World of Warcraft, just like a lot of other games, has support for so-called addons, which extend functionality of the game. World of Warcraft is on market for five years already and during this time, literally thousands and thousand of such addons were created; you can surely live without most of them, but some are for serious gaming almost essential. One of these essential addons are surely boss mods addons and I'd like to tell you few words about them today.

Boss mods addons are kinda special category of addons, players usually use one of them (in most cases, DBM) and they don't want to hear about alternatives. They are probably afraid that “alternative” automatically means “worse alternative”, but that's anything but true. Let me show you!

If we're speaking about boss mods addon, we have basically three addons to choose from: Deadly Boss Mods (DBM), BigWigs and Deus Vox Encounters (DXE). Let's have a look at what they offer.

Deadly Boss Mods

As I mentioned earlier, DBM is surely the most popular boss mods addon - if we look at Curse and , we can easily find information that DBM was downloaded at least 17 milion times. I'm sorry to say that, but when something is “most popular”, it does not mean it's automatically also “best”, and Internet Explorer is not the only prove of that. DBM doesn't give you a lot of things to se, so if you're perfectionist (like me) and you want every addon to perfectly fit the rest of your UI, DBM is probably not the best choice. For example, at least on my computer, DBM keeps ignoring the existence of LibSharedMedia library, even though DBM authors declare support of this library. You also can't set timer border at all.

DBM supports both raid and dungeon bosses, and it even contains support for battlegrounds: you can clearly see when exactly will the stinky Alliance capture mine in Arathi Basin, or when their flag will appear again so you can steal it again in Warsong Gulch.

Advantages

• All in one solution, both PvE and PvP; 5 man, 10 man and 25 man
• Easy to use

Disadvantages

• Too little things to set
• Way too many useless functions (history of attempts, ...)

BigWigs

I was using using BigWigs for many months and I have to admit, BigWigs was best boss mods addon for me for long time. Basic package contains only raid bosses timers, but you can download its sister addon called LittleWigs for adding support for 5 man dungeons. BigWigs offers you a bit more things to configure than DBM, and it's strictly aimed for PvE - if you like battlegrounds timers from DBM, you may want to install Capping addon. What saddens me quite a bit is absence of boss health frame. It is also solvable by installing another addon (Magic Targets in this case), but I feel like this is something boss mods addon should be able to do.

Advantages

• Rich configuration
• Timers accuracy

Disadvantage

• Missing boss health frame

Deus Vox Encounters

And finally my little personal winner, Deus Vox Encounters. Similarly as BigWigs, DXE also works only in 10 and 25 man instances, and similarly as DBM, DXE also can show boss health frame. What makes DXE totally unique addon is support for… arrows! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, arrows are what you want from boss mods addon, you just don't know that yet. DXE can show you, which person with Burning Bile is closest to you and which way to run to him/her if you have Paralytic Toxin on you. DXE can show you who is going to be target of Icehowl's Trample and which way to run to avoid it. DXE can show you the shortest way from Fel Inferno. Your group is going to love you. And your guild, too. Okay, I might be overplaying, but you have to admit - this function is just majorly cool.

Advantages

• Arrows!
• Best configurability
• Perfect accuracy

Disadvantage

Eek... I have no idea, seriously.

Conclusion

The main goal of this article was to show that DBM totally isn't the only boss mods addon available. Of course, the most important criterion in choosing the right addon for you is still only and only the fact if the addon suits you or not. Even the best addon is worthless if you can't use the provided information.