In Shadowlands, Castle Nathria is the first raid we’re looking at. Making the WoW Shadowlands Raiding Add-ons all that more important. It’s long, exhausting, and more challenging than any other opening raid ever before. Making Blizzard has innovated some of the boss fights, introduced new mechanics, and opened ways for players to beat them. The basic WoW interface is pretty outdated for this modern gameplay, which makes it very hard for even the most veteran mythic raiders to figure things out. Not to mention the newer players! That’s why you need these top 10 addons for raiding in Shadowlands!
When it comes to add-ons in World of Warcraft, they’re really essential parts of our gameplay. Sure, we can roll on without them, but they enhance and optimize so many different aspects that they’re simply too valuable. Addons have the power to transform your screen from being confusing and useless to being intuitive and practical. And having such a strategic interface can give you so many advantages while you’re raiding in World of Warcraft!
But even if you’re not a dedicated raider and have never had a serious “guild run”, you still need some of these addons (if not all) to orient yourself better in the game. Things like DPS meters, compact action bars, and even simple UI setups are fundamentals of playing WoW in general. And the first time you enter a raid on any difficulty besides the Raid Finder, you’ll see just how much you depend on knowing where everything is at any moment! Because the raids in WoW are so intense, you must make your screen match your role, class, spec, and playstyle! The internet has a wide variety of add-ons, each of which serves a different function. Various add-ons that are used to stream movies and TV shows. The Kodi app lets you stream movies, TV shows, music, and other types of media. For more details, look at this page for a streaming add-on.
Let’s check these top 10 add-ons for raiding in Shadowlands and see each one in detail and what it offers to you!
The Top 10 Add-ons for Raiding in Shadowlands
10. Quartz
We start with an add-on that isn’t particularly tied with raiding in WoW Shadowlands, but it’s used by almost any serious raider in the game. Quartz is an entirely new cast bar, designed to give you better visibility and clarity when casting your spells. The basic version is extensive, with large letters and numbers, and with an icon of whatever spell you’re casting at the moment. As a bonus, Quartz also displays your latency in a red portion of the cast bar, so you can track it during a fight.
Quartz is also great for tracking your enemy’s casting. Raid bosses can have some devastating abilities that can one-shot you and make you wipe. So being able to see those incoming dangers clearly is a must. Quartz allows you to follow your focus target’s casting too. So if you set an important add or a healer in your focus, you can record their cooldowns and see what they’re up to at any moment.
In the interface options, you have the freedom to tweak a lot of these things and to make it your own. Almost everything can be increased or decreased in size and moved around the screen to fit the rest of your interface. You can also set unique profiles for different characters and adjust for specific situations like a party group or raids.
Download Quartz here.
9. Exorsus Raid Tools
Exorsus Raid Tools is the go-to add-on in Shadowlands of every guild raid leader and guild masters. But make no mistake, this addon is godsent for anyone who participates even slightly in a raid group. It does multiple jobs excellently, but its primary one is to give you a clear overview of everything your group members have or do.
We’re talking about talents, gear, pets, abilities, and much much more! You can see whether your compadre has eaten his food, taken his flask, or activated his rune. You can follow whether all of the classes have distributed the correct buffs across the group. But most importantly, you can follow the cooldowns of everyone’s abilities, whether that’s an interrupt, a dispel, or a battle rez. And tracking these things during a boss fight is essential for crafting a strategy on the go-to and reacting as a raid leader.
We know that it might be too daunting to set up Exorsus Raid Tools the first time you download it, but you can check this video to help you figure things out!
Download Exorsus Raid Tools here.
8. MaxDps Rotation Helper
As a DPS, you have only one job – to output as much damage as your class can do. And MaxDps Rotation Helper does a wonderful job of keeping your core rotation in check and suggesting the optimal way to press your abilities. The addon is actually a little circle on your screen that highlights the next spell that would be the best choice to activate.
The MaxDps Rotation Helper is frequently updated, and it’s already one of the most downloaded addons for Shadowlands. It supports every DPS spec in the game, and it can be a pretty handy tool to have in all sorts of situations!
Download MaxDps Rotation Helper here.
7. Healbot Continued
If you’re a healer in a raid, your job is probably far more stressful. You have to keep everyone alive while making sure you have enough mana throughout the fight. And if sometimes this seems like too much, then Healbot Continued is here to save you.
Healbot Continued allows you to heal yourself or your raid group members just by clicking on their frames. In the settings, you can keybind different buttons on your mouse to perform various actions. For example, if you’re a Druid, your left click can be a Regrowth, your right click a Rejuvenation, and your wheel button a Swiftmend. You can also combine keyboard’s buttons and mouse clicks if you need more quick actions, like SHIFT + left click or ALT + right click. Or if you have multiple mouse buttons, you can bind everything on them!
This add-on gives you speedy reactions in the middle of the fights, and it can be mandatory for raiding in Shadowlands!
Download Healbot Continued here.
6. Bartender4
Everybody knows Bartender4. It’s one of the most used addons in WoW overall, simply because of all the freedom, it gives you on the thing you see the most – your action bar. Bartender4 is a fully customizable action bar that completely changes how your interface will look. And when we say “fully customizable,” we mean to the smallest of details!
With Bartender4, you can line up your abilities in any way you want, put them in any corner of your screen, and even set different profiles for each of the classes you play. This addon’s whole point is to make your user interface personal and unique, which also means optimal for raids. If you don’t like the base design of Bartender4 when you first install it, just type /bt or /bartender to open up the settings menu and then make everything however you like!
Download Bartender4 here.
5. Threat Plates
Threat Plates is another addon that modernizes the second thing we see most often – enemy healthbars. The basic ones in WoW give little to no information about the boss or the add you’re facing, so Threat Plates is a must-have addon for raiding too. First, it makes the healthbars bigger, it colorizes them accordingly, and it displays classes’ icons on each friendly or enemy player.
In the base version, if a mob’s health bar is green, that means that you’re not pulling aggro towards you. If the health bar is red, then that mob is coming to attack you. But, these colors can all be changed to your personal choice.
Threat Plates is the perfect add-on for combat. Period. It displays all of your DoTs and debuffs right on top of your enemy’s health bar, with numbers to keep track of their durations. And, if you’re playing a Rogue, Druid, or a Monk, you can set Threat Plates to display your current combo points or chi near the mob’s health bar. This saves you a lot of time because you no longer have to look in the left corner of your screen to check the number of combo points, then decide whether to spend your finisher move.
Download Threat Plates here.
4. ELVUI
ELVUI is easily one of the most complex add-ons to set up. That’s because it is an addon that completely changes how World of Warcraft will play out for you. ELVUI converts everything on your screen to look a lot more modernistic than the classic look of the WoW interface. It changes the place of almost everything, but if you don’t like the game’s base look, then this will be a blessing for you.
Right at the start, it gives you a cleaner action bar and larger frames near the center of the screen, so you don’t lose them out of focus. Then, it gives you a new chat, new ways to access menus, and new features to place on your screen, like combo points, chi, mana, and class-specific resources. In other words, you can only have ELVUI as an add-on, and you’ll be completely fine.
It will take you a bit of time to figure things out, but if you’re struggling to make it work, then check out this video.
3. Details! Damage Meter
A DPS meter is straightforward – it records the damage you and all your raid members are doing at the moment and throughout the fight. But that’s not all. It also works for healing, interrupts, or mitigating damage, which makes it great for every role. Even further, it shows which of your abilities, talents, and procs did the most damage, how often and how hard they hit. And the best DPS meter addon is Details! Damage Meter.
Although Details! Damage Meter is a very simple addon in principal, it is also one of the most important addons for the game. There is almost no one that either doesn’t use it or doesn’t find it useful while raiding. It’s packed with different features, designs, and skins, so you can choose whichever you like the best.
Download Details! Damage Meter here.
2. WeakAuras
If you’ve ever watched a single streamer and noticed those big icons on their screen, they’re the major cooldowns of the classes they’re playing. This is precisely what WeakAuras does for you – it displays all the critical information you want to know in the game. Party wide buffs and their cooldowns, interrupts, resources, procs from your gear… literally everything.
The add-on works on a template system, where you choose different templates to set your own abilities. But if you’re creative, you can make completely new profiles and track things however you want. There are also pre-set loadouts on the internet to help you get going if you’re entirely new to the addon. Luxtho’s WeakAuras is probably the best, and he has fantastic designs for each class and spec.
Download WeakAuras here.
Download Luxtho’s WeakAuras here.
1. Deadly Boss Mods (DBM)
Deadly Boss Mods or DBM is the main add-on for raiding in World of Warcraft Shadowlands. It focuses solely on the raid boss’s encounter and equips you with all the vital information about how that fight will go. For example, suppose a boss is about to cast a deadly ability. In that case, DBM will literally yell at you to move out of the way or use a defensive cooldown to save yourself.
In Castle Nathria, in Shadowlands, you won’t be able to remember all phases and all the mechanics of every fight. So Deadly Boss Mods will be your most reliable backup in all those situations. It’s actually a pretty big addon, with many customization options and features that can make or break a raid. There are multiple voice options and special screen effects, all designed to help you defeat the boss.
Also, DBM works for all dungeons and world bosses too. So no matter what you’re doing, it will help you
Download Deadly Boss Mods here.
Final Thoughts
Add-ons are very personal. Not even two players can agree on the best add-on or the ideal way that add-on should look. But if you just install these 10 choices and don’t touch them, they will still give you a significant advantage over the players that don’t use them.
Heading into the WoW Shadowlands, you’re going to face a lot of new problems and difficulties, especially while raiding. Having the right interface setup is important for succeeding, and getting ahead of the curve. Our top 10 WoW Shadowland add-ons are based on the value they bring to the raid. And of course, there are hundreds of other extensions that can boost your guild run too. But these are the fundamental add-ons of raiding in World of Warcraft, and if you’re not using them, then you should start now!