WotLK Classic Guide to Mage's Best Addons (2024)

Besides DPSing, Mages need to Remove Curse andPolymorph in Raids and Dungeons. They need tosee when they have threat from one or multiple enemies so they can quickly reactand avoid death. Mages need to judge if it is a good time to sit downand drink for Mana between pulls, or if they need to drink a Mana Potion to beable to DPS. When their Polymorph breaks, they want to be notified and instantlybe able to Polymorph again. Having an overview of the whole raid, time until aboss dies, and cooldown timers helps Mages to properly time theircooldowns and do more damage. In order to manage all of these tasks without beingcompletely overwhelmed, every Mage should invest a bit of time tomake a simple, basic, supportive UI (User Interface).

Apart from having great a overview in Raids, Magesalso want to have an easier life when it comes to every day things in World ofWarcraft, such as:

• Dismounting when talking to a flightmaster;
• Accepting and turning in quests;
• Vendoring gray items;
• Repairing your gear;
• Sorting your inventory;
• Keeping track of your inventory.

To this end, there are several addons that make raiding and every day taskseasier or even automate them so you have more time to play with your friends.

We recommend always using the following addons on your character, as theyeither bring very useful functionalities which cannot be easily passed on orrepresent significant quality-of-life increases for your WotLK Classic life:

While LunaUnitFramesmay, at first glance, look a little bulky, it is extremelyeasy and fast to configure and offers important basic functions such asbeing able to display buffs/debuffs, players who have threat, a Mana ticker,and giving a quick overview about your raid status. The raid frames of thisaddon can also be configured to act as a buff tracker for yourArcane Brilliance buff. While the style of this addon is not foreveryone and other unit frame addons may offer more options, this addon isextremely lightweight and easy to configure.

LeatrixPlus WotLK Classic gives you tons of options to automate tasks, such asrepairing, accepting quests, selling gray items, dismounting automatically whentalking to a flightmaster, scrolling out further, skipping gossip when talkingto NPCs, and many, many more. It is one of the most important addons you do notwant to ever disable, once you have had it.

MapCoordssimply adds coordinates to your map and, if you want, also to your minimap tomake it easier for you to find locations by their coordinates, which are oftenused in guides.

Questie WotLK Classicguides you through quests and enhances your minimap and full-size map. It is veryeasy to use and will make your questing experience more enjoyable.

Bartender4lets you customize your action bars. Once you have learned your keybinds byheart, this addon can be used to make more space on your screen by havingsmaller action bars and even let them fade out when you do not need them.A common trick with Bartender is to make additional action bars where youcan put trinkets or consumables on.

OmniCC is oneof the oldest and most popular addons in the entire history of World ofWarcraft. It adds a countdown to your abilities on the action bar, so youget a better overview when they are ready for use again.

Quartz replacesthe standard cast bar and lets you customize it to your own liking. Customizingyour cast bar allows for better space usage on your screen and differentpositioning of your unit and raid frames.

SpellActivation Overlay makes buttons glow when you have, for example, aMissile Barrage or a Hot Streak proc. This is a very useful andimportant addon, as you do not need to focus on your own buffs and have moretime to focus on fight-related mechanics. This addon is also great for PvP.

WeakAuras 2allows you to configure all types of warnings for yourself with a simple userinterface.

Due to its large user base, there is a huge library of auras already createdfor you to import at Wago WotLK. Makesure to check it out before starting your adventure!

A few examples of great WeakAuras for Mages are:

• Jazo - Dispel Text makes a soundwhenever you Remove Curse someone, so you know your decurse wassuccessful and you can decurse the next player;
• Time to Die adds a timer you canplace wherever you want on the screen that shows you how long your currenttarget will be alive at the raid's current level of DPS. It is very useful forfiguring out when to use your cooldowns.
• This WeakAura by Hildigunnur showsyou a list of targets you have threat on and displays your threat relative toyour tank. This will show you when you need to stop to AoE and isextremely helpful!
• Fojji - Mage Haste/GCD Edit showsyour cast times depending on your spec, your global cooldown, and your Hastepercentage. With this neat WA, you can avoid going below the global cooldownof 1 second. Fojji is a player from the top guild<Numen> and makes plenty of ridiculously good Weakauras, usefulfor many classes. Make sure to check out hisWeakauras page, where you will also find the very good Mage UI Weakaura,which gives you a great overview of procs like Hot Streak,Fingers of Frost, or Missile Barrage.
• Trinket Alertby Riece displays an alert when someone uses a PvP trinket.

The addonDetails has several functions. It can track everything that happened duringa combat period, which also means it is a damage meter, dispel or healing meter,death log, and can even be used as a threat meter. However, some people considerthe damage meter part to be distracting and it is up to personal taste if youwant to use this addon or not.

ItemRackallows you to configure and quickly swap between different sets of gear. This isincredibly useful for easy swapping between PvP and PvE gear!

While the previous addons dealt with general UI optimization, for raidingyou will want to have a few more addons to make life easier.

Boss mods are addons that warn you about boss abilities and give you liveadvice on how to handle some mechanics.Deadly Boss Modsis the most popular one.

Especially for Mages,ThreatPlates is an extremely important addon. It replaces the standard nameplateswith customizable ones, but most importantly, when you AoE in melee range withyour spells, the nameplate of an enemy you pulled aggro from turns red. Thisimmediately tells you to stop DPSing and/or use survivability cooldowns suchas Ice Block.

A threat meter is the single most important addon for Mages in all of Worldof Warcraft group PvE content. As a good Mage you need to keep track of thisand not overaggro. The TinyThreat plugin forDetails Damage Meter helps you to avoid overaggroing. You will always dealmore damage if you hold back with threat for a few seconds and stay alive,rather than showing the world how big you can critically strike and dyingafterward from an angry enemy hitting you.Autonomic has made anice configuration guide for this plugin.

Whenever you stand in a fire or any similar AoE effect,GTFO will warn youwith a sound. This is especially useful as a Mage, as you can justBlink out of any AoE effect. This small addon is literally alifesaver whenever things become hectic, as the sound effect saves you.

Whenever you do serious PvP, we recommend you to use a few very importantPvP addons. Playing Arena in WotLK Classic becomes a lot easier when you usethe following, very-useful addons:

LoseControlcreates an icon in the center of your screen whenever you lose control of yourcharacter (e.g. by getting Polymorphed). This icon will display theability that caused you to lose control and the effect's remaining duration.

LoCAis an addon similar to LoseControl. Do not let its name fool you, as it has beenupdated for Wrath of the Lich King Classic and remains fully functional!

sArena is one ofthe most useful addons for Arenas. It keeps track of CC effects in separateframes and even tracks diminishing returns. Whenever your enemies use a racialability or a trinket, this addon will also inform you about it. When youCounterspell, sArena displays how long your target is still lockedout of casting in that spell school. Playing Arena without this addon is liketrying to drive a car without wheels!

While these addons are not quite as impactful as the ones listed previously,they can still be helpful to certain people:

Bagnon shows youexactly which items you have on which character and can also be used to sortyour inventory, or to browse the inventory of your alts. This is especiallygreat if someone in your guild links an item and you want to know how manyof these items you have. Simply click the item link and Bagnon will give youthe answer.

By installingAtlas Loot WotLK Classic,you become able to browse loot from various sources(PvP, Raids, Dungeons, Crafting, etc.) inside the gamewithout the need to visit third party websites.

If you want an overview of guild activities, crafters, gear of individualplayers, or attunement status of friends in your guild,Guildbookwill give you all that information and is mostly automated. With the built-inguild calendar, you can also plan guild events.

For some actions in World of Warcraft, you do not need an addon; a propermacro will do. Macros are usually easy to write and can often help you cleanup your keybindings by turning multiple buttons into a single keypress.

For this reason, we recommend a visit to the Mage Macros page, so you canfurther improve your own skills and gameplay!