My Guide to not sucking in World of Warcraft

I guess there has to be a disclaimer. Because truthfully, if you find this guide helpful, then no single blog post is going to make you play well. So I guess I need to break this into sections. Some sections will be further discussed at future times.

1. Addons
2. macros
3. Leveling
4. Roles within a Party
5. End-game
6. Class-Specifics

For starters, let me cover Addons.

1. Addons
1a - Yes you need them. If you think you don't, then you are obviously so full of yourself that you shouldn't be reading this at all. The reason they are necessary is that Blizzard did not have an infinite budget when designing the user-interface and you do not have an infinite amount of time to decide on any action in-game. You need information presented to you in a more timely efficient manner. So let me go over the absolute essential addons that you should not go without.

- Carbonite : I can't stress this enough. I've seen people try to argue questhelper or tourguide over Carbonite, but there simply isn't an adequate replacement for it. There are so many features. It takes time to learn them though. Don't combine your mini-maps either. Get used to using two mini-maps, at least while you level. You'll find it there is so much information if you combine them, that it will frustrate you. Note, you can use tourguide in tandem with Carbonite (and I highly recommend you do that, and do it starting at level 1). What does Carbonite do for you? Well, it helps you search through inventory, combine friend's list, has a built in quest helper with tomtom arrow, has a punk list for people who aren't carebears and play on pvp servers, and best of all it will highlight the regions on your map (and mini-map) where a quest item drops or can be found. It is absolutely invaluable. Go ahead and remove it if you want, but don't blame me when I blaze past you in levels and end up doing 2x as much damage as you in a party simply because I wasted less time.
http://www.carboniteaddon.com/

- Arkinventory : replaces your bags into a single large bag, that you can organize by profession, or item type, or level, or whatever. You can even create custom code rules which can organize your stuff. It is a god send. It takes time to figure out. Don't wimp out in the first week of usage. Figure it out and don't give up.
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/ark-inventory.aspx

- Power Auras: An absolute must-have addon for anyone who intends to actually be good at the game. I can't tell you strongly enough how powerful this addon is, if you simply learn to use it. So many abilities will "proc" a buff for a few seconds, or will give you a very tiny window of opportunity to use an ability for zero-cost or double damage or whatever. Power Auras is the tool to use to help you visually identify these little nuances in-game. Can you play without it? Yes you can. But I bet I can train a monkey to out dps, out-tank, and/or out heal you if insist on playing the game caveman style (i.e. without power auras).
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info8579-PowerAurasClassic.html
http://powerauras.wikispaces.com/

- Recount: How do you know if you are doing something wrong if you don't have a metric to measure it against? In english, how do you know if you are traveling at the speed limit if you refuse to install a speed-o-meter in your car? Recount is the metric for personal performance. There is no alternative. Use it, love it, learn it, and become better than you thought possible.
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/recount.aspx

- Gearscore: I almost didn't include this addon. It's more of a supplementary tool to Recount. Say you are in a group, and you are in a damage dealer role. Let's say on a given boss fight you have done on average 3000 damage per second (shown by recount nonetheless). But some other guy in the group is laughing at you and did 5500 damage per sec. Gearscore will evaluate their gear and you can compare it to yours. It is a quick and easy way to see if the damage difference is because they are much better geared than you, or if you simply suck and need to "learn2play". I suspect eventually gearscore will go the way of the dodo, but for now it's a decent tool for self-evaluation.
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/nvgearscore.aspx

- Deadly Boss Mods: Do not play the game with other people without this. Simply do not. Don't join groups. Don't do battlegrounds. Don't invite anyone to a party unless they live with you. You will embarass yourself and likely wipe the group repeatedly without it. Download it and watch for the warnings and danger signs that it gives.
http://www.deadlybossmods.com/

- Omen: a threat meter, there are others, but make sure you have a good one (and no, the built-in one by blizzard sucks and in no way counts).
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/omen-threat-meter.aspx

Right now you are thinking "ZOMG so many addons" but you have no idea. There are so many more out there. I could recommend 50 more, but the above mentioned addons are what I consider to be essential. Without them you'll level slowly, perform poorly, and likely cause wipes and be put on plenty ignore lists of others. If you don't care about being good at what you do, then by all means ignore these recommendations. I may have forgot others, but will add them.

Also, don't be too worried about trying to keep up to date. I recommend you grab the curse client from curse.com and have it help you update your addons for you. I don't pay for it, so can only update 2 at a time, but it is easy to do and I update almost daily with a few clicks of the mouse before logging in. Wowinterface supposedly has an alternative, but when I used it, it nearly ruined my wow installation. Wowmatrix may still work, but some sights block it now.

There is no reason to suck. Using Carbonite with Tourguide should let you get levels fast. You should be able to get 5 levels per hour the first 10 levels. After that 2 levels per hour to 20. And then 1 level per hour to 40. Eventually going to 1 level per 2 hours, and so on and so forth. It should only take a couple days to hit level 30, playing just a few hours a night. There really is no excuse to be level 30 after playing for years.