Better Name Plates (BetterNamePlates)

BetterNamePlates

BetterNamePlates is a ultra lightweight, opinionated nameplate addon.

Estimated Consumption in Combat:
RAM: 200kb - 1mb
CPU: 0.01%-0.2%

It provides clear combat information for Mythic+, raids, and outdoor content without the scripting systems, profile management, and extensive configuration found in larger nameplate addons.
It comes with a carefully designed appearance that works out of the box.

Install it, enable it, and play.

Features

- Clean, compact enemy nameplates
- Native friendly names styled for readability
- Role-aware threat coloring for tanks, healers, and damage dealers
- Distinct colors for casters, lieutenants, rare elites, and bosses
- Simplified nameplates for large groups of non-elite enemies
- Target highlighting with a brighter border and directional arrows
- Border-only mouseover highlighting
- Focus-target styling
- Raid target markers
- Enemy absorb shields
- Health values and health percentages
- Nameplate stacking for crowded pulls

Castbars

- Yellow interruptible casts
- Grey non-interruptible casts
- Cast direction matching Blizzard behavior, including channels
- Green marker showing when your interrupt will become available during a cast
- Spell icons, spell names, and remaining cast time
- Lightweight event-driven cast updates to reduce combat overhead

Auras

- Player-owned debuffs with duration timers
- Hard crowd-control effects applied by group members
- Support for stuns, disorients, roots, and silences
- Important enemy buffs
- Purgeable buffs your current character can remove
- Clear borders and readable duration text
- Automatic filtering of passive or unhelpful effects

Getting Started

1. Install BetterNamePlates.
2. Enable it from the AddOns menu on the character-selection screen.
3. Enter the game and press V to enable enemy nameplates.
4. Use /reload if the addon was installed while the game was running.

BetterNamePlates works in Mythic+, raids, outdoor content, cities, and other supported Retail content.

Commands

The addon intentionally offers very little configuration:

- /bnp — show the current nameplate dimensions
- /bnp width <number> — change nameplate width
- /bnp height <number> — change nameplate height
- /bnp name <number> — name scaling from 1 to 10 (default is 5)
- /bnp reset — restore the default dimensions

- /bnp change — secret command :D 

 

Design Philosophy

BetterNamePlates is not intended to be a general-purpose nameplate framework. It provides one focused visual design built around fast recognition of threat, casts, interrupts, crowd control, and important enemy effects.

If you like the profile, use it. If you want to configure every color, texture, script, and layout rule, a larger nameplate addon may suit you better.

Compatibility and Support

BetterNamePlates is actively developed for the current version of World of Warcraft Retail.

If you encounter a problem, please report it on the project page and include:

- The Lua error, if one appeared
- What you were doing when the issue occurred
- Whether it happened in combat, a dungeon, or the open world
- A screenshot when the issue is visual