The very first thing I do when setting up a new dual-boxing pair is to make sure all the graphic settings on the follower (in this case Yon) are turned to the lowest settings. I can normally bump it up a bit, depending on how bad the lag is (much lower now that we’ve switched from Cox to Fios!) but it’s always best to start low.

I also turn off every optional setting I can to reduce screen clutter. No nameplates, no names, it’s as user un-friendly as can be, but I’m not going to be using her screen much.

Then it’s time to start turning on the Addons. I do this one at a time, just in case there are any new conflicts between them. Nothing like a new patch to cause unintended chaos!

I used to run the first few levels with new toons without using any Adddons at all, but I’ve now come to rely upon them in order to give myself as much screen ‘real estate’ as possible (and nice visual reminders of when things are going wrong.) In theory, I could play using just Dominos and Power Auras, but I like the flexability. I do try and keep as few addons as possible on the follower, since that’s the program that will be suffering the most lag.

So for my new Hunter-Hunter pair I am using the following Addons, thankfully now all Patch 4.0.1 compliant!

[Links are to the Curse website, since that is the method I use for installing and maintaining Addons.]

Addons That Clean Up My Screen

• Dominos : Allows me to resize/reposition the action bars so that abilities that I use only as hotkeys take up as little room as possible.
• X-Perl Unitframes : Allows me to shrink the Unitframes down to a simple health and focus/mana bar on Yon’s screen.
• SexyMap : This lets me reposition the MiniMap and on Yon’s screen, shrink it down to a tiny blip in the corner.
• MoveAnything : Moves everything else.

Addons That Help Combat (Must-Haves)

• Power Auras Classic: This allows me to set giant glowing auras that flash in pretty colors to tell me I’m about to die. More on this later…
• Omen Threat Meter: While this is more useful in figuring out when I’m about to pull aggro from the tank in dungeons, it’s also nice to be able to keep an eye on how well the pets are holding aggro.
• Recount: Gives me an easy way to see if I need to tweak my rotation for higher DPS (Although I won’t be using it until later)

Addons That Help Non-Combat (Nice-To-Haves)

• Altoholic: This addon tracks all of my toons under the each account, which is a boon for keeping track of who has mail waiting, who has open auctions, and who has which tradeskills. Sadly I haven’t been able to figure a way to have it track the toons under both accounts…
• Auctioneer: Gives me the current market price for all the various drops — MUST HAVE!
• Postal: Useful for gathering the incoming money (or items) from auctions. I’m thinking of setting up a bank toon and having that one do all the auction house transactions, but for now I’ve got it on the leader for each pair.
• Gatherer: I plan on having Hyther be a herbalist and miner and Yon be the leatherworker this time around. Now that we can track flowers and stone at the same time, this will hopefully let me earn some bank whilst leveling.

Addons I Used to Have

• QuestHelper, alas, is no more.
• Prat 3.0 – I haven’t used most of the features for this Addon, so I uninstalled it. I may turn it on again later, depending on how things work out.
• Deadly Boss Mods – This isn’t useful until you start doing random dungeons, so I have it off for now