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/Containers. If you have filtered a rare, individually, by zone or by missing collectibles, you won't ever see its icon on the minimap.
- Individual filter: You can filter specific rare NPCs 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.
- Missing collectibles: You can filter rare NPCs/Containers by their loot. This option will look for all the missing collectibles (pets, mounts, toys and/or appearances) in the database and will filter every single NPC/Container that doesn't drop any missing collectible.
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 entities: 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.

Filter NPCs/Containers by missing collectibles

By default the addon will display every rare NPC/Container available in the database and all the loot that they can drop. As described in the previous section, you can apply filters to hide rare NPCs and containers individually or by zone, same as the loot displayed. However, while you might not want to be bothered with alerts for every single entity that you find on your way if they aren't going to give you something useful, filtering them manually would take a lot of work. What's the solution?

Now, you can find a new panel in the addons settings that will allow you to choose the collection types that you are looking for (pets, mounts, toys and/or appearances) and automatically filter everything else that doesn't drop any collectibles that you are missing. This panel will also filter the loot displayed to match the results found, so you won't have to bother with manual configurations.

Once the filters are applied, you can always modify them using the individual/zone filters.

It's important to take into account that while pets, mounts and toys are account wide, appearances aren't and the filters will apply to the type of clothing that you can wear. For example, with a paladin you won't find any rare NPC that drop a cloth which appearance you are missing with your mage.

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.

tooltip with loot

Console commands

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