World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King is the continued experience of the Classic WoW adventure. As such, it’s important you decide what you want from that experience and make choices to support that decision. In this context – we’re talking addons. Whether you’re a a grizzled veteran returning to your glory days in vanilla, or a “Cata Baby” diving into what you had missed out on, the decision to use addons is an important one.
This guide is my recommendation to creating an experience that feels familiar to the interface and quality of life we have in today’s retail version, while also respecting the classic experience. Please feel free to add or remove any addons from this list you feel don’t match what you are trying to get out of your WOTLK Classic experience! I recommend using the WowUp addon management tool to install and keep addons up to date.
Must-have addons:
AdiBags – inventory management. Single, customizable window for your inventory and sorts by categories.
AtlasLootClassic – dungeon / raid loot tables. Comprehensive list of loot tables for all dungeon and raid content. Extremely helpful for targeting gear.
Attune – visual attunement guide. Charts to show current attunement progress per character for each raid. Less useful in Wrath, but includes a nice feature to announce Achievements to guild.
Deadly Boss Mods – boss timers. Timers for all dungeon and raid bosses. Also has other extensions you can install for activities like PvP Battlegrounds.
Details! – damage meter. Heavily customizable damage meter to help gauge the performance of you and your party or raid.
ElvUI Classic – modern UI overhaul. Rehauls much of the UI into a more sleak, modern design, as well as introduces a lot of QoL functionality.
GTFO – hazard notification. Yells at you when you’re standing in things you shouldn’t be – like fire.
Questie – quest helper. Adds quest icons on map for location reference.
Leatrix Maps BCC – world map overhaul. Cleans up the world map, adding areas of interest and some options to make it more usable.
TomTom – coordinates arrow. Cleans up the world map, adding areas of interest and some options to make it more usable.
WeakAuras – flexible buff tracking. Well known buff tracker. Leverage wago.io for a large selection of community snippets! Luxthos has a great suite of WAs for each class, worth checking out!
Nice-to-have addons:
GatherMate2 Classic – map markers for gathering nodes. Adds markers on world map for nodes of gathering professions.
MaxCam – increased camera zoom. Automatically increases max camera zoom distance, without needing to run a script.
MikScrollingBattleText – customizable floating combat text. Adds ability to group and style floating combat text into a much cleaner presentation.
Speedy AutoLoot – efficient looting. Removes the loot window for auto looting and reduces the amount of time it takes to loot items.
TradeSkillMaster – economy/trading. Notable gold-making addon to help you earn gold, as well as other quality of life functions like vendor price.
What’s Training? – leveling information. Lists training skills as you level, great for knowing when to head back to town.
Wowhead Quick Link – easily search wow-head. Provides in-game shortcut to go directly to the Wowhead page for any items, characters, achievements, etc. This is particularly useful for those who frequent Wowhead.
Preview
If there’s anything other questions you have, please don’t hesitate to ask – otherwise, here’s a screenshot below for a general idea of what my UI looks like. Enjoy Wrath (again)!
Updated for Wrath Pre-Patch 3.4.0 on 9/6/2022!