Wildstar: Top Addons for Launch

Hello and welcome. There’s been a lot of buzz about WildStar addons lately, so I thought I’d cover some of the best quality addons that will make your launch experience with WildStar significantly better. Before you begin if you haven’t installed any addons before, head on over to curse.com and download the Curse Client which allows for mostly painless installation and maintenance of Wildstar addons (sometimes it won’t recognize an addon has been updated).

Bijiplates

No WildStar addon discussion is complete without Bijiplates, a very customizable replacement for nameplates. It can be tailored to show as much or as little information as you want. Just install it – you won’t regret it. To people saying “the Bijiplates dev is dropping support” well yes, unfortunately he did but he passed ownership on to another capable dev who will continue supporting and iterating on it.

JunkIt

While it may possibly be made irrelevant soon after launch as Carbine might implement it into the stock UI, JunkIt will automatically sell all your loot under a certain quality threshold to a vendor. Never again will you have to hunt through your bags to make sure you sold everything.

SCastBar

Did you know WildStar had a cast bar? It can be pretty hard to tell, as it’s basically a toothpick under your character portrait. SCastBar gives cast bars the respect they deserve with fully customizable bars for player, target, and focus.

Interruptor

You just got new fancy cast bars… what else would you need? Well, Interruptor specifically focuses on your target’s cast bar and interrupting their casts. By displaying their interrupt armor below, it easily lets you know how many CCs you’ll need to stop that cast. In addition, once you stun them and their health bar goes purple, it will tell you exactly how long they’ll remain in that “moment of opportunity”.

NavMate

WildStar’s maps are lacking – no doubt about it. NavMate makes things a little more bearable by adding coordinates, waypoints, datacubes, journals, and path markers to your minimap. The best secret feature though, is that it allows you to mute the taxi driver for a nice peaceful trip through Nexus.

IconLoot

IconLoot is a notification system that gives you a more detailed stream of the loot you collect. It will also flash a notification if you collect an item above a certain rarity or pick up an item that starts a quest so you don’t miss it.

CustomFoV

While you can do this with a console command in chat, this addon makes it a little bit easier. WildStar’s default field of view is 50, which is quite low and makes it uncomfortable to play for extended periods of time. I didn’t know the FoV was the problem until I set it to 75 with CustomFoV and just like that, eye fatigue was gone.

GalaxyMeter

A fairly robust damage meter – if you have any need of one this is the best out there – highly customizable and exceptionally detailed readouts and reports.

ThreatMeter

Up to date threat readouts; includes alerts if you rise too high on the threat list. It doesn’t have a crazy amount of features, but that’s due to the API – so I doubt we’ll see much better than this for the time being.

SpaceStash

Adds an extra degree of customization to your bags, while making the UI more visually appealing. Allows you  to change the size of the icon and even can replace JunkIt with autoseller capabilities. Note that if you’re using another inventory addon (such as ItemPreviewImproved) there could be some conflicts.

AuraMastery

An addon I need to spend some more time with, AuraMastery is incredibly deep and allows for the visual tracking of almost anything in game. While not for those looking for a plug and play solution, I’ve seen some very impressive UIs from those who took the time to learn it.

WhisperCatch

Currently, whispers in WildStar can be a little screwy, especially with Account Whispers. While this doesn’t solve the problems, it makes life a little easier by keeping a list of the recent people you’ve messaged and reply to them just by clicking your name – much improved over having to type our someone’s name, in my opinion.

TrackMaster

Draws a moderately useful line on the ground to whatever you’re targeting. Can also go to quest objectives and other world objects. The real power of this is leveraged with its Subdue module that tracks your weapon when you’re subdued. Currently, subdue is a pretty poor mechanic in my opinion because in the hell of combat, your weapon doesn’t stand out very well and the game does a terrible job of letting you know you’re subdued. However, this might be making it a little too easy – so use at your own discretion.

Movable Frames

A great all around customization tool that allows you to move and hide individual pieces of the UI. For instance, moving the hazard indicator or the dash popout have been two things I love this addon for. Also great for hiding some of the “UI chrome” around the action bar, called Window Art.

AMPPurchased

Very useful for your first playthrough, as it will add information about where to go to unlock each amp to your amp tooltips.

BetterQuestLog

Your quest log simplified, BetterQuestLog does away with all the stuff about tasks and story/region/zone quests for a minimalist take on the quest log.

CandyBars

If you want a nice, minimalist action bar setup, then look no further than CandyBars. Updated very recently to squash some bugs and add much needed features, there’s now no tradeoffs between it and the stock action bars. They’re also much more customizable and clean up a lot of space! Just make sure you also have a replacement for your classes resource bar as some of those look pretty weird without the normal bars.

PotatoUI

While still in the developmental stages, this ambitious addon aims to replace a large amount of your combat UI. Namely, your player/target/focus portraits, cast bar, resource display, and sprint/dash. If you’re unhappy with the default character portraits I’d highly recommend this.

GotHUD

This is a very well developed addon that takes the concept of a heads up display even farther. Reminiscent of ArcHUD and others from WoW, GotHUD allows you to display any resource as a bar around your character. It’s not for everyone, but if you’re curious, definitely give it a try as it’s quite customizable, boasting 25 different style bars to choose from as well as a myriad of other options.

Grid

Additional Unit Frames for healers! While not the most useful if you’re just leveling these can come in very handy in battlegrounds or raids, plus a huge revision is in the works that promises to make it better.

WhereYouAt

If you’ve ever grouped in Wildstar you probably know how much of a pain it is to find actually find your party members if they aren’t right by you. WhereYouAt addresses this huge oversight by displaying a hint arrow towards your mates so you can save some time not having to blindly wander around trying to find them.

ClassicQuestDialog

Wish WildStar questing was more like WoW? Well, wish no more with this addon that combines all the dialogue trees you’d go through when accepting a quest into one larger window. In my experience it works pretty well and even got me to read a bit more of the quest lore then when the normal UI.

Scrappy

Scrappy provides an actual interface for Salvaging items, simply click the button and a window pops up listing all salvageable items in your inventory. Currently doesn’t play nice with SpaceStash so if you have that installed you’ll have to manually open the window with /sp however I’m sure the devs will get that worked out.

Jabbithole

Jabbithole is aiming to be the “wowhead” of Wildstar and with this addon I can easily see that taking shape. This addon collects information about the world as you level and then allows you to upload it to their database. If you’re looking for an easy way to help the community look no further!

TheZone

This one’s a little bit on the questionable side. Basically, it gives you a list of all players in your zone, from both factions as well as display all players nameplates within about 300 meters. It can also display whether the players are in combat or not and then track them with a hint arrow. The effect of this addon on world PvP is unsettling to say that least. Personally, I hope Carbine disallows the API from gathering information about the opposing faction, it ruins the surprise of world PvP. Having a list of all players in a zone would be fine but anything past that could be harmful as it’s now tremendously easier to either gank or flee from a ganker.

Movement Addons

Instead of covering one addon here I’m going to list the handful of awesome addons that change how your game controls. Some people have preferences for one but you really just have to see which one works best for you.

• Deadlock Extended
• Steer
• KeybindFreedom
• CombatMode (autohotkey script)
• LeftButtonFire (autohotkey script)

Looking for a Guild?

We are happy to announce <Crux> will be the official WildStar guild of the LagBot Network, a network for games and their gamers. <Crux> is a community-centered guild with a focus on helping each other improve and have a good time playing WildStar. Here, you’ll find players ranging from progression raiders to casual weekend players, all with a goal of building long-lasting relationships and enjoying the hell out of WildStar. Whether you’re into PvE, PvP, crafting or doing laps around main cities – you’re more than welcome. Register and toss us a message letting us know you’ll be joining us on our forums at forum.lagbot.org!