World of Warcraft is truly an amazing game and its massive success proves just that. However, there are a few gaps in the base game, from a stale UI to clunky action bars and bags. These issues are by no means game-breaking but do leave something to be desired from a quality of life perspective. 

Luckily, the game’s community quickly rose to the occasion and took it upon themselves to fix the issue, creating "addons", or mods, for the game to solve and simplify these issues. With WoW Burning Crusade Classic on the way, let’s take a look at some of the best addons to make your Warcraft life easier. 

What are World of Warcraft addons?

Addons are user-made extensions or mods to World of Warcraft. They alter existing game elements or add useful features to improve the all-around gameplay experience. This can be just about anything: from improving the map, adding in-built damage meters, or even overlaying a game of Tetris straight into WoW. 

Much like Classic, The Burning Crusade is also fairly barebones and essentials-only, lacking player-favored tools like in-built quest helpers, dungeon maps, and more. Fortunately, addons can add all that and more. Here’s how to add them to your game and a list of some of the most important ones. 

How to install WoW addons 

Installing addons to your World of Warcraft game is actually very simple. There are two main ways of doing it.

The first is to install a WoW Addons tool, like CurseForge, and simply download the program and use it to install addons straight into your WoW TBC Classic folder. 

Alternatively, you can also do it the old-fashioned way. Head to a WoW addons website, like legacy-wow, download your addons and paste them into your WoW addons folder. To find your WoW Classic addons folder:

• Open up your Battle.net app
• Head to Settings at the top right
• Click on Game Settings
• Navigate to World of Warcraft Classic.

The best WoW TBC Classic addons

There are a ton of amazing addons for World of Warcraft and they fit to fill just about every need you could have in the game. Here are some of the most important ones to have:

Quest helper — Questie 

First on the list and definitely one of the most important addons is a quest helper, a feature still lacking in TBC Classic. This means finding and completing quests can be quite a chore and in some cases, the in-game quest text is no help at all. 

To solve this, you can use an addon named Questie. It shows available quests on the map, tells you exactly where specific quest objectives are, and even highlights exact requirements. It’s very lightweight and customizable too and will make your TBC life a whole lot easier. 

User interface — pfUI / Bartender

Another very important add-on category is the user interface. While there’s nothing wrong with Blizzard’s classic interface, it can be better. There are two recommended addons here. pfUI is a more advanced option, which lets you completely redesign the entire game’s interface to suit your needs. 

Meanwhile, Bartender is the simple option that focuses on just the action bars. One of WoW’s biggest problems is that you kind of just run out of action bar space and end up having to use the weird vertical bars right on the edge of the screen. Both addons let you redesign this, with pfUI going above and beyond. 

Unit frames — Xperl 

Unit frame addons are somewhat an extension of user interface addons. If you decide to use pfUI, you won’t need Xperl, but if you want to keep things simple, a combo of Bartender and Xperl is ideal. 

Xperl focuses on just the unit frames: your and your enemies HP bars, as well as your group’s if you're in a party or raid. This addon allows you to move the unit frames where you want them and allows you to edit their size. It’s very handy considering that by default they’re locked at the top left of your screen, away from everything else. 

Map — Cartographer 

Map addons are simple but effective. The default WoW map is not ideal: it takes up the entire screen, it’s pretty clunky, it hides areas you haven’t explored (even if you’ve been there on other characters), and there are no maps for dungeons and raids.  

Cartographer is one of many addons that fixes these issues. It allows you to toggle between a full screen or a smaller map, lets you see the entire world straight away, and shows you maps for every dungeon or raid. 

Boss encounters — Deadly Boss Mods

If you plan to head into dungeons or raids, you’ll need an addon for boss encounters. The best option here is the famous Deadly Boss Mods. 

This addon tells you all of the abilities of every boss in the game and displays timers on your screen so you know what’s coming and when. It’s an absolute lifesaver as it will (almost) guarantee you aren’t caught out by any boss mechanics. A must-have if you’re aiming to attempt the harder content in TBC. 

Threat meter — Omen 

Threat meters are another vital addon for dungeons and raids. Much like in Classic, managing your threat so the tank can keep aggro on the boss is vital in TBC. 

Installing an addon like Omen will make doing this a whole lot easier, as it displays everyone’s threat in a customizable window. It even warns you if you’re close to over-aggroing and causing a lot of trouble for your group, making it the perfect tool for threat management. 

Damage meter — Recount

Damage meters are mostly “luxury” addons. You don’t really need it, but it sure is fun to see how much DPS you’re putting out and show off to your friends when you out-damage them in a fight. 

Recount is a great option for this, as it’s very lightweight and simple to use. Much like Omen, it displays your stats in one very customizable window. 

Auction House — Auctioneer 

Moving away from dungeons and raids, it’s time to look at an auction house addon. Honestly, the auction house is a complete mess in Classic TBC. The layout is clunky at best, each item takes up a ton of space, and you can barely even sort auctions. 

Auctioneer completely redesigns the auction house, creating a smooth and easy-to-use layout. It compacts items so you can easily compare dozens at a time, and allows you to sort by a range of prices, from buyouts to bids, and even the best overall price, regardless of stack size. It’s a great quality of life tool and will make using the auction house much more enjoyable. 

Bag Extension — Bagnon 

Last but not least comes a bag extension addon, with our choice being Bagnon. This is a very simple addon that does a very simple job - it combines all your bags into one. 

Again, it’s a strictly quality of life addon, but a very welcome one. Instead of having to sort through five different windows, you can combine all your bags into one and make sorting your bags easy. It can also store data between characters, meaning you can easily find out how much gold your alts have, or if they have a specific item, without having to relog.