RareScanner

What is RareScanner?

RareScanner is an addon for World of Warcraft that detects whether a vignette has appeared in the minimap. A vignette is the little icon added in the 5.4 patch that appeared as a skull for a rare, or with other icons for events and treasures in your minimap. Since 7.0 patch it has appeared as a star.

RareScanner displays a button in the middle of your screen with the name of the rare found, a little miniature of said rare and a bar with the loot that this rare drops. At the same time, it plays an alarm sound, so it can warn you when you aren't at the computer. When you click the button it will add a skull over the NPC and target it making it easier to find it.

On your map you will see icons for every rare NPC, treasure or event that you discover, showing extra information about the entity on a tooltip, such as loot, achievements information or helpful notes.

If a rare NPC has several spawning spots, you can click on the skull to see all those points on your map.

Some NPCs or treasures require more steps to find or spawn them. RareScanner includes guides to help you out. If you read a blue text indicating that the NPC/treasure has a guide, right click on its icon to see the extra icons in your world map.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does it work?

RareScanner reads your minimap looking for vignettes, which will work every single time even if it has warned you already for one NPC. At the same time it will only warn you when the NPC or object is in your minimap range. As for the current patch (9.0.2) there aren't vignettes in the pre-Pandaria zones, so this addon won't localize older rare NPC or treasures/events using vignettes.

Starting with RareScanner 7.0.0 the addon supports every zone before Pandaria using nameplates:

1. VERY IMPORTANT: You have to enable enemy nameplates in order to let the addon scan for rare NPCs.

2. Nameplates have a maximun distance of 20 yards/meters, so you will have to be pretty close to the NPCs in order to be found.

3. In older dungeons the addon cannot update the last coordinates where you found the rare NPC, so you might find the rare NPC in a different place where the skull appears on the map. 

Can I add custom NPCs?

Yes! go to RareScanner options panel -> Custom NPCs and add as many NPCs as you want, but! take into account that these NPCs will be scanned using their nameplates (because they won't have a vignette), so you must enable showing nameplates or the addon won't alert you for them.

Where is the option panel?

You can find it under "Interface" -> "AddOns tab" -> "RareScanner". 

How does the map interface work?

Since the addon's conception, Blizzard has added different types of rares to the game with every expansion, so this addon implements different solutions to help you track rare NPCs for every scenario.

Filters: In the option panel you can find different filters that apply to rare NPCs. If you have filtered a rare, individually or by zone, you won't ever see its icon on the minimap.

Individual filter: You can filter specific rares directly from the option panel or using the button "-" that appears on the main button when you find a rare.

Zone filter: You can filter a whole area so you won't get alerts in that zone or icons on your map.

Time seen: You can chose how long you want to keep the icons displayed on your map since the last time seen. For example, a treasure found 10 minutes ago might not be there anymore, so you can chose to hide treasure icons after 3-4 minutes. You have the same solution for rare NPCs.

Permanent rare NPC: Some rare NPCs keep being a rare after death. Once you find it or someone else finds it, you will see its icon on the map. The icon will remain after death, unless you filter that rare or hide the icon manually.

No permanent rare NPC: Some rare NPCs stop being a rare after death. Once you find it or someone else finds it, you will see its icon on the map. The icon will disappear once you kill it and you won't see it again with that character.

World quest rare NPC: This rare NPC will stop being a rare after death, but it will return as a rare with a world quest reset. Once you find it or someone else finds it, you will see its icon on the map. The icon will disappear once you kill it, but it will show up after a world quest reset, if you or someone else finds it again.

Achievement entities: There are several rare NPCs, treasures or events, that are part of an achievement. These icons will be shown constantly independently of their time seen, because 99% of them respawn in less than 1 minute, so they should always be available. You can access information about the achievement moving the mouse over the icons.

Map legend

Rare NPCs

 RED SKULL: Indicates a rare NPC that you haven't discovered yet. With every new build, the addon includes a database of rare NPCs extracted from Beta or Test servers. As is common in Blizzard, some of those rares won't see the light of day in Life servers, so this is a way to distinguish existent rare NPCs from non-existent.

 YELLOW SKULL: Indicates a rare NPC that is part of an achievement, and you haven't discovered yet.

 GREEN SKULL: Indicates a rare NPC that is part of an achievement and that you have discovered. As soon as you complete the achievement it will turn into a NORMAL SKULL.

 NORMAL SKULL: Indicates a rare NPC that you have discovered.

 PINK SKULL: Indicates a rare NPC that you just found.

 BLUE SKULL: Indicates a rare NPC that is dead.

 LIGHT BLUE SKULL: Indicates a friendly rare NPC.

Containers/Treasures

 RED CONTAINER: Indicates a treasure that you haven't discovered yet. Containers are trickier to autohide once they are opened, so if you open one and the icon remains on the map, you can hide it manually following the instructions in the tooltip.

 YELLOW CONTAINER: Indicates a treasure that is part of an achievement, and you haven't discovered yet.

 GREEN CONTAINER: Indicates a treasure that is part of an achievement and that you have discovered. As soon as you complete the achievement it will turn into a NORMAL CONTAINER.

 NORMAL CONTAINER: Indicates a treasure that you have discovered.

 PINK CONTAINER: Indicates a treasure that you just found.

 BLUE CONTAINER: Indicates a treasure that is already opened.

Events

 RED STAR: Indicates an event that you haven't discovered yet. Events will keep being displayed even after completing it, so you will have to hide the icon manually following the instructions in the tooltip.

 YELLOW STAR: Indicates an event that is part of an achievement, and you haven't discovered yet.

 GREEN STAR: Indicates an event that is part of an achievement and that you have discovered. As soon as you complete the achievement it will turn into a NORMAL STAR.

 PINK STAR: Indicates an event that you just found.

 BLUE STAR: Indicates an event that is already completed.

How does the navigation system work?

If you find two or more rare NPCs/events or treasures in a row, the addon will display the navigation arrows to help you navigate between them. This tool is specially helpfull when using Tomtom's waypoints, because it will help you to switch between one entity and another without losing track of them. As soon as you jump to a previous or newer entity, if you have enabled Tomtom support, the waypoint will switch to the current entity destination point.

When does it reset the history?

As soon as the button hides, every entity found will be erased, losing the whole navigation history. It doesn't matter if you close the button manually, or using the autohiding option.

Tips for a better use

There are a couple of options under the RareScanner/Display configuration panel to customize this system:

Block display of new entities if one is already shown: When enabled, if the main button is displaying an entity in your screen, it won't update to a newer one automatically. An arrow will appear allowing you to access the new entity whenever you are ready. As explained before, you should enable this option if you are using Tomtom's waypoints and you don't want the addon to automatically jump to the latest NPC before you reach the previous one, otherwise it will keep updating to the latest entity found, but allowing you to navigate to the previous ones using the "back" arrow.

Autohide button and miniature: If you are using this feature, it's a good idea to increase the timer to 40-60 seconds, or even disable it if you don't want to lose your navigation history for the session or until you are ready.

Toggle navigation: If you don't like this feature you can disable it.

How does the loot feature work?

In the options panel you can apply different filters to the loot you want to see on the loot bar under the main button and in the tooltips on your map. You can filter it by quality, category, transmogrification, collectibles that you don't have, etc. 

Related to the loot bar (bar of icons shown under the main button), you can configure the amount of items you want to see (up to 30) and how to display them, in one row, or several rows. 

RareScanner will also help you by displaying the category/subcategory of every item in the tooltip so you can track which categories/subcategories you might want to filter from the options panel, although you can click on the items directly on the loot bar, or the tooltip to toggle the filter for that specific category/subcategory. 

Console commands

There are several tools that you can attach to your own macros. Type /rarescanner for more information.