Addon Spotlight: Community Choice 2
Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience -- the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same! This week, the community's voice has been heard again, and addon suggestions are raining from the sky.
Welcome to another exciting addition of Addon Spotlight! This week, we head back to the inbox to check out what the community thinks the WoW community at large should know about, if you already weren't aware of some of these excellent addons. We run the gamut today, from action bar and encounter mod replacements to helping you get you and your army of alts ready for the coming Cataclysm. Let's take a look at what your peers wanted you to see.
Macaroon
Macaroon is a very robust and powerful addon recommended by a lot of people during the first and second Addon Spotlight Community Choices. Macaroon takes a different approach to action bars, allowing you total customization and basically making every action button a macro in some way or another. You can have as many buttons on the screen as you want, and macros have a generous 1,024-character length as the limit. Stance bars allows you to set up bars that change with your stances, perfect for warriors and especially awesome for druids. And did I hear Button Facade support? I think I did!
What do you have to say about this addon:
Hi!
I would like to share with the community this wonderful bar/macro addon:
Macaroon.
Despite the long configuration time, I love it because it allows you to setup macros outside the Blizzard interface, which I don't like and at the same time to drag it to button (in opposition to bind pad for example). Moreover you can associate any actionid to a button allowing it to create a custom vehicle bar. Having stance bars with layouts that can change with the stance etc is awesome. The only actual drawback now is that it does not have yet a performance macro catalog but I hope it will change soon.
"Feel the power of the macro side..."!
Onéira, EU-Elune
Macaroon is pretty awesome, and if you want a little more flexibility with your action bars, the community recommends Macaroon.
Download Macaroon at [Curse] or [WoWInterface].
Altoholic
With Cataclysm on the ever closer horizon, managing alts, heirloom items and professions across all of your characters might get a bit hectic. Altoholic is a fan favorite, requested in my inbox by a ton of people! Lots of people requested addons that manage their lives before the Cataclysm release, so Altoholic seemed like a great choice from the community.
Altoholic is basically a huge database of all of your characters. You can search for items and see who has what. Each of your characters professions are also available to peruse. Gold, /played time and reputation levels for all of your alts are quickly and easily accessible. The addon even gives you recommendations for where to level up, what items to craft to level trade skills and so much more!
Here's what you had to say about Altoholic:
Aka'magosh Mat!
How can you have no already talked about Altoholic? Not a day goes by that this addon doesn't save me time, going through my immense amount of tradeskilling alts. It is pretty much the greatest addon ever. I have been using Altoholic to keep track of all of my heirloom items (I have every. single. one.) and knowing where each is allows me to shuffle them around to up and coming alts. Thanks for what you do!
Liz (H-Frostwolf)
If you're one of those altaholics, then you need Altoholic.
Download Altoholic at [Curse] or [WoWInterface].
Lunarsphere
Another addon you jokers couldn't stop requesting was Lunarsphere, an interesting take of an ability browser. Hailing from the "sphere" category of addons, Lunarsphere acts as a repository for all of your class' abilities. Arranged in an interesting spherical layout, Lunarsphere allows you to customize every
button on the sphere to your liking.
Ten buttons surround the main sphere, with an alternative extra 10 buttons per main button out from the original sphere. This allows a menu-type system for the main buttons. A mage, for instance, could have a portal menu appear off of one of the side main buttons, revealing their full compliment of portals and teleports.
Lunarsphere is modular to an extent, allowing you to pick and choose what to load to increase performance if needed. The addon also features many Automaton functions like selling grey items and restocking reagents automatically. This addon is a real package, full of functionality in a good-looking skin.
Here's what Gnilyas had to say about Lunarsphere (also, Macaroon -- see how much you love that addon?!):
Hey Mat – Gnilyas from Shattered Hand EU Horde here.
Apart from the usual suspects like Outfitter, Omen, Healbot, etc, and not sure if you've had a chance to see my previous email, but can I suggest Macaroon!
For bar and macro management, I find it superb, as I said last week or so.
Then there's Lunarsphere, which to me is the de facto sphere addon and works for all your toons out of the box, particularly good at sorting out new bits as you learn them whilst leveling.
Not very eloquently or persuasively put on either front, I'm afraid, but I'm relying on your vast addon experience to have heard about these before and just needing a nudge to look them over properly... or your journalistic curiosity and integrity ;)
Cheers,
Gnilyas
Download Lunarsphere at [Curse] or [WoWInterface].
Deus Vox Encounters (DXE)
We here at the Spotlight always love a good alternative to the king of any particular addon category, and Deus Vox is no exception. Many people recommended DeusVox as a replacement for Deadly Boss Mods or BigWigs and wanted the word to get out about their favorite encounters addon.
Deus Vox Encounters is a comparable and capable alternative to Deadly Boss Mods (the current king of encounter addons) and BigWigs Boss Mods (its happy, also comparable friend). Deus Vox has been said to run lighter than its counterparts, but I personally haven't seen a huge difference. DXE also has a little more customization than Deadly Boss Mods and what many consider to be an easier to use setup menu. Again, your mileage may vary, but it's never a bad thing to have some excellent options out there.
Let's hear what you had to say:
Mat,
Check out DXE, Deus Vox Encounters. Much lighter weight and more responsive than DBM. My entire raid group has almost switched from DBM to DXE. DBM does heroics and DXE doesn't, but as far as raiding goes... DXE is king. Food for thought.
-A
Download Deus Vox Encounters at [Curse].
Thank you all for the emails and the suggestions. Community Choice Addon Spotlights are always so much fun. I hope you all will have another great batch of selections next time I decide to do this. In the meantime, you don't have to wait for Community Choice time to submit an addon. Want to see something on the Spotlight? Send me an email, post haste, to mat@wow.com.
Addons are what we do on Addon Spotlight. Have you started using Satrina Buff Frames yet? I told you it was cool! And remember, Addon Spotlight is fueled by viewers like you, so if you have a mod you think we should take a look at, email Mat at mat@wow.com.
