First, you will need to download AddOns to customize the various elements of your UI. You may only be interested in changing your action and health bars. For this article, we will look at one or more of the most popular AddOns for action bars, unit frames, nameplates, map, and bags.
The AddOns I cover are just a few of the many options available; however, they should serve as a good starting point and you can experiment with others along the way. By far, the most popular action bar AddOn is Bartender 4. It is extremely easy to use. From there you can turn off the default artwork, unlock the positioning, change the size and number of buttons and add many other customization options.
You can change the size, padding and number of icons by navigating to the bar you want to customize in the left menu. More than any other category of AddOns, there are many different types of unit frames and nameplates. Conversely, nameplates are the visual indicators of health that appear above NPCs or other players in the World. For unit frames, there are many good options.
While I will only mention 2 of them by name, there are many others which are tailored for the types of content you play. For instance, if you are a healer who raids, the Healbot or VuhDo unit frame AddOns are extremely helpful. The examples above are the default appearance for the respective AddOn. In a future guide, we will dive deeper into the various customizations you can make using unit frame AddOns.
For this guide, I will show you a basic example of a Shadowed Unit Frame setup. For this example, I disabled some of the default units so that I only have a player, pet, target, party and boss unit frame. The end result is minimalistic health bars located directly under my character on either side of my spell bars created with Bartender.
In addition to unit frames, you can also customize your nameplates which are the health bars that appear above enemies. There are several different AddOns which offer great looking nameplate replacements. To help you decide, here is an image of the default appearance of each AddOn. I personally prefer Threat Plates , but any of these is a great option. Fortunately, there is very little setup required for most nameplate AddOns. If you want you can customize them, but I find that the default settings work well enough for most content.
In addition to changing the shape of your map, you can customize the border with various auras and animations. You can also add coordinates to your map in the AddOn settings. Here is an example of a few cool map borders you can select:. The last area of your UI to rework in a basic customization is your bags. While there are many AddOns for this purpose as well, the most popular one is Bagnon.
It is clean, easy to setup and allows you to see all your items in one searchable window. Great, we have talked about how to customize action bars, unit frames, nameplates, the map and bags. Putting it all together with the inclusion of Details! Damage meters , I created the rough custom UI shown below in a matter of about 15 minutes. While it is not the most beautiful UI, it is certainly an improvement over the default UI as my spells and health are now located closer to my character.
With relatively few AddOns, we created a new UI from scratch. As mentioned, there are so many different UI altering AddOns available that it would not be practical to cover them all.
However, there are several other popular ones which I think are important to at least mention here. They are:. OmniCC — Adds countdown text to spells, items and abilities that are on cooldown. Improving your user interface setup can significantly improve your gameplay or in-game experience. What makes this addon even more important for raiding is that for some encounters, it only takes 1 or 2 people to mess up some mechanics for the whole raid get wiped.
Learn your fights and make sure this addon is installed, at all costs. A lot of other MMOs require third party apps to be run in the background to track damage and healing done, but in WoW we can have real-time info on our damage and other metrics displayed right on our screen.
There are a few addons similar to Details! Damage and healing meters are a very useful tool for self-improvement, as well as seeing how your party is contributing to the engagement. Weak Auras are a fantastic way to customise your UI, relative to your spec and class. It allows you to show cooldowns of important abilities right on your screen, as well as buffs, debuffs, and any other info which may be important to you.
Any spell in the game is configurable, including boss abilities. Out of the box, so to speak, Weak Auras can look a little daunting. However, many people have uploaded their own Weak Aura profiles to the internet, which are easily imported by pasting their unique code into the addon. A few months ago, the de facto method for installing WoW addons was through Twitch's app, but that's no longer the case. Back in November , the mods section of the Twitch app was retired and replaced with a different program called Overwolf.
A lot of people don't care for Overwolf, but fortunately, there's a ton of great alternatives. We have a separate article breaking down the different WoW addon managers , but if you're looking for the simplest and best one, our recommendation is WowUp. It's easy to use, intuitive, and even let's you install some UI overhauls like ElvUI that you couldn't previously find on Twitch.
Alternatively, if you'd prefer to install your addons manually without the need for extra software, it's a fairly quick and painless process. Using the manual method means you'll have to keep track of addons yourself and follow the steps above every time an update is available. That can be tiresome. If you plan on running more than a couple of addons, it's probably worth your while looking around for an addon manager to save you valuable time that could otherwise be spent in Azeroth.
Now that you're all set up, let's take a look at some great addons to try. All of these addons except ElvUI in some cases can be found via most addon managers, but we've also linked to sites where you can manually download them.
Bartender 4. World of Warcraft's hotbars are easily the most outdated part of its user interface. By default, they're quite small, can lack crucial information, and you don't have a whole lot of customization options. Enter Bartender, an addon that gives you full control of ten action bars including their position, size, and even transparency. If you're starting out in World of Warcraft as a brand new player, this should be one of the first mods you consider.
Before long, your hotbars are going to fill up and become an annoying mess. Bartender lets you set keybindings and position them perfectly for an optimal setup. More advanced users will appreciate the ability to program custom macros that can change the state of your action bars too. Deadly Boss Mods. The other major addon that you shouldn't be without, Deadly Boss Mods makes World of Warcraft's complex boss fights a little more approachable by providing real-time alerts to keep you one step ahead.
With this addon and its other versions for older expansions installed, you won't have to painstakingly memorize every boss fight. Alerts and camera effects will warn you of dangerous attacks or give you simple instructions. Raid and dungeon timers are synchronized between other members of your group, which keeps everyone on the same page even if one player accidentally disconnects.
What I really love, however, is a tiny feature that auto replies to in-game messages while you're in a boss fight. This optional autoresponse will let whoever whispered you know you're kinda busy and tell them how much health the boss has left so they know if things are going poorly. Alternative: Bigwigs. Bigwigs does pretty much everything that Deadly Boss Mods does but is less intrusive by default.
This is a great option if you're not a fan of DBM's often loud and immersion-breaking warnings. World of Warcraft's inventory system is kind of a mess in the default version. Instead of having one large inventory, you have separate bags that store all the stuff you find while exploring. It's cumbersome to deal with, but Bagnon makes this nightmare go away.
It replaces the entire inventory window with one large bag that stores all your items, but its other features are what makes it a must-have.
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