Damage meters in WoW Forever: your options and a quick setup

A damage meter tells you two things: how much you did, and what killed you. The second one is the reason to install one even if you never look at the rankings.

The three names you'll see

• Details! Damage Meter is the one most players use. Lots of display modes, a death log, per-spell breakdowns, and plugins.
• Skada Damage Meter is lighter and plainer. Good if you want numbers without options menus.
• Recount is the old favourite.

As of launch week only Details! has a Forever release; Skada and Recount don't yet. Each addon page says whether the author has a Forever build and when we checked, and we update them as releases land.

A five-minute Details! setup

1. Install and log in. Details opens a small window with a setup wizard; let it run.
2. Pick one window for damage done and, if you heal, a second for healing.
3. Shrink the windows to five or six rows. You only need to see your group.
4. Set it to show the current segment during combat and the overall data afterwards.
5. Learn one right-click: clicking a player opens their spell breakdown. That is where the useful information lives.

Use the death log

After a wipe, open the deaths display and click the first person who died. You see the last hits they took, in order, with amounts. Nine times out of ten the answer to "what happened" is in the first death, not the last.

Keep it honest

Meters measure output, not who played well. A tank holding everything still and a healer keeping a bad pull alive will both look ordinary on a damage chart. Use it to improve your own play first.