Grouper - Server-Wide Group Finder for WoW Classic Era

Tired of spamming trade chat looking for a group? Grouper is a powerful server-wide group finder addon for World of Warcraft Classic Era (and TBC Classic) that lets players browse, create, and join groups for dungeons, raids, quests, PvP, and more — all from a clean, tabbed UI with no chat spam required.

The Problem

WoW Classic's built-in LFG tools are limited: LookingForGroup channel is text-only chaos, trade chat clogs quickly, and there's no structured way to advertise roles, level ranges, or specific dungeons you're running. When you finally find a group the information is already stale.

Meanwhile raid leaders have it worse — tracking 20-40 recruits across whispers, manually counting class slots, and reposting announcements every few minutes is tedious busywork that takes focus away from actually playing.

The Solution

Grouper uses a dedicated addon communication channel shared across all Grouper users on your realm. Group listings are broadcast automatically, updated in real time when members join or leave, and displayed in a structured UI with rich filtering — so players see only the groups relevant to them, and leaders spend less time managing chat.

Core Features

Server-Wide Group Discovery

Browse all active Grouper groups across your entire realm in one place, regardless of what zone you're in
Groups are sorted by recency and auto-expire when stale — no dead listings cluttering the view
Listings update live as leaders sync changes without any manual refresh needed

Smart Filtering

Level range filters — set a min/max level band; groups outside your range are hidden automatically
Activity type checkboxes — filter to Dungeons, Raids, Quests, PvP, or Other independently
Conditional sub-filters — when Dungeon is checked, a "Filter by Dungeon" dropdown appears; when Raid is checked, a "Filter by Raid" dropdown; when PvP is checked, a "Filter by Battleground" dropdown — all three can coexist
Role filter — show only groups that still need a Tank, Healer, or DPS
TBC-exclusive content (Eye of the Storm, TBC raids) is version-gated and only appears on TBC clients

Dungeon Group Management

Multi-dungeon selection — list multiple dungeons in a single group posting
Role slot tracking — Tank, Healer, and DPS slots displayed with current fill status
Auto-join system — players can request to join via whisper handshake; the leader receives a popup to accept, assign a role, and confirm level
Automatic role enforcement — a second tank or second healer cannot auto-join a slot that is already full
Guild restriction — mark a group as guild-only; only members of the specified guild will see it in Browse results

Raid Recruitment Tracking

Dedicated raid group type with configurable raid size (10, 20, 25, 40, etc.)
Role quota tracking — set targets for Tanks, Healers, and DPS; counts decrement automatically as members join
Class slot tracking — specify how many of each class you need (e.g. "2 Priests, 1 Warlock") with live fill counts
Loot system field — advertise your loot method (Master Looter, DKP, EPGP, Loot Council, Soft Reserve, /roll, Free for All)
Clear status field — advertise your raid's progression status (Fresh, Partially Cleared, Farm Mode, Specific Bosses)
Reserved items field and voice info field for Discord/Vent details

Announcement Integration

Announce button posts your group to /LookingForGroup channel with size, roles needed, and class needs formatted automatically
Per-channel announcement preferences — choose which channels (LFG, Guild, GreenWall confederation) receive announcements
GreenWall confederation support — announce to your cross-guild confederation channel
Quest link reconstitution — quest group postings include a clickable quest link in the announcement
Rate-limited to prevent accidental spam (3-second cooldown per announce)

Group Management Controls

Sync — broadcasts your current group state to all Grouper users; updates member counts from the live WoW party/raid roster
Edit — modify group title, type, dungeons, roles, or description without disbanding
Assign Roles — reassign Tank/Healer/DPS roles to any group member via popup
Transfer Leadership — hand group ownership to another member with a dedicated popup showing only leader selection — no role reassignment clutter
Disband — cleanly removes the Grouper listing without disbanding the underlying WoW party/raid

UI & Customization

Tabbed interface: Search Filters, Search Results, Create Group, My Groups, Options
Minimap button with group count tooltip; left-click opens addon, right-click opens config
TitanPanel integration — displays active group count in your TitanPanel bar
Configurable border and background colors
Font selection
Window position and size persist across sessions and /reload
ESC key closes the window cleanly via UISpecialFrames

Group Types

Dungeon — 5-man instance groups with role slots (Tank/Healer/DPS), multi-dungeon selection, level range, and auto-join support
Raid — large-group recruitment with role quotas, class tracking, loot system, and clear status fields
Quest — questing groups with quest link integration in channel announcements
PvP — battleground groups with battleground selection (Classic Era and TBC battlegrounds supported)
Other — free-form groups for world events, role-play, or anything else

How It Works

Communication System

Grouper uses AceComm-3.0 over a custom addon channel (Grouper) to broadcast group state across all users on the realm. The communication flow is:

On load — Grouper broadcasts a REQUEST_DATA to populate the local cache from any active leaders
On group create / sync — the leader broadcasts a GROUP_UPDATE message containing title, type, size, roles, members, allowed guilds, and a timestamp
On member leave / disband — a remove notification is broadcast so all clients drop the stale listing immediately
Auto-search — Grouper periodically re-requests data to catch leaders who joined after the initial load

Security & Taint Safety

All SendChatMessage calls pass through an IsSecureContext() guard combining InCombatLockdown() and issecure() — preventing ADDON_ACTION_BLOCKED errors from tainted execution contexts
Auto-join invite calls use a separate InCombatLockdown()-only check because InviteUnit does not route through the deprecated chat API and does not require the full taint guard
Cross-faction filtering is automatic — Horde players never see Alliance groups and vice versa

Slash Commands

/grouper show — Open the Grouper main window
/grouper hide — Close the Grouper main window
/groupercd — Print dungeon cache contents to chat (debug)
/groupercgm — Print group member cache contents to chat (debug)
/grouper debug on|off — Enable or disable verbose debug output

Requirements

Ace3 (AceAddon-3.0, AceComm-3.0, AceDB-3.0, AceGUI-3.0, AceTimer-3.0, AceConsole-3.0)
VersionCheck-1.0
WoW Classic Era (Interface 11507–11508)
TBC Classic (Interface 20505)
WotLK Classic (Interface 30405) and Titan Reforged (Interface 38000)
Cataclysm Classic (Interface 40402)
Mists of Pandaria Classic (Interface 50502–50503)
Retail / The War Within (Interface 110207+)

Recent Updates

v0.7.0 (Latest Release — 2026-04-03)

feat: Multi-client support — Grouper now runs on Classic Era, TBC Classic, WotLK Classic, Titan Reforged, Cataclysm Classic, Mists of Pandaria Classic, and Retail
feat: Grouper.IsExpansionAllowed(expansion) — per-client allowlist gates instance data to the correct expansion set; Titan Reforged (TOC 38000) detected via interface range check
feat: Data/InstanceData.lua expanded from 53 to 199 entries — full dungeon, raid, and battleground coverage through The War Within
feat: Expansion filter dropdown in the Create form — filters the instance picker to a single expansion; only expansions available on the running client appear in the list
fix: Level ranges in the Create form and submitted group data clamped to GetMaxPlayerLevel() — prevents historical expansion levels from exceeding the active server cap
fix: GameTooltip:IsOwned(self) calls on FontString widget labels replaced with unconditional GameTooltip:Hide() — eliminates "Wrong object type for function" crashes across GrouperCreate, GrouperBrowse, and GrouperResults (12 sites fixed)
chore: TOC audit — MoP interface numbers (50502, 50503) added; Titan Reforged (38000) treated as WotLK-era client

v0.6.4 (2026-04-03)

fix: Transfer Leadership popup no longer renders role assignment UI — shows only the new-leader dropdown and Transfer/Cancel buttons; confirm callback simplified to leadership transfer only (UI-006)
fix: GameTooltip OnLeave handlers across all tabs now guard with IsOwned(self) before hiding — eliminates tooltip bleedover into other addons (UI-007)
fix: DPS members no longer placed in Tank/Healer-exclusive role slots in My Groups tab — slot assignment now uses explicit indices matching Browse tab behavior (MANAGE-001)

v0.6.3 (2026-04-03)

fix: Transfer Leadership popup now shows only leader-selection controls — role/level assignment UI no longer rendered in this flow (UI-006)
fix: All GameTooltip OnLeave handlers now guard with IsOwned(self) before hiding, eliminating tooltip bleedover into other addons (UI-007)
fix: DPS members no longer placed in Tank/Healer-exclusive role slots in My Groups tab — explicit slot assignment now matches Browse tab behavior (MANAGE-001)
fix: Code review round 3 — resolved B-13 through UX-05 findings
fix: Code review round 2 — resolved B-10 through A-03 findings
refactor: All raw db.profile.debug.enabled reads replaced with IsDebugEnabled() helper

v0.6.2 (2026-04-01)

fix: Resolved all 34 findings from 2026-04-01 code review
fix: Auto-join invites were blocked by issecure() taint check in IsSecureContext() — InviteUnit now uses a direct InCombatLockdown() guard only (COMM-003)
perf: CLASS_COLORS, CLASS_NAMES, and RACE_NAMES constants centralized into a single shared location
perf: CamelCaseClass, CapitalizeRole, and CamelCaseRole helpers replaced with O(1) lookup tables
perf: Data table globals cached as file-scope locals; 7 dead nil-guard sites removed across 5 files

v0.6.1 (2026-03-25)

feat: Conditional sub-filter row in Browse tab — Dungeon/Raid/PvP type checkboxes each show their own filter dropdown; TBC-exclusive content version-gated
fix: Min/max level sliders replaced with EditBox widgets, eliminating taint source causing ADDON_ACTION_BLOCKED (COMM-002)
fix: PvP battleground tooltip bleedthrough in Create tab (RAID-010)
fix: Role label tooltip bleedthrough in Roles Needed section (RAID-007)
feat: Soft Reserve added to Loot System dropdown and tooltip (RAID-008)
fix: Loot System and Clear Status dropdowns sorted alphabetically (RAID-009)

v0.6.0 (2026-03-24)

feat: Full Raid group type — recruitment tracking with role quotas, class slots, loot system, clear status, reserved items, voice info, and guild restriction
feat: Full PvP group type with Classic Era and TBC battleground selection
feat: Quest link reconstitution in LookingForGroup channel announcements
feat: Per-channel announcement preferences in Options panel
feat: GreenWall confederation announcement integration
feat: Guild-restricted groups — allowedGuilds encoded in broadcast and filtered on receive (GUILD-001)
fix: Nil crash on groups with missing location field (RAID-003)
fix: Raid role counts always zero due to wrong key names in rolesNeeded fallback (RAID-001)
fix: Class tracking broken — ALL-CAPS class names from GetRaidRosterInfo now TitleCase-converted on insert (RAID-002)
fix: Raid group announcements showed "1/5" instead of correct raid size (COMM-001)

v0.5.1 (2026-01-22)

fix: Group frame truncation in My Groups tab — InlineGroup ScrollFrame now auto-sizes to content instead of applying a fixed height (UI-001)
feat: Multi-version TOC using ## Interface: / ## Interface-TBC: directives — single addon file supports both Classic Era and TBC clients
feat: TBC Classic client support (Interface-BCC: 20505)

Bug Reports & Feature Requests

Found a bug or have a suggestion?

If you have any questions, comments, or anything else, please feel free to reach out on Discord!

Credits

Developed by:

Pimptasty - Author

Special Thanks:

The Old Gods guild community for real-world testing and feedback
Ace3 library maintainers for the excellent addon framework
WoW Classic community for bug reports, suggestions, and support

License

Grouper is open-source software. See the LICENSE file for details.

GrouperLFG