a place for posts to go

UI Revamps (replacing and customizing stuff to improve the UI):

• ArkInventory - consolidates your bags into one bag that you can then filter into minibars (very useful)
• Bartender4 - the go-to action bar manager
• Bison - my preferred buff/debuff/other buff manager
• Carbonite - I disable half the stuff this has (the social trackers, the minimap replacement, etc) but I can’t live without its alternate map, tomtom emulation, and above all its quest tracker. Go through the options and see what you like. (I recommend installing this first or last and customizing then just because it changes so much)
• Chinchilla Minimap - set it to square, be a pro
• Mapster - map overhaul, makes it actually usable!
• OmniCC - puts actual numbers on your buttons instead of the tiny circular cooldown countdown
• Prat - revamps the chatbox to be much more useful
• Quartz - casting bar revamp adding tons of useful information (install it and you’ll love it)
• Grid - a unit frames revamp. There are tons out there; pick one that fits your  personal aesthetics.
• teksLoot - tiny addon that turns the loot roll window into something much easier to read
• Titan Panel - adds a bar to the top and/or bottom of your screen to which you can add one of a gazillion plugins giving you at-a-glance information. Browse Curse for what looks neat. One of the ones I recommend is this Call To Arms tracker that alerts you (with optional sound) when you can queue and get yourself a goodie bag.

Awareness (alerts, etc):

• Cork - a lightweight reminder addon for buffs and other important things. Very worth having - otherwise you might go without Mark of the Wild for 30 levels (not that I’m talking from experience *cough*)
• Deadly Boss Mods - a must-have if you do dungeons or raids. Shows alerts for all the different boss gimmicks that you’ll come across. Here’s the plugin for older content.
• Decursive - a little minivisualization of the people in your party that are cursed, with a dynamic macro to cure them. Not a huge fan, but it serves its purpose
• GTFO - sends off sirens and noises if you’re standing in shit you shouldn’t be standing in
• Tidy Plates with Threat Plates plugin - a must-have replacement for the healthbar/nameplates over mobs.

Information (references)

Completionism (stuff you probably don’t need unless you’re like me):

• _NPCScan + Overlay - adds alerts and map marking paths for rare mobs
• Archy - archaeology profession helper
• Collectinator - tracks your vanity pets and mounts while pointing you to the ones you’re missing
• Factionizer - tracks reputation levels, shows what quests and/or turnins you can use to boost it
• Overachiever - adds more info to the achievement window and adds completion status to various tooltips
• Professor - tiny addon that just checks your artifact completion
• Rarity - tracks rare drops and gives you odds + your farming time. install if you hate yourself
• TabardAddict - going after the tabard achievement? this tracks which ones you’ve equipped

Miscellaneous:

• Addon Control Panel - lets you manage addons while logged in
• Auctionator - if you sell stuff on the AH, you want this. Make sure to set all your undercuts to one copper! Screw being nice!
• GatherMate2 - a must-have if you have a gathering profession. Grab the data plugin to import all the nodes in the game and the Routes addon to dynamically create a route to farm them! [guide to routes]
• MageNuggets - useful if you’re a mage or other caster class, but is kind of cluttered. Check it out and see if you find it useful.
• MageManaBar - near-mandatory if you’re an arcane mage but useless for any other class.
• MogIt - if you’re interested in transmog at all, this is the best equipment reference
• Panda - very useful if you’re a jewelcrafter, enchanter, scribe, or alchemist (i might even be forgetting a profession or two)
• YayMounts - lets you bind a button to a dynamic mount summon (chooses whatever’s best for your current area and includes randomization and vanity pet summoning)