World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

Player vs. Player (PvP) combat is the endgame of choice for many World of Warcraft players. The thrill and excitement of going up against another player can be exhilarating and rightfully so. However, the enjoyment can sometimes be bogged down by interface issues, data tracking (trinkets/cooldowns), and having to keep track of just too much information. That's why our Best PvP Addon award goes to Gladius.

Gladius

Gladius has remained the PvP addon of choice for a long time now. It's so well recognized that Blizzard integrated the unit frames directly into the game. While the default UI doesn't have all of the features, it is a big statement whenever Blizzard sees the value of your work. Gladius goes a few steps and a giant leap forward, though, including cooldown/trinket tracking and oh so much more.

Once setup (and you'll definitely want to setup Gladius and customize it a bit) it's your one stop shop for arenas. Announcements tighten up those random pickup group arenas that you hop into right before the weekly reset and don't use voice communications. The PvP trinket tracker helps demystify when a player's trinket is going to be off cooldown and removes the need to count silently in your head.

One of the neat more recent features is the diminishing return tracker, which lets you know the diminishing returns on various crowd control effects while you're in the arena. This is absolutely critical for some teams that rely on abilities that heavily affected by diminishing returns. That kind of easily accessible data is what really sets Gladius apart.

If you run the arenas and don't use Gladius then odds are you're putting yourself almost at a disadvantage. That's the one negative thing I can add about the addon, it's so good that you pretty much are stuck in a situation where not using it actually hinders you. Of course, the addon just tracks data and makes it easier to keep up with it. It's not that players can't keep track of that kind of data themselves, it just removes the fatigue of tracking it and makes the game experience a lot more enjoyable.

So if you run a lot of arenas and you're looking for the best PvP addon of 2012 then don't look any further than Gladius, the one stop shop for PvP addons. It's our pick this year for the best PvP addon and you won't regret installing it.