see the duration of them.

6. ThreatClassic2

Managing your threat is an actual concern in Classic WoW. Pulling aggro from your tank and getting mauled to death is usually your own fault for not holding back. If you’re the tank, it’s even more important to keep track of every enemies’ aggro table to know which mobs to prioritize.

This nice little addon generates a table for you to watch the threat levels on every enemy you’re in combat with and to plan accordingly.

7. Details

Everyone wants to know how they performed in a fight. From DPS numbers to healing done and most other metrics that you can think of, this addon records all of that. Fantastic for comparing your performance to others in your group, it’ll let you calculate if you’re meeting the numbers benchmark to take down an encounter.

Clicking on a player’s name will give you a detailed breakdown of your abilities with various graphs and other visuals to help make it even more clear.

8. Method Raid Tools

A must-have tool for anybody interested in managing their party. An incredibly powerful tool that lets you keep track of allies’ cooldowns, their buffs, and set up various marking macros for organizing the team’s position during a fight.

It’s rather simple to use to obtain basic information with far more complex options available to those who are interested in putting in the time to oversee an entire fight. Definitely the best addon for raid leaders.

9. ClassicSpellActivations

There are quite a few spells in Classic WoW that can only be used when certain conditions are activated, such as a warrior’s Execute ability.

This addon simply makes those abilities/buttons light up to help signify the condition is met. If you’re looking to squeeze out every possible second out of your rotation, then you’ll want this addon.

10. Questie

While a lot of players like to complain about how much retail WoW holds your hand on where to go for quest objectives, they usually find themselves struggling to locate quest objectives without modern assistance.

Questie replicates that assistance by placing objective markers throughout your map once you obtain a quest. It may be nice to explore the world without any help from time to time, but that ten-minute trek back to a quest region because you forgot to loot one obscure item will make you regret not installing this addon.

Best Addons for PvP in WoW Classic

In this next part of our best addons for WoW Classic guide, let’s check out the top options for PvP.

11. OmniBar

There are few things as important as keeping track of your enemies’ cooldowns. Knowing when their defensives and burst abilities are up will help you set up your kill windows to win a fight. This addon lets you keep track of all them, depending on which abilities you think are important.

You can customize it in a large variety of ways. Which abilities to track, automatically hide icons for used abilities, glow visuals when something’s available again, etc. If you plan on doing PvP seriously in arenas, this is a must-have as the best addon for PvP.

12. SpyClassic

Knowing the amount of enemies that are in your vicinity is a godsend, especially when it warns you that someone has entered stealth near you.

With the option to set up kill-on-sight lists and other various warnings for when enemy players enter your range, you’ll find yourself loving this for tracking your foes’ positions.

Best Addons for Quality of Life in WoW Classic

For this final section of our guide, we’ll take a look at the best WoW Classic addons for improving overall gameplay.

14. Auctionator

Nobody wants to waste time at the auction house clicking through every single auction. With various features allowing you to automatically buy/sell multiple stacks of items, analyze date trends, and set up trade conditions, this addon will save you time and money.

15. Bagnon & OneBag3

The default bag system in the game is an atrocious thing. These two are separate addons that do the same job of making your inventory look not ugly and become more manageable. Besides adding a search functionality and easy sort to your bags, the two addons just differ slightly in visual look and interface options. Just choose whichever one is to your liking.

16. Leatrix Plus

This addon automates most of the trivial tasks in the game.

You can set it to automatically accept resurrections, vendor junk, repair items, release in PvP, etc. It’s fantastic if you just don’t want to remember or think about things that you normally do automatically. Though you’ll definitely want to play around with the settings on this one.

17. AtlasLoot Classic

Ever wanted to look up any item in the game? See what loot bosses drop from a dungeon? Figure out where that one crafting reagent comes from? Well, this addon lets you handle all of that.

As a literal atlas of the game’s multitude of items, you’ll be able to swiftly plan out where you need to go to get all the resources you need for your journey.

17. VendorPrice

This does exactly what it sounds like. It adds the vendor price to objects when you hover over them.

It’s just nice to have that information on hand.

18. AdvancedInterfaceOptions

As the name suggests, this addon expands Blizzard’s default interface UI to more options. If you want to control things such as floating combat text or toggle certain names on/off, this addon takes care of that. We strongly recommend having this addon on standby just in case you need it.

Become a High Grounder

And that’s it for our best addons for WoW Classic! We hope this list makes your journey in the olden days of Azeroth all that much more enjoyable! Have an addon that didn’t make the list but you would strongly recommend? Then subscribe and leave a comment below.

Happy gaming!