The great auctioning addon debate

It's the debate I've heard for a long time, which auctioning addon is "the best"? Well, first we need to understand that there is no "best" auctioning addon. It all is dependent upon what you want, what is best for you may not be the best for someone else. So, what are some of the options? And how do they stack up?

1. Auctioneer (release and beta versions can also be found at their website here)

Auctioneer is the original auction house replacement addon. It is a large suite of addons which all work together to help you watch the auction house, keep a database on prices, and help you find deals. Auctioneer is often used just show what an item's value is, however very few people unlock the full potential of auctioneer. Through the use of custom searches and batch posting and many other features auctioneer allows gold makers from those with a few copper to millions of gold to get more out of the auction house. Along with these advantages however, auctioneer comes with two major drawbacks, size and speed. With the whole suite installed, the auctioneer package has a large footprint. In addition, scanning and storing item data with auctioneer is slow to say the least. Because of these major drawbacks, many have decided to move onto other auction house replacement addons.

For those who want a smaller footprint but a few less features, there are two main choices I have used.

2. Auctionlite 

Auctionlite brings in clean tabs for buying and selling, as well as the ability to scan to store item price data. It supports tooltip information for item pricing and setting favorites for items you buy frequently That's it, if you want an extremely streamlined way to buy and sell goods on the auction house this here is your cup of tea.

3. Auctionator

For those who find auctioneer to large and auctionlite too little, your happy medium will probably be auctionator. Auctionator brings in all the basic functions from auctionlite as well as a few other features. It keeps a history of all items posted (also present in auctioneer) and allows you to make new posts based off previous prices. In addition it allows you to create shopping lists for more customized searching and purchasing and best of all the full auction house scan takes around 30 seconds in comparison to a 5-10 minute scan for auctioneer.

My personal preference? I run both auctioneer and auctionator on my gold making characters and just auctionator on the others. Are you using the default auction house window still? What other addons are do you like for the auction house? Stay tuned for some posts on my primary addon for making gold Trade Skill Master.

Valrot

Top Five Addons I Can't Live Without

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome everyone to my first blog post. Now that we have that out of the way... I would like to dive right into the top five addons I can not live without. I plan to do a series on how to configure these addons in the future but for now here is the list for those of you tinkerers out there who want to try there hand at them.

5. Auctioneer:

The best auctioning addon I have found to date. This addon stores prices of items and makes posting items on the auction house a breeze. Batch posting is one of the greatest advantages to auctioneer that many other auction addons don't have. You would be surprised how much money you can make by using the search functions of this addon correctly.

4. ArkInventory:

Great way to organize your inventory. Allows you to break your bags into separate components for different types of items. As well as adding a search function. On top of all of this it allows you to view your bank or the inventory of your alts.


3. Quest Helper:

The way to get things done, period. This addon shows you where to go to finish those quests, gain that experience, and level that toon of yours. The common other choice to fill this role is Carbonite. I personally find having two minimaps to be annoying and found myself hiding the Carbonite map more than I looked at it.

2. Bartender4:

An action bar mod used to customize the look of your spells, abilities, and macros. I have found this addon to be the best balance between ease of use and functionality. One of the great things about addons such as these is the breeze of setting keybinds. No more searching through the menu trying to choose the right button to bind for the right spell.

1. Xperl Unit Frames:

The top addon I could not live without. I simply love the information that is shown as well as the clean style it appears in. There is less clutter and less empty space in awkward places compared to the original unit frames provided by Blizzard. Although others may push for addons such as Pitbull or AG_Unit Frames I find Xperl to take the shortest time to set up to reach a playable settup.

*Edit*
After trying out Pitbull I prefer it, however it takes a long time to configure.

What are the top five addons you have found you just could never live without?

Look for videos in the near future of how to configure these addons and some ideas of how to make your interface clean and neat. Thanks for reading.

Mike