Throughout my years of playing World of Warcraft (WoW) and helping many people try and set up their characters for raiding, I have constantly regurgitated the basic information needed to help players improve their performance through the customization of their User Interface (UI) and general competitive philosophy.

While I have seen many guides that encompass singular and specific facets players should be covering when they want to step up their game in WoW, a user would actually have to know to research that specific information in the first place.  I have never found a comprehensive guide for “newbies” on all the things they should be covering when they want to start performing at a higher level- so I have decided to create one.

WoW has a lot of casual activities for players to enjoy, but when players want to improve upon their performance it is imperative that they learn to customize the game itself for success. Unfortunately, this means there is actually a lot of tweaking and set up involved for your game and character outside of what would be the normal “default” game settings. Below I have attempted to cover the most important things a new players should be researching and aware of when they first take the plunge into improving their competitive performance in raids.

Add-ons are files you can put in your game folder that can improve your interaction, customization, and overall game display with the game of World of Warcraft. While players think they can do without a lot of add-ons (and its true) the ones listed below are generally accepted as crucial to end-game play. Most should become essential to all players, while a few of these are more helpful to the specific roles of Healer or Damage (DPS) classes.

Below I have listed what are universally considered the best add-ons for raiding (based on popularity), why you should use them, and any relevant tutorials if needed.  Curse Client can help you manage these add-ons if you install it and will make it a one stop shop to keeping them updated and installing. You can search the add-on through this Curse client itself and auto install that way or simply click the name of the listed add-on (if you have Curse Client installed) and choose: Install via Curse Client.

NOTE: If multiple add-ons exist for the same function, I have listed names in order based on their popularity. Also, I have NOT listed specific class add-ons that might be deemed extremely important for your specific class. It will be in your hands to research your specific class (Covered in Character Preparation below) and find others you feel may be important. However, the add-on Power Auras Classic, if set up right, can eliminate the need for almost all specific class add-ons.

• Deadly Boss Mods or Big Wigs:  are boss alert mods with text, sound, and timer warnings. They announce and track the special fight mechanics that you should take notice of in party/raid encounters for survival purposes.  Without these mods you will most likely DIE as there are many things you have to keep track of and take action accordingly in a very short amount of time.  Do not skip this one, or you will suffer at your own (and the raid’s) peril…

• Decursive: is a cleansing mod intended to make affliction removal easy and effective for all the classes having this ability. Essentially small frames are created for every raid member and you just click it when it lights up and makes a sound to cleanse the effected player. It is that easy, that simple, that important for any cleansing class.

• Omen Threat Meter: provides accurate values of your group’s relative threat level on individual enemies, so that you can see when you’re in danger of pulling agro.  A no brainer to have as any class when anyone can pull agro and pulling a boss off of a tank can wipe a raid.

• Recount or Skada: are damage/healing meters that are also useful in providing other handy combat information such as: interrupts, cleanses, cause of death, etc., etc., etc., that you want to track or check. While not absolutely necessary, they make great toolsfor identifying where you lay in comparison to others of your same function, to see if your heals/dps need to be improved upon, and provide decent fight specifics information when you want to try to see “what happened” in an encounter.

• Power Auras Classic:  is a fully customized notification add-on that creates a custom graphic, animation and sound to alert you to specific things in game that you don’t want to miss (Blizzard recently added some limited “auras” on specific class procs, but its limited). Pretty much anything you want to be alerted to in the game such as buffs, debuffs, spell alerts, timers, cool-down abilities, etc., etc., etc., can have a custom aura, or the actual ability/spell icon, set to notify you.

While these can be also be used for special boss fight alerts you absolutely don’t want to miss, they are EXTREMELY helpful with monitoring and maximizing your specific class and role.  Basically, these personal auras should be set to monitor ANYTHING that causes you to move your eyes off of your character, can kill you if you don’t react, will help monitor your rotation, or increase your raid output (special cool-downs available, special proc has occurred, your debuff is wearing off boss, buff is wearing off raid member, etc.).

NOTE: In my opinion, while not a necessity, this is by far one of the best mods available for the game; unfortunately it has a bit of a learning curve due to its advanced customization. However, do not be turned off by its complexity!  Here is a good tutorial, but to start, I advise you to search your specific class power aura’s that others have already created and import them (a simple cut and paste job).  Once you get used to it, you can tweak things later and play with it to suit your preference. I promise- you will LOVE it and wonder how you ever did without it once you master it!

• Grid or VuhDo or Heal Bot: are Party/Raid Unit Frame Add-ons, for their simple function, that offer compact, movable, and highly customized unit frames. I suggest these over ANY other user frames as they also allow you to customize all kinds of information you want see and how that information is displayed specifically on the entire party/raid.

Others might use other unit frames but these are a MUST for healers and raid leaders.  I do advise everyone to use these over others offered anyway as their tracking of party/raid buffs, debuffs, threat, etc., provide some very key information in certain encounters.  I personally recommend Grid due to the extreme customization, but the others are considered a bit more intuitive to start out on.

NOTE: Don’t confuse the function of Power Auras and these unit frames. Power Auras is for self monitoring, while unit frames will help monitor the entire party/raid for things you might want to track on them overall. Also, for healers these party/raid interfaces should also be used in tandem with mouse over macros covered in the macro section.

• Dominos or Bartender4: are action bar mods give full customization to your action bars in terms of placement, size, display, etc. If set up appropriately, you should have a cleaner looking UI that allows you to see more of the area around your character and is fully customized to what you want to do with your bars and buttons. While not a necessity, they are still highly recommended to clean up and customize your display.

NOTE: You can see Domino’s in action on my UI screenshot posted under the Power Auras section..

• Quartz Cast Bar: is a cast bar that, in its most important function, monitors your latency (the information transfer gap between your computer and the server) and displays this on your cast bar as a red zone. While it also has a melee swing/auto shot timer, a customized focus target cast bar, and other nifty features, this is an absolute must have for DPS casters with channeled spells as you don’t want to “clip” them and lose that damage.

Keybinding is the process of setting your keyboard keys, mouse buttons, or both (Depending on preference) to activate your spells/abilities, as opposed to clicking on them with your mouse cursor. The worst habit a player can develop is clicking their common spells/abilities as it is slower, takes away eye focus on your character, and greatly decreases you maximizing output during movement encounters.

You are still better set up with the default game setting that use the 1-5 button (still not the best outcome, but hopefully your at least using modifiers to expand upon the keybinds) then clicking on your spells/abilities.. But, you could still be set up better by training yourself to use the buttons closer to your fingers.

Here is a decent guide to keybinding, but if you don’t like the article’s suggested keybinds (there are many ways to go about this people!) , or don’t understand it, research more and find what you like- then get it done and go practice till those keys are drilled into your head.  I can’t stress the importance of using keybinding as it is a critical function that all classes need to configure, learn, and use! It will take a while to get used to but, once you are able to play your character without actually looking at the buttons, you will see a world of difference in your game play.

It is also important to note in this section something that conflicts with the idea of keybinds being the way to go; the idea of using your keyboard keys for “turning” movement in game. This is the WORSE thing a player can do and all players HAVE to turn with the mouse, period. Why you argue? You simply can’t keyboard turn anywhere near the speed of a mouse turn. Optimize yourself and save on your repair bill! Go do a favor for yourself right now and remove the turn function from your keyboard: under the “Keybinds Menu” scroll to “Movement” and change to strafe left to “A” and strafe right to “D” and start using that mouse to turn (It already works like that you know). You will thank me for it later.

NOTE: Keep in mind you have the option to obtain a MMO mouse with many side buttons to keybind your abilities to. Many players will swear by these mouses, but I feel the keyboard and mouse together are the best option. After all, you have four fingers on your keyboard you can move around quickly but only one thumb on your mouse hand- every millisecond counts in WoW!.

In World of Warcraft a macro creates a command shortcut by assigning the commands to a clickable icon that you can store with other commands on your action bars. There are hundreds of commands for your character to act on and some are more efficient when used together- all in one click! Setting up macros for the commands you use often, and together, can help save time and become more efficient.

For instance; using your cool downs, trinkets, and other special abilities all in one button- That’s a win, right? You should certainly learn how to make a macro and start to look into the ones that benefit your class most.

ALL HEALERS should use Mouse over Macros for healing spells. These basically allow you to hover over a player frame and cast your heals without actually having to take the half second to click on them.  This also means you can leave your target tank or the boss for monitoring while you are casting those more efficient heals!

I have linked common class macros below, and you should peruse them carefully to see what ones would benefit you best.

Druid  Hunter   Mage  Paladin   Priest  Rogue  Shaman  Warlock  Warrior  Death Knight

It would be nice to assume that every player that wants to raid understands the specifics of their class in terms of, talents, spells/abilities, rotation, stat priorities, best available addons etc., but that is simply not the case. Whether through lack of knowledge, information, understanding, urgency or pure laziness, many players don’t even take the time to truly research and understand even the general aspects of their class- let alone the specifics.

It is the specific details of how to use your class that will make or break your ability to perform well and it is important that you understand how your class works in every way possible.  All the questions you could ever have are answered repeatedly for you on the internet. In fact, if you have searched and found any information at all on raid preparation these general class guides would have been the most commonly available to you.

Now, as there is so much information, who do you trust? My simple answer is: Nobody.

When you really want to understand all the important factors needed of your character you will research in a multitude of spots- including in game testing on your own character. You will do this for elaboration, clarification, and a more overall understanding of how your class works. THAT is the only way you can be truly try to understand all the intricacies.

That being said, there are few trusted information sources where people actually crunch the numbers ( and I hate numbers) and do most of the theory crafting for you. My favorite is the Class Mechanics forums on ElitistJerks.com, which usually cover all the classes, individual talent trees, stat priority, gems, enchants, add-ons that benefit your class best, and many other key information bits that you never even knew you needed.

For the most part, the information in these forums is aggressively researched and argued to a point that it can ALMOST have no fault. Some class forums are more comprehensive than others, but overall this is a valuable source of information that should most certainly be looked at any time you are doing research on your class. I have linked you to all the specific class forums, which you should bookmark for future use.

Druid  Hunter  Mage  Paladin  Priest  Rogue  Shaman  Warlock  Warrior  Death Knight

There are also GREAT websites that offer other valuable information specific to each class, but they number too many to list. This will be your biggest assignment on additional research.  First, go search the internet and find the sites specific the class you are playing. Determine the ones that look the most detailed and valuable and add that bookmark to cross reference with ElitistJerks.com.

For a raid to be effective it is imperative that all raiders possess the attitude, knowledge and commitment level needed to get things done.  It is only with a truly well prepared team that competitive players cant get anything done. It’s cliche, but true that you are only as strong as you weakest link- especially in the content of today. Don’t be that weak link and prepare by doing the following:

• Bring Item Enhancements: Bring ANYTHING that allows you to do your role better: Pots, Foods, Reagents, Flasks etc. (and plenty of them!) If there is something in game that can increase the effectiveness of your class it is your responsibility to bring it to raid so you can perform to the peak of your capabilities.

• Research, Research, then Research Again!: If you are going into a new fight that you do not understand FULLY, it is an absolute must that you prepare yourself by watching multiple videos and reading multiple strategies.  Why multiple? Because usually there are quite a few ways to down a boss and you want to be knowledgeable about all the ways others might want to try. More importantly, you will gain different impressions and understandings by reading and watching multiple encounters.

While researching, it is also important to note that you should actually read the descriptions of the abilities and spells that the encounter will use; don’t just rely on some random person’s description.  Oftentimes, people don’t understand key facts of the fight mechanics because they don’t do the adequate amount of research. This will cost teams hours of wipes, huge repair bills, and an overall negative experience- all because they didn’t take the time to fully understand the intricacies of a boss encounter.

• Remove Distractions: When you do not pay attention and are distracted people die, raids wipe, and down time (a morale killer) is increased. You must have your undivided attention on the raid.  Most encounters nowadays require intense movement and instant reaction. Only you can react to mechanics in a timely manner and, only you are responsible for your undivided attention to the raid and your team.

• Be Dependable: A raid is most effective with a core set of dedicated people. When you don’t show up or come late without warning you let all of your teammates down. Prove your committed not just by showing up, but by showing on time and being communicative if something is going to interfere with your attendance.

DISCLAIMER: This guide is meant to cover the basic set up and customization a player will want to look into when they want to improve their own functionality and output, help promote survivability, and maximize their ease of game play. It is meant to provide resources to the tools available and promote a general understanding that only with full customization of a player’s user interface can a player even attempt to reach their top performance level.

If you do not understand any of the ideas illustrated in this guide, or why they are useful, you may need to do additional research and decide for yourself. I strongly feel that all of these components are vital to becoming a better player, but ultimately it will be up to you to decide what your complacency level is and how good you want to be. The balls of initiative and follow through are always in your court. Happy Raiding in WoW!

Image by Shawn Tommello, coffin-comics.com
Image by Greyfoo, http://www.livejournal.com
Image by Blizzard Entertainment, http://www.wowtcg.com